An easy way is to read history, and see what things were like. It's amazing how many things that seem common sense and accepted now are from the enlightenment.
* Democracy. That one's obvious. Universal adult sufferage regardless of sex, race, creed, property ownership. We all know about "women getting the vote", but men without property used to not have the vote, catholics/prodestants/muslims/jews (delete as appropriate) used to not have the vote. Race based voting restrictions are similarly common. Some countries allow restricting voting based on criminal record (USA) other's done (most of europe), some countries prevent current criminals being elected (UK did this after some IRA terrorists were getting elected).
* Inherent rights. Who gives you your human rights? The Crown/State? So can they take them away? Does everyone have rights? Or just people/men of the right colour/creed/aristocracy? Does everyone have the same rights? No. We view that everyone has rights all the time that cannot be taken away.
* Rule of law. You/anyone should be able to know what the law is. The crown/state cannot just make up a vague law that only they can interpret. Laws cannot apply retroactively. The law should apply to everyone. It should be wrong if a certain law doesn't apply to the local lord, but it does apply to you.
* Fair trials. It's wrong that the crown/state alone gets to decide guilt/innocence, there should be an independent trial. You are allowed to argue your case. You are allowed appeal. The jury cannot be punished for how they decide your trial. You should be presumed innocent. You cannot be locked up unless you have been tried.
* Constitutionalism. There should be a document that overrides the crown/state and defined how the state works. It should list what powers the state/crown has. The King/state is not allowed to just do whatever it feels like. (Fun fact: Nazi Germany, the USSR and the USA have/had constitutions. The UK doesn't really. :P )
Can't speak for the OP, but the Declaration of Independence is a short, punchy summary of those things. You probably are familiar with some of it even if you aren't an American simply by virtue of being an English-speaker:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
I recommend reading the whole thing if you have five minutes. It's a very fine piece of writing, and there are a lot of interesting details that most Americans either willfully ignore or fail to notice:
- Safety is mentioned in the first paragraph as a reason for government to exist.
- Many of King George's offenses will sound very familiar to us as things our government does today: maintaining standing armies, levying taxes, etc.
- Many of those offenses also have the phrase "without our consent" in them, which tends to be missed by people who bring up that second point.
- One of the offenses listed is limiting immigration. Whoa buddy!
The ending is a quite powerful summary of the rights of the state and probably about a thousandth as well known:
"We… solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States… and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."
It's worth noting that interventionism doesn't seem to be on that list, even though we wouldn't even make it 40 years into countryhood before that changed.
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So I think the OP and Chris are both right. The court cannot be expected to "defend liberty" outside the legal framework; they're beholden to the Constitution and the rest of the law. There is the "black ice" problem of case law, and the citizenry are going to have a very poor command of that, and that's just a fact. But the OP is right that it is the citizen's job to defend their own liberty as best as possible. The problem with that perspective is that resisting the government carries a price and most government infractions are not significant enough to pay that price. If you take that philosophy to the extreme you wind up with a Ruby Ridge scenario where a lot of people die because they misunderstand the founding fathers' opinions of taxation.
I also think we should have some awareness of the level of crap King George visited on the colonies as described in the Declaration. He wasn't merely taxing them, he was essentially waging war on them from within and without. Even with all that there were still significant numbers of loyalists in the colonies. We like to imagine that Britain raised taxes and we joined together as one to secede the next day. The way it played out on the ground was much messier.
Does it matter? I'm not debating the principles of the Constitution here, but rather the American focus on the document rather than the principles themselves.
