Last week, the Supreme Court decided not to weigh in on Title 42 , an immigration policy put in place by the Trump administration. That policy, just recently ended by President Joe Biden, let officials override rules allowing illegal immigrants to ask for asylum. Under Title 42, immigration officers could quickly return such persons across the border rather than holding them in the U.S. while the asylum application process played out.

The policy was based in law permitting emergency actions to stop the introduction and spread of communicable disease, and was justified as a response to COVID. The Supreme Court remanded the case to a lower court with the instruction to dismiss the litigation as moot because the Biden administration planned to end the policy.

Though we did not get a full judicial opinion on this matter, the public did receive a fascinating statement from Justice Neil Gorsuch. The justice used the history of this case and of America’s response to COVID to remind us of foundational principles we seem to have forgotten, if not rejected. He called, in essence, for a new birth of freedom.

To begin, Gorsuch argued that we must recommit ourselves to liberty. He noted the extent to which governments, state and national, curtailed our freedoms in response to COVID. Businesses were shut down. Churches could not worship, even as other, secular institutions got special exemptions. Lockdowns kept individuals essentially trapped in their homes. Gorsuch asked that we reflect on this history. With a Constitution whose goals include securing the blessings of liberty, we must consider where these policies undermined the natural right to freedom. We have to come to terms with the fact that “we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” he said.

Moreover, Gorsuch noted that these policies were created and implemented almost unilaterally by governors and bureaucrats. Doing so undermined three fundamental principles. One, they violated the rule of law, since many of these actions were done under dubious, even tortured readings of existing law. Here, Gorsuch intimates that the courts, while guarding the law to some extent, failed to fully uphold their duty. Second, these officials violated separation of powers. Governors acted beyond the laws written by legislatures, or on laws wherein the legislatures had given their lawmaking power over to the executive. Third, these policies violated the consent of the governed, especially when only bureaucrats were making the calls.

In assessing these problems, Gorsuch pointed to one source underlying them: fear. We so acted because we were afraid of the dangers COVID potentially posed to our health and even our lives. Gorsuch did not dismiss fear in general or fear in response to COVID in particular. He wrote that “Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces.” But he did show how the way we respond to fear can undermine our self-government and, through that, our freedom.

In fear, we sought to eliminate risk. But risk accompanies living and only expands when life includes liberty. For liberty itself is a risk, requiring the courage to do right without coercion and to make hard decisions about what living a good life means. That does not mean we ignore danger. But it also means we cannot think we can regulate it out of existence.

In fear, too, we pawned off self-government. We gave unelected officials the power to make decisions for us. We allowed elected executive officials to act without proper popular correction and limitation. Here we see how liberty and self-government require each other. Liberty requires the willingness, even the courage, to govern ourselves and not give up that power when the going gets tough. We cannot cede these commitments to a strongman or to an expert when we are afraid.

Gorsuch ends with a worry and an encouragement. We should worry because the past few years show that liberty and self-government are not givens. Instead, they are quite fragile and thus easily lost. But we should be encouraged because we have the capacity to learn from mistakes and recommit to our principles.

Gorsuch told us we need a new birth of freedom. That is, a call for hope and for action. Let us take his advice and do both.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.