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In lieu of God, modern Liberalism has placed the State at the center of life. Whereas God made us in His image and imbued us with free will, the State is wholly a creation of man, and in its proper role, serves to protect the liberty God has bequeathed us.

A human being's proper sense of self-regard comes from both the will and ability to live one's own life according to God's commandments, including respect for the rights and property of others, the responsibility to live a productive life, and a moral duty to help those upon whom one places a value.

When the State takes the form of a dictator, king, czar, or tyrannical body, it does so without the consent of the governed or as a consequence of voluntary dependency, or both. In a constitutional Republic, the individual is supreme, and the government serves all who agree to be bound by its laws.

The worth of each person in such a Republic must be assumed not only by its government but by its citizens, for they are bound by responsibilities voluntarily undertaken, without which order and civilization would fail.

Other forms of government, such as Socialist "democracies" subsume the individual to the collective, and give the State an a priori right to govern over all in exchange for protection, not merely from foreign enemies or domestic criminals, but from the necessity of providing for one's own self. In order to serve this end, one's life, labor, and property are held to be at the service and use of others, whenever the State deems it necessary for the common good, or simply because the head of state or his functionaries will it.

Under such a regime, "self-worth" is denied as a value, contrary to the nature we were created to possess.