Print edition: 
The most visceral conflicts in our society arise when deeply held values are at odds. Time and again, Kansas has been a visible stage for such "values showdowns."
Author and historian Nicole Etcheson's work on the "Bleeding Kansas" era points out how so much of 1850s Kansas history was about sorting out rights and principles.
People struggled with whether the right to keep private property, even if that "property" included enslaved African-Americans, outweighed a deeper right for all humans to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The pro-slavery territorial government and the Free State movement wrestled with whether the rule of law outweighed the right to freedom of expression if that expression included printing abolitionist tracts that might inspire someone's "property" to escape.
Then again, one person's righteous cause was another person's violation of basic rights.
A few decades later, Kansas became one of the early leaders in the temperance movement, resulting in a prohibition law taking effect in 1881. Here again, there was a clash of values. Using the democratic process, prohibitionists attempted to create a more orderly, moral society, while others contended that businesses had the right to operate and to let individuals decide for themselves whether to buy a shot of whiskey.
In the 20th century, race and segregation became major battlefields for the clash of values as embodied in the Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education case, the Dockum Drugs sit-in, the work of NAACP leader Chester Lewis and the creative endeavors of Gordon Parks. Kansans in the 1950s and 1960s struggled with how to reconcile an individual's right to attend the school of his choice, or be served no matter the color of his skin, in the face of elected bodies and businesses arguing that they were reflecting the wishes of their constituents or their patrons.
Today Kansas is once again in the crosshairs of debates over conflicting principles. The very terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" hearken to Americans' love of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as well as the freedom of individuals to make choices on their own.
Meanwhile, smoking bans can place a value of majority rule against the rights of businesses to cater to the wishes of patrons. In many cases, debates about abortion, homosexuality, firearms, bilingual education, smoking and other matters are really conversations about which one of a host of cherished American values takes precedence over another on a given matter, and why.
The solution cannot just be selecting one value over another. A person can be a die-hard supporter of "majority rule" on one issue and on another be an equally vehement defender of the rights of the minority. The person who resonates with grassroots activism standing up to an unjust practice can be, in another situation, equally passionate about going after a certain group he deems to be "lawbreakers."
Picking just one value, such as freedom or liberty or private property, without the desire for a law-abiding society that embraces civil rights for all can lead to very unpleasant consequences, and vice versa. However, if we struggle with these ideals, the result can be akin to a suspension bridge that functions precisely because there are numerous forces put in opposition to one another, resulting in a strong, stable structure.
