Good instinct to flag that line. It deserves scrutiny and understanding. But I think the "luxury or liability" framing misses the mark.

The line doesn't stand alone. The whole frame is that countries have been performing commitment to a rules based order while privately knowing the strong exempted themselves. His call to "take the sign down" means stop performing and start being consistent. Apply the same standard to allies and rivals, building what you claim to believe rather than just declaring it.

Read that way, "earning the right to principled stands" isn't about permission. It's about capacity. A principle you can't actually hold under pressure is just another sign in the window. It’s a performance, not a commitment. Rights aren't earned. But the ability to exercise them without folding has to be built, and that's closer to what Carney was actually arguing. And he points to a term coined by Finland's president "value-based realism": principled in commitment, pragmatic in execution. He’s simply talking about how we can live by our principles. How to get there from here.