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As the Fourth of July fast approaches and we consider the many alternatives available for recreation and entertainment, we should pause to ponder an important question tied closely to the deeper meaning of the day.
The question is deceptively simple, but it goes to the heart of our relationship with government and every significant policy issue that confronts us. And the answer to the question will determine whether we survive as a free people.
The question to ponder on Independence Day is, simply: Where do our rights come from?
In any system of government ultimate authority, or sovereignty, must be located somewhere in the system for it to function. For most of history, in most places, sovereignty has been located in the ruler: the king or queen, warlord, military commander, party chairman, or the like.
Where sovereignty is located in the ruler, the personal embodiment of legitimate state power, the rights of individuals have been understood to be little more than the malleable artifacts of the ruler, with their scope and substance and tenure entirely dependent upon the ruler’s determinations and dispensations. The economic and social status of persons, their property, their liberty, their very lives are understood to be contingent upon their relationship with the ruler.
In 1776, our Founders turned this traditional concept of state sovereignty, and the relation of the ruler to the people, upside down. For the first time in history, a nation was founded on the proposition that the people themselves were sovereign, endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that the government was bound to recognize, respect, and protect.
With their property and person protected by a Constitution enacted to secure the natural rights affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, the creative genius of a free American people produced unparalleled progress and prosperity.
However, as the twentieth century unfolded, certain politicians and intellectuals – with Woodrow Wilson the embodiment of both – thought that the principles of natural rights, individual liberty, and law-limited government embodied in the Declaration and Constitution were outdated relics of a simpler agricultural past that dangerously undercut to ability of the government to deal effectively with the complex challenges of industrialization and urbanization that confronted the nation in the new century.
Wilson and others believed that they had more “progressive” ideas for the updated and radically altered form of government they thought America needed. With the American economy and society becoming more and more complex, the progressives argued that founding assumptions about popular sovereignty and self-government needed to be rethought and the role of the people in the functioning of their government narrowed significantly.
For government to function efficiently in the “new republic” of the progressives, controlling authority needed to be consolidated in the executive branch where it would be exercised by credentialled technocrats who, insulated from the pressures of democratic accountability, would be free to use their expertise to regulate the affairs of Americans and modify private sector arrangements as needed to produce the results desired by the regulators. So was born the administrative state.
To justify and facilitate this massive anti-democratic concentration of power in the executive branch bureaucracy, progressives sought, and still seek, to discredit the concept of natural rights and replace it with the age-old authoritarian concept of malleable rights that are created by the government and then distributed and redistributed by the government according to its evolving policies and the needs of its supportive constituencies. And so were spawned the abuses of the administrative state.
All the inefficiencies and inequities of the regulatory system that we find so troubling, from the endless rat’s maze that typifies the permitting process, to the crony-corporatist regulations that favor connected incumbents while discouraging innovative new entrants, and the heavy-handed enforcement actions and shakedown settlements, all are best understood as the direct result of a regulatory process based upon a progressive world view that regards the possession, use, and disposition of property as activities not undertaken as a matter of right, but only with and to the extent allowed by government permission.
Over the years, constitutional conservatives have pursued a wide variety of reforms designed to rein in the overreaching abusive administrative state, including the Administrative Procedure Act, regulatory benefit cost analysis, regulatory moratoria and rollbacks, and regulatory budgeting. While these efforts did achieve some limited success, they have failed to check fundamentally the relentless expansion and ever-increasing overreach of the federal bureaucracy.
That bureaucracy will only be checked effectively when reformers base their efforts on a steadfast commitment to restore the vitality of the foundational concept upon which our constitutional system of government and all our liberties rest: The understanding that, in fact, our rights come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
So, on this anniversary of our Founding, and the beginning of our 248th year as a free Republic, let us all ponder this vitally important question: Where do our rights come from?
J. Kennerly Davis is a former Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The laws of Western nations were originally based on the Ten Commandments: Do not steal, do not lie, do not murder etc.etc. These have been watered down to accommodate different cultures. e.g., some cultures believe it is OK to lie, murder commit adultery etc.,but you cannot have different moral laws for different group[s in the one country, So instead of making everyone comply with the 10 Commandments, to accommodate everyone governments have watered down these laws, which were from God, and as a result the whole society eventually becomes lawless. That is why multiculturalism, which is in most cases also multi-religion, wrecks a nation
I think you are right. I think we Christians are, in large part, to blame. Large swaths of what used to be faithful Christian churches have abandoned the Word of God and substituted “love” which is really not love at all, but permissiveness. In the name of this “love” we have undermined male / female relationships, marriage, an honest view of (and love for) homosexuals, the idea of national identity and people (borders), the rule of law, the need for men and women to have their own spaces, the “right” of women to kill their babies, etc. etc. ad nauseam.
I think permissiveness is often the opposite of real love.
Really excellent, Hellenis. I grew up in a church that did not stress true Biblical teaching. It was about being a good and moral person. Then I wrecked my life marrying an alcoholic that was so traumatizing I became a born-again Christian.
You are absolutely right. The liberal churches advocating “love” are really just permissive. They don’t tell the truth about sin and its consequences, the worst being eternal damnation. Excellent, excellent comment.
Islam rejects the Golden Rule.
Weird. Posted immediately. Still waiting for earlier posts to exit isolation.
What are you suggest we, as a nation, do?
Buy lots of ammo.
This is a world wide problem, take a glance at the UN human rights to see just how far the regulations and regulators stretch their authority.
“ certain politicians and intellectuals ”
Who regulates the regulators?
Or…. one should ask…. “Where have our rights gone?”
“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.” – Ayn Rand
The American Constitution is a godless constitution, God and Christianity are not mentioned even once in it, and it was written that way by the Founding Fathers INTENTIONALLY.
“… The U.S. Constitution, drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788, is a godless document. Its utter neglect of religion was no oversight; it was apparent to all. Self-consciously designed to be an instrument with which to structure the secular politics of individual interest and happiness, the Constitution was bitterly attacked for its failure to mention God or Christianity. Our history books usually describe in great detail the major arguments made against the federal Constitution by its Anti-Federalist opponents: it meant death to the states and introduced an elitist Senate and a monarchical presidency. [History texts] seldom mention, however, the concerted campaign to discredit the Constitution as irreligious, which for many of its opponents was its principal flaw. It is as if recognizing the dimension of this criticism would draw too much attention to what was being attacked — the secularism of the Constitution. In fact, this undocumented and under-remembered controversy of 1787-88 over the godless Constitution was one of the most important public debates ever held in America over the place of religion in politics. The advocates of a secular state won, and it is their Constitution we revere today.” – The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness”, Isaac Kramnick and Laurence Moore
I was watching two of the Star Trek prequels yesterday and I think I have figured out one of your biggest flaws. You once said you identified with Spock when I asked you who you was your hero. That is when you bring up Gene Roddenberry as a source for your “inspirations”. I guess you never really outgrew your childhood hero, did you.
Beyond that I think you actually think you are channeling Spock when you burden us with one of your endless Spock-like soliloquies. Obviously you seem to think Vulcans are the representatives of logic and reason in the universe.
Objectivism and Vulcans….quite a fit in that fevered mind of yours The one flaw: Vulcans are not real. They never were. They are something Roddenberry dreamed up. And he even he had to give Spock moments of humanity as his Mom is played by a human. Even Spock strayed into unreason and emotion, quite often.
You are lost in fantasy, in your own Spockian world of made up history that always fits your erroneous pre-formed conclusions. That’s why everything you write makes no sense. It’s no wonder you stray from your Spockisms and feel the need to get angry and insult the world’s Christians and Jews. But never Muslims. Maybe they are your pet Romulans.
Do yourself a favor. See a psychiatrist before you really start acting out and make up stories about an imaginary Muslim (Romulan) woman asking for directions out of the park.
Pt. 2
And yet all of the Founders and signers were Christians and Deists.
As John Adams, observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Looks like you don’t fit in……at all.
Regarding one of your little pet nit pics, in 1802 Thomas Jefferson wrote the following to the Danbury Baptists:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. ”
The separation is not mentioned in the Constitution, it is not a law, it is not a regulation. It is simply something atheists like to use as cudgel, whenever they see, as you say so often, a theocracy right around the corner.
If we actually ever do get a theocracy you and your silly Objectivism will be outlawed. After all, Christianity leads to theocracy and totalitarianism, and the Lutherans loved them some Hitler. Right?
You are the last person I would ever take a course on the Constitution from.
Perfect example of Randian tautological nonsense:
“The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man.”
What rights? Many didn’t even have the right to refuse a shot of a toxic bioweapon in order to fly, go to school, keep their job. That’s about as Nazified as it gets.
So, Rights are divinely awarded, but the authority to rescind them lies within those whose authority to rescind is the temporary fact that their metabolic function has not yet ceased.
That’s their justification. Just as long as they live they rule. It’s all about them.
They may not have God’s longevity, but they wield his political authority. These are practical people. The authority part is doable, that’s where lying and cheating come in. Stealing immortality is still a work in progress.
The depth of their sincerity is reflected by the accuracy of their naming conventions. They’re democrats, you know, advocates for democracy.
Just remember the first movie Independence Day we kicked the Aliens A***s
Multiculturalism and Globalism ushered in the destruction of the Nation State. The progressive tenets that “all cultures are equal” (a canard, if there ever was one) and that no nation on this globe is superior to any other within the “family of nations” is specifically directed at the most sovereign and powerful country in the world: the United States of America.
What disturbs multiculturalists and globalists more than anything is that our nation’s founding rejects collectivism in favor of individualism, and that rights are bestowed on the individual by our Creator — a concept that stands squarely in the way of establishing a world government with its attendant behemoth of administrative rules and regulations for the “collective good.”
J. Kennerly Davis is correct: The question “Where do our rights come from?” will be central to the survival of our republic.
The Constitution gives all Americans, “Inalienable Rights” . Then gives some examples. This paints a wide brush of inherent rights that we all have, and it’s clear that the rights of the American people are violated every day. Cases that end up in court could go to our Supreme Court, and then we’re at their mercy. Thank God Trump appointed his pick of those justices. The Obama and Biden appointments are a disappointment. Going to the “Bill of Rights, it’s apparent that the Jan 6 protestors have had most of their rights taken away and gravely violated. Our system of justice requires a judge to order all of their release’s, in order to remedy this grave injustice. I have zero confidance in our jurisprudent system of today.
If the Constitution gives inalienable rights, then those rights CAN be alienated / taken away. You must eliminate from your understanding every hint of government providing rights. It is a dangerous misunderstanding!
The framers of the Constitution held as self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights.
If God gives, no one takes away. This is called “negative rights.” Here is a good quote I found to illustrate the difference between negative and positive rights:
“A negative right restrains other persons or governments by limiting their actions toward or against the right holder.
Positive rights provide the right holder with a claim against another person or the state for some good, service, or treatment.
Understanding the difference between “negative” and “positive” rights is integral to comprehending the federal government’s deviation from the nature and bounds of the Constitution.”
The above quote is from here:
https://alabamapolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-Brief-Positive-Negative-Rights-1-1.pdf
Its painfully obvious that the World now lacks a real leader. Xi Jinping, Putin, Russia’s Putin, Feeble Joe Biden, and France’s Emmanuel Macron don’t even come close. They all have embarrased their respective countries. The Global Economic Forum is paving the way for a One-World Government.
I have long contended that almost every federal politician elected to office is in violation of their oath to honor and uphold the Constitution. Instead of searching around to find new laws to address new “issues” I suggest they spend at least 2 legislative years dismantling many of these agencies making up the administrative state and striking down all the assaults on our freedom and property. Until then, I find them complicit in the incessant growth of govt which, as a result, necessarily infringes on the rights granted us by the Bill of Rights. As we near a point where nearly half the population works for the govt, directly or indirectly, it is unlikely those elected to represent us have the slightest interest in reducing the agencies and institutions that do their bidding. As I said, almost none of them take their oath seriously and they never will until they are forced to. But who will force them? They have the tanks and jets and missiles, remember?
My comment comes from a different grammatical reading of the first seven words of this article, which, with my frame of mind, did not read, “As the Fourth of July…….fast approaches”,
but read instead “As the Fourth of July fast ………..approaches”.
The notion of a fast on the day celebrating the birth of America and our gratitude to God for the blessings of freedom and material abundance from sea to shining sea is not a far fetched idea.
There are a few fasts in the Hebrew calendar, one of which is Yom Kippur, which is the day of the year when each individual reaffirms his/her bond with God.
It is a most intense and exhilarating day despite no food or drink for 25 hours.
There is a direct spiritual parallel between the nation of Israel in the land of Israel and Americans in the United States of America.
This is the shared bond.