Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia recently stirred controversy during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing when he criticized the idea that rights originate from our Creator rather than from governments or laws. Kaine referred to the belief in “God-given rights” as “extremely troubling,” comparing it to ideology held by regimes like Iran, which hold that rights exist independently of state law. This is one of the darkest and most disturbing things I have heard a U.S. office holder say. I’ll remind you that Senator Kaine was mere inches away from being the Vice President of the United States in 2016. But what it sounds like Mr. Kaine ought to be reminded of himself are a few very important lines from a document any sitting senator is obliged to know.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,– That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
These, of course, are some of the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence, our American birth certificate. The sad part in all of this is that Senator Kaine didn’t simply misspeak… He gave the truthful leftwing view: that government is in fact the benefactor of your rights. That’s why the left is fine with killing children in the womb, fine with chopping up our kids. We must believe in something transcendent — something higher than government. This is not merely for the sake of philosophical debate! Our rights must be rooted in something deeper than the political whims of government, otherwise the atrocities of 20th century dictators can all be justified.
Rights are sacred. They are rooted in the dignity of every human being, and therefore government does not create them but is tasked with defending them.
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This post originally appeared at https://phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/senator-tim-kaine-is-dead-wrong-on-inalienable-rights/
Phyllis Schlafly