The Origin of Rights

Chad M. Janicek

From where do your rights come? Not the right to bear arms, or freedom of the press. I’m talking about those unalienable rights our founding fathers spoke of: Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. At face value, it’s quite a simple question; who, or what, gives you these rights?

It seems to me there are two possible answers, God or government.

Though it seems like a simple question, the implications of either answer are quite severe. Either your rights come from an objective, unchangeable higher authority, or a manmade power with the potential for corruption.

The danger in assuming that rights come from government is that is that the government can take those away as they see fit. Why else would our Declaration of Independence insist that our unalienable rights come from a Creator.

Our founding fathers were forward thinking enough to realize that if they devised our government under the assumption that rights come from government and not a Creator, then those rights could eventually be taken away. Look at any communist regime in the last 100 years, where religion is considered an opiate of the masses. The government becomes god in that circumstance, and can get away with anything, including mass genocide.

The same can be true of theocracies, as in the Middle East and elsewhere. That is why America works; because it is based on religious principles, but is not run under the assumption that whatever the leaders are doing is God's will, necessarily.

If one accepts a government responsibility for doling out such rights, one will ultimately stumble into an intellectual trap. For example, if government defines rights, then why do American’s get upset about human rights abuses around the world? If it is that government’s job to determine their population’s rights, why do we care? It would be quite hypocritical to do so.

And if it is not a populace’s government which defines rights, who does? The United Nations? Would you really feel comfortable having your right to life coming from the same organization that stole billions of dollars out of the hands of Iraqi citizens? From an institution whose leaders are corrupt to the core?

Should you feel comfortable with such a situation, whose determination of rights within the UN should we live by? Perhaps Trygve Lie, the first Secretary General of the UN. Though he did oversea important events such as the creation of Israel, he was a Lenin supporter in his youth. Surely Kofi Annan should not be responsible for such decisions. Maybe the General Assembly should vote on what inherent human rights should be. Did not Lord Acton warn us, however, that “absolute power corrupts absolutely?”

If there is not a universal standard with which to live by, anything can be deemed acceptable. That is what makes America great: our founding document asserts God-given rights that no government to be established later will ever be able to take away.

It's the difference between the acknowledgement of a god, or higher moral authority, which America does, and the endorsement of a particular religion, which we do not do.

That is also the fundamental difference between a Constitutional republic, which we are, and a pure democracy, or mob rule, which we are not. Our nation was formed on laws based on the idea that a Creator gave us certain rights as humans that government cannot interfere with regardless of whether or not 51% of the population feels it should.

For that reason it is imperative that our nation acknowledge our God-given rights. For that reason, even atheists and agnostics should hope for such a government. Otherwise, God help us all.