During a committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) referred to claims that natural rights come from God as “extremely troubling.”
The Western Journal quoted Kaine:
The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes. It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Sharia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.
He did not mention that the U.S.A. is not theocratic. Rather, it is a representative Republic founded on the maxim expressed in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson: “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.”
But Kaine rejects the Jeffersonian paradigm, saying instead, “So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
If rights came from government–or man-made laws–rather than God, it would place those rights in a condition of constant flux, making them dependent on a majority vote for their continuance. In other words, we could have gun rights on Monday only to have those rights voted away on Thursday.
The same perilous situation would apply to our right to free speech and our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy in our “persons, houses, papers and effects,” as well.
The Christian Post quoted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) rebuking Kaine’s rejection of the Jeffersonian paradigm: “I have to say, it is stunning to me that the principle that God has given us natural rights is now deemed by Democrats some radical and dangerous notion.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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