Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Wednesday Hero - Senior Airman Kimberly Bickford

Senior Airman Kimberly Bickford
332nd Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron


Senior Airman Kimberly Bickford performs a pre-load check July 28 on an F-16 Fighting Falcon at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, to ensure the cable that releases the bomb is operational.

Wednesday Heroes is published every Wednesday by Indian Chris. None of this material originates with me, but I'm proud to host it.

Where do our unalienable rights come from?

I can't honestly say that I was a good student of history in my youth. I'm trying to make up for that now, because it turns out that the true history of our country is important in understanding how we got to where we are today. One thing that helps in this quest is the availability of the original documents that the founders used to shape our nation.

The left loves to think that right wing talk radio audiences are a bunch of mindless drones. Sometimes substitute hosts and their callers help to support this notion. Such was the case on last night's Mark Levin show. Jerry Agar was guest hosting for Mark last night, and he's a pretty good host with some interesting insights, but he's just not as good as Mark Levin.

It bothers me when people that try to educate us get their facts wrong. It bothers me even more when callers respond to correct the host and get their facts wrong too. It's important, if you're not a mindless drone, to listen critically, and to question the assertions of fact that people on the radio make.

To begin with, Jerry made the mistake of asserting that the notion of mankind having unalienable rights comes from The Bill of Rights. This is incorrect. While the ninth amendment does say…

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

… The Bill of Rights says nothing about unalienable rights or their source. The document that does is the Declaration of Independence.

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.

In any case, a bit later in the show, Jerry clarified what he had said earlier. He was trying to make the point that amoral people are not likely to respect the concept of unalienable rights, or The Bill of Rights. This time he didn't assert that the concept came from The Bill of Rights, but he tied them together, which is perfectly reasonable, especially in the context he was speaking of.

“John” from New York called in to correct Jerry, apparently based on Jerry's earlier statement…

“Your comment regarding a higher power or unalienable rights being referred to in The Bill of Rights is, I think, misplaced. I think what you're referring to is the Declaration of Independence.”

John was right about that. Jerry did indeed earlier in the show make that mistake. But Jerry then said…

“No, I said that the concept behind unalienable rights, from the founding fathers, was that, a higher power gives us natural rights, natural law, and therefore government has no right to take those things away from us.”

While this might have clarified his remarks, it's not precisely what he said earlier in the show. But, Jerry's right, a higher power does indeed give us natural rights, and government has no right to take them away. The Declaration says specifically “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”. Being endowed with rights by a “Creator” implies that those rights do indeed come from a higher power.

John countered, and his argument appears to remove the Creator or higher power from the discussion.

“Well, I would only say that I think the natural law that you're referring to, that Jefferson referred to when drafting the Declaration, he was referring to John Locke in Natural Law. I don't think anyone ever used the expression ‘from a higher power’. He was talking about unalienable rights of mankind meaning those rights that could not be taken away by a government.

“I thought your reference to The Bill of Rights, I may have misheard it, but I thought you said that our own Bill of Rights incorporated the higher law concept, which they do not, actually the only reference to religion in The Bill of Rights, is in the first amendment which says ‘Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion’.”

Here, John was wrong. Yes, Thomas Jefferson did draw upon Locke's concept of natural law and the innate, indefeasible rights of mankind, but he specifically referenced the Creator as being the source of those rights. He may not have actually used the expression “from a higher power”, but he certainly implied that a higher power was the source of our rights. He was right that The Bill of Rights does not incorporate the “higher law concept” though.

He went on to misquote the first amendment, which does not say that Congress shall make no law respecting “the establishment of a religion”, but rather “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. He also neglected to include the rest of that particular clause “, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”. Isn't it interesting that people that argue against the notion of a higher power always neglect that bit?

Jerry didn't pick up on this, which isn't surprising since he was defending his notion that the Bill of Rights arises from the notion of unalienable rights which are given to us by a higher power.

“Yeah, what I meant was that it flows from that concept. Then if you want, and by the way, if you're… an irreligious person, if you're an atheist or an agnostic, and you, you want to look at it as natural law higher than government, that's OK with me too, but you have to understand that government is not the end of power in our lives.”

It's not entirely OK with me, but then I firmly believe that Thomas Jefferson wasn't merely referring to “natural law”. After all, he did mention a Creator. Further, he had earlier referred to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”.

But John wasn't through…

“No, but I think we have a restricted government in the sense that we do have a government, and Jefferson never said ‘Separation of Church and State’.

Here again, we have an error. Much of the problems that we have regarding the interpretation of the first amendment today stems from a misinterpretation of nearly these very words by Thomas Jefferson in his Letter 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 “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

Of course, the entire point of this letter was to defend the free exercise of religion in America, not to condemn it as Jefferson's words have been twisted to do. Because of the deliberate twisting of this “wall of separation” remark, we are forced to endure a continuous attack by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union upon any expression of Christianity in the public square — despite the fact that Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with the drafting of the first amendment.

In any case, to answer the question in this post's title, our unalienable rights come to us from God, and God alone. We are not granted our rights by our government, our government was instituted to defend our rights. The Declaration of Independence hammers this home…

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Since our rights come to us from God, it seems to me that we ought to be able to determine just which of the rights asserted by people in today's society are truly unalienable rights, and which are not. Thomas Jefferson in his Letter to the Danbury Baptists had this to say (just after his declaration of the “wall of separation”)…

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

“[H]e has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.” I'd go a bit further. Our unalienable rights come to us from God, and we have no unalienable rights in opposition to God's will.

Our founding fathers did not enumerate all of our unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence. Rather they enumerated some that were “among these”. Neither did the framers of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights enumerate all of our unalienable rights in those documents, specifically not enumerating those already enumerated in the Declaration of Independence for example. The ninth amendment makes it clear that they were aware of the fact that they did not enumerate all of our unalienable rights.

On the basis of the ninth amendment, it seems reasonable that our courts might be inclined to protect certain rights that are not enumerated in our Constitution. We must remember though, that our unalienable rights come to us from God, not the Constitution, not the Bill of Rights, and certainly not from the Supreme Court of The United States. Considering this, and that we are not likely endowed by our Creator with rights that are in opposition to His will, we should cast a critical eye upon which rights the courts assert that we have (for example the “right” to abortion), and upon any restriction of those rights explicitly recognized by our founders as coming from Him.