The Problem of Rights

We are currently engaged in a great debate. Will we scratch the protective surface of the 2nd Amendment to protect children from guns or will we ignore the problem? This, of course, is how it is couched in the public square. It's what is called a "false dilemma." This is not what is really going on.

The original premise of this country was that there was a Creator and that this Creator endowed us with certain rights. The Founding Fathers believed the function of government was to "secure these rights." So they built a limited government with very strict checks and balances and wrote that into the Constitution. That was not good enough, so they added 10 amendments that we call "The Bill of Rights" to ensure that government didn't encroach on our God-given rights. The 10th Amendment is quite broad.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People.

You can see, I hope, that the scope of the federal government was intended to be extremely limited, leaving the bulk of governing to the States and the People. Enter the 21st century.

Back in the 1960's, they began the legal process of yanking God out of the public square. They gave it a high-sounding name -- "separation of church and government" -- and tied it to the First Amendment: The government cannot establish a national religion. (Note: there is a substantial difference between acknowledging a religion and establishing one.) In so doing, they banned religion in general, with a special view to Christianity, from the public square. We've come a long way from the 1960's. Having edged God out, it is a short walk to debunking " endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." If not endowed by their Creator, these rights become "alienable" and, if they admit we have them, it is only by the kindness of the present powers. The Bill of Rights warned government to keep their hands off. "These don't belong to you; they belong to the people by God's administration." Having dismembered that position, we've dismembered the concept of "rights." "Rights" are, now, "whatever I think they are" including the right not to be offended and the right not to feel scared because someone else owns a gun. (Those are not hyperbole; I've heard them publicly declared.)

"You're exaggerating," I hear some say. Yes. Maybe it's hyperbole. But if we have, say, the "inalienable right" to bear arms, why does the average Joe need to provide reasons that you will accept for him to own an AR-15? (I don't. I'm talking examples here.) The thinking is "You have the right to bear arms ... within limits ... as long as you can give me a reason I consider good enough to let you ... on an individual basis ... which is nearly zero." This is not the way a right endowed by a Creator works. And it's not merely the right to bear arms in question. The freedom of the press, free speech, the free exercise of religion, the right to due process, and the rights of the States or the People are all in question or already denied ... for starters. Let's ask the unborn how they feel about equal protection (14th Amendment). Oh, no, I forgot. Rights are not endowed by a Creator; they are endowed by the powers that be. Sorry, kids. And America in the 21st century edges away from democracy and closer to totalitarianism where the powers that be tell you what rights you do or don't have ... at this moment.