Speakin’ Out

We need to beware when a government is said to be giving “rights” to its people. For a government to be bestowing rights, it is necessary for that government to be taking away someone else’s individual rights – rights given us by God.

In our recent observance of Independence Day, we were reminded of the words in the Declaration of Independence: “...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 Those “unalienable rights” - in other words, rights that cannot be taken away by individuals, groups or institutions – are necessary to be recognized and accepted if we are to remain a free people. In Ayn Rand’s essay “Man’s Rights,” written in 1963, she stressed the importance of individual rights:

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“If one wishes to advocate a free society—that is, capitalism—one must realize that its indispensable foundation is the principle of individual rights.” Continuing, she said: “The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.” Here we begin to see a distinction being made, where individual rights are given us by God, whereas government is instituted to protect those rights. She then went on: “There are two potential violators of man’s rights: the criminals and the government. The great achievement of the United States was to draw a distinction between these two—by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the activities of the first. “The Declaration of Independence laid down the principle that ‘to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.’ ” Rand then went on to explain how the publishing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the United States established a new concept of government: “Thus the government’s function was changed from the role of ruler to the role of servant. The government was set to protect man from criminals—and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. The Bill of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government—as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.” We are now at a crossroads in this nation. In the midst of an uprising against an ever more oppressive central government, we can begin to work to restore liberty, or we can surrender, and watch as the remaining freedoms we have disappear. Much like Nehemiah in the Old Testament, we have a wall to rebuild, and we can say, as he did: “The God of heaven will help us succeed. We, his servants, will start rebuilding this wall.” - Nehemiah 2:20