By Douglas V. Gibbs
Constitutional Liberty hinges on a biblical foundation that includes Free Will, God-Given/Natural Rights, and the Rule of Law which also finds its foundation on biblical principles as well as the natural order of things. Government and liberty, when properly operating for the good of a civilization, is a biblical practice that follows godly principles, but it is also a system that is beneficial for all people who participate in the society in question. So, while the American System has a Christian foundation, non-Christians also prosper under such a system of Liberty. While it may be predicated upon godly axioms – long established and accepted truths that were understood as being a part of the natural order of things as had been put into action by Creation, the idea of liberty reaches out to everyone regardless of your belief system. Truth is a powerful thing, and the Founding Fathers understood what these truths are, and referred to them and agreed they exist when they accepted Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, which tells us that “these truths are self-evident.”
While Divine Providence fueled the American Revolution, the aim was to ensure that all Americans enjoyed the Blessings of Liberty, meaning their Natural Rights. The Founding Fathers believed that there is such a thing as truth, and that truth not only exists but that it is self-evident. They believed that God exists, and that God made truth understandable to human beings and that to recognize it we simply need to seek it out. God’s commandments are based on those truths, and if a civilization rises using those truths it will prosper. Those truths are not only laid out biblically, but throughout history for us to observe. When certain truths are denied, and paths away from those truths are followed, consequences arise that will ultimately destroy the civilization in question. When God’s truths are set aside and the rule of law gives way to the rule of man then an orderly society is no longer achievable.
One of the things we have been witnessing in our modern world has been the rise of destruction and chaos and a systematic attempt to kill God and biblical truth. But, if we destroy God and biblical truth, and decide that truth is relevant or pluralistic, then the culture itself with wither and ultimately the society will die – something that is not good, regardless of who you are, and what you believe. In our modern world we have seen a rise in the frequency and destructiveness of fiery riots, we have seen the acceptance by many of the chopping up children’s body parts in the name of tolerance and fairness, and we have begun chasing false science that denies the scientific method and the endless search for knowing the unknown – instead, settling for consensus and political funding of false ideas. As the world descends into war, rumors of war, immorality and rebellion against the principles laid out by the Founding Fathers and biblical foundational axioms, we have seen a rise of chaos, division, and attacks against a moral and godly foundation for our country. Benjamin Franklin warned us about such folly, saying, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
Today’s purveyors of what we call “leftwing politics” support rule of man truths that are contrary to the rule of law truths recognized by the Founding Fathers and biblical principles. They are chasing a French Revolution way of viewing things. The American Revolution was anchored by the ideas of individualism, natural rights, liberty and a godly society. The French Revolution was fueled by secularism and collectivism masquerading as a push for liberty and rights. A quick view of history reveals which of the two was the more successful revolution. Which country emerged from its revolution and became a vastly prosperous and powerful system? And, which one continues to this day to wallow in its failed ideas of collectivistic socialism?
We have to remember that the forces of evil are counterfeiters. They warp truth, make claims that seem reasonable on the surface, but in reality are untruthful and are making completely false claims. Liberty is one of those things they like to warp into something it’s not. Liberty is not a free for all, but a system in which we have the freedom to do as we please as long as that liberty is being practiced responsibly and doesn’t interfere with another’s pursuit of their own natural rights. The responsibility that accompanies our liberty hinges on the foundational nature of our rights. While we have been convinced that our rights are something guided, defined, protected and guaranteed by government, the Founding Fathers never made that claim. Your rights, natural rights as they were called by the Founders and philosophers like John Locke, come from God (or belong to you naturally if you must deny God’s existence). They are, as the Saxons believed, dispensated by natural forces. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whether you believe your rights belong to you because of God, or natural dispensation by forces you don’t understand, in the end the final conclusion is the same: Government did not give them to you, nor has any authority to dictate or define them.
When referring to our rights, Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence also explains that while we automatically possess life and liberty, the others must be pursued (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness). We do not have a “right to be happy,” but if government is operating properly, we have the right to “pursue” that happiness. Our rights are rights only as long as they don’t interfere with another’s rights, but that does not mean that one must bend, twist, dictate or deny one’s rights to ensure another’s rights are achievable. An important part of ensuring we maintain an orderly society are the establishment of rules (consent of the governed), and the existence of consequences when we violate another’s rights, while also maintaining a certain level of responsibility regarding our rights.
Whether or not someone’s rights are violated is where we seem to go astray. We quibble, claiming rights are violated when they are not, failing to recognize the free market aspect of our rights and our responsibilities as they are related to our pursuit of happiness.
Some violations of rights are easy to recognize. A murderer may not claim to have the right to murder when their victim had the right to life. Murder is a violation of another’s right to live so a legal consequence must be put in place, and in our society the penalty does not change if some lunatic claims they have a right to murder.
When it comes to abortion, which is seen as murder to those who abhor the practice because they recognize an unborn baby as being a person, those who support abortion call it a reproduction right and the right of a woman regarding the privacy of her own body. The issue hinges on the idea of whether or not the unborn baby is a person. From a constitutional standpoint, if the baby is a person then the child has a right to live and that “right” to abort is not a right because it violates the baby’s right to live. The segment of society who argues that abortion is a right also argues that an unborn baby is not a person, therefore, there is no violation of another’s right to live.
Sometimes, our claimed rights interfere with another’s rights, but it’s not because another’s rights are targeted but because we are attempting to achieve our rights in the same arena. So, to essentially keep us from running into each other as we pursue our happiness, we put rules in place to make sure everyone may carry out their pursuit of happiness in an orderly fashion. Travel in a motor vehicle is a great example of this. I may wish to pursue my right to travel to a destination, but there are others on the road who also possess the right to travel, so we have established rules of the road, and a system that maintains one must prove they can follow the rules of the road; possessing a license showing that the person achieved that privilege. When it comes to intersections, signal lights have been put in place not to eliminate one’s right to go through the intersection, but to ensure it is accomplished in an orderly fashion. One’s right to navigate an intersection, after all, stops at the edge of the bumper of another vehicle being operated by a person who also believes they have a right to navigate the intersection. We have, in turn, established rules that include stop signs, traffic signals, right of way and so forth. Those rules do not keep us from pursuing our travel happiness, they just make sure we achieve them in an orderly fashion. When those rules are violated, the situation is investigated, and consequences are applied to ensure we are all playing nicely in the game of pursuing happiness, and that violators receive an appropriate punishment for breaking the rules.
Recognizing that our rights are something we pursue, other things might become clearer as we discuss our desire to pursue them. For example, we don’t have a right to health care which means we don’t have a right to demand that taxpayer money pays for our healthcare and that government “guarantees” it. However, we do have a right to pursue it by participating in the free market and choosing which option best fits our needs. Government’s job is to get out of the way so that we may make those choices without their interference, and in some cases putting laws in place to make sure that the process is based on a moral foundation and a playing field that disallows bad actors from taking advantage of those in the arena.
We may also not necessarily have a right to education in the sense that government is tasked with protecting and guaranteeing it, but we do have a right to pursue our education. Government may offer public options, but since we are free to pursue our happiness regarding education, we should also have available to us the ability to make the choice not to choose the public option. One might opt to homeschool their children, or send them to a private school that uses a curriculum that better suits their beliefs or desires when it comes to the education of their children. As an individual seeking my own continued education I must also have the free choice to pursue a trade school or collegiate education, and if I opt for the latter, it must be left to me to make my own decision regarding if I decide to pursue a public college, private college, or some other option that may include deciding not to further my education at all.
One’s natural rights also extend to our participation in a free market of products and services. In the long-run it is all about personal decisions, and in the process there may also be certain governmental laws that might be necessary to ensure safety in the market while not necessarily interfering with the actual operations of the market. For example, if I wish to open up a tire store, it is not government’s place to say that I must instead open a donut shop. Or, when it comes to my tire store, it is not government’s place to demand that I carry snow tires along with all of the other styles of tires in my inventory. However, if the public votes into place a desire for laws making sure tire stores don’t sell tires with holes in them, it would be appropriate for government to make sure my tires maintain a certain standard of quality.
With the rise of civil rights laws we have introduced an idea that masquerades as fairness, but actually demands preferential treatment. Armed with the false idea that government dictates and defines our rights, and is responsible for protecting and guaranteeing our rights, hordes of groups armed with the concept of identity politics have made a mockery of our legal system, and have been systematically attacking what liberty is truly all about. As a result, we have bought into a concept that our rights must be fulfilled as we demand, therefore producers or retailers must make certain products or services available regardless of their inventory or type of establishment in order to accommodate the demands of certain groups of people. For example, one might claim that they have a right to have a cake baked a certain way, perhaps with two men on top of a wedding cake. But, because our rights are not supposed to interfere with another’s rights, in a true world of liberty a Christian baker might say, “we don’t offer that product,” and be completely within their legal right to say so. After all, it is the buyer’s right to “pursue” their happiness, not demand that someone else’s rights be violated in order to accommodate them. Remember, our rights are something to be pursued, and if the avenue we are pursuing them on does not produce what we are looking for, it is our responsibility to pursue them elsewhere.
Our courts, however, have decided that despite religious freedoms as enumerated in the First Amendment, and despite the reality that it is not government’s place to demand by law (or judicial fiat) that a particular business produce a particular product whether they like it or not, Christian bakers have no choice and must bake homosexual cakes because that particular group demands it. Liberty would demand that one group cannot violate the rights of another, so the right answer would have been that the same-sex couple should have continued to pursue their happiness elsewhere, seeking a baker that is willing to offer the product that they seek. It is not a violation of the homosexual couple’s right to have a cake baked the way they want if the Christian baker says they won’t do it. That’s like demanding that a tire store must also sell snow tires, or that a donut shop must also provide a clothing line. Government’s role in this instance was to stay out of the way and let the free market do what it does. Somewhere out there a baker exists that was willing to bake the cake the couple wanted – it was just a matter of pursuing it. If a true violation of one’s rights in this instance was to arise, it would exist in the form of a law saying that it was illegal to bake that kind of cake. No law like that exists, so despite the claims of the gay agenda, their rights have not been violated because a Christian baker says that they don’t offer that product.
The Founding Fathers believed in equality, and by that they meant that we are “created equal,” but our journey is our own. Government must not create by law a privileged class like the nobility that existed in European countries, and that government’s role was primarily to stay out of the picture as much as possible – a concept known as laissez faire. Equality is not achieved by segments of society bowing to ensure that everyone celebrates or complies with the demands of a particular group, but that government does not pass laws that discriminates against a particular group. The wonderful thing about America is we do indeed have true equality as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. While we have certain groups claiming that they don’t have equality in America, the argument is easily settled by a simple series of questions.
Are there any laws that prohibit you from achieving anything you want to do that other groups are allowed to do based one’s race, color, ethnicity, or lifestyle? Are there any laws that prohibit you from purchasing things or being employed simply because of the “group” that you are a member of? Crying about decisions of non-government entities, like the hiring practices of a Christian institution, or the claim that someone is “misgendered,” has nothing to do with law and everything to do with the practices of certain entities. It gets us back to the tire stores and bakers. That’s not a lack of liberty, that’s a demand for other’s rights to be interfered with because of some kind of narcissistic demand for entitlement. If you don’t like how a particular business operates, or what products they offer, then shop somewhere else. If you don’t like what a particular group thinks of you, hang out with different people. If you don’t like what a radio host says? Change the station. You have the liberty to do so. It’s self-evident.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
