Our nation's Founders set down principles of the Rights of Mankind which they described as "self-evident" or as Merriam-Webster defines the term clearly true and requiring no proof or explanation. Yet, today we have a difficult time asserting a single principle of the Rights of Mankind which isn't quickly whittled away by well developed counterpoints, diluted by qualification or exception, or laughed off as antiquated. We are left bereft of self-evident principles regarding our Rights. This is exactly what the Framers and Founders feared. This is why they took so much time, risked much personal wealth, and their lives along with their families well-being. It seems a long time ago, and the patina of time adds a mythical color to our history. It seems more fable than fact. That allows us the opportunity to minimize the risks that were taken in order that we might fully possess those self-evident Rights which come directly from God without intermediary or interpreter.
This was the flow chart for power, authority, and sovereignty which the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights lays out. In by much as God made people and holds sovereign power over them, so people made government and hold sovereign power over it. The Founders used the phrase, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.."
Note that the Rights pre-exist the formation of government. The government is only a tool for securing, or making safe, these Rights.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed on 10 December 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations makes no claim to such a hierarchy of power. Instead, the flow chart of power, authority, and sovereignty looks like this...
Article 8 states, "Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."
President Nixon said, "When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal." [1]
The monarch our nation's Founders rebelled against, King George III said, "I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." [2]
Herein lays the problem with the type of "rights" stated in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are not Rights but privileges which originate from the government by Constitution or by law. One moment one may have a Right, and a stroke of the pen later they have it not.
Rather than a touchstone of inherent Rights bestowed by God as the Ultimate, Eternal, and Unchanging Law Giver upon individuals the Declaration constitutes a non-binding resolution of feel good language about privileges we may, or may not, be afforded to possess depending upon what manner of government holds sway over our heads.
We err in believing that governments are lasting institutions. The most fortunate government lasts but a few centuries before they collapse under their own bureaucratic weight or are swallowed by another government with an appetite control problem. What remains in the rubble are the people who imagined the fiction they called government to be a thing of permanence. If Rights are derived from government by law or constitution, then how can individuals posses them without government? Are we to assume that by the establishment of government we thereby create tangible Rights as a result of a new fiction or are the Rights of mankind endowed by a higher permanent Authority?
One of these paradigms anchors the Rights of mankind in a permanent and unchanging monolith, the other is built on ever shifting sand, ebbing and flowing with whatever winds prevail for the moment. One elevates humanity to the pinnacle of Creation and the other reduces human beings to the law of the jungle. One appoints us with onerous responsibility for each other and all else in Creation, the other only requires that we eat and propagate. One of these imparts that we are our brother's keeper, the other justifies that we may be our brother's murderer. One of these emulates the Nature of God, and the other represents the school of the Serpent and man. One walks in the Light of Truth, the other clings to shadow and deception.
Our nation signing this Declaration would indicate a paradigm shift away from the Natural Rights of God and the Sovereignty of God towards the synthetic privileges of tyrants and the rule of men. Subtle deceptions are the mark of the serpent and this is that. The document is pleasing to the eye, its text emits a fragrant aroma, but its taste is bitter and its succour is death.
1.http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1
2. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. Henry Holt and Company, Inc. p. 65. ISBN 0-8050-4681-X.
God > People > Government
This was the flow chart for power, authority, and sovereignty which the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights lays out. In by much as God made people and holds sovereign power over them, so people made government and hold sovereign power over it. The Founders used the phrase, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,.."
Note that the Rights pre-exist the formation of government. The government is only a tool for securing, or making safe, these Rights.
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| Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with the UN Declaration of Human Rights |
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed on 10 December 1948, by the General Assembly of the United Nations makes no claim to such a hierarchy of power. Instead, the flow chart of power, authority, and sovereignty looks like this...
Government > People > God
Article 8 states, "Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law."
President Nixon said, "When the President does it , that means that it is not illegal." [1]
The monarch our nation's Founders rebelled against, King George III said, "I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." [2]
Herein lays the problem with the type of "rights" stated in the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They are not Rights but privileges which originate from the government by Constitution or by law. One moment one may have a Right, and a stroke of the pen later they have it not.
Rather than a touchstone of inherent Rights bestowed by God as the Ultimate, Eternal, and Unchanging Law Giver upon individuals the Declaration constitutes a non-binding resolution of feel good language about privileges we may, or may not, be afforded to possess depending upon what manner of government holds sway over our heads.
We err in believing that governments are lasting institutions. The most fortunate government lasts but a few centuries before they collapse under their own bureaucratic weight or are swallowed by another government with an appetite control problem. What remains in the rubble are the people who imagined the fiction they called government to be a thing of permanence. If Rights are derived from government by law or constitution, then how can individuals posses them without government? Are we to assume that by the establishment of government we thereby create tangible Rights as a result of a new fiction or are the Rights of mankind endowed by a higher permanent Authority?
One of these paradigms anchors the Rights of mankind in a permanent and unchanging monolith, the other is built on ever shifting sand, ebbing and flowing with whatever winds prevail for the moment. One elevates humanity to the pinnacle of Creation and the other reduces human beings to the law of the jungle. One appoints us with onerous responsibility for each other and all else in Creation, the other only requires that we eat and propagate. One of these imparts that we are our brother's keeper, the other justifies that we may be our brother's murderer. One of these emulates the Nature of God, and the other represents the school of the Serpent and man. One walks in the Light of Truth, the other clings to shadow and deception.
Our nation signing this Declaration would indicate a paradigm shift away from the Natural Rights of God and the Sovereignty of God towards the synthetic privileges of tyrants and the rule of men. Subtle deceptions are the mark of the serpent and this is that. The document is pleasing to the eye, its text emits a fragrant aroma, but its taste is bitter and its succour is death.
 |
| This should never be in our future. |
1.http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1
2. Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War. Henry Holt and Company, Inc. p. 65. ISBN 0-8050-4681-X.
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