Human Rights are Natural Rights

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The greatest cure for poverty is liberty and a free and dynamic economic market based on constitutional principles rooted in individualism.  The opposition to a godly society based on liberty and a free and dynamic economic market loves to label things, and put them into categories.  It is easier to control and attack that way.  You know the old battle strategy.  Divide and conquer, and redistribute the wealth through coercion and progressive taxation.

When it comes to our rights as human beings, the proponents of tyranny have divided our rights into all kinds of convenient little categories.  We have Human Rights, Civil Rights, Fundamental Rights, Traditional Rights, Constitutional Rights, and so on, and so on.  In truth, from a godly and constitutional point of view, we only have one kind of rights.  Natural Rights.

It's like sin.  In God's eyes, all sin is sin.  There is no ranking system.  We all fall short of the glory of God, so we are all capable of sin.  On a human scale, some sin may seem more egregious than other sins, and that is a reasonable "human way" of looking at it.  But, while the consequences on Earth of different sins may be different, to God the wages of sin, all sin, is death.  That is why humanity is no longer immortal (as Adam and Ever originally were) and why our spirit died and was no longer able to commune with God.

For Christians, the belief is that acceptance of Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior enlivens that spirit (born again), and the blood of Christ blankets our sin so that God, when he communes with us, does not see our sin, but the redemptive blood of Jesus.

Humanity has decided, however, despite the fact that the wages of all sin is death, to categorize sin.  We have Deadly Sins, Abominations, Mortal Sins, Venial Sins, and so forth.  It's a way for men to determine the seriousness of your sins, and to define them through their own rules.

When we abandon God's definitions, and embrace man's definitions, we literally turn our back on the rule of law, and begin to embrace the rule of man.  When that happens, it doesn't take very long before we begin to dance around the proverbial golden calf.

Our rights are the same way.  We technically don't have human rights, or civil rights, or constitutional rights.  We have Natural Rights, given to us by God.  They are entitled to us equally, self-evident, unalienable, and God-given.

In short, while the list of human rights by the international community may be an essentially accurate list, the enforcement of those rights does not belong to federal government or the United Nations as much as they belong to the human community.  In fact, the Founding Fathers recognized that governmental bodies are not supposed to be the guarantors of our rights, or even the protector of our rights, because in the long run, governmental bodies pose the greatest risk to our rights.

That's the reason the Bill of Rights uses negative language regarding the government's role regarding our rights.  Amendment I: Congress shall make no law...  Amendment II: Shall not be infringed.  Amendment III: No solider shall...   Amendment IV: ...shall not be violated...

The Bill of Rights was not telling the government to guarantee or protect our rights, it was telling the government "hands off our rights."

This is not to say that we should be forbidden from teaming up with agencies or governmental organizations willing to lend a helping hand, or grant money ... but it is not in our best interest to allow those agencies control of the movement.  Our rights belong to us, and were given to us by God who existed before government did.  It is our responsibility to protect and promote our Natural Rights, not the government's.

The problem is, if the culture is not godly, then the culture is simply not capable of maintaining liberty, and the Natural Rights that accompanies such a gift from God.  So, as Benjamin Franklin explained, if we live in a debauched society, there will be no liberty, because we will be in need of tyrannical masters, instead.

As politicians will remind us, we have a right to health care, to feeding ourselves, and living in a home.  But we don't have the right to force anybody to provide it, and it is not government's job to guarantee or subsidize said right.  If I have broken my foot, I have a right to pursue the health care I need to resolve the medical emergency, but I do not have a right to force a particular doctor to do the work, or force government to pour money into the situation.  After all, the Declaration of Independence does not say "Life, Liberty, and Happiness."  It says, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."  Our rights were never intended to be guaranteed.  They exist, and we have a right to pursue them.  But, throughout history, the greatest obstacles to the pursuit of our Natural Rights has always been government, or government influenced.

Hunger, and less than modernly acceptable living conditions, plagues many regions of the world, and even the United States.  International organizations like the United Nations, and liberal left political organizations like the Democrat Party, have determined that the solution is a redistribution of wealth.  They have determined that the way to "guarantee" the human rights of people in places that are, for a lack of a better way of describing them, rat-holes, government must force monetary wealth away from the "more fortunate," and redistribute it to those communities in need.

What happens is that the recipients begin to view such redistribution as an entitlement.  It becomes a divide and conquer war between the classes, of which government claims they must resolve by punishing the wealthy for their good fortune, and then providing for the poor after a confiscation of wealth from the upper classes.

That is not a godly strategy.

Jesus instructed us in Mathew 25:40 that whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.  As a Christian, if we do not do what we can to care for those who need the helping hand, it is no different than refusing to provide our attention to Jesus Christ, himself.  As a community we are instructed to individually work to care for those who need the helping hand.  We are not talking about government programs, or even enabling bad behavior.  We are talking about true, voluntary charity performed by the Body of Christ for the purpose of helping people achieve their own list of human rights - and doing so in such a way that eventually those people can begin to do so for themselves without the need of a helping hand.

Government welfare programs and schemes of redistribution of wealth does not create an environment of community cooperation.  Instead, those programs create class warfare and an expectation of a redistribution of wealth through coercive governmental methods dictates.

If Human Rights are Natural Rights, which means they are God-given, then as individuals it is our God-given duty to educate and assist when it comes to Human Rights, to give a helping hand, and to encourage a community to eventually stand on its feet.  To encourage a community to become dependent upon government schemes of a redistribution of wealth, of which politicians primarily participate in for the purpose of political power and votes, in short, is ungodly.

Just a thought.

-- Political Pistachio' Conservative News and Commentary