Posted on 07/04/2003 11:08:49 AM PDT by azturk
I beg to differ. Even the Constitution dances around this issue, for it states that governments are the ones that really secure this rights. Your "CREATOR" can grant the person any rights he wants to grant them, but if they aren't secured by the government, they do not exist. Our rights are inalienable so long as our governments choose not to alienate them.
You don't even have to look very far (geographically) to see where one of the inalienable rights was alienated. True, there was a war, and one of the results was a return of this right (as per the second part of the statement you are referring to), however, slavery wasn't the reason that war was started.
The US Government secures the rights of the citzens that it represents. True. However they are not empowered, legally nor constitutionally, to deny rights deemed as due to the citizens. Those rights, while enumerated to some degree in the Bill of Rights, are by no means exclusive to the rights retained by the people. Those people are endowed by their creator with certain rights, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Among them are the rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is the governments duty to protect those rights from those that would wish to deny them, including members of said government. When the highest government official swears into office he or she must swear to uphold the duties of their office against all enemies,foreign and domestic. And he swears to do it in the name of "God".
While what you say is true, that we depend on the government to "secure" our rights, as they are the ones we, the people, elect to do so. We do not however look to them to "grant" our rights, only to affirm and protect them. When a government refuses to affirm and protect the rights of the citizens then that government is not long for this earth. Call it mob rule or the excercise of divine right but when the government refuses to affirm and protect those rights, sought by the people becuase they believe them to be divinely endowed, that government will either shortly cease to exist or become a totalitarian state ruling by the force of arms rather than by the will of the people.
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