Free Republic

Don't expect the Senate hearings on prospective Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch to get into the question of natural law, not because it isn't worth it but because it is. Really relevant questions are anathema to politicians and pedagogues alike and the question of whether our rights come from God or government is one of them, particularly since most people working in either sphere would like you to think your liberties are the product of a benevolent state. At his nomination hearings, sitting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was pilloried by Senate Democrats because of his interest in natural law....

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 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.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers by the consent of the governed,…” That quote, from the Declaration of Independence sums it all up—we all have equal rights from nature and nature’s God and laws are established with our consent to protect those rights. Once understood, these simple truths make it easier to understand the proper role of government...

President Barack Obama affirmed this week that the Declaration of Independence recognizes that “individual human beings” have “God-given rights.” Yet, he insisted this was a “radical idea” at the time of the founding. […] “So I recognize a traditional society may value unity and cohesion more than a diverse country like my own,” he said, “which was founded upon what, at the time, was a radical idea — the idea of the liberty of individual human beings endowed with certain God-given rights.” What would Alexander Hamilton say to that? Or Thomas Jefferson? Or Cicero? Writing in February 1775, a young...

The government of our creation rarely does any of the things it is supposed to do, and spends enormous sums doing that which it is not empowered to do. The next time you and your smug, liberal in-law get into politics, I have a curveball for you that he is sure to swing at and miss. Since the vast majority of Leftists substitute passion for reason, it is but a small task to put their nonsense to rest, IF we are armed with fundamental knowledge of our Declaration and Constitution. First, ask him if he believes government exists, as per...

In the first chapter to his superb new book, Our Republican Constitution, Professor Randy Barnett opens with the events and intellectual background that led to our Declaration of Independence. Of primary importance is the concept and place of natural law and natural rights. Thousands of men risked their necks in order to assume “the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature” entitled them. Whatever structures of government were to follow, their designs would recognize self-evident truths, that all men are in possession of God-given, natural, unalienable rights. While the literature of the time emphasized rights to life,...

"I don't accept the law of gravity." "Then I encourage you to jump, sir.” Over the course of a weekend lunch with my wife, we pondered the goodness of craft beer, and soon wandered into the necessity of North Carolina’s bathroom law. We shook our heads at the idiocracy of Loretta Lynch’s opposition, and her disregard of Natural Law. I was warming up to say something about Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of God’s differential calculus when my wife came up with the advice above for Natural Law deniers. Bring up Natural Law to friends, its importance to free government, and...

A major Evangelical figure in the US says that Catholics were right about The PillOne surprising effect of the rise of same-sex marriage in the United States may be a convergence between evangelicals and the Catholic Church. The best evidence for this is a recent book by Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and one of the nation’s most prominent Evangelical thinkers. In We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, & The Very Meaning of Right & Wrong, he tackles the challenge of same-sex marriage. From a scriptural point of view, the idea...

As is evident by the variety of thinkers and source documents presented here, the natural law and natural right tradition is a complex and many-sided body of moral and political thought. It is unified, however, by an agreement as to the natural (as distinguished from conventional or man-made) character of principles of right and wrong, and of justice and injustice. Philosophers and statesmen who think and act within this shared understanding agree that the standards that ought to guide the ordering of political and social life are accessible to human reason. One can find this appeal to natural standards of...

Filmmakers sometimes hit the exact correct symbol to represent an idea.That's true of John Ford in the final scene of his masterpiece, The Searchers. Ethan Edwards, frontiersman and Civil War veteran, has succeeded in his years-long quest to rescue a young girl kidnapped by Indians and return her home. He brings her to the cabin, the family fusses over her, and all of them rush inside... All except Edwards, who remains alone, framed by the open door. With an almost childlike gesture,one arm gripping the other at the elbow,he turns away as the door,as if by the hand of God,is...

Ask most Americans what was the most important document produced in 1776 and almost no one would answer with Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (more commonly known as The Wealth of Nations). However, some would argue that Smith’s work had more of a global impact than even the Declaration of Independence. The first edition of The Wealth of Nations sold out in six months. It would have an almost immediate impact on government financial policy, and is considered by many to be the most important treatise on economics ever written. Adam...

The Instrumentum Laboris of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, which was published in June 2014 and served as the agenda for last year’s synod, contained many problematic texts on the subject of the natural law. Paragraph 20 stated: “In fact, what underlies the relationship between the Gospel of the Family and the natural law is not so much the defence of an abstract philosophical concept as the necessary relation which the Gospel establishes with the human person in the variety of circumstances created by history and culture.” and paragraph no. 30 stated: “The language traditionally used in explaining the...

Today's a day to talk about the drama and the unfortunate turn of events surrounding Rowan County Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. No doubt you've heard this story and no doubt you're aware that Kim Davis sits in a jail cell on contempt of court charges. I'll speak today a little bit about natural law, the law of nature's God, both in our Declaration of Independence and arguably what our entire country and concept of what is lawful sprung from. I'll also talk about why I think it was wrong for the Supreme Court to rule this way as well, and...

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She’s an elected official, and can’t be fired except by voters in her county, so a federal judge had her thrown in jail today. I expected as much. Any true civil-disobedience act must come with the willingness to bear the legal consequences of your extra-legal behavior. Davis politely thanked the judge before being carted off to the clink.If it were me, I also would have submitted to the governing authority, but not without a resounding “SAY WHAT, YOUR HONOR?!” after he said this… “The idea of natural...

Late in June, the United States Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the Constitutional status of same-sex marriage. Despite some promising hints of second-guessing by a justice or two during their April hearing on this question, the majority of seasoned court observers still expect a ruling saying that the penumbra of the Constitution mandates same-sex marriage. A hopeful minority look for a deference to at least some of the states. For mere Christians, the issue actually lies at a different level. Authentic Christianity has never been a "national" movement. Whether viewed from a spiritual or a political perspective, the...

In the fallout following a grand jury’s decision to not indict police for the death of Eric Garner, there is no shortage of libertarians who claim that Garner was innocent as far as the natural law is concerned. “Natural law” is an ethical tradition with an illustrious pedigree stretching back millennia. From this perspective, natural law is a transcendent moral order that provides the standard of justice for “positive law,” i.e. human legislation.The law forbidding the sale of loose cigarettes that Garner violated (repeatedly) is unjust. Garner “aggressed” against no one. He merely exercised his “natural right to dispose of...

<p>Even Southern Baptists know not to turn down an invitation from the Pope.</p> <p>Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church, and Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission, will meet Pope Francis and offer an “evangelical Protestant” perspective as part of a Vatican colloquium on marriage and family held this November 17-19.</p>

Segregation was based on irrational, peculiar prejudice. By contrast, protecting marriage between one man and one woman is based on universal truths about our human nature.As readers of Public Discourse know, some proponents of homosexual pseudogamy now assert that argument is no longer necessary. We do not argue with segregationists, they say. We ignore them, we scorn them. They are not worth our time. They are mad or wicked. So too our courageous Ryan Anderson, who says that marriage by nature requires a man and a woman. “Shut up,” they explain. I fear that our age is so enslaved to...

The word "right," used as a noun, means, my dictionary tells me, a "just, or lawful claim." Claim on what? On whatever I want and can lawfully have. I have a right to life, that is, a just claim on life. I have a right to liberty, a just claim to be free. I have a right to property, a just claim on land, goods, or other wealth. My right is not life, liberty, property, but rather my proper and just claim upon these things. The distinction is important. It was understood by our revolutionary forefathers but is widely misunderstood...

The U.S. Constitution, as its framers understood it, was a means to an end. It was crafted and adopted for the sake of achieving the natural-law principles referred to in the Declaration of Independence. The progressives understood this very clearly as well. The robust regulatory and redistributive aims of the progressive policy agenda were inevitably at odds with the natural-law theory of the founding. This basic fact makes understandable Woodrow Wilson’s admonition (in an address ostensibly honoring Thomas Jefferson) that, “if you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.” Do not, in other words,...

The US Constitution is much more important, and in much greater danger than most people realize. I will discuss both issues in this article. Some people believe, and I am one of them, that there is one short passage in our founding documents that encapsulates, enshrines, and defines what is so unique and important about the US Constitution, and the United States of America. Oddly enough it is not to be found in the Constitution at all – it is in “The Declaration of Independence.” I am talking about the preamble to the Declaration – specifically the first sentence. Without...