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Creator is all encompassing, it is nondenominational, non-religious. Native Americans believed in their Creator as the Mother of Nature.
Christians believe their Creator is God, and that's OK. I think Jefferson was very specific not to include any particular religion but yet include all religions and non-religions. He chose his words wisely.
However, his intent probably was not to mean government gives us those rights but rather they should insure those rights are not taken away by too much government.
Every living being deserves the right to life, liberty (aka freedom), and the pursuit of happiness. Government should not be the root of our happiness, ever.
Unless our rights are supernaturally granted, this is an arbitrary abstract of mankind's imagination, subject to revision. There really is nothing intrinsically unalienable about them.
Thus the reason why our fundamental rights are acknowledged to be SUPERNATURALLY endowed.
For purposes of comparison, what to say about an undeserving individual gains the White House but does not believe in free speech...??
Obama nominated a Supreme Court who does not subscribe to free speech as an unalienable right...
Without getting into the specifics of the court case, I don't think Jefferson was saying government should protect all unalienable rights in all cases. Certainly if exercising a right violates someone else's rights it's not protected, or is at least limited to the extent that it does violate others' rights.
I think the litmus test on limiting an unalienable right though has to be whether or not another Individual citizen is harmed, or will predictably be harmed. When we remove the Individual, we leave ourselves open to social engineering by the political class.
Without getting into the specifics of the court case, I don't think Jefferson was saying government should protect all unalienable rights in all cases. Certainly if exercising a right violates someone else's rights it's not protected, or is at least limited to the extent that it does violate others' rights.
I think the litmus test on limiting an unalienable right though has to be whether or not another Individual citizen is harmed, or will predictably be harmed. When we remove the Individual, we leave ourselves open to social engineering by the political class.
Agreed. Certainly Kagan's "societal costs" is not justification. But arguably speech can harm individuals in some contexts.
To the religious ones here that are fighting dblacks original post so hard, what is so unacceptable about this stance?
I don’t see how any of that precludes the idea that said statement also was about the origin of those rights. I see no reasoning that would convince me the founders did not specifically mean such rights were not endowed by God (or creator). It seems to me that this would only be a natural thought.
What is worth saying though is that none of that matters. Where we get our rights is utterly meaningless outside of the context of man. In other words, if rights are not given by man (as it is clear that this is the rights the founders were getting at) then their source is meaningless as they cannot be taken away by man.
I think that the right jumps on the ‘God’ given rights idea because it means that man has no jurisdiction to take those rights away (though that happens anyway such as with convicts that have served their time) The disconnect seems to come in that even if you do not believe that they are god given that does not mean they are not NATURAL rights that are equally inalienable.
To the religious ones here that are fighting dblacks original post so hard, what is so unacceptable about this stance? The founders did use Creator instead of God and I personally believe that was NOT a mistake and done quite purposefully as they believed those rights were yours weather or not you were religious, Christian, Islamic, or Wiccan for that matter. Those rights are inalienable no matter who or what you believe is your creator and are yours irregardless of your belief. Funny enough, it is the right here attacking the OP when the OP is actually supporting the view the right generally takes on rights and goes against the lefts idea that rights are subject to change and reinterpretation. All over the term ‘God’ as though the term itself is what matters and not the rights.
We've seen five or six different threads on this topic over the last week and, in my view, they've been an unproductive mess. Mostly we're talking past each other without a very clear understanding what it is we're really talking about.
So, just what is meant by God-given rights? In most of the debates on here, the discussion breaks down into a debate over the "source" of rights (God, government, neither?) and I think that fundamentally misses the point. When Jefferson wrote that people are ...
..., what did he mean?... 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
His purpose was to lay out a justification for government. Here he's saying that governments are instituted to secure "unalieanable rights". That term is actually very specific and narrow. It's meant to refer only to certain kinds of "rights" - those that are unalienable.
'Unalieanable' means they can't be taken away. It doesn't mean the shouldn't be taken away. It doesn't mean they can't be violated. It means that they are innate to a person's existence, and that, even if you were left on a desert island by yourself, you'd still have them.
So, the key thing here is that he's describing a particular kind of right. Some rights are unalieanable, some aren't. Keep in mind, this isn't by decree - it's just inherent in the nature of the right in question. If the right can't be taken away, if you'd have the freedom to exercise it regardless of whether anyone "gave" it to you or not, then it is, by definition, an unalieanable right.
Freedom of speech, for example, is an unalienable right. It's a freedom that you can exercise without anyone's permission or cooperation. You'd have it whether government existed or not. It's a right that can be violated, to be sure. Someone can pin you down and put their hand over your mouth. But as soon as they leave, you have that right again. It's a freedom of action that doesn't require a grant from anyone, or anything, else.
Contractual rights are not unalienable. They require the active participation of other people or institutions to exist. Many have proposed that government recognize a "right to health care". While we could create this "right" and establish it as an entitlement, it wouldn't be an unalienable right. It depends on the active cooperation of other people. Again, it's not a matter of declaring it to be unalienable, or not. It's inherent in the nature of the right being discussed.
Jefferson wasn't making a statement about where rights come from. He was making a statement about the kinds of rights government should secure. He wanted a government that protected our innate freedoms, not one that granted privilege. Unfortunately, that point seems to get lost as people get preoccupied with debating the supremacy of God vs the supremacy of government.
The reason the Declaration of Independence invokes God in its rhetoric is because that's how people talked back then.
Period. End of story.
Are rights an abstract, or not?
False dichotomy.
You exhibit great intellectual cowardice.
We both know why.
My inalienable rights do not exist because they've been given to me by your God, or my Goddess, or anyone or anything. They exist, period.
Why do conservatives want to amend the Constitution to assure that same sex marriage is not a God given right, but that man/woman marriage is?
When did God send down that order?
Unless our rights are supernaturally granted, this is an arbitrary abstract of mankind's imagination, subject to revision. There really is nothing intrinsically unalienable about them.
Thus the reason why our fundamental rights are acknowledged to be SUPERNATURALLY endowed.
Unless our rights are supernaturally granted, this is an arbitrary abstract of mankind's imagination, subject to revision. There really is nothing intrinsically unalienable about them.
Thus the reason why our fundamental rights are acknowledged to be SUPERNATURALLY endowed.
False dichotomy.
Inalienable rights are, in fact, very natural. They are inherent to our natural existence. The lion possesses these same rights. He lives, he is free, he pursues his happiness, he strives to maintain all three of those rights, as he is so endowed by his Creator.
Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet it may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam. Why then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the question. Because there have been upstart governments, thrusting themselves between, and presumptuously working to un-make man.
If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man (for it has its origin from the Maker of man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to generations which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in rights with his contemporary.
Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, the unity of man; by which I mean that men are all of one degree, and consequently that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being the only mode by which the former is carried forward; and consequently every child born into the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.
The Mosaic account of the creation, whether taken as divine authority or merely historical, is full to this point, the unity or equality of man. The expression admits of no controversy. "And God said, Let us make man in our own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The distinction of sexes is pointed out, but no other distinction is even implied. If this be not divine authority, it is at least historical authority, and shows that the equality of man, so far from being a modern doctrine, is the oldest upon record.
My inalienable rights do not exist because they've been given to me by your God, or my Goddess, or anyone or anything. They exist, period.
Because..... you say so?
How can 'rights' be inherit to a fairly random assortment of carbon atoms?
Could you be any more absurd or illogical?
