Without Rights, What Do You Do When You Are In The Minority

Jeffery T. Brown writes yesterday at The American Thinker in an article entitled Natural Rights Versus Political Rights about the impending Socialist government that it seems our neighbors plan to impose on us. He has every reason to be worried. The fall of Virginia to the socialists, and the obvious glee with which the racist Governor Ralph Northam announced his plans to disarm Virginia residents tells us much. Perhaps when the Constitution is respected by those elected to office, one doesn't need a defensive weapon. But Socialists do not respect the Constitution because they deny the premises on which it is based.

A headline I read this weekend proclaimed that Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, the Klan-hood-wearing gent formerly known at VMI as “Coonman,” was “working on” possible gun confiscation in Virginia now that money on the Left has successfully buried his racism and bought the legislature for their party. Aside from the obvious commentary about what happens when Democrats obtain power, the headline suggests a far deeper problem confronting our country. It is only a matter of time before anti-constitutional forces seize control of the Senate, or perhaps the White House, and when they do, what historically American citizens consider to be unalienable rights will suddenly disappear. The coming purge of natural rights is inevitable.

When we talk about natural rights, non-fascistic Americans understand this to be what is embodied in Bill of Rights, which are declarations enshrined to protect the individual from the tyranny of the government. These rights are considered innate natural rights, which vest in a person because of his humanity, rather than his political loyalties or beliefs. They are unalienable because they derive from that humanity, rather than one’s fear of or allegiance to a political party or government. Political rights, however, are what immoral politicians have empowered themselves to grant, and “rescind,” depending on whom the rights benefit. When it appears politically advantageous to gift a new right, meaning to manufacture a preference to benefit a political faction or interest group, regardless of the will of the general population, then that “right” will suddenly materialize to reward political fealty or to buy favor. When a politician or political mob believes that their opponents must be punished, then those same politicians will cancel natural rights that protect the equality and liberty of the citizens who are their enemies.

When God is acknowledged, then natural rights are unalienable. When government is god, then rights are the property of the government. After all, if God is merely imaginary, then so too is the supremacy of the human being as He created it because, as far as totalitarian fascists are concerned, He didn’t. It’s useful to recognize that socialism is atheistic, to help understand how they devalue life. If we can deny the divinity of God, we can devalue His creations, so that they are nothing more than pawns to be used and expended for the gain of those who would rule them. If human life has no natural value, because it is not of the divine, then there is nothing lost when it is extinguished. This is true no matter the stage of life of the one to be canceled. If human life has political value, however, then its value lies in its capacity for exploitation.

There is a reason Leftists constantly refer to our system of government as a "democracy." It's not that they are in love with the idea of democracy; quite the contrary. But in a pure democracy, your neighbor can vote away your rights. Now, anyone is free to give up his own rights. Anyone is free to sell himself into slavery. But what he is not free to do is to give up YOUR rights, or to sell YOU into slavery.  That is the reason our system of government is actually designed as a Constitutional republic.  The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in particular was set up to place certain natural rights off limits, and out of the reach of the your neighbor, or of power hungry politicians who know better than you how to live your life.

The idea that your neighbor can vote your rights away is also known as "collectivism," because rather than having individual rights which are off limits of infringement,  everyone is collectively at the mercy of the majority.  If you are in the majority, no doubt this seems reasonable.  But sooner or later, everyone finds themselves on the side of the minority.  What happens then?

Thus, when the Supreme Court decided for our entire country that human life is garbage while it is in the womb, the decision gave a prize to the left’s political supporters, but literally led to the political sacrifice of millions of human beings. “So what,” they tell us, “those aren’t human lives.” Indeed, as the same Governor Northam informed us during a radio interview concerning post-birth “abortion,” it isn’t even a human life when out of the womb and breathing on its own, unless the mother who sought its death says it is. Thus, the right to live will be granted to the child or taken from it by someone whom circumstance has placed in a position of superior power. Rights pass only through those who pretend to own and grant them, you see. They are political, not natural.

So, while many Christians believe that abortion is murder, they are forced to pay for thise procedures through their healthcare insurance as well as through their taxes. This is collectivism Similarly,

...concerning advocating confiscation of the tools of self-defense, the same political party has already previously operated on the premise that these sub-humans, whose utility lay in their role as servants and pawns, should never be allowed to defend themselves from their enslavers, who later became their political oppressors. The southern Democrats were fully aware that what they intended to do to their former possessions would get them shot, if their chattel had the unalienable right to arm and defend themselves. Thus, their political slaves were denied the Second Amendment. Then as now, those in power can only see the natural right of self-defense as dangerous if they are already aware that they intend to do things for which someone would justifiably have a right to shoot them.

The sad thing is that our Constitutional Republic, with its Bill of Rights allows each of us to live and let live. We may agree to disagree with our neighbors because we are assured that our neighbor can not take away our own rights. Socialism, or whatever collectivist system you call it, makes you and your neighbor enemies. There can be no peace in such a system because everyone finds him or herself in a minority.

Update: I noted today that more Canadians read my posts than people in the U.S. Not sure what is attracting you to the blog, but welcome.

Update 2:  Alan Korwin has another piece which makes the same point, only more pointedly.  His article can be found at They've Gone Too Far. The money quote is:

What I haven’t done is consider the dire threat politicians present to the nation, when they stoke the flames of revolution by doing precisely what the British did that got us there those many years ago. They have announced they’re coming for our guns. It is not subtle. It is not limited. It is not allowed.