Sen. Tim Kaine Denies God-Given Rights, Calls Them “Radical and Dangerous”
Senator Tim Kaine has ignited criticism after suggesting that Americans’ rights come not from God or nature but from government itself. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the Virginia Democrat dismissed the belief in God-given rights as “radical and dangerous,” even comparing it to the ideology of Iran’s theocracy.
The remark immediately drew a strong rebuke from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who reminded Kaine that the very foundation of the United States rests on the opposite principle. The Declaration of Independence, drafted in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson, states clearly that people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” In other words, rights exist before any government and are only secured by the state, not granted by the state.
The logic behind Cruz’s rebuttal is straightforward: if government is the source of rights, then government can take them away whenever it chooses. That view, conservatives argue, is not only historically false but also deeply dangerous to liberty. It replaces the American idea of limited government with a model where the state decides who is free and who is not.
Virginia’s own history makes Kaine’s claim even harder to square. Just weeks before Jefferson wrote the Declaration, George Mason authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights. That document established that people are “by nature” free and independent, possessing inherent rights that cannot be surrendered. It was a direct rejection of the notion that rulers or governments could decide who deserved liberty.
Kaine’s remarks ignore this history and erode the very reason the United States broke away from Britain in the first place. The American Revolution was not fought so that politicians could hand out rights like favors. It was fought on the belief that rights belong to every person by virtue of being human, and that government exists only to protect them.
By framing natural rights as a “radical” idea, Kaine has placed himself against more than two centuries of American tradition, which is a place Democrats like vacationing. In fact, the entire Democratic Party platform is made up almost entirely of policies that oppose centuries of American tradition and God’s natural law.
The remark immediately drew a strong rebuke from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who reminded Kaine that the very foundation of the United States rests on the opposite principle. The Declaration of Independence, drafted in 1776 by Thomas Jefferson, states clearly that people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” In other words, rights exist before any government and are only secured by the state, not granted by the state.
The logic behind Cruz’s rebuttal is straightforward: if government is the source of rights, then government can take them away whenever it chooses. That view, conservatives argue, is not only historically false but also deeply dangerous to liberty. It replaces the American idea of limited government with a model where the state decides who is free and who is not.
Virginia’s own history makes Kaine’s claim even harder to square. Just weeks before Jefferson wrote the Declaration, George Mason authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights. That document established that people are “by nature” free and independent, possessing inherent rights that cannot be surrendered. It was a direct rejection of the notion that rulers or governments could decide who deserved liberty.
Kaine’s remarks ignore this history and erode the very reason the United States broke away from Britain in the first place. The American Revolution was not fought so that politicians could hand out rights like favors. It was fought on the belief that rights belong to every person by virtue of being human, and that government exists only to protect them.
By framing natural rights as a “radical” idea, Kaine has placed himself against more than two centuries of American tradition, which is a place Democrats like vacationing. In fact, the entire Democratic Party platform is made up almost entirely of policies that oppose centuries of American tradition and God’s natural law.
70-79, M
