Natural Rights
The freest societies are those where the governing bodies have the least control over the individuals. Most believe that a safe, stable society needs some social order to protect us from the ones who choose to do us harm. No government is anarchy with everyone fending for themselves. We are not anarchists. We want social order to provide safety and protect our Natural Rights.
Clear Thinkers do not accept the idea of domination through the power of force. We only accept the simple fact that every person is a product of their Creator with natural rights coming from their birth. Rights are not given by law. No governmental ruling body can take these rights away.
Some of these natural rights are listed below:
- We have the right to life
- We have the right to be “left alone”
- We have the right to protect ourselves
- We have the right to own property
- We have the right to what we produce
- We have the right to our intellect and creativity
- We have the right to express ourselves
- We have the right to move about freely
America’s Founding Fathers
The genius of America’s Founding Fathers has been mostly forgotten by the masses. Today’s modern culture cannot be bothered with American history. They never learned, or have forgotten the struggle committed by our Founders to give us the best form of government since the beginning of time.
The colonist came here to escape the oppression of England. However, they began to experience King George’s “long arm” of control. It was clear to the Founders that something had to be done to throw off the shackles of this oppressive King.
The Founders understood the idea of Natural Rights. They understood that a governing system must adopt a set of laws to protect our natural rights as a foundational requirement to ensue the most freedom and prosperity. They understood an over-bearing central government quickly gets out-of-control by nibbling away more freedoms bite-by-bite, eventually becoming all-powerful.
The Founding Fathers gave us the United States Constitution. The Constitution only allows the federal government a small number of “Enumerated Powers”, about 17, that reigns in the power of the central government, leaving everything else to the Several States. The Founder’s plan was for a strong States Rights, which are bound together for common interest, such as protection from invaders, standards of measurement, postal service and the other items found in Article 1, Section 8.
Unfortunately, we have allowed this “social experiment” to become corrupt and slowly drift back to the era of King George III. The Founders, if alive today, would be asking: “What was the purpose of the Revolutionary War? We gave up so much to break the shackles of tyranny. Now, our efforts have been lost through apathy and ignorance.”
The Unclear Thinkers of today’s society explain away every constitutional violation with crazy interpretations such as the “Welfare Clause”, or the “Interstate Commerce Clause”, which they use to cover everything under the Sun. If these two clauses can be used as a justification for every law passed, what was the purpose of reigning in the scope of the federal government by enumerating these 17 restrictions in Article 1, Section 8? It is a clear case of usurpation of constitutional powers when the leaders see how they are clearly restricted by the “enumerated powers”. But, instead somehow they take a few words in the preamble to the enumerations in order to do whatever they please.
Regardless of constitutional laws, it is generally ignored most of the time. No efforts are made by lawmakers to check their bills in order to see if they follow constitutional requirements. The federal courts never refer to the Constitution; they operate under “case law” of precedent vs. what the Constitution actually says. Therefore, one bad decision promotes another.
Individualism vs. Collectivism
The concept of natural rights is corrupted by an opposing human psyche, described as people who are willing to forfeit their natural rights for the sake of the security from the common “collective”.
Individualism – One Who Believes in Freedom
An individualist treasures their natural rights and is generally successful under a social system that is not burdening, and controlling. They thrive with their freedom and achieve a high level of success. Conversely they also accept failure from either bad judgement, poor planning or just bad luck. They thrive on the notion that they will keep what they gain. Striving for gain is part of the individualist’s self-esteem in knowing they are secure in their future.
What does the individualist believe?:
- The rights of the individualist are not obliterated by the desires of the Collectivist, or the group
- With rights comes responsibilities. They accept individual responsibilities over group responsibilities
- They have the personal responsibility to provide first for themselves, next for their family, then for those outside their family who may be in need. The individualist wants to be free to do it themselves
Collectivism – One Who Believes in Compulsion
A collectivist is in favor of doing things as a group. They rely on the the government as much as possible. Failure for the collectivist is not their fault even though it may be the fault of their poor planning and judgement. It must be the fault of something else. The government is there to take care of everything that doesn’t go right for them.
What does the Collectivist believe?:
- The group is more important than a single person within it. The individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number
- The Collectivist declares that the individual is not personally responsible for charity, for raising their own children, providing for their aging parents, or even providing for themselves. This is a group function of the State, of the government, itself
- The Collectivist is enamored by the government. They idolize the government. They have a fixation with the government as the ultimate mechanism to solve all problems
- They know that the government is the one entity that can force everyone to participate as it has the power of taxation, backed by jails and the force of arms if necessary to compel everyone to “fall in line”
(the above “bullet point” material was transcribed with minor edits from the video “This is the John Birch Society” by G. Edward Griffin, ©December 17, 1969)