Nothing Alien About These

Ever looked up “inalienable” in a dictionary? In our Declaration of Independence it appears as “unalienable,” but no matter. It means something you possess that cannot be taken away. Nontransferable. Nonnegotiable. Indefeasible—it can’t be lost, annulled, or overturned.

Americans possess many inalienable rights, the most well-known being life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The rights themselves are not my focus here. I want to focus on inalienable. Our rights can’t be taken away by government because they were not given to us by government. America is unique among nations in that our founders acknowledged that which is “self-evident”: Human being are endowed with rights by a Creator.

But evil people try to deprive us of our rights. They can never really take them because they are part of human nature. As long as we are human, we possess inalienable rights. And as long as we are on this earth, evil people will try to infringe on our ability to exercise our rights. To protect ourselves against such people we formed a government, the United States of America, which derives its power (government is force) by the “consent of the governed.” We gave it the power of force to secure our individual rights.

Government’s only duty is to secure the inalienable rights of the governed against those who would deprive us of those rights. If you forget everything I say here, at least remember this: Government exists only to protect inalienable rights.

BUT, said the founders, “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Government is force. We gave the government the authority to use force to secure our rights when evil people would deprive us of those rights. But what if the government becomes “destructive of these ends?” That is, what if the government becomes the one that deprives us of our inalienable rights? Then we have the right to “alter or abolish it,” that we may establish a new government, one committed to securing our rights.

The next time you read about the “role” of government in social welfare, social engineering, global policing, universal basic income, etc., think again about the one and only reason we gave our government the power and the means to rule over us. Your life and liberty are at stake.