Inalienable Rights

Several recent conversations have gotten me thinking: Do Americans really believe in “inalienable rights”?

That phrase, of course, is familiar to most Americans from the Declaration of Independence. A friend of mine – who is, ironically enough, an atheist – recently noted that the wording of the Declaration of Independence substantiates the argument that the USA is a nation founded on what he called “Christian principles.”

As a way to begin, here’s the famous passage in question:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…

What, exactly, is Thomas Jefferson saying here? Have you ever paused to think about it? Here’s my analysis (and you’ll note that I interpret “men” as referring to humankind): For Jefferson, there are at least two self-evident truths that can be ascertained. First, all people are born equal. Race and national origin, gender and social status, have no bearing on a person’s inherent human worth. Second, the “Creator” of the world has bestowed upon human beings three “inalienable rights” – namely, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

By Jefferson’s account, governments are created in order to protect these self-evident truths, these basic human rights. Thus, the government’s job is to ensure that these rights are not taken away, trampled on, or ignored.

The phrase about how humans are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” is the one I want to focus on here. Many (like the friend I mentioned above) use this phrase to argue that we are a nation founded “under God,” based on basic Christian principles. “Under God” may be a phrase inserted into our Pledge of Allegiance only in 1953, but the Declaration of Independence itself includes similar language, referencing the basic human rights that have been endowed on humanity by the Creator of the universe and for which the government is charged in protecting.

That Jefferson’s language is Deist in nature, and not Christian, is not my focus here. In fact, I’m not even attempting to argue that religion in general didn’t play a role in the founding of America, because it most clearly did. Instead, I want to look more deeply at that phrase about the “Creator” and the “inalienable rights” and take it out to its ultimate conclusion.

For Jefferson, and thus for anyone who agrees with Jefferson’s belief (which most Americans say they do), God has given certain basic rights to humanity. These are God’s gifts to us. We didn’t invent them and no human being has bestowed them upon us. They are ours by virtue of being human creatures created by God. As another good friend of mine pointed out, the very thrust of Jefferson’s argument here was that the “Rights of Man” are not bestowed by the British Monarchy or anyone else. Basic human rights are the domain of God, not of kings and emperors, presidents and parliamentarians. This, of course, is the whole theme of the 18th century revolutionary period in America.

So, according to Jefferson, and agreed upon by countless Americans for the last 225 years, God has given us certain “inalienable” rights. That word – “inalienable” – is familiar to most people simply because of its prominent place in the Declaration of Independence. What does it actually mean? According to dictionary.com: not transferable or capable of being repudiated. According to Merriam-Webster: incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred.

In other words, an “inalienable right” is a right that cannot be taken away by any human being because human beings didn’t invent or bestow the right in the first place. What human beings didn’t give, human beings can’t give away. More pointedly, and more in line with Jefferson’s wording: what God gave, human beings can’t give away.

I think most Americans would agree, and agree profoundly, with that analysis. What I want to do now, however, is take that analysis out to its logical conclusion – a conclusion I have a feeling will be met with some resistance.

Jefferson tells us that among our God-given “inalienable” rights is the right to life. The very phrase “right to life” is a familiar one – it’s most often used in discussions about abortion. All humans have a right to life, given by God and affirmed in one of our most treasured American documents, and thus abortion is not only sinful, it’s also un-American. Without going into a lot of detail about an issue that is anything but simple, many of my readers may be surprised to find that I generally agree with this sentiment. While I consider myself pro-choice for a variety of reasons that are far too numerous to go into here, I also consider myself profoundly anti-abortion. For me, “pro-choice” is a political and social stance, while “anti-abortion” is a moral and ethical and religious stance.

But the phrase “right to life” also has other implications. I’m specifically thinking of capital punishment. I’ve often argued that one can’t be pro-life and pro-death penalty without being hypocritical, just as one can’t be pro-abortion and anti-death penalty without being hypocritical. I consider myself anti-abortion and anti-death penalty. I believe in the right to life and in affirming life, and that belief is consistent across my various political opinions.

Here’s the crux: if we agree with Jefferson that human beings have basic inalienable rights – rights, which by their very divinely-given nature, cannot be taken away by human beings – and if we agree that one of these rights is the right to life, then how can we affirm capital punishment without being inconsistent with what we claim to believe?

The primary argument against this is the one that is most obvious: capital punishment is a totally different ball of wax. Capital punishment isn’t “murder.” Capital punishment is justice meted out against those who have committed violent acts against other human beings. As the Christian Old Testament affirms, murder is a terrible sin, but “killing” in war or as punishment for sin is not the same as “murder.”

By the standards of this argument, one might say that capital punishment doesn’t equate to taking away a person’s inalienable right to life. Instead, the criminal in question voluntarily gave that right up when he or she chose to commit murder. This is an extremely common argument in discussions about capital punishment – capital punishment isn’t murder, nor is it unethical, because the right to life was already surrendered by the perpetrator in the very act of committing their crime.

You may already see where I’m going here. If not, recall the discussion above about the meaning of the phrase “inalienable rights.” An “inalienable right” is a human right which, by its very definition, cannot be taken away, transferred, or surrendered. It is “inalienable.” It is bestowed by a power greater than any human being or human institution. What human beings did not give, human beings cannot give away. What God gave, human beings cannot take away and cannot surrender. If a right can be either taken away by others or surrendered by an individual through an act of violence, then it is not, by definition, an “inalienable” right.

For that reason, I am arguing that capital punishment is inconsistent with American principles, as outlined by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Most Americans say they believe in those principles – those inalienable rights – yet most Americans also support capital punishment.

And so we return to the question that opened this discussion: Do Americans really believe in “inalienable rights”? Or is that just something that sounds good on paper, sounds good in a political debate, and sounds pretty to our imaginations, but which we don’t really believe in practice?

If you genuinely believe in the “inalienable rights” that Thomas Jefferson asserted in the Declaration of Independence, and you understand what the word “inalienable” actually means, then I don’t see how you can support capital punishment – regardless of what your personal religious beliefs happen to be.

If the right to life is “inalienable,” and if that belief is a deeply American one which our government is charged with protecting, then capital punishment can only be deeply un-American.

Consistency: My Life Philosophy

(Let me apologize in advance if this post comes across as inflammatory - that is not my intention, nor is singling out any one person or group of people. More than anything else, I am just sort of vomiting onto the page here as I sort out my own belief systems and core motivations.)

Consistency is the goal of my life philosophy.

As I have grown in adulthood, I have come to recognize a great deal of inconsistency within people. Inconsistency in what they believe, inconsistency in how they behave, inconsistency in what they support and do not support. I see inconsistency not only in individuals, but in society at large, the things we profess and the things we do, our laws and our social and governmental hierarchies.

One of the first areas of my own life where I began to recognize this inherent inconsistency was in my religious beliefs. How could I claim to believe that the same God that I described with words like “all-loving” and “all-merciful” was also guilty of slaughtering countless Egyptian children in the Exodus story? How could I claim to respect the tenants of science and reason but also accept that the earth was once flooded entirely by a great storm – with only one man and his family surviving, and only after building a ship that any modern ship engineer could tell you would not float? How could I call the Bible the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God, knowing that it was created in the 3rd and 4th centuries by a group of old white men who brought their own human biases and agendas to the table and voted on which books belonged and which books did not belong? How could I put my faith in these bishops of the early church councils when they were the same people leading, commanding, and supporting wide-spread persecution against Jews, Pagans, and basically anyone else who was not a Christian? How could I use the Bible to support – for instance – a claim that homosexuality was a sin, when that same Bible condoned, and had been used by Christians like me to support, the institution of slavery? How could I conveniently ignore the teachings of Paul about women being required to remain silent in the church, yet accept the Pauline teaching that women should not be priests or pastors?

As I began to explore my own faith tradition, and my own beliefs and prime motivations, I began to see the depth of inconsistency within society at large and those people that I interact with and observe on a day-to-day basis.

To simplify things, let me just list some of the inconsistencies and contradictions and basic hypocrisies that I feel are plaguing our country in the present day:

1. People who would march on Washington to support what they believe is their constitutionally-mandated right to own an AK-47, but would turn around and claim to believe in an “eye for an eye” justice system, which is expressly prohibited by that same constitution.

2. People who are patently opposed to gay marriage and equal gay rights, but would express disgust and disturbance at stories of Americans who worked tirelessly to keep blacks from having equal rights with whites.

3. People who call themselves pro-life, but vigorously support the death penalty.

4. People who claim to believe in small government, but who support giving the government the most significant power on earth – the right to choose who lives or dies.

5. People whose love and concern and compassion for the rights of a clump of embryonic stem cells surpasses their love and concern and compassion for living, breathing human beings who could benefit from genetic research using those stem cells.

6. People who claim to believe in supporting, enriching, and reinforcing a concern for life, but who complain about Welfare and “socialized” medicine.

7. People who care deeply about the welfare of a baby before it is born, but who have absolutely no apparent concern whatsoever for the welfare of that baby after it has been brought into the world – certainly not concerned enough to have their precious tax dollars spent to give it food, shelter, clothes, and health insurance.

8. People who harbor prejudice – even just subconsciously – against Jews because the Jews rejected Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus, himself, was a Jew.

9. People who claim to be followers of Christ – a man who taught against the evils and perils of greed, money, and the pursuit of wealth more than just about any other single topic – and yet have no compunction about striving to make a lot of money, and then spending that money frivolously once they make it – even going to so far as to drive to church in their $50,000 SUVs, wearing expensive suits and dresses, and all the flashiest jewelry they can find.

10. People who reject Biblical teachings about women not being permitted to speak in church because those things were unique to the culture in which they were written and are no longer valid for modern life, but who turn around and use ancient 1st century Jewish prejudice to support discrimination against gays.

11. People who believe in the constitution inasmuch as it gives them the right to own a gun, but who spit all over the constitution when it demands a separation of church and state, or when it asserts that political candidates should not be subjected to any religious tests for government office.

12. People who cringe and despise militant Muslims because of their backward, violent, evil faith system, without ever recognizing or acknowledging that Christianity has enough evil, backward, violence in its own history to make 9/11 look like an attack with cream pies.

13. People who generalize all adherents to the Muslim faith by the standards of that small minority that represents militant Islam, but would be offended and indignant if someone suggested that all Christians are abortion-clinic bombers.

14. People who reject every religious tradition in the history of the world as misguided and silly mythology, but who can’t see that the same reasons for rejecting those other faith traditions are just as valid for rejecting Christianity too.

15. People who put the rights of an unborn baby over the rights of a living, breathing adult who is already alive and dealing with the struggles of life.

16. People who despise anything that stinks of socialism, and fight tooth and nail to keep liberal policies out of government, but who follow a religious tradition that began, in its infancy, as a communal society, where everyone shared their wealth and were required to give all they had to the community – and the penalty for not doing that was death, as depicted in the book of Acts.

17. People who engage in daily petitionary prayer, even though Jesus taught us to use prayer for worship and self-growth, not for enticing God to do our own will.

I could, of course, go on and on, but I have probably already gone on too long. Suffice it to say, my own personal commitment to consistency has caused me – or maybe even “allowed” me – to see so much inconsistency in other people. I look at the world around me and simply see nothing but inconsistency on top of contradiction on top of hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, I cannot change a broken world. But I can strive, personally, for consistency in the things I profess, believe, and do.

It is for this reason that I am anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, and anti-war. I believe in respecting, valuing, and supporting life, not destroying it.

I also believe, however, that the rights of living, breathing human beings trump the rights of unborn children – it is for that reason that while I am personally opposed to abortion for birth control, I support an adult’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. If we lived in a country that had universal health care, better distribution of wealth, and low poverty, I might take more of an issue with giving people the right to abortion-as-birth control. But since I recognize that the sexual urge is the most basic of the human biological urges, and since I recognize that no one deserves an 18-year sentence for giving into that biological urge despite knowing that they are not emotionally or financially prepared to have a child, and since many single mothers cannot afford to carry, birth, or raise a child because of poverty and the wealth gap, I support giving women the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, even if there is no medical necessity. Again, I believe this is consistent with my commitment to respecting, valuing, and supporting life.

Also consistent with that view is my belief in death with dignity. I believe terminally ill people should have the right to choose to end their life with a doctor’s assistance, so that they can die on their own terms with dignity, rather than suffer and waste away as a vegetable in a hospice. I can’t imagine the difficulty involved for both the sufferer and the family in such a situation, and I hope that I am never faced with such a situation, but I support giving people who are in that situation the right to die with dignity.

I am no socialist, but I do believe that a happy medium can be found somewhere between Marxist Socialism and unrestricted, no-oversight free-market capitalism. The country’s present economic predicament is a painful and blatantly obvious illustration about everything that is wrong with unrestricted free-market capitalism. I believe people should have the right to make a life for themselves and to earn money based on their own skills, abilities, talents, and work ethic, but there is something badly wrong with a society where 90% of the wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. No one is talented, able, and skillful enough to deserve millions upon millions of dollars in compensation, when there are so many people in this country and around the world who cannot pay their bills and struggle just to put food on the table. Athletes, business people, politicians, actors, writers, singers, doctors, lawyers – you name it. None of them actually deserve the enormous amounts of money that they are paid, particularly not when poverty and homelessness are as rampant as they are in this country. I believe in valuing and elevating life; putting all the wealth into the hands of a few, at the expense of the many, is not valuing and elevating life.

I am not an economics expert, and do not claim to have all the answers to this problem, but I know that simply continuing on with an economic system that is broken and has failed us time and again is not the answer. Failing at a task, and then attempting to complete the task again using the same methods, and then doing that over and over and over again, is a sign of insanity, not determination or industry.

I am a strong proponent of universal health care. Again, because I believe in supporting and elevating life, and because I believe in the tenants of the Declaration of Independence – which guarantees that the government will provide for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for its citizens – I believe it is the duty of the government, funded by the people, to provide health insurance coverage for all Americans. This was not an issue that was faced by the founders of this country, but it is an issue that faces us today.

The United States is one of the only developed countries on earth with no universal health care system. If good, affordable health care does not fall under the government’s role to provide for “life” for its citizens, then what, exactly, does fall under that role? I have lived either without health insurance, or without good health insurance, for four years. I am fortunate that nothing serious has happened during that time. Others are not so lucky. When people get sick and pile up tens of thousands of dollars in health care costs, they frequently lose their credit, their homes, their cars, and their ability to live successfully in society. The government has a responsibility to ensure that this does not happen, and that responsibility should be carried out with a universal health care program, which would cover health care costs for people who are unable to obtain or pay for private health insurance plans.

I believe in equal rights for all people in all stages and stations of life – straight, gay, black, white, short, tall, skinny, obese, old, young, and disabled. I believe gays should have the same marriage rights as straight people. I believe black people should have the same job opportunities as white people. I believe women should make the same money for the same job as men. To me, this is supporting and valuing life. To deny, for instance, gay people the right to get married is to engage in blatant and unrepentant discrimination, and that is not elevating life, that is dragging life into the mud.

I have already said it a number of times, but it bears repeating: I believe in valuing, respecting, elevating, and enriching life. I also believe in consistency in the things I profess, the way I act, and the way I approach the world. For me, the inconsistency and hypocrisy I observe in so many others serves as a warning, and a motivation, for me to strive for consistency, and work toward doing my small part to make the world a better place in which to live.

A few comments about the "issues"

1) Abortion: I am anti-abortion and pro-choice. I support a woman's right to have an abortion if that's what she chooses to do, but I would never personally encourage a woman to have an abortion for birth control reasons. I suport a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy that has put her own life or health in danger, or in cases where the fetus is malformed or has serious genetic anomolies.

However, I cannot support late term abortions, because even though some of these procedures can be performed humanely (as opposed to, say, partial birth abortion), I see no reason why a woman in the 7th month or later should not have already made up her mind about whether or not to abort. My personal opinion is that the fetus becomes a viable human being when it reaches the stage where it could live outside it's mother's body. To me, aborting a baby after that time is akin to murder. Even in cases of medical necessity, there is no reason why the baby could not be taken intact by C-section, as opposed to aborted in the womb. The baby could then be put up for adoption. I could only support late term abortions in rare cases where the medical situation made C-section impossible, and the mother's life or health was in danger from the pregnancy or labor.

In cases of rape and incest, I support a woman terminating such a prenancy.

2) Healthcare: Strongly related to the abortion issue is the issue of healthcare. 40 million Americans (about 15%) don't have any health insurance at all. Twice that many are underinsured, making the total of underinsured and uninsured people in this country near the 50% mark, or 1 in 2. Mothers unquestionably will sometimes choose abortion simply because they can't afford the doctor bills. If we are going to have a consistent view in this country of the sanctity of life, we MUST do something about our healthcare crisis. Part of the government's constitutionally-mandated responsiblities is to provide for the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness for its citizens. If ensuring that all Americans have affordable access to good medical care does not fall under the umbrella of "life," then I don't know what does.

It is significant to point out that the United States is the only major developed, industrialized country on earth with no federal health insurance plan. Other countries that have put such a plan in place have not descended into socialism, and the doctors and nurses and healthcare workers have not been sent to the poor house because they can't make money anymore. Suggesting that a federal health insurance option is like "socialized medicine" is not only a case of political spin, it's an outright lie. People who can afford good private health insurance should be able to continue to get that. Those who can't should have the option to have federal health insurance. Such a plan would require strong checks and balances and strong oversight to ensure it wasn't taken advantage of to the degredation of hardworking people.

3) Death Penalty: I am opposed to the death penalty, because I believe that our country should be focusing on the sanctity of life, not ending life. With it being known beyond a shadow of a doubt that innocent people have been executed, and knowing that there is no way to ever know with absolute certainty that a person committed a crime they have been concvited of, I do not believe any government should have the power to put people to death. But even if we could somehow be 100% certain that a criminal had committed a certain crime, I still would not support the death penalty, because I do not believe that any civilized government should have the power to kill people, for any reason. The country should be focused more on ending poverty, and thereby reducing crime, rather than worrying about which criminals to put to death. Countries - such as Japan - which have extremely low poverty rates, also have extremely low crime rates, and very little murder. There's a lesson to be learned there.

And that doesn't even address the issue of the huge state expense associated with all the judicial processes that are involved in death penalty cases. It's far more expensive to keep someone on death row than to simply incarcerate them for life. Taxes could probably be lowered across the board just by eliminating the death penalty (that's probably an overstatement, but you get the point).

4) Homosexuality: I don't believe homosexuality is a sin, but I do believe it is a "sin" to discriminate against homosexuals by disallowing them the same rights as married people. Marriage ceremonies in churches are just that - ceremonies. They are not legally binding. The thing that makes a marriage legally binding is the civil union - the certificate of marriage that the government gives you. Religious views on homosexuality should have no bearing on the government's choice about who can and can't have a civil union. Denying gays the right to get legally married is simple discrimination. And amending the constituion - either of a specific state or the U.S. constituion - to deny gay marriage is simply a case of legalizing discriminatory practices. Whether a constitution is amended or not, denying gays the same rights as straights is discriminatory. It can't be anything else.

Christians who are opposed to gay marriage need to recognize that "marriage" is a government contract, not a holy union. The church is what makes it a holy union, but that's only if the couple wants to have a ceremony in a church. There is certainy nothing requiring two people to have a church ceremony. Suggesting gays can't get married would be like saying atheists can't get married. Homosexuals are living in sin, so they can't have a holy union, and atheists don't believe in God, so they can't have a holy union either. But do I hear any Christians suggesting atheists shouldn't be allowed to have a government conract of marriage? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous. But it's no less ridiculous than saying two gay people can't get married.

Just because a Christian may not approve of the choices gays make, does not give those Christians the right to discriminate against gays, any more than they have a right to discriminate against atheists, Jews, Muslims, or Rastafarians. Those people aren't going to have a marriage ceremony in a Christian church either, but they still are going to have a government certificate of marriage. Why should gays be excluded from that? It's simple discrimination.

5) God: I believe in God, and I follow and attempt to emulate the life and teachings of Jesus as they were remembered and creatively told in the New Testament. I do not, however, believe that the Bible is the infallible Word of God. I believe it is a significantly human text, describing ways in which ancient Jews attempted to connect and unify with God. What I take from the New Testament are the teachings about love, compassion, kindness, and humility, and the warnings against greed and selfishness. I believe the overpowering message of the New Testament is about abundant life in the here and now, more so than about anything that happens after death.

It's those warnings against greed and selfishness that I think far too many Chrisitans either ignore outright, or only give blithe lipservice to. Jesus talked about greed and money more than just about any other topic. He warned continually about the dangers of greed, and made it clear that anyone who pursues wealth and material possessions is not living in union with God. You can't serve both God and money, Jesus is recorded as saying. That's why I find it ironic when I pass churches on Sunday morning and see them filled with luxury automobiles, decorated with fancy statues and expensive ornamentations, and populated largely by upper middle class people in expensive clothes. Our entire social system is built on the pursuit of wealth - something Jesus assured us was a direct road toward disunity with God. Far too many Christians conveniently ignore that.

We like to think that we are living a Christ-like life (and I include myself in this), but most all of us are actually deeply involved in the pursuit of wealth, and this keeps us from really living like Jesus told us to live.

And if we're living in pursuit of wealth, then we are living in sin, and therefore is it reasonable to say we're any different than the abortion doctors and homosexuals? Jesus never mentioned abortion or homosexuality, but he sure did talk a lot about greed and money.

Anti-Abortion and Pro-Choice

On the Rush Message Board's political forum, an abortion debate was started where I said that I was anti-abortion, but pro-choice. Several people (mostly pro-choicers, I believe), questioned how one could be BOTH pro-choice and anti-abortion. Here is what I wrote in response....

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My feelings on abortion changed after my wife had our first daughter. Prior to that, I had always just considered myself pro choice.

But after having trouble getting pregnant, and then after experiencing the birth and being a father, the very idea of killing an unborn child became morally repugnant to me, particularly when I considered how many people want children and can't have them.

I believe the moral decision for a woman to make with an unwanted pregnancy would be to carry the child to term and give it up for adoption to parents who want the child and will care for it and love it. Except in cases where the mother's life or health, or the child's life or health, are in danger, I can't imagine ever encouraging a woman to get an abortion.

That said, however, I do not believe the government should have the right to legislate such highly personal decisions, and I realize that it's easy for me, as a man, to talk about what I believe the "moral" choice is for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy. It would be very tough to carry a child to term that you didn't want and planned on giving up to adoption, when getting an abortion is so easy to do.

Furthermore, I don't believe that abortion is "murder" in the same sense that killing another human being is murder.

Finally, I find it highly ironic and sad that a group made up basically of old white men (i.e. the government) wants to tell women what they can and can't do with their own bodies.

That's how I can be both pro-choice and anti-abortion.

I support a woman's right to choose, but I personally am morally opposed to abortion except in cases where the child or mother's health is at risk.