Oh, For The Love Of Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio, the junior Senator from Florida, recently asked a friendly audience something very much akin to, "Where do our rights come from?  Do they come from politicians in Washington?  Do they come from professors?  One side of the poltical spectrum believes they do."

Our founders quoted, "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That each of us is endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights." These founders were in many cases Dieists, people who beleived there MAY have once been a creator being, but one which no longer involved himself (herself) in our daily lives. The reference to that creator was made to identify our core rights as being NOT beholden to any King to grant, nor for any King to take away, no matter his (the King's) supposed divine rights. It was a challenge to the "divine right" of Kings, saying in fact we believed a "just God" accepted and supported the fair treatment of man (and women).


No one I know of thinks these rights simply exist because of the utterances of a few people.  Certainly the VAST majority of Democrats and Independents I know believe NOT that rights spring from the mouth of one professor or another, or one politician or another, but instead from our collective human agreement, however derived, that certain liberties are immutable and to be conferred upon everyone (not just Americans).  They have always existed, they will always exist quite simply because they are fair and right and proper.  Certain philosophers may have quantified or articulated those rights in a way that we all agree with, such as John Locke or Robespierre, but those rights didn't spring from them.

But here's the news flash, those rights didn't start with nor spring forth from the Bible either (Old or New Testament).  The concepts of self-determination can be traced back at least to the golden age of Greece.  A period when the Greeks had not been exposed to the teachings of the Old Testament, in fact potentially predating the Exodus.  Was the right of self-determination invalid prior to the Old Testament, did it not exist?  Is Democray flawed because it didn't spring from the wrtings of Judeo-Christian theologians?

The answer of course is, "of course not."  Yet, folks who follow Mr. Rubio (and Mr. Rubio himself) argue that ALL of our basic rights are inspired by the Bible, not just God.   They try to claim all of our foundational ethics come from that text and then claim ALL of our core rights come from those texts.  This despite the fact that the Bible teaches that there will be a "Kingdom of Christ", one in which Jesus will rule absolutely,  with no self-determination for mortals.  Our set of foundational rights include freedom of speech and open dissent against the government both of which run counter to the "render unto Ceasar" teachings of Jesus.  Finally, they want to claim that freedom of religion (one of our most cherished freedoms) comes from "God" even though this runs absolutely counter to the evangelism dictates of the Bible, and certainly violently countered by the Old Testament example of treatment of the Ba'alists by the tribes of Israel.  The fact of the matter is that some of our most "inalienable" rights run directly opposite to the teachings of the Bible, and so to claim that is from whence they've sprung is ignorance at best and wilful hypocrisy at worst.

Yet, many want to claim it is so.  Why?? Why would they want to do so? The most optimistic answer is that they want to confer divine authority on some ideas to lend them credence and merit.  But the more insidious, and troubling answer may be this.  They want to make these claims because it allows them to wrap themselves in GOD and to claim divine authority for their political views.  The complaints, like those of Mr. Rubio, are all about squelching dissent and mocking open debate and thought.  That's why they make strawmen claims like that the left thinks rights spring from the mouths of politicians.  A statement no more true than claiming these ideas sprang up from the Bible. The funny and ironic part is, those on the left don't actually claim the former (that rights spring from politicians), while those on the right DO claim the latter.

What those in the "reality based" crowd believe is that during the course of the human experience, we have discerned and identifed certain basic principles as being correct.  Some are identifiable as similar to and reflecting the teachings of Bhudda or Jesus.  Some cannot be (such as freedom of religion, self-representation, and freedom of dissent).  We see oppression of speech, interference in the fair and free choices of people, the usurpation of liberty to travel, to assemble, as being wrong.  We agree each person has value, equal in merit, to any other, and each vote is equal in value.  We agree that just punishment, supported by the will of the governed is the only way to have an effective system of justice.  We believe that open and free access to information, including open and respectful public debate, is the only way to a well informed, and therefore well-reasoned decision.  We have agreed these rights are distinct from government, from the words or corruptions of man. Just like we agree that the existence of government relies upon the will of the governed, we see these rights as stemming from, deriving from, the collective will and agreement of thoughtful, compassionate men and women.  We see them as existing outside any of us or any of our teachers, philosophers or politicians.  Those people may put voice to them, but they have always been there.  In short, if you believe in a creator, we have come to recognize a core set of principles with which we have been endowed,  so long as we are wise enough to recognize them, and which have been there since we sprang forth, whether that's from mud or a rib.

And so that brings us to this, no one of import claims these rights were the invention of Aristotle or St. Simone or Voltairre.  Educated and thoughtful minds instead think these are truths whcih we've come to realize over time.  We can agree even that perhaps they have some divine spark, but someone who feels otherwise, that instead it is simply the collective learning of mankind throughout history which has brought us to this point, that person deserves respect.  Their explanation is as valid as our own (if we believe in divine spark), and their explanation can easily and happily co-exist with our own.  We do not need to insult their view, we do not need to, unless we are seeking power and control, we do not need to "win" and them "lose." such a debate. There is no way to prove our rightness, there is no way to prove they are wrong.  In fact, if you acccept our core liberty of freedom of religion, in fact in a just society they are allowed to feel that there is no GOD motive, and they are allowed to be free from having to spout such God-speak inside the halls of government when talking about the origin and correctness of such rights.  Yet, someone like Mr. Rubio, in fact MANY like Mr. Rubio, will shamelessly mock such thoughts, attempting to deceive willing, fawning listeners into disparaging, mocking and disrespecting aetheists and any and all those others who question the motives of anyone who tries to claim something as coming from God when that very thing is contrary to the "teachings" of that religion.

These "neo-puritans" want to put down and insult those who value educated thought.  They want to use simplistic, distorted argument to devalue the high-minded ideals of people like Abraham Lincoln, who said that this nation was founded by our forefathers and concevied in liberty.  They seek to claim as fact that which fact itself contradicts (namely that the Bible is the origin of all of our basic liberties) and they seek to claim as wrong those who disagree.  They fail to understand the much more gentle and well-thought through idea that our liberties may have some element of origin in our creation, but our free will and human experience have also molded us, and in fact molded us to believe in some basic rights which the Bible contradicts directly.

It doesn't make those rights "wrong", but it most assuredly makes Marco Rubio, and the Right, wrong.  I don't need a Bible to tell me I should have a vote, and good thing, it doesn't say I should.  I don't need a Bible to tell me my religious beliefs stop at your feet, and good thing, they do and it doesn't say so.  I don't need a Bible to tell me a man may love another man deeply and honestly, good thing, it doesn't say it.  Love is not a concept unique to Christianity, yet love, forgiveness and tolerance, all good things, underpin all of our core freedoms and coincidentally all other religions.  God may be love, but often organized religion is not.  Unless you feel forcing religion on others, taking away their vote, and preventing free speech is good and proper, you cannot claim our "rights" come solely from the Judeo Christian ethic.  Then again, maybe, just maybe, that's the point.  Many on the right seem perfectly comfortable jailing those who cannot defend themselves, stripping rights from voters, calling dissent treason, maybe it IS that they feel those "other" rights shouldn't exist at all.

All I can say to that is, God help us (just maybe not the God you think).