Men Are Endowed by Their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights

You were born with rights. Not because a government declared it. Not because a constitution listed them. Not because a judge signed an order granting them. You were born with them because you are human, and being human comes with certain things that cannot be legitimately taken away, transferred, or surrendered — not by a king, not by a majority, not by a court, not even by your own consent. Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. These are not privileges. They are not gifts from politicians. They are the baseline conditions of being a person, and any government that violates them has forfeited its claim to authority.

The concept of unalienable rights is under pressure from both directions — from governments that view rights as privileges they can revoke, and from citizens who have forgotten that their rights come from somewhere other than Washington.

When the government engages in warrantless surveillance of its own citizens, it violates the unalienable right to liberty. When civil asset forfeiture allows police to seize property from people who have never been charged with a crime, it violates the unalienable right to property. When family courts sever the parent-child bond through procedures that lack the due process safeguards the Founders considered essential, they violate unalienable rights that are older than the Constitution itself.

The digital age presents new challenges. Data collection, algorithmic profiling, and platform censorship raise questions about rights the Founders could not have anticipated. But the framework they built — rights that precede government, boundaries that government cannot legitimately cross — applies to technologies they never imagined as naturally as it applies to the muskets and printing presses they knew. The principle does not age. Only the applications change.

The deeper danger is not government overreach. It is the gradual acceptance by citizens that their rights are government-granted privileges that can be adjusted, restricted, or revoked when circumstances demand it. The Founders rejected this view explicitly. They did not say 'the government hereby grants you the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' They said you are endowed with these rights by your Creator. The distinction is everything. A right that comes from government can be taken by government. A right that comes from somewhere higher cannot — it can only be violated, and the violation is on the violator.

For families, classrooms, and book clubs

1. 1

   What is the difference between a right and a privilege?

2. 2

   What rights do you believe no one should be able to take away, no matter what?

3. 3

   If we were stranded on a deserted island with no government, what rights would we still have?