Tim Kaine's profound ignorance of history
If our rights come from government and not from God, then we have no moral authority to condemn other nations that violate basic human rights.
Senator Tim Kaine, who very nearly became the Vice President of these United States, proved a couple weeks ago that he despises the very foundation of the American experiment and the rationale behind the "negative liberties" focus of the Bill of Rights. He revealed this hatred when he said this in a U.S. Senate hearing:
"The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator — that's what the Iranian government believes. It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Bahá'ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. They do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling."
What Senator Kaine was probably trying to do is fearmonger against "Christian Nationalism." He was playing to the Democratic Party base by trying to equate Christian nationalists with Muslim terrorists and a brutal theocracy. But in doing so, he condemned the founding principles of the very nation that he almost served as Vice President.
The Bill of Rights was written not to grant rights, but to prohibit government from infringing on the rights that they assumed people had naturally. The Bill of Rights is not about what government can do for you or give to you, but prohibiting government from doing bad things to you. Even today, this is a unique view of rights, but it was revolutionary at the time when the Declaration of Independence said it was "self-evident" that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." As our nation grew and progressed, those unalienable rights were extended to women and non-whites, but the foundation was the same: These rights were granted by God, not government.
Far from being a license to persecute people, the notion of God-given rights for everyone puts those rights and liberties above the state's authority and puts the state under the Creator who gave those rights in the first place. When "rights" are granted by government, they are not rights at all, but privileges that can be taken away at any time with no recourse.
Furthermore, if our rights come from government and not from God, then we have no moral authority to condemn other nations that violate basic human rights. We cannot condemn Iran or North Korea, because human beings have no inherent value or rights. We certainly cannot condemn Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine and continued war against Ukraine. The foundation of condemning oppressive regimes is that humans have natural rights. Under Kaine's view, the people of Iran have no rights, because their oppressive government granted no rights. That's a truly frightening worldview.
I find it hard to believe that Kaine is so ignorant of history and America's founding principles that he truly does not know all of this. He was so desperate to launch a political attack and fearmonger about "Christian Nationalism" that he wound up humiliating and beclowning himself. This is why our leaders need to be rooted in principle, not in opposing whatever "the other side" is doing at any given time.