What Are the Inalienable God-given Rights?

With the kids home from school, maybe this is a good time for a civics lesson—one they probably wouldn’t be getting (but should) if they were in class. Feel free to share this with them. They might understand more than you’d expect.

Why do we refer to God-given rights, as our founders did, as opposed to government-given rights?

If God is the source of a right, then that is final; no earthly power can take away that right. If it’s not innate, given to us by God simply for being born, then it is given by someone earthly who can take it away. If it’s from god, it’s permanent.

Human history tells us, however, that there are plenty of earthly powers that fail to respect those God-given rights, pretend they don’t even exist, and trample over them—trample over the people to whom those rights belong.

That doesn’t stop those rights from existing; it just means those earthly powers are tyrants—whether governments or criminals.

Governments are established to protect the people’s God-given rights. But government, like fire, tends to spread and burn things it wasn’t intended to burn.

That means we, the people, need to be constantly vigilant, to prevent the spread of government beyond its protective purpose.

America’s founders set up our government carefully. They had certain expectations based on centuries of English Common Law. And, because of the distance between the original colonies and Great Britain, they got used to a lot of self-government. That made it easy for them to recognize government overreach, and they pushed back against it.

If you read the list of abuses of power in the Declaration of Independence, you can see many of the things they recognized as tyranny, which were antithetical to a free people. I went through the list of abuses of power in the Declaration, as a thought exercise this week, to identify the right(s) each complaint dealt with. I didn’t always know how to categorize the complaint, but it was enlightening to find multiple complaints related to the same rights. It shows us what they didn’t like, what they saw as tyranny.

So, what are the rights that they showed were being trampled?

One was that they had a right to the rule of law, rather than ruler’s law. Ruler’s law is whatever the ruler says it is, making it capricious, unfair, and tyrannical. The right to the rule of law is what they’d come to expect for half a millennium, since the Magna Carta. They weren’t inventing something new and then complaining that their monarch wasn’t going along; their monarch was bound by the law—so he was clearly violating that law when he ruled by fiat.

The right to self-rule was another big one. The law the people were subject to ought to be something they agreed to; they have a right to representation, to have a voice in what becomes law. They wanted things to be local, to respond to their actual needs. And they wanted a say in what that law was. They rejected having law imposed on them from high up and far away.

They had the right to equal protection before the law—unlike past tyrannies that favored some classes over others, regardless of behavior. They also mention that justice should be swift, and local—instead of forcing them to travel far from home. And records should be available locally—they had a right to government information, the right to transparency of government.

They had the right to property, and to what is often called the “bundle of sticks” that comprise property rights:  

image from here

·         Right to determine how your property is used—right to control and use property.

·         Right to benefit from the use of your property (as you’d benefit from using the milk from a cow you own).

·         Right to transfer your property to another—by selling or giving.

·         Right to destroy/dispose of your property.

·         Right to exclude others from using, benefiting from, or destroying your property.

image from here

Let’s add to these the Bill of Rights—which are not rights given to us in our Constitution, but our Constitution protects us from having government abridge these rights. All of them come under the broader categories of the rights of life, liberty, and property.

These are five in the First Amendment.

·         Freedom of religion—government can neither establish a state-favored religion nor prohibit from freely exercising their religion.

·         Freedom of speech—government cannot get in the way of people freely speaking their opinions, beliefs, facts that they know.

·         Freedom of the press—government cannot prevent the printing of news and media, sometimes extended to freedom of expression.

·         Freedom of assembly—government cannot prevent people from peaceably assembling, or gathering together with whomever they choose.

·         Right of redress of grievances—government is subject to being petitioned, or sued, when citizens perceive that government has harmed them.

The Second Amendment is the right to self-protection. Here’s a basic difference between a free society and subjects to a ruler. Free people have the right to protect themselves from attack—even using weapons, even causing death in cases in which their life or the life of another is threatened. A subject to a ruler who has abridged this right is dependent on the benevolence of the ruler to provide protection of not. And the ruler might abridge this right particularly to prevent an uprising among the subjects. The founders wanted to make sure that right to self-protection would not be abridged.

The Third Amendment may seem foreign to us today. But in the founders’ time—and this is mentioned in the Declaration—is freedom from having a standing army living among us, including quartered in our homes. Think of it as being drafted into donating your housing space to a military, and in their case a military that was set up not to protect them, but to protect the faraway government’s interests from the people.

The Fourth through Eighth Amendments relate to judicial fairness issues.

The Fourth Amendment is the right to be secure—our persons, houses, papers, and effects—from unreasonable searches and seizures. You yourself, and what you own, are not the government’s possessions for the taking. There has to be a lawful reason for depriving a person of these natural rights.

The Fifth Amendment relates to judicial fairness. It prevents a person from being forced to testify against himself in capital or otherwise serious crime. Also, it prevents a person from being put in jeopardy more than once—a second trial after being found not guilty. It prevents a corrupt government from preventing a person from going about his life by continually putting him in court over the same issue.

 The Sixth Amendment is also about judicial fairness: the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury in a local jurisdiction. Also, the accused must be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be able to face witness against him, to have a process compelling witnesses in his favor, and to have defense counsel.

The Seventh Amendment is the right to a trial by jury in controversies over a certain minimal amount, and the jury’s decision shall not be overthrown. Also, the rules of common law must be followed.

The Eighth Amendment prevents excessive bail from being required, excessive fines from being imposed, and no cruel and unusual punishments afflicted.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are the miscellaneous everything else.

The Ninth Amendment makes it clear that mention of rights in the Constitution does not mean those are all the rights there are. Other rights cannot be denied. The people retain those.

The Tenth Amendment make it clear that any duty not delegated in the Constitution to the United States are duties and rights still held by the States and the people.

The rights that are included in the Bill of Rights reveal ways the founders had experienced tyrants trying to take their rights away, so they thought they needed to be spelled out most clearly—even though they were self-evident and inalienable.

But those last two show they understood that there are more rights, none of which can be taken from individuals except as the just punishment for a crime.

One of those not mentioned is parental rights: to see to the care and upbringing of their children. Another might be making your own healthcare choices.

But, in short, how do you know it’s a God-given inalienable right? It has to be something you’re born with. You deserve it because you’re human. Beyond parents obliged to caring for their child, it must be something others don’t have to be put into servitude to provide for you.

Gearing Up for the Legislative Session

During the past several legislative session, some friends from the local Tea Party and I have done some citizen lobbying at the local state representatives’ and senator’s offices. In Texas the legislature meets January to June every odd year, so there’s a session coming up. I’m in the process of gathering the ideas we’d like them to be thinking about. And since some of the bill numbers will start being assigned in about a month, I’m drafting a heads-up letter, to let them know what issues we hope they’ll support. This is only a draft so far; I’ll be asking for feedback from the Tea Party, to see if I’m missing anything crucial, or to see if the issues I include resonate with others. Anyway, here’s the communication:

_______________________________________________________________

Dear Legislator,

It’s time to start thinking about the upcoming Texas legislative session, and I know you’re already working on legislation.

During the past several sessions, those of us in the Cypress Texas Tea Party have been following bills, and letting you know what our interests are. I expect we’ll be visiting your local office during the session, as in the past, and talk with your staff. But this year we thought we would start early and let you know the issues important to us—even before there are bill numbers to attach to them.

Right now, this is my assessment and opinion, as the legislative liaison for our Tea Party. Some of our members may differ or have additional/other priorities, which we’ll share with you in our later visits.

Principles of Cypress Texas Tea Party

·         We support the US Constitution and conservative principles in the Texas Constitution.

·         We support low taxes and limited government spending and oppose ever having a state income tax.

·         We support handling each issue at the most local authority possible—with individual and family decisions as the default authority.

·         We support asserting 10^th Amendment states’ rights against usurpation by federal government.

o   We particularly oppose allowing national health care to be imposed on the people of Texas.

·         We support parental rights in the education and upbringing of their children, including local control over spending and curriculum in public schools.

·         We do not as a group endorse candidates, but we provide a platform for sharing information so our members can make informed decisions; individual members may endorse, work for, or become candidates.

These have been our principles since we began in 2010. Issues and policies may change, but we expect to continue to encourage you to work toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization here in Texas.

I’ll present the specific issues we’re interested in under several categories.

State and Citizen Rights Preservation.

Our individual and state rights have been infringed upon by an intrusion and controlling federal government, in direct contrast to guarantees in the US Constitution. There should be several levels of effort toward returning to freedom. First is asserting the 9^th and 10^th Amendments. If a law or regulation oversteps the bounds of the enumerated powers of the federal government, it is up to the states to stand up against the unjust law. Texas is one of the few states large enough and powerful enough to take such a stand.

Among issues that fall into this category are:

·         The Affordable Care Act

·         Refusal to protect the border/Refusal to enforce immigration laws

·         Enforced acceptance of Middle Eastern refugees without adequate vetting

·         Anything related to education coming from the federal government

An additional effort toward freedom is a Convention of the States. We appreciate that Governor Abbott is leading in this multi-state effort with The Texas Plan. As Governor Abbott explains, “The Texas Plan is not so much a vision to alter the Constitution as it is a call to restore the rule of our current one.”

Within the plan, the Governor says, “The Constitution itself is not broken. What is broken is our nation’s willingness to obey the Constitution.” So the purpose of a Convention of the States is to adjust course back to the Constitution. We encourage you to help this idea make it through the legislature this session, so that Texas will be ready to lead other states in this effort.

The most drastic approach to federal tyranny is what we might call Texit—a withdrawal from the United States because the contract of the Constitution has been broken. As in a marriage, the United States are intended to be indivisible, but also as with a marriage there are terms to the covenant that must be kept.

When this issue came up in our senatorial district platform committee, I recommended that we modify the language with an if/then-type statement:

Texas Independence Again! – Should the federal government fail to abide by the 10th Amendment and the rest of the United States Constitution, Texas should hold a referendum asking the people of Texas to decide on whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.

It is the first time this proposal has appeared in the state GOP platform. And at the time we worked on it in the senatorial district, our Senator Ted Cruz was still a strong contender to be our presidential candidate. But the modified language did not remain in the state platform. While the presidential outcome is still unknown, it is highly likely that the Constitution will be ignored, the Supreme Court will fail to uphold the Constitution, and infringements against our freedoms will intensify during the next administration. It may be time to take this idea seriously, and allow the people of Texas to make such a crucial decision.

Immigration and Homeland Security

We appreciate legal immigration. Nevertheless, we still care about border security and illegal immigration, and we’re against sanctuary cities. As mentioned above, we’re concerned about being forced to accept refugees who haven’t been vetted—and we do not trust the federal government to do adequate vetting. We appreciate Governor Abbott’s strong stance on this issue.

One infrastructure concern we’d like you to address is hardening the electric grid. Texas has its own independent grid, so, regardless of the federal government’s lack of action on this vulnerability, Texas can protect its own grid. Costs are relatively low for reaching the minimum levels needed to protect the grid from an electromagnetic pulse (EMT) from either a solar flare or an atmospheric nuclear bomb detonation. Failure to prepare could lead to dire results. I wrote about this here:  http://sphericalmodel.blogspot.com/2016/05/hardening-grid.html. If you need more information to take on this issue with knowledge, there’s a short book by Frank Gaffney, published by the Center for Security Policy, called Guilty Knowledge: What the US Government Knows about the Vulnerability of the Electric Grid, But Refuses to Fix. For updates and more information, try their website SecureTheGrid.com.

Marriage and Religion Protection

In this category, the federal government and the Supreme Court have far overstepped their powers by redefining what a marriage is—and enforcing that new definition on all the states. They have further attempted to infringe on our religious freedoms, and even to make that claim that asserting religious freedom rights as guaranteed in the First Amendment is simply a cover for bigotry. That false narrative must be resisted!

We have previously passed a Pastor Protection Act. We need similar protection for individual citizens and private organizations, so that Texans will not be coerced by a tyrannical government to act against their religious beliefs. We also need to reassert the state of Texas’s right to define marriage without federal interference.

An additional concern this legislative session will be protection against the administration’s attempts to force all public buildings and schools to allow biological males to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms. This misguided attempt to accommodate the extremely small demographic of transgenders creates an opportunity for sexual predators, and disallows women and girls from expressing their discomfort without accusations of bigotry. Texas needs to stand strong against this federal overreach.

Education/Parental Rights

We’re in favor, once again, of the Texas Parental Rights Restoration Act. This is to protect fit parents from the risk of losing custody of their children. This often occurs when extended family, such as grandparents, sue for court-imposed visitation or custody, often because they disagree with the grandchildren being homeschooled or being raised in a religion the grandparents disapprove of. Again, these are fit parents, losing custody of their children, or being drained of their income—at times in excess of $1 million—to defend themselves in one case after another. Every time such a case has reached the Texas Supreme Court, the parents have won. But lower courts have continued to allow this injustice to continue.

It is a basic principle that parents have the right and responsibility to see to the care, education, and upbringing of their own children. Only when parents are unfit should this right be questioned.

We will also support, once again, UIL participation by homeschoolers and other private schoolers, referred to as the Tim Tebow Bill the past couple of sessions. UIL was originated in 1913, when most students in Texas were homeschooled or privately schooled. Six decades later the rules changed to deprive non-public school students from participating. We believe participation for all students should be restored.

There’s a new issue this year that we hope you will support: Educational Savings Accounts. This is a way of incorporating competition and free-market principles in education. Without spending additional money per student, more options open up, and competition may bring on more options and lower costs. Power is placed in the hands of the parents, to design the education that works best for their child, and money stays with the child, so unspent funds can be used the next year or eventually for college. This is already being done in Arizona and other states with surprising success. The Heritage Society and The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice have been studying this issue and recommending how best to implement this for the most students in Texas. I wrote about this issue here: http://sphericalmodel.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-parents-job.html 

Life

The Courts have interfered, yet again, with Texas’s efforts to protect life of both mothers and the unborn, by preventing Texas from requiring clinics from meeting basic surgical center standards. That is unfortunate. But the part of HB2 that prohibited abortion after 20 weeks, when unborn babies are known to experience pain, was upheld.

We believe it would be beneficial to also prohibit abortions that dismember the fetus. Such abortions not only cause additional pain to the fetus, they also cause greater risk, from puncture, or from failure to fully extract all part of the fetus, leading to infection. Such laws have been enacted and upheld elsewhere, and are a logical next step for Texas.

Free and Fair Elections

The Courts have interfered with Texas’s Voter ID Law. It may be possible to retry this effort by addressing whatever failure the Courts claim the law had. We must be able to prevent voter fraud, and some form of photo ID is still a logical and fair step toward that end.

We are against efforts to implement online voting, or any other type of voting that may encourage voter fraud. We are in favor of better safeguards for elderly who vote by mail, to prevent operatives from voting for people who have no say in their vote, or who are coerced or unduly influenced.

We discourage efforts toward a return to paper ballots, which are much more easily compromised by fraud. We encourage requirements to purge voter rolls of those who have moved or died, or who are fraudulently registered.

We encourage efforts to improve security of the ballot, and training of poll workers and poll watchers, so that Texas may be exemplary in voter integrity.

Thank you so much for all the work you do. We look forward to meeting with you during the upcoming legislative session.

Sincerely,

Texas Legislature Roundup



Texas State Capitol in Austin

The 84th Texas Legislature adjourned the end of May. So it’s time to look at what happened, and what didn’t happen.

In our local Tea Party, I have the assignment of making a list of bills for us to follow. We take our list to all of the legislators who represent people in our group, which is about two visits a month for four months. We visit their local offices while they’re in Austin, although we did get a couple of visits with the legislators themselves, and some also visited us at our Tea Party meetings.

The Texas Legislature meets every other year, from mid-January to the end of May. So a lot of business gets compressed into these few months.

Our list was longer this year than in the past, with more people contributing bills they were interested in. So, while it was a bit more work to keep track, the interest is good. It means we’re awake, and we’re hopeful that our speaking up will have an effect.

Texas is a very “red” state, with GOP majorities in the House and the Senate. So you’d think it would be a breeze to get the right kind of legislation through. But that’s not totally true. There are thousands of bills filed during the session, sometimes several on the same issue, so finding the bill that will catch attention and move is a challenge. Also, the Democrat minority is still active in committees, and they have some influence over the House Speaker, who influences what moves.

This report today isn’t what the news thinks is most important. It’s my personal list plus the list of interests of other locals who spoke up. But I think it might be interesting to see what caught the attention of our little corner of conservatism.

First, here’s the list of principles our Tea Party has adopted, which we shared with our legislators:

Principles of Cypress Texas Tea Party 

·         We support the US Constitution and conservative principles in the Texas Constitution.

·         We support low taxes and limited government spending and oppose ever having a state income tax.

·         We support handling each issue at the most local authority possible—with individual and family decisions as the default authority.

·         We support asserting 10^th Amendment states’ rights against usurpation by federal government.

o   We particularly oppose allowing national health care to be imposed on the people of Texas.

·         We support parental rights in the education and upbringing of their children, including local control over spending and curriculum in public schools.

·         We do not as a group endorse candidates, but we provide a platform for sharing information so our members can make informed decisions; individual members may endorse, work for, or become candidates. 

Now, instead of repeating the whole bill list here, I’ll mainly identify categories and issues. 

Immigration Law and Homeland Security

We were in favor of e-verify, a method for employers to verify eligibility of employees. If you’re going to hold employers accountable for hiring illegals, you have to give them a way to meet the law. Several bills were put forward. SB 374 passed.

We were against sanctuary cities; the bill we followed, SB 185, disallowed cities from proclaiming they would refuse to obey the law. The bill was approved in committee but died in Intent Calendar.

There are several calendars, and I’m not sure we ever fully understood them all. There’s Intent Calendar, Calendars (not specified), General State Calendar, and Constitutional Amendment Calendar. That last one was for joint resolutions that would be sent to the Secretary of State to be put on the November ballot, to be voted on in a general election. The others were about scheduling votes for passage of bills in the House and Senate at different stages. Calendars, generally, is where bills go to die. If they don’t get a scheduled vote, that’s the end. We probably need to pay more attention to who is on the various Calendars committees, and pressure them with phonecalls and emails. There’s always more to do.

In the last couple of months we became aware of some bills related to infrastructure safety—particularly the electronic grid—both from terrorism and natural disaster causes of an EMP. (I wrote about this here.) Protection would be relatively inexpensive and extremely valuable insurance. We appreciate that loca State Senator Lois Kolkhorst was a co-author, but the bill didn’t progress this session. You might be interested in the testimony by Frank Gaffney, for future reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmgoSHCh77U&sns=em  

State and Citizen Rights Preservation

We followed several bills that were intended to assert our Tenth Amendment state’s rights. A couple of them simply asserted the Tenth Amendment. One was specific to declare through state constitutional amendment that Texans would not be subject to a federal requirement to purchase Obamacare. None of these bills progressed. That in no way means Texas won’t assert its Tenth Amendment rights. There are lawsuits underway, and there are other various approaches.

We became aware, about halfway through the session, of several attempts to impose “climate change” rules on Texas. We were against the junk science approach to limiting Texas’s economy. Fortunately, none of these bills progressed.

We followed some tax lowering bills, aimed at the homestead exemption and taxes on inventory located in the state prior to shipping. But they didn’t progress. We also followed some bills that could have raised taxes, including increasing gasoline tax while that industry is depressed, which we were against. Fortunately those failed. 

Article V Convention

The Article V Convention comes under states’ rights, but probably deserves its own subheading. I was not an expert on this issue, but we had a member among our legislator visitors who was, and he was quite persuasive. I still need to read Mark Levin’s book The Liberty Amendments to bring myself up to speed; I can’t yet explain the issue adequately. But the general idea is for enough of the states to propose a US constitutional amendment change, and then the US Congress would have to take up that issue. If the amendment passed, then it would be sent on to the states for ratification—a long and challenging process. Article V refers to that portion of the US Constitution that describes this possible remedy.

Two of the bills, HJR (House Joint Resolution) 77 and HJR 79 both were approved in the House and then died in the State Affairs Committee of the Senate. HJR 77, which was authored by a couple of our local representatives, Fletcher and Bohac, looked like it had possibilities, with a public hearing May 25, but it was left pending in committee, and then time ran out. 

Second Amendment

There were two issues we favored related to carrying firearms. One was open carry—which means that a person who is at least 21 and has a concealed carry permit is allowed to carry openly (not hidden). This puts us in the company of the majority of the states, and takes us out of the company of a half dozen anti-gun states the likes of California and New York. The bill passed.

Friends from out of state told me the news had characterized the debate as trying to make Texas allow open carry for anyone, regardless of mental state or criminality, like the Wild West—which people kind of think Texas is anyway. But, seriously, we’re not crazy. We’re just in favor of allowing the good guys to defend ourselves.

The other issue was campus carry—allowing concealed carry licensees to carry concealed weapons on college campuses. This passed, but with amendments. I think it was watered down so that each campus school board gets to decide. It sounds like a decent compromise, but it actually nearly nullifies the law. I can understand the argument against arming live-on-campus freshmen who drink too much or get depressed their first time away from home. But you have to be 21 to get a concealed carry license. On campuses like our local Lone Star Community College system, average age is 24+, and no one lives on campus. Nevertheless, only one or two board members are willing to allow these adults, coming from their jobs to classes on campus, to defend themselves and others—even though we have had incidents in which attackers had to be taken out by brave fellow students, because it took too long for security to arrive. So, this was a win that’s not quite a win. 

Marriage and Religion Protection

These issues are combined now, because everywhere marriage isn’t protected, religious freedom is lost. One bill would refuse to allow local judges to grant same-sex marriage licenses (or any license not allowed in the Texas Constitutional definition of marriage). Other states are trying this as well. It’s an assertion of the Tenth Amendment, which can be done regardless of this bill. But it was a declaration of Texas’s intent prior to a decision by the Supreme Court that could try to usurp Texas’s sovereignty. The bill didn’t move. Another reiterated that Texas would retain its state constitutional definition of marriage; this one got a public hearing and was approved in committee, but died in Calendars.

Another bill declared that Texas could only apply Texas law, and no foreign law. This was in reference to attempts to apply sharia law, particularly in reference to family/divorce law. This should be a given without the bill, but it has been an issue, even in Texas. What we really need is judges who apply the actual law. Again, the bill got a public hearing, was approved in committee, and died in Calendars. 

Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife

I’m no expert in this, but we had a member who brought these to our attention. One bill, SJR 22, to protect the right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife, was approved and will appear on the November ballot. Another bill, HB 158, meant to use taxes imposed on the sale, storage, or use of sporting goods for parks and wildlife, passed as well. So that was good. 

Education/Parental Rights

We had a little success in parental rights. There was an HHS bill, meant to clean up and make more efficient in necessary ways, that had a provision that would allow state agencies to remove a child from home without imminent danger. We were against that. Fortunately, when that provision was brought to the attention of the committee, a substitute bill without that wording was put forward, and that passed. Other bills attempted to give the state agencies that power, but fortunately they didn’t progress.

Yet again there was an attempt to restore parental rights. The situation is that grandparents can sue for rights, and sometimes judges grant them access or custody, taking children from fit parents. The issues that bring on these suits are often related to the religion or education choices of the parents. These cases are always overturned at the Texas Supreme Court level, but getting there can cost millions, and some families lose control of their children when they are impoverished by the repeated lawsuits. This should be corrected and prevented in the law; fit parents should have the right to decide on the care and upbringing of their children.

Currently homeschool and private school students (with a single exception) are prevented from participating in UIL competitions—even though UIL was created at a time when nearly all students in the state were homeschooled or privately schooled. This needs to be corrected. The last two sessions this was referred to as the Tim Tebow Bill, because the professional football player had been homeschooled. Again this session the bill progressed. SB 2046 passed the Senate, but languished in the Public Education Committee in the House.

There was a success with SB 1543, which higher education discrimination against homeschoolers and non-traditional students. The bill passed.  

Voter Integrity

We watched a number of bills that could have allowed for greater voter fraud, including online registration, same-day registration, getting felons to vote, trying to dilute Voter ID, and trying to remove judges from party voting (so even less would be known about judge candidates). All failed to move.

There were others we were happy to see pass. HB 621 allowed for dismissal of a volunteer voter registrar that failed to follow the law. This is to prevent the Turn Texas Blue arm of ACORN from doing their fraud here. SB 795 creates a mechanism for interstate voter registration crosschecking, which is a common sense approach to preventing voting in multiple places.