Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. These “inalienable rights,” described by our Founders in the
Declaration of Independence, are etched into the political ethos of America.
Conservatives in particular cite them with great frequency in the course of modern
policy debates. Protection for the unborn, exemptions for the
religiously-minded, and a free market in which to advance one’s livelihood with
minimal government interference are just a few stances that are inspired by the
Founders’ particular conception of natural rights.
Upholding these allegedly God-given
rights seems to be of paramount importance to conservatives, and rightly so.
Allowing Jefferson’s assertion that inalienable rights do, in fact, exist (and
there are non-negligible thinkers within the Catholic tradition – Alasdair
MacIntyre being perhaps the most noteworthy modern example – who believe they
do not), failing to apply them consistently amounts to disregarding what our
Creator has ordained.
Furthermore, the integrity of the rule
of law requires consistent application of the documents on which our nation was
founded, the Declaration amongst them. In other words, though these documents
may not be “living” in the way that liberals view the Constitution, their
spirit must certainly be alive and well for the law to be legitimate. If these
papers are no more than dusty historical artifacts, whose dictates and
philosophical underpinnings have little relevance to the present, the very
foundation of our government itself is undermined. Therefore, conservatives
have positioned themselves as the champions of preserving the vitality of our
founding documents and the ideas therein described.
However, with this in mind, it is
disappointing to note that…
Source: Irish Rover
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