- Excerpt
It’s Christmas 2020 and most of us are somehow ‒ mentally, psychologically, physically, economically or financially ‒suffering under a Government-imposed extreme curtailment of our fundamental freedoms. In human history, this has happened before and most of the time we were always given “reasons” why our Human Rights had to be violated. Suppression is routinely explained as “necessary” in the interest of the public or common good. This time it is to protect us against a new Corona virus. With another Christmas coming, you may wish to ask yourself the question: Are our Governments really the givers of the Fundamental Freedoms that they take from us “in our best interest” ?
Table of contents
Unalienable rights
Christmas heralds the birth of God’s Son as one of us. His given name was Jesus Christ, but when pressed for an answer, He said that his real name was the same as that of His Father: “I am.” So Father, so Son. Although the Son was crucified, His words lived on and changed the course of human history. You may be surprised to learn that the Son’s Father, not your Government, but the Creator of Man, is the actual Giver of the fundamental human rights defined as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happenines, and that, in spite of what we’re constantly being told, these rights are unalienable. Which means that these rights are not entitlements that can arbitrarily be given or taken at whim. These natural rights cannot be taken away by anyone. Even we ourselves cannot give them away, not if we wanted to and not even if we’re threatened or put under pressure.
How do we know this is true ?
Sometimes an individual, a group or a people rises up against tyranny and suppression. In the best of these cases, such revolutions are explained as the inevitable effort that must be made to defend the basic rights we have as human individuals. The most outstanding explanation of Man’s struggle against oppression is the Declaration of Independence, which was signed in 1776 by the representatives of the 13 American colonies. The Declaration is unique in human history, primarily because, in just a few simple sentences, its authors and signatories thank the Creator of Man for endowing them and us with the rights which, today, are commonly understood as “Human Rights.” The American colonists declared: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The endowment of your unalienable rights is true because it is self-evident.
What else is there to say ?
Well, it’s not enough to hold self-evident truths when one of them ‒ the endowment defined as Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness ‒ concerns the way we are supposed to organize and live together in our various commonwealths and societies. For this reason, the American Founders added the two following truths: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” These statements also descibe self-evident truths, not principles, policies, agreements, ideas. No, self-evident truths.
Not to be overhasty
Of course, the grounds for abolishing a Government should be serious. So, the American colonists added a cautious proviso: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
By design … ?
This Christmas, we should all take some time to assess whether the restrictive conditions under which we celebrate the birth of the Son of God can be defined as “absolute Despotism” and, if so, whether such Despotism was imposed “by design.” Whatever the outcome of your assessment, do keep in mind that all the Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms that you may no longer exercise because our rulers have decided that doing so is not “in your best interest,” remain unalienable and given by the Father of the Son whose birthday we’re celebrating.
I wish you a merry Christmas.
Bert Schwitters
