Citizen
Founder's Club Member
SNIP Furthermore when you speak of "natural law" are private property rights, self defense, speech, or any other rights those of us blessed enough to live in western civilization (are smart enough too) revere upheld as "God's Law" in places like China or the middle east? If there is a "higher law than man-made-laws" (which I believe there is, but there are a $#!tload of people who have their own laws which conflict with these and they insist these laws are also divine) who gets to decide these laws overide the sensibilities of the population in question?
You should look up natural rights and Natural Law. No gun rights or rights activist should be without the foundation.
We enjoy the rights we do today precisely because the Founders understood Natural Law and natural rights, grasped the truth of them, and were willing to recognize them.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
How well did people understand this at that time? Later in life, John Adams remarked that there was nothing new in the second paragraph of the Decl. of Independ. The words were trite (his word).
These ideas are the very foundation of natural rights and Natural Law. Whether one calls it God or nature, its laws are the fundamentals of the universe. An example would be the law of gravity is.
You might start with looking up John Locke. In his Second Treatise on Government 1689, he explains at length. Very, very useful information. In that Locke wrote his piece almost ninety years before the American Revolution, it is easy to see why the ideas were somewhat commonplace by the time of the Revolution. Remember, the colonists that fired upon Gen. Gage's troops at Lexington and Concord were not Americans fighting Brits. They were Brits fighting Brits, demanding their rights as Englishmen. And, their idea of their rights was by then heavily influenced by Locke who was himself an Englishman. Side note: In Thomas Jefferson's private papers is an invoice for some books he ordered from England as a young man. Listed on the invoice is Second Treatise.
An easy-to-read source on natural law and rights is the chapter on the same in Andrew Napolitano's book, Its Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong. The entire book is very good. I found his explanation on natural rights to be a fast, easy to grasp explanation that did not require the commitment reading Second Treatise does. Plus, the book is an eye-popper on certain rights. For example, I had an instinct that the right to petition for redress of grievances was fair and righteous. I think we all do. Napolitano explains how it fits into a natural law and natural rights framework and into the framework of government. He does the same for due process.
And, that is the key: understanding how to relate any given right to natural law. Once you grasp that, things really start falling into place for you.
My purpose in relaying all this is not to slap you down, PFW. It is to arm you with something even bullets can't beat. Something of which every tyrant is afraid--ideas. Particularly these ideas.
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