Unalienable Rights. Unavoidable Responsiblities.

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Tom Sheppard

11/18/2021

Unalienable Rights

The Declaration of Independence declares that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Please note, although The Declaration of Independence lists some specific rights, it expressly states that this list is not exhaustive.

What does unalienable mean?  Dictionary.com gives one definition for inalienable as: “not transferable to another or not capable of being taken away or denied.”[1]

The Declaration of Independence goes on to assert that legitimate governments exist only to preserve these rights.  When a government becomes “destructive of these ends” it is the right of the people to abolish that government and form a new one.  This latter point is effectively calling out another inalienable right, the right to rebel against any government that is seeking to deprive the people of their inalienable rights.  This has been called “the right of revolution.”  Jefferson actually list this as a responsibility.  One author pointed out that citizens of the United States of America exercise this right of revolution every time they vote.

The earliest reference I could find to unalienable rights comes from John Locke.  In 1689, Locke argued in Two Treatises of Government that political society existed for the sake of protecting "property", which he defined as a person's "life, liberty, and estate".[2] In A Letter Concerning Toleration, he wrote that the magistrate's power was limited to preserving a person's "civil interest", which he described as "life, liberty, health, and indolency[3] of body; and the possession of outward things".[4] He declared in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that "the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness".[5]

In Section 134 of The Doctrine and Covenants[6], Joseph Smith, Jr. sets forth the lawful purposes of governments and what they must do to retain the loyalty of the governed. 

He begins by asserting that governments are not an invention of humanity, rather they are instituted by God for the benefit of humanity.  He further states that God holds us accountable for our actions relating to both making and administering laws.  This places a solemn and eternal responsibility on those in government to use their offices “for the good and safety of society.”[7]

In the second verse of this section, Joseph, speaking on behalf of the Saints and according to the will of God goes on to define what governments must do to merit the allegiance of the governed.

“We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.”[8]

Joseph lists as inviolate, the rights to free exercise of conscience, control of property, and protection of life.  These are entirely consistent with the views expressed in The Declaration of Independence and by John Locke.  We further see these rights explicitly defended in The Bill of Rights which amended the US Constitution for the express purpose of clarifying exactly what the people were expecting from the government defined by the US Constitution.

The First Amendment directly addresses the importance of the free exercise of conscience:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”[9]

The Founders of our nation encapsulated this right in the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petitioning the government over grievances.  Their language is clear in prohibiting the government from making any laws in these areas.

Joseph Smith elaborated and clarified the freedom of religion.

“We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.”[10]

Some key points are worthy of call outs.

1.       Men are accountable only to God for their exercise of religion.
2.       Government can only interfere with religion when religion is infringing on the rights and liberties of others.

This latter point helps to clarify further the proper relationship between religions and government. 

It also serves to highlight the fact that government exists to protect the rights and liberties of each individual against all forces seeking to deprive them of their rights and liberties. These forces may be foreign governments, corporations, individuals, or even domestic governments.  This latter point is one of the rare instances where the Federal Government, usually after a ruling from the US Supreme Court, is authorized to interfere with actions or ordinances enacted by the sovereign governments of our state and local governments.

An additional right:

·        The right to self-defense: “…all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.”[11]

The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights speaks directly to this point.  It reads:

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”[12]

Many people have gotten themselves so wrapped up in the word “militia” in this amendment that they often ignore the mandate that this right “shall not be infringed.”  The facts are that a posse which consisted of deputized citizens acting under the leadership and authority of law enforcement, have often been referred to a militia.  A militia is simply a group of citizens organized to defend their rights against one or more individuals threatening to deprive them of their unalienable rights.

The Second Amendment asserts that the right of the people to defend their inalienable rights by the use of deadly force, if necessary, is not negotiable.  No sane person doubts the right of one nation to defend itself against the unlawful aggression of another nation.  This sovereign right to self-defense is not one of the rights ceded by the sovereign people of the United States of America as part of our social compact.

Joseph’s teachings curtail this right to “…times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded.”[13]

Unavoidable Responsibilities

Unavoidable means: “unable to be avoided; inevitable.”

In verse 5 of Section 133 Joseph notes responsibilities that people have whose rights are protected by their government.

“We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold the respective governments in which they reside, while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments; and that sedition and rebellion are unbecoming every citizen thus protected, and should be punished accordingly; and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as in their own judgments are best calculated to secure the public interest; at the same time, however, holding sacred the freedom of conscience.”[14]

He notes that we are “bound to sustain and uphold” our governments.  What binds us is often referred to as a social compact.  In our case the social compact is our Constitution.  It is a bilateral contract.  The sovereign individuals cede specific portions of their individual sovereignty to the government in exchange for the commitment that the government will protect and preserve the rights of the individuals against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  To make the bilateral nature of this contract clear, Joseph notes that the individuals are bound to support the government “while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights.”

He goes on to point out that sedition and rebellion, seeking to destroy the government, is a violation of this contract as long as the government is doing its part.

In verse 6 he addresses an issue which is currently rocking our nation.  Today, many are calling for the defunding of police departments and the abolition of them.  Many people vilify the police and the courts, regardless of their diligence while enforcing the law equally on all.

“We believe that every man should be honored in his station, rulers and magistrates as such, being placed for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty;”[15]

Can any rational person deny that our police departments fall within the broad category of “magistrates?”  While they are not judges, without police to investigate crimes and apprehend criminals, magistrates would be a title without function.

Joseph goes on to explain why we need civil laws and civil governments.

“…human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between man and man;”[16]

Our civil laws, rightfully regulate interests and actions between people, one to another, and nations one to another.  He goes on to note that religious laws govern our interests and actions between us and God, and that God holds us accountable for our obedience to both civil and religious laws.  However, he notes that religion has no right to deprive people of their property, opinions, or lives and their lawful punishments extend only to withdraw their fellowship and excommunicate them from their society.[17]

In verse 9 the issue of the appropriate separation of church and state is plainly addressed.

“We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied.”[18]

This is clarified by a portion of verse 4:

“…we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion;”[19]

This makes clear that religion is not to be banished from the public square.  Rather, government means should not be used to curtail the rights of one religion versus another.  All have equal right to be heard and to influence, as long as they are not preaching sedition or infringing on the rights of individuals.

I note that these principles stand in sharp contrast to Sharia Law promulgated by Islam.  Sharia asserts that religious government is the only legitimate government and that the ruler has the obligation to kill those who do not believe in Islam. 

Likewise what Joseph is teaching is sharply contrasting to the current “Cancel Culture” which seeks to deprive people of their rights because their views are not acceptable to a certain segment of society.  They seek to force individual and collective conformance with their views by threatening to deprive those who dissent of the safety of their homes and their ability to provide for themselves and their family.

A few other responsibilities called out in Section 133 are:

•         All men should step forward and use their ability in bringing offenders against good laws to punishment.[20]
•         Vigilantism is condemned, “…men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same;”[21]

Invented Rights

Today, the words rights and entitlements are often used interchangeably, and perhaps incorrectly.  Too often our political leaders speak only of entitlements and not of responsibilities.  We are told today that we have a right to affordable health care.  We have a right to a dignified retirement.  We have a right to choose our gender.  These are invented rights, not inalienable ones.  As evidence, note how many governments have existed in relative peace when these so-called rights didn’t exist.  Regardless, if these invented rights done come with commensurate responsibilities, they are not real rights. Instead, they are issues used by power-mongers to enhance their power and wealth at the expense of others.

Rights are wonderful things.  A right bespeaks of an entitlement.  Something which should not be abridged or denied.  It is also an often-misused word today.  Rights or entitlements are used to justify massive transfers of wealth from the hands of those who worked to earn the wealth into the hands of those who want to administer these entitlements.

Throughout history healthcare has often been unavailable no matter how much you were willing to pay for it.  Sometimes, what passed for healthcare, bought by the wealthy, was horrible and counterproductive.  Hospitals in the USA are not allowed to refuse basic, emergency health care to anyone, without regard to their ability to pay for it.  In the past, these treatments were often paid for by charitable organizations or reserve funds of the hospitals set up specifically for this purpose.

Affordable healthcare is a mantra designed to disguise forcing doctors and medical institutions to give up their compensation for the services they provide.

Retirement, dignified or otherwise, has never been a right.  Throughout history, most people were compelled by necessity to work for their food and shelter until death claimed them.  Retirement was a term used to refer to one force leaving a battlefield, usually in defeat.  Pensions from industry or for military service were typically more of a token payment than anything that could keep people housed and fed.  Personal retirement required prudent and successful financial management throughout life.  In most cases retirement plans consisted of having many children who would continue to work the land or business and support their infirm parents and their own children.

During The Great Depression images of aged and infirm people unable to support themselves were used to motivate lawmakers in the USA to shift the responsibility of planning for retirement from individuals to the government.  Wise individuals can look at the Social Security system of the USA and see through the words “Trust Fund” to realize it for the Ponzi Scheme it is.  At some point, such a system will inevitably collapse because it is not built on honest and sustainable financial principles or practices.

Individuals have a responsibility to take measures to provide for their own retirement.  While it is arguable that their children may owe them support in their retirement, their neighbors certainly have no such legal obligation to impoverish themselves to any degree for the benefit of others.  Only the laws of God can, and should, drive us to sacrifice our own means to assist the poor among us, so that they can have the food, shelter, and clothing they need.  Government exists to protect our inalienable rights from predators, not to provide for our shelter and feeding.

The right to choose your gender is something very recent and utterly unscientific.  This notion, concocted for the sole purpose of destroying the nuclear family and societies built on that family, purports that the genetic dictates of biology can somehow be obviated simply by an act of will.  While we all have our rights of conscience, those who believe in things which are demonstrably and invariably false have always been considered irrational and insane.  To believe we can choose our gender, in the face of biological facts to the contrary, is akin to believing we can choose for the world around us to be dark at mid-day simply because we believe it should be nighttime.

These invented rights all have the commonality that they are presented devoid of any responsibilities.  Affordable healthcare is presented as a right without the responsibility to pay for it.  Dignified retirement is presented as a right without the responsibility to manage your own resources and appetites to provide for it.  Gender-preference is presented as a right without the responsibility to acknowledge and accommodate biological reality.

Another current trend is the notion that the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few, or the one.  Progressives today are touting a social doctrine call intersectionality to identify new minorities.  Proponents of Intersectionality push the notion that the rights of those within the categories which overlap must be protected even if it destroys the rights of the individual.  They posit that these group rights are more important than individual rights.

The dictionary defines intersectionality as “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.”

As noted in the definition, each category is assumed to carry with it some elements of discrimination or disadvantage. Advantages which may come from any category, or categories, are discounted, except when attempting to broadly paint another categorical intersection as inherently and uniformly oppressive to others.  Oppression is another way of expressing the notion that someone is interfering with the inalienable rights of another.

The irony of intersectionality is that if you apply enough categories, you eventually will reduce the size of the minority down to a group of one individual[22].  Carrying through their logic to its inevitable conclusion brings us full circle to the notion that government exists to protect the rights of the individual.  In fact, the only meaningful protection of our inalienable rights must be carried out at the individual level, because within any group there are some individuals who suffer from oppression and other individuals who oppress.

Conclusions

An examination of the rights enumerated in this category as unalienable will reveal that they support the underlying, eternal principle of the sacrosanct moral agency of every individual.

The Atoning Sacrifice of Jesus Christ was done for the sole purpose of preserving our agency and making it both real and worthwhile.  When Adam fell, he and all his descendants were forever cut off from the ability to return to God because the justice of God says that no unclean thing can dwell in His presence. There is nothing any of us can do to subvert the justice of that law.  Uncleanliness would be burnt up in the presence of God.  It would be a never-ending torment to be unclean in the presence of God.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ opened an avenue whereby, if we heed the Savior, he will make us clean before we are presented to the Father.  In that cleaned condition, we can dwell with Him forever in happiness and joy.

Every truly inalienable right inevitably brings with it unavoidable responsibilities.

Our unalienable rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness bring with them the unavoidable responsibilities.  Our rights may be gifted to us by God, but as with any gift they bring with them a responsibility to preserve and defend them.  To preserve and protect our rights we must:

•        Not infringe the rights of other individuals
•         Protect, assert, and practice the exercise of our own rights both in private and public
•         Protect the rights of all others both in private and public
•         Support governments which are protecting our rights
•         Abide by the laws of man which are designed to protect individual inalienable rights
•         Do our part to enact and support laws which protect the inalienable rights of all individuals

·       Honor those who are acting in roles expressly needed to protect our rights such as elected officials, judges, magistrates, police, and military

Joseph Smith, and the Founding Fathers both spoke of unalienable rights which come to us from God, meaning we own them and are responsible for our use and preservation of them.  They do not come to us from other men, or from our governments.  Therefore, we cannot utterly delegate our responsibilities for these rights either to our neighbors or our government.  If we accept the rights, we must also own the ultimate responsibility to maintain them.

 

Endnotes

[1] Dictionary.com, Unalienable, as seen 18 November 2021

[2] Locke, John (1988) [1689]. Laslett, Peter (ed.). Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Sec. 87, 123, 209, 222. ISBN 052135448X.

[3] As near as I can equate, indolency is referring to leisurely pursuits, which could be considered equivalent with happiness.

[4] Locke, John (1983) [1689]. Tully, James H. (ed.). A Letter Concerning Toleration. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. p. 26. ISBN 091514560X.

[5] Locke, John (1975) [1689]. Nidditch, Peter H. (ed.). Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Book 2, Chapter 21, Section 51. ISBN 0198245955.

[6] The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981.

[7] Ibid, Section 134, Verse 1

[8] Ibid, Verse 2

[9] US Bill of Rights

[10] Doctrine and Covenants, 134, verse 4

[11] Ibid, verse 11

[12] US Bill of Rights

[13] Ibid, verse 11

[14] Doctrine and Covenants, Section 134, verse 5

[15] Ibid verse 6

[16] Ibid

[17] Ibid, verse 10

[18] Ibid, verse 9

[19] Ibid, verse 4

[20] Ibid, verse 8

[21] Ibid, verse 11

[22] Consider the following intersectionality’s and their effects. If you identify all white males born in a specific year, month, and day, whose grandfather is a naturalized citizen, living in a certain county and town in north-central Montana where the failure of the family business forced them to move to another specific neighborhood, town, and county in western-central Montana during the middle of the second year of elementary school you will find the author stands alone at that intersection as a minority of one.  A minority whose rights should be protected by the government.  A similar intersectional analysis can be performed to identify every individual as a minority group with a membership of exactly one person, except perhaps for identical twins, triplets, etc.

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Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

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