THE CONTINUING VALIDITY OF SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS

Why did the founding fathers of this nation appeal to self-evident truths in declaring their independence from England? Didn't England have the legal right to impose its laws on the people? By what legal or moral authority did our forefathers have the right to rebel?

These are essential questions to keep in mind as both federal and state governments seek to reach more intrusively into the lives of its citizens. The Declaration of Independence appealed to the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Thus, our forefathers trumped the laws of England by appealing to self-evident truths originating in the Creator.

If government at any level is the absolute authority, then the government is totalitarian to one degree or another, regardless of whether it is in a democratic form, because government rule is total and complete. There is no other or ultimate source of authority.

For China, that means that the ruling party may issue whatever laws and edicts they choose, regardless of the suppressive effect on what some would consider to be human rights. If any government is the ultimate source of power, then what right does any other nation have to question the way that government exercises its power? The only moral basis for any nation to object to the way that another nation treats its subjects is that there are universal, self-evident truths and inalienable rights that apply to all people everywhere, and that have their source of authority in something more transcendent than government - namely the Creator.

Thus, when Canada or Sweden takes children from parents because they choose to home-school or because they are too religious, those governments are essentially asserting a totalitarian authority similar to that of China. Such a government is essentially asserting that it is not accountable to any self-evident truths or inalienable rights.

Once government becomes the source of rights, it also becomes the source of restrictions on those rights. With such power, any government may become corrupt and pursue power as a legitimate end in itself. After all, why should government want to tolerate competition from self-evident truths or inalienable rights or a Creator? The public universities of the United States are predominantly controlled by people who believe in the absolute power of government, who have rejected all concepts of self-evident truth, inalienable rights, and a Creator. They are mainly pushing a socialistic model of government on students, because such a model enables control of people by an elite. The promise of equality for all becomes the trojan horse through which rights are ultimate exchanged for totalitarian governmental power.

When government creates rights that are not self-evident and uses those rights to suppress other historically inalienable rights, that have their source in self-evident truths, then that government is tending toward totalitarianism, and has undermined its own authority. The American people need to remember the ultimate source of their rights and reject efforts to expand governmental power beyond the legitimate functions of suppressing evil and encouraging what is good.