Who Gave You the Right?

In his book The Abolition of Man C.S. Lewis uses a mistake in a grammar-school textbook to draw conclusions on the state of culture and education in his society, as well as where it is headed. Drawing from his idea, I'd like to present mine. My husband teaches U.S. History to middle school kids and he was reviewing a kids' reference book on the U.S. Constitution. The textbook goes through the entire Bill of Rights, shows the original text, and documents periods in our history where the specific right was featured. It also lists any Supreme Court rulings that have to do with that right. All in all it's a pretty good book, but my husband noticed something that got us thinking.

The book actually stated that the First Amendment "gave us the right to free, unhindered speech." When we looked back at the actual text of the amendment, on the mirroring page, it said, "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." Now, who gave us the right? The textbook seemed to say that the constitution gave us the right to free speech; but the language of the constitution itself says that congress may not restrict the freedom of speech. The constitution seems to assume that we have the freedom of speech already.

Now this came as a surprise to me, but probably just because I got an insufficient education. The Declaration of Independence says that man was "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." That means that the Founding Fathers believed that civil rights came from God and that congress was not allowed to mess with them. In fact, none of the Bill of Rights actually gives us the right to do anything--it assumes that God has given all people rights and it explains how the federal government may not infringe upon them. If God did give men the right to free speech, then any government that tries to mess with that will ultimately fail.

When we start assuming that the state has given us rights, instead of God granting them, the government can make up any right it chooses. Who's to say stop when we start having a right to abortion, a right to free health care, a right to affordable housing, a right to surf the internet? The UN has already neared the end of that road, and we're not far behind. However, if we assume that God has granted us our rights then we are not allowed to invent just any old right that we choose (in order to justify something we really want). The government that feels that it can grant rights can also take those rights away--then who will we have to complain to?