Brad Stine's recent piece on "rights" is good ... VERY good.

He does, however, miss one key point. And he misses it with this statement:

The truth of the matter is we do indeed possess these "rights", what isn't true is that they are intrinsic to our nature. No the truth is we don't actually "have" ANY rights in America. The "rights" we do have have been given to us! The "rights" you have to speak freely was given to you by people who DIED speaking freely. The "right" you have to worship freely here without the concern for coercian or jailtime was given to you by people who left their native home to hand you that privilige.

This statement flies in the face of the concept of God-given unalienable rights as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

It is a basic tenet of the concept that is America that these rights are, in fact, intrinsic to our nature. We are endowed with them by our Creator.

Do I think for one minute that Brad Stine is trying to tell us he disbelieves in America as envisioned by the Founders? Not at all. What is probably at work in Brad's thought process here is the simple fact that these rights are ours as long as we have the resolve to defend them. If our soldiers weren't willing to stand up to those interested in taking away those rights, we would definitely not have them. We are endowed with these rights by our Creator, but that same Creator expects us to pay for them with blood.

I hate war but humanity has proven we can't exist without it. You can protest war in America only because people who fought in war gave you the privilige. My point is that we should be beyond grateful for all the "rights" we possess as Americans; but perhaps we should all be more careful about flippantly utilizing the word "rights" as though this is common to man.

Everyone hates war, and we should be "beyond grateful" for our rights. We should be thankful both to the Creator and those whose blood has been spilled for those rights.

While rights are common to man, the recognition of those rights is not, and for the rights of those people we should also be champions.

RWR