CNN Anchor: ‘Our Rights Do Not Come From God’

cnsnews ^ | Feb. 12, 2015 | Curtis Kalin

[PROCON]

During a heated discussion over gay marriage, CNN morning Anchor Chris Cuomo opined that the unalienable rights endowed to all Americans do not come from God.

Cuomo was debating Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Near the end of the back-and-forth and after Moore argued that rights cannot be handed down by men, Cuomo blurted out:

“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man... That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”

[PGR88]

They come from man... That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.

So all we need to do then is community-organize and agitate men to agree that we should take money from those who have more than we, kill Jews, marry their pets - or anything we want! Its so simple!

[DiogenesLamp]

Besides the 18th and 22nd Amendments, what part of our Constitution comes from the Bible?

All of it. It even says so at the end.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth

[Alex Murphy]

During a heated discussion over gay marriage, CNN morning Anchor Chris Cuomo opined that the unalienable rights endowed to all Americans do not come from God. Cuomo was debating Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Near the end of the back-and-forth and after Moore argued that rights cannot be handed down by men, Cuomo blurted out:

“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man... That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”

PFL

[muir_redwoods]

Our rights are inherent and inalienable. They are ours from the moment of our creation. All humans, not just Americans have these rights but it is America that was founded to protect (not grant) these rights.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

Chris, read the Declaration of Independence. I’m quite sure he comes from an elite Ivy League school and Scott Walker dropped out of college. These are the same people that insinuate you’re dumb if you don’t have a college degree...

[Beowulf9]

Boy, you made a really good point there! Thank you for that.

[Maceman]

“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man... That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”

See, this is what happens to people who spend too much time in college. Guy has a law degree from Fordham University, and as the above statement shows, he is confused even about the distinction between rights and laws.

And he obviously knows little or nothing about America's founding and history.

[onyx]

Read “The Declaration of Independence.”

[onyx]

You watched CNN!

Well, in this case, GOOD!

[loveliberty2]

A line from a Kurt Kaiser hymn begins, "It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing."

Perhaps the same might be said for exposing Americans like Cuomo to the uniquely American idea contained in its Declaration of Independence from the power of any individual or group of imperfect persons who may believe as he does.

Our Constitution embodied a UNIQUE IDEA. Nothing like it had ever been done before. The power of the idea was in the recognition that people's rights are granted directly by the Creator - not by the state - and that the people, then, and only then, grant rights to government. The concept is so simple, yet so very fundamental and far-reaching.

America's founders embraced a previously unheard-of political philosophy which held that people are "...endowed BY THEIR CREATOR with certain unalienable rights.." This was the statement of guiding principle for the new nation, and, as such, had to be translated into a concrete charter for government. The Constitution of The United States of America became that charter.

Other forms of government, past and present, rely on the state as the grantor of human rights. America's founders, however, believed that a government made up of imperfect people exercising power over other people should possess limited powers. Through their Constitution, they wished to "secure the blessings of liberty" for themselves and for posterity by limiting the powers of government. Through it, they delegated to government only those rights they wanted it to have, holding to themselves all powers not delegated by the Constitution. They even provided the means for controlling those powers they had granted to government.

This was the unique American idea. Many problems we face today result from a departure from this basic con­cept. Gradually, other "ideas" have influenced legislation which has reversed the roles and given government greater and greater power over individuals. Early generations of Americans pledged their lives to the cause of in­dividual freedom and limited government and warned, over and over again, that eternal vigilance would be required to preserve that freedom for posterity.

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

Essay reprints available here.

[faithhopecharity]

if he thinks his rights don’t come from God, he should move to a country where that is the rule

(Dear CNN, if your rights don’t come from God, then you don’t have any rights. Because any govt that gives you any “rights” can just take them away from you anytime it wishes. Such “right” are not rights, they are privileges maybe but not rights. Americans have RIGHTS.)

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

No surprise that media creatures hold such views.

[samtheman]

Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.

Actually, we can collectively agree to LIMIT people's rights (and the "collective" doesn't have to be any larger than a powerful dictator and his powerful clique) but that is mere criminality and has nothing to do with the actual Rights of Man which all humans deserve equally, regardless of what horrible "collective" we happen to find ourselves trapped in by birth or circumstance.

[PROCON]

You watched CNN!

Well, in this case, GOOD!

I try to keep up with leftist opinions; it's tortured entertainment.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Chrissie Cuomo. ROTFL! Moron Alert!

[M Kehoe]

Chris Cuomo's wisdom vs. the Founding Father's wisdom? No contest.

5.56mm

[OneWingedShark]

If your rights don't come from a higher power and come from men, then men can take them away without a care.

This is the whole of collectivism in a nutshell; it is what the Statists want because their god, the state, is quite obviously that higher power which can grant rights/license and punish.

[Billthedrill]

This is a central problem in political and moral philosophy - in the absence of God, where is the source of moral sanction? It turns out there isn't one. In the absence of God there is nihilism - Nietzsche pointed that out, and his attempt to transfer that source of moral sanction to man required a Superman, an Ubermensch that simply does not exist. In the absence of God we are morally lost, and any insistence that one should "be good for goodness' sake" is a laughable pretension. People aren't, and that's an observable fact.

The foundation of representative government is that rights are not negotiable, that their very inflexibility acts as a guard on the tyranny of the majority, and that when they become a matter of consensus instead of foundational, tyranny may be slow or fast but it is inevitable. That is the current American political dynamic, and it is no academic matter.

[reg45]

To them, creation is a random occurrence.

[RJS1950]

“If they come from man, they are not rights at all.”

Where did you get that idea?

For starters, the statements of rights given by God come from the Declaration of Independence. While it is a founding document, it is not a document proscribing any law. The Constitution is the document that specifies our form of government, how the government will run, and the specifics of our laws. The use of the words of the DoI preamble as if they were the law or had some force of law is ridiculous and arguing the premise that our rights come directly from God is a waste of time. Our rights and our laws come from the Constitution which was framed and agreed to by men, regardless of their individual beliefs of where the rights come from.

The Constitution was written and agreed to by the founding states based on the particular beliefs of the framers, but it does not specify that these laws are given to us specifically by God. Men did indeed create our government and laws and the states specifically adopted that Constitution as the basis of governing the union of states.

They are from man and they are rights agreed to and upheld by all of the states in the union. Where the framers considered these rights to have come from is not an issue but what is at issue is the strict enforcement and adherence to the laws and rights laid out in the Constitution.

There are specific ways to alter the laws and rights specified in the Constitution and by bypassing these procedures or ignoring them some men have decided to try to get away with throwing the parts of the Constitution they don’t like away. This is the real issue at hand. I doubt, despite hope, that God will step in and hand us back our Constitutional rights once they are lost.

Our rights come from the framers and they left them to us to protect and defend. Unfortunately, too many today no longer want to take any risk to maintain or restore that Constitution and take down those who would impose tyranny.