Glenn Beck Quotes
If the average citizen thinks God has nothing to do with government, who then creates our rights and what makes them inalienable?
Beck, Glenn. Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government. Threshold Editions, 2009.
This quotation is probably the beginning of the false charge that liberalism always rejects God and divine law. Most liberals, since the term has been used, have been religious and even those who were not did not see liberalism as necessarily antithetical towards religion. However, most doctrines of liberality had toleration and religious freedom as part of its foundation. To authoritarian religious leaders who did not believe in toleration (see {609037}) the very toleration of dissenters is tantamount to dissent. Today, for example, many liberals tolerate atheists and non Christian religions even though most are Christians themselves. To some narrow conservatives, this principle of toleration is therefore equivalent to being against religion. To others, modern liberal belief of separation of church and state is seen as anti religious.
This is a very important political, historical, and philosophical quotation. This is a view that is very common amongst many Americans—especially those who are religious. As a factual matter, it is not clear that ALL the founding fathers personally believed in the creator--God. All the views have never been discerned. However it is almost certain that the majority of the Founders so believed. The complication with taking this viewpoint too literally is that while our rights may have come from God, it is men who determined exactly what rights would be enumerated on our constitution. For example. the original draft of the Constitution did not include, the right to a free press, the right of due process, the right of being free from religious compulsion and others. Yet it passed. Then other men and women wanted more rights added and the Constitution was ratified on condition that the Bill or Rights would be incorporated as the first 10 amendments. There were other rights that were not explicitly mentioned. For example, there is no right to an education mentioned in the Constitution or any of the amendments. Blacks had no rights until additional amendments were passed. And later there was an amendment that denied Americans the right to drink alcohol. Then another that gave the rights back. There are rights that other nations have which we do not—ie the right to medical care. Which if these did God grant and which, not? So even if we assume that every one of the founding fathers not only believed in God, but believed the rights were all God given, we would still be in the practical dilemma of having to specify the language of each right and always to, by amendment, adding additional rights or modifying or even deleting older rights. Many believe that Americans were divinely inspired when we added (or changed) rights. Others, not. However, regardless, we must go through the same procedures of enumerating American rights and amending the constitution. So the process is the same for both those who believe that our rights come from God and those who do not. To change rights, we need the action of Americans divinely inspired or otherwise, but they can and have been changed. For example, before 1963 Americans did not have a right to use birth control devices. After the Supreme Court Griswald v. Conn. We did and now have a right to use birth control devices. The mode that rights are manifested, defined, enumerated and implemented is a political one—one that in our American system allows us all to implement that system whether or not we believe that our rights come from our Creator.
He had written this at the request of Joan van der Capellen, the Dutch revolutionist, to have a Christian theological justification for revolution against the then Dutch monarchy. See {639741} and {639742}.
Glenn Lee Beck is an American conservative political commentator, conspiracy theorist, radio host, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and radio network TheBlaze. He hosts the Glenn Beck Radio Program, a popular talk-radio show nationally syndicated on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts the Glenn Beck television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN, from January 2009 to June 2011 on Fox News and currently airs on TheBlaze. Beck has authored six New York Times–bestselling books.
