Conservatism and Natural Law/Rights
By Bill Dillon
27 July 2003
Literature on natural law and its corollary, natural rights, abounds. A remarkable portion of it has been published recently and in the past decade particularly. I believe this resurgence is in large part due to the moral vacuum of our time. A vacuum the Republican party can fill.
Natural law has been described from many points of view but its essence is that of individual morality. Natural law is largely rejected by the modern liberal establishment because it chooses not to go where it leads them.
I ran into this when I submitted a Florida bill to get the Declaration of Independence into the public schools. While Gov Bush did sign it into law last year thereby establishing Celebrate Freedom Week, the Florida ACLU violently opposed it and threatened the Senate Education Committee with a lawsuit should the bill pass.
Why does the ACLU and similar groups oppose it? Partly because the Declaration of Independence is premised on "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" with its natural rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as being endowed by "the Creator." In short, natural law.
To many - not all - natural lawyers, the source of natural law is God. Romans 2-14,15 says "For when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another."
Natural law is written on the heart. Its imprint is faint and easily ignored. We see the entire political correctness and post-modern movement seeking to muffle the heart's moral message. As a result, our society is becoming less functional daily. Functional families are fewer; illegitimate births are on the rise and anti-family movements such as homosexuals are gaining public credence.
One route to retrieve our lost morals is to resurrect our natural law Founding Principles. The Republican Party should adopt a program to define the Founding moral basis of conservatism and conduct its own training program to, again, resurrect our Founding truths. Such a program would be an unassailable beacon of light guiding our ship of state and public to safe harbor. It would devastate liberal opposition and show the PC movement to be the fraud it is.
The GOP could adopt a vigorous education program in the schools and public discourse. Again, Florida requires the following 55 words from the Declaration be recited during Celebrate Freedom Week "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
The law also requires lessons to be taught during that week to elucidate its words and ideals. Local Republicans could offer their considerable talents to augment instruction during that week and beyond. There are numerous other venues to reach our budding citizens including high school Republican clubs.
Property rights is a natural right that the GOP could use as a standard to judge legislation. Our entire frugal tax program rests on the idea that undue taxation to benefit select groups is legal plunder. The Federalist Papers is replete with the idea of "taxation without representation" is tyranny.
An entire school of economics, the Austrians, seems to be based on the natural laws of human action. Economics, then, can also be seen as not a confabulation of charts and curves, but as real life result of natural law in action through individual initiative.
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.
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