If Tim Kaine’s right, America’s founders were wrong



Riley Barnes appeared this week before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for his nomination as assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Normally, such a hearing would barely make the news. But then Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) spoke up.

You might remember the junior U.S. senator from Virginia as Hillary Clinton’s failed running mate in 2016. On Wednesday, he revealed he wouldn’t make a very good U.S. history professor either.

If rights come from God, then no politician — not Trump, not Kaine, not anyone — can take them away.

Barnes made a simple and obvious point — one that any elementary school student in a classroom still reading the Declaration of Independence (a rarity these days in public schools) would recognize. He said:

In his first remarks to State Department employees, Secretary [Marco] Rubio emphasized that we are a nation founded on a powerful principle: All men are created equal, because our rights come from God our creator — not from our laws, not from our governments.

That’s almost word-for-word from the Declaration of Independence.

Barnes continued:

We are a nation of individuals, each made in the image of God and possessing an inherent dignity. This is a truth our founders understood as essential to American self-government.

That second point, while not a direct quote from the Declaration, clearly flows from it. We have dignity because we are made by God, not by blind chance. And we have dignity above the rest of creation because we are made in His image, with rational souls and moral responsibility.

Most importantly, Barnes emphasized: “Natural rights are a blessing and an immutable reality.”

Governments change. Officials come and go. But America’s founders wanted human rights grounded in something unchanging. Rights granted by a government can be taken away by a government. Rights given by God cannot. That’s why the Declaration calls them “unalienable.”

The Kaine mutiny

Kaine’s response to Barnes was revealing. He worried that if we say rights come from God, we are on the brink of turning into theocratic Iran after 250 years of freedom from God. He insisted that governments — not God — give us our rights.

This is the logic behind much of the modern left. It explains why leftists defend ending a human life in elective abortion, treat children as property of the state that parents only borrow, and impose endless mandates on citizens — from useless masks to DEI speech codes. If rights come from the government, then the government can take them away whenever it wants.

This moment recalled then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) grilling Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas decades ago about his belief in natural law. “Which natural law?” Biden asked smugly, as if he had just delivered the ultimate gotcha. Like Kaine, Biden only managed to display his ignorance.

Can we know God?

Kaine claims that appealing to God makes America no different from Iran. But this ignores two things:

  1. Christianity and Islam are not the same. Islam teaches that forgiveness comes through obedience to its five pillars. Christianity teaches that justification is by faith in Christ alone; even perfect law-keeping from this day forward cannot erase past sin.
  2. The real issue is knowledge, not theocracy. Can we know the true and living God? Or are we trapped in skepticism, left to rely on politicians’ shifting opinions?

Kaine assumes appeals to God are just private religious opinions with no claim to truth. He insists we must build our laws only on government authority rather than a religious leader. But this skepticism undermines knowing everything else — including government itself.

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Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

If there is no unchanging standard, how does any ruler know what is just or unjust, good or evil? Personal feelings? Evolutionary accidents? Political popularity? That is an incoherent theory of law. And it tells us why Democrats rely so heavily on appeals to emotion rather than sound arguments.

Why this matters

What Kaine and others like him call us to do — unwittingly — is rise to the challenge. We must show that God is real, that His existence is clear, and that rights grounded in Him are unchangeable because they rest on divine reality, not shifting political power.

It’s helpful when Democrats like Kaine stumble so publicly. They expose the intellectual vacuum at the heart of modern secularism. The question for us is whether we will rise to the moment and defend the truths in the Declaration of Independence — truths that remain self-evident because they come from God, not government.

The American project anchors freedom not in government permission slips but in the God who created us. That is what Kaine and the left cannot admit. Because if rights come from God, then no politician — not Trump, not Kaine, not anyone — can take them away. And that truth, still self-evident after nearly 250 years, remains the foundation of American liberty.

Tim Kaine Thinks You’re A Terrorist If You Believe Rights Come From God

The idea that rights come from God, rather than the state, is neither radical nor foreign. It is the foundational principle of the Republic.

Tim Kaine shockingly compares the Declaration of Independence to Iran's theocratic regime: 'Extremely troubling'



Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia failed to understand one of America's basic founding principles and instead likened it to the Iranian regime.

In a Wednesday committee hearing, Kaine insisted that our natural rights are derived from the government, not from God. Kaine went on to say that the notion that our natural rights come from the Creator is "extremely troubling" and compared it to Iran's theocracy.

Unfortunately for Kaine, the founding fathers disagree with him.

"The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator. That's what the Iranian government believes," Kaine said. "It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law [sic] ... and they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator."

"The statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling."

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— (@)

Unfortunately for Kaine, the founding fathers disagree with him.

The Declaration of Independence makes very clear that our natural rights come from God and not from the government, as Kaine suggested. In the second paragraph, the Declaration states that "all men are created equal" and that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Prominent conservatives and politicians were quick to correct Kaine's misunderstanding of our nation's core values, even suggesting that he is "not fit to serve."

"This is a remarkable moment from Tim Kaine," the Daily Wire's Matt Walsh said in a post on X. "He just announced that the core foundational principle of our country, affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, is 'extremely troubling' and 'theocratic.' He should be immediately removed from office. Anyone who rejects our nation's foundational principles is obviously not fit to serve."

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Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

"Our rights don’t come from government or the DNC. They come from God," Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a post on X. "[Tim Kaine], I suggest the Dems go back and read the words of our Founding Fathers."

Kaine's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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America First foreign policy gets an Office of Natural Rights



Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio executed a sweeping restructuring plan to implement an America First foreign policy in the State Department. Although many offices were either eliminated or combined, a few new ones were created. Among them is the Office of Natural Rights.

The very name has drawn the usual harrumphing from establishment voices who insist that “human rights” is the only proper diplomatic term. While human rights terminology is significant, the State Department has long been blind to an even more critical truth behind such language: Without human nature, human rights don’t exist.

Without reference to the inherent limitations of our shared human nature, the argument over rights becomes a mere yelling match.

If our rights are not grounded in a shared nature, they are founded simply on the will of the government. If the government grants us rights at one particular moment, it may arbitrarily retract them at the next.

The Trump administration has observed this phenomenon with great alarm. Vice President JD Vance argued that this is Europe’s greatest threat in his now-famous Munich speech, and the State Department weighed in with an official article shortly thereafter.

U.S. officials are rightly concerned about natural rights abroad — not because they are Republicans, but rather because they are Americans. The recognition of natural rights is the foundation of our own government.

Conflicting rights

Our founding fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to uphold the truth that “all men are created equal” and are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Today, the founders’ fledgling nation is the oldest constitutional republic on earth and the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous world order. While conflict has not been eradicated — and never will be — America stands as a beacon of liberty due to our status as a natural-rights republic.

A right is a powerful thing. It is an absolute claim that cannot be questioned or curtailed except in the most dire and limited circumstances. Any law that denies a natural right is unjust on its face. Politicians who threaten natural rights threaten society itself.

Nonetheless, over the last several decades, the concept of rights has become untethered from its grounding in human nature, leading to an inflationary crisis of rights. Today, we suffer from violent clashes over the pecking order of a multitude of conflicting rights people claim for themselves — often at the expense of others.

Without reference to the inherent limitations of our shared human nature, the argument over rights becomes a mere yelling match, devoid of moral content and determined by sheer power. That is why the fiercest proponents of novel rights always impose them on society through force, such as angry protests and public shaming rather than true debate.

Such imposition poses a threat to the free exercise of genuine rights in our societies. True natural rights are, like the rest of nature, ordered and mutually compatible. They rarely conflict and do so only at the margins. The introduction of so-called human rights destroys that balance and often pits new “rights” directly against the old.

Free speech in particular has been trampled in many countries in order to make room for an oppressive and dictatorial version of “tolerance.” Just ask the 12,000 Brits imprisoned for “hate speech” every year. Foundational rights to person, property, and self-defense are likewise under threat from diversity, equity, and inclusion fanatics who are eager to enact judgment on the basis of race rather than character.

Rooting out imposters

We urgently need to distinguish between true natural rights and the imposter rights pushed on us by fractious groups pursuing their own ends. The following three criteria can help distinguish genuine rights from modern imposters: functional universality, necessity by nature, and corresponding duty.

First, functional universality means that the right can be secured without vast government interference. Free speech is universally attainable; free college less so.

Second, necessity by nature means all people must be free to do what nature has designed them for: working to provide for themselves and their children and associating freely with others for the purpose of mutual support, inquiry, and worship. Though just government is built on the recognition of man’s nature, it cannot promise to all what cannot be practically provided to all.

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Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Finally, all authentic rights have corresponding duties. The right to private property implies the duty to respect others’ property as well. Any right with no corresponding duty is just a handout by a different name.

By applying these and similar criteria, the Office of Natural Rights will bring crucial clarity to our foreign policy and end the tyranny of special interests masquerading as human rights. So-called rights that do not fit this framework might involve good and desirable ends for individuals and society — but they cannot be allowed to claim the mantle and privileges of a natural right.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

The crown laughed at our Declaration — but America got the last word



John Adams believed America’s independence should be marked with “pomp, shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations.” He got his wish. Within a year of the Declaration’s signing on July 4, 1776, celebrations had become a colonies-wide tradition.

The reaction across the Atlantic, however, struck a very different tone.

This wasn’t just about taxes or trade policy. It was about the belief that free men could govern themselves.

The British response was not stunned disbelief or deep introspection. It was mockery — and, ultimately, a grave miscalculation.

The war didn’t begin with the Declaration. A year earlier, in August 1775, King George III had already issued a Proclamation of Rebellion. The crown had stopped viewing the dispute as a matter of political redress. It now saw open revolt.

But the Declaration shifted the terms. What landed in London by mid-August 1776 wasn’t a petition or compromise. It was a bold, philosophical argument for national divorce. In British eyes, it was treason.

A declaration dismissed

British newspapers published the Declaration widely. The London Chronicle printed it, along with other major papers. But few took it seriously. To them, it was just another provocation from unruly colonials.

The elite mocked Thomas Jefferson’s talk of “unalienable rights.” Gen. William Howe, sent to crush the rebellion, called the Declaration “extravagant and inadmissible.” The British state responded accordingly.

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LeoPatrizi via iStock/Getty Images

Within weeks, more than 32,000 British troops — including 8,000 German mercenaries — sailed into New York Harbor. It was the largest overseas force Britain had ever fielded. Howe aimed to stamp out the uprising before year’s end.

The campaign nearly succeeded.

George Washington’s army suffered defeat after defeat, narrowly escaping destruction on Long Island. By autumn, the American position looked hopeless.

France’s revenge

But while Britain saw a dying rebellion, France saw a chance to strike.

Even before 1776, French agents had begun quietly arming the colonists. The Declaration gave them a pretext to go farther. Though Louis XVI had no love for democracy, he did have a long memory — and Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War had come at France’s expense.

With the Declaration in hand, France could cloak strategic revenge in the language of liberty.

Formal recognition wouldn’t come until 1778, but the shift had begun. French arms, cash, and eventually troops transformed the conflict. What began as a colonial revolt became an international war.

Back in London, the American cause began to attract sympathy in Parliament.

In 1777, future British Prime Minister William Pitt took to the House of Lords to warn his colleagues: “You cannot conquer" America.

He was right.

Not just a rebellion — a revolution

What Britain failed to grasp was that America hadn’t simply declared independence. It had declared a new theory of government: one grounded in consent, not inheritance.

The crown mistook revolutionary conviction for rhetorical flourish. Britain's government believed the colonists would fold in the face of overwhelming force. But this wasn’t just about taxes or trade policy. It was about the belief that free men could govern themselves.

Ideas like that can stand up to empires — even the most powerful in the world.

Trump fulfills his oath while Newsom and Bass shield foreign felons



Los Angeles looked like a war zone this week. Rioters — roughly 1,000 strong — torched vehicles and hurled rocks, concrete, and fireworks at law enforcement officers. They slashed tires and set fires in the streets. In the middle of it all, an American flag burned on the pavement as a mob urinated on it and screamed, “F**k Trump!”

This wasn’t spontaneous outrage. It was an organized assault on law, order, and national sovereignty — an eruption years in the making. And it happened in a city governed by officials who have spent decades dismantling the very structures meant to defend their constituents.

The United States owes rights and protections to its citizens — not to those who break its laws and exploit its generosity.

This riot didn’t begin last week. It began when Joe Biden threw open the nation’s borders and undermined the rule of law.

As rioters burn the American flag in downtown Los Angeles, state and local officials burn the constitutions that once protected their citizens.

The Constitution’s preamble lays out the government’s core mission: to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and secure liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Article II, Section 3 provides that the president will ensure the laws “be faithfully executed.”

Contrary to what we’ve seen in Los Angeles, the duty of our elected officials is to defend the rule of law — not to support those who challenge it. That responsibility ultimately rests with the president: to protect the safety and security of the United States and its citizens.

Biden lit the fuse

Biden abandoned that responsibility. During his four years in office, he permitted more than 12 million illegal crossings, including at least 500,000 individuals with criminal records in their home countries.

He didn’t just neglect the law — he defied it. And the consequences have been deadly. More than 300,000 Americans died from fentanyl poisoning during the Biden years. Illegal alien gangs now operate trafficking networks in every major U.S. city. Innocent Americans have been raped, murdered, and assaulted because the federal government refused to act.

That’s not failed policy — it’s failed leadership. And the Constitution offers no cover for it.

Trump restores constitutional order

The voters responded in November. Donald J. Trump returned to the White House in January with a clear mandate: re-establish sovereignty, restore order, and protect the American people. That mandate extends to the men and women he’s appointed to carry it out — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and ICE Director Todd Lyons.

Their job is not theoretical. It’s real, it’s active, and it’s happening now. While California officials obstruct federal agents and give shelter to violent mobs, Trump’s team is working to reassert lawful authority — starting with immigration enforcement.

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Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

You might think California’s leaders would welcome help as their cities descend into chaos. Instead, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) demand that ICE back off and the National Guard go home. Rather than cooperate with federal law enforcement, they’ve chosen to protect the very forces tearing their communities apart.

They might want to reread their founding documents.

Article I, Section 1 of the California Constitution states:

All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

Moreover, the Los Angeles City Charter grants broad authority to protect life, liberty, and property. Yet, Bass and Newsom are using that power to shield foreign criminals from lawful arrest.

Sanctuary for criminals

Among those ICE sought to detain last week:

  • Armando Ordaz, convicted of sexual battery and affiliated with a known gang.
  • Victor Aguilar, previously deported and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.
  • Jesus Morales, a wanted felon convicted of alien smuggling conspiracy.
  • Jose Ortiz, convicted of trafficking large quantities of cocaine.
  • Cuong Chanh Phan, convicted of second-degree murder.

Don't mistake those men for “asylum seekers.” They are predators. And California’s sanctuary policies shield them.

The Declaration of Independence reminds us that legitimate government exists “to secure these rights” — not for foreigners in defiance of the law but for citizens who consent to be governed under it. That is the basis of our system. That is what’s at stake.

This government belongs to Americans

The United States owes rights and protections to its citizens — not to those who break its laws and exploit its generosity. Yet, Democrat-run cities across the country have flipped that principle on its head.

New York. Chicago. Portland. Seattle. Los Angeles. City after city refuse to enforce basic law and order and make a mockery of their charters.

This must end.

Every foreign national who entered this country illegally must come under the jurisdiction of the federal and state constitutions — and face removal. Let them return home and wave their own flags instead of burning ours in the streets.

Donald Trump and his administration understand what’s at stake. The Constitution demands action. America is blessed to have a president willing to deliver it.

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