Christopher F. Rufo  ⚔️

On what grounds can anyone say “god” grants us rights? The entity that may be said to grant rights is the one that may protect them or take them away. I don’t see any god doing that. For better or worse, in our world, the closest thing to a “rights-granting”entity is the state.https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1357743742564749312 …

That rights are "God-given" is just a lie people tell themselves so it sounds more concrete, permanent, and profound. Certain rights may align with human nature and thus feel very central to our being and may be somewhat universally desired. But we don't need to invoke God.

The point is that natural ("God-given") rights are higher principles than the State, and the State must respect them. Otherwise, the State can determine moral law/rights with no recourse. This is what happened in 20th-century totalitarian regimes ("nothing outside the State").

The reference to "God" is a reference to the natural order and human nature as it can be understood through reason. The Founders were not saying God as the Christian God, but in reference to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."

Yeah, I can make a secular interpretation of "God-given" as akin to some innate desire of human nature that should be fostered.

The "laws" of nature are absolutely brutal and are nothing that we should imitate. However, humans have certain desires--autonomy, community, romantic relationships--that we should seek to promote. At least, that's my view. But I am not a fan of the "natural rights" tradition.

Yeah, appeals to nature in this way are a double-edged sword. You can use them to defend, as you mention, desires like autonomy, community, etc., but they can also be used to defend things like greed and tribalism.

And rape, murder, war....et cetera.... I think of rights the way I think of rules in baseball. They are convenient fictions. There is nothing metaphysically real about them. But they can be useful to defend some policy or another that promotes human flourishing.