Below is my column in The Hill on the controversial remarks of Sen. Tim Kaine (D. Va.) denouncing a nominee who believed in natural law and the concept of God-given rights. By the end of the hearing, Kaine effectively lumped Alexander Hamilton with Ayatollah Khomeini in his statement at the committee hearing.
Here is the column:
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) this week warned the American people that a Trump nominee for a State Department position was an extremist, cut from the same cloth as the Iranian mullahs and religious extremists.
Riley Barnes, nominated to serve as assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, revealed his dangerous proclivities to Kaine in his opening statement when he said that “all men are created equal because our rights come from God, our creator; not from our laws, not from our governments.”
It was a line that should be familiar to any citizen — virtually ripped from the Declaration of Independence, our founding document that is about to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
Yet Kaine offered a very surprising response in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
“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,” he said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia (sic) law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. They do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
In my forthcoming book celebrating the 250th anniversary, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I detail how the Declaration of Independence (and our nation as a whole) was founded on a deep belief in natural laws coming from our Creator, not government.
That view is captured in the Declaration, which states, “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.”
Kaine represents Virginia, the state that played such a critical role in those very principles that he now associates with religious fanatics and terrorists.
In fact, Kaine’s view did exist at the founding — and it was rejected. Alexander Hamilton wrote that “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
Although the Framers were clear, Kaine seemed hopelessly confused. He later insisted that “I’m a strong believer in natural rights, but I have a feeling if we were to have a debate about natural rights in the room and put people around the table with different religious traditions, there would be some significant differences in the definitions of those natural rights.”
This country was founded on core, shared principles of natural law, including a deep commitment to individual rights against the government. The government was not the source but the scourge of individual rights.
This belief in preexisting rights was based on such Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke who believed that, even at the beginning when no society existed, there was law, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one,” he wrote. “And reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind.”
Note that a natural law can also be based on a view of the inherent rights of human beings — a view of those rights needed to be fully human. Like divinely ordained rights, these are rights (such as free speech) that belong to all humans, regardless of the whim or want of a given government. They are still not “rights [that] come from our laws or our governments.”
The danger of legal positivism is that what government giveth, government can take away. Our prized unalienable rights become entirely alienable if they are merely the product of legislatures and courts.
It also means that constitutional protections or even the constitutional system itself is discardable, like out-of-fashion tricorn hats. As discussed in the book, a new generation of Jacobins is rising on the American left, challenging our constitutional traditions. Commentator Jennifer Szalai has denounced what she called “Constitution worship” and argued that “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us. A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
That chorus includes establishment figures such as Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the Berkeley Law School and author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
Other law professors, such as Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale, have called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
That “reclamation” is easier if our rights are based not in natural law, but rather in the evolving priorities of lawmakers like Kaine. Protections then become not the manifestations of human rights, but of rights invented by humans.
Kaine’s view — that advocates of natural law are no different from mullahs applying Sharia law — is not just ill-informed but would have been considered by the founders as constitutionally blasphemous.
He is, regrettably, the embodiment of a new crisis of faith in the foundations of our republic on the very eve of its 250th anniversary. This is a crisis of faith not just in our Constitution, but in each other as human beings “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and a best-selling author whose forthcoming“Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” explores the foundations and the future of American democracy.
The Dim Party is all stupid people, all the time.
There’s a lot of money to made as a pastor
Check out this fiery sermon from pastor TD Jakes…It’s money in the bank. The money is coming. Praise the Lord.
What do pastors do with god’s money? 💰
Top of the list are buying jets.
Pastor Kenneth Copeland has a few jets and is a certified pilot.
Net worth around $760 million dollars.
Kenneth Copeland, a prosperity gospel televangelist, is a famous preacher known for his use of private jets, which he claims are necessary for his ministry to avoid the “demonic environment” of commercial flights. Other prominent preachers who have used private jets include Jesse Duplantis, Joyce Meyer, and Creflo A. Dollar.
So, a jet is a good thing when it comes to feeding the masses a full helping of Taylor Swift, but not when it comes to feeding their souls?
Stfu stooge.
Well stooge, a pastor who has $760 million and a flock of sheep, who does not own their souls. Now go ask Taylor Swift’s football jock’s fiancée. Be careful this football jock and his brother might kick the shit out of you.
Stfu stooge.
Lmao i’m scared
Well stooge, a pastor who has $760 million and a flock of sheep, does not own their souls. Now go ask Taylor Swift’s football jock’s fiancée.
Stfu stooge.
What a stooge, he posted it twice.
“He posted it twice”…..I posted 1 time you crack head!
Well stooge, Taylor Swift’s concerts command a high price. Just to get a seat in the first few rows will cost thousands of dollars.
It’s like a burlesque show with Taylor Swift wearing those skimpy outfits. Take it off, take it all off.
Stfu stooge.
Buying and selling takes many forms.
As I recall, it’s Kaine’s buddies that defend and lionize jihadists. Talk about chutzpah. The Democrat Party is sick to the bone.
@Diogenes
Yup. And they really do think we are stupid enough to believe them. That isn’t going to fly anymore.
Turley, you may need to offer a civics lesson to your readership. They don’t understand that the purpose of Congress is to make law.
Natural law is not the sole source of our rights. I would assume this truth is self-evident, but perhaps I am giving your readership too much credit.
But don’t take it from me, here’s James Madison:
“In some instances they assert those rights which are exercised by the people in forming and establishing a plan of government. In other instances, they specify those rights which are retained when particular powers are given up to be exercised by the legislature. In other instances, they specify positive rights, which may seem to result from the nature of the compact. Trial by jury cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from the social compact which regulates the action of the community, but is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-existent rights of nature. In other instances they lay down dogmatic maxims with respect to the construction of the government; declaring, that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches shall be kept separate and distinct: Perhaps the best way of securing this in practice is to provide such checks, as will prevent the encroachment of the one upon the other.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0126
His example here is trial by Jury, which is NOT a natural right but a positive right. The Founders believed that the creation of positive rights can be essential to protecting life, liberty, and property. Obviously, this is the social compact called the American justice system, in which we live.
Trial by jury is a law that supports the natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as ordained by THE PEOPLE.
Trial by Jury is a right. Not just a law which is the point he was making. How is that a natural law? How about the right to vote? Is that a natural law as well?
Trial by jury is a right in support of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and was guaranteed by THE PEOPLE to themselves in the BIll of Rights. Same as 1 and 2A
It was not granted by Congress.
Try again?
Now George, tell us the definition of perjury, again?
It was a [POSITIVE] right in support of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It was created by a government, specifically the FIRST CONGRESS.
Wrong. It was “created”, as you use the term, mostly by James Madison.
However, it was only written by him. So it was written by Congress.
It already existed as a natural law of liberty.
It was approved and guaranteed to themselves by THE PEOPLE.
It was NOT granted by Congress.
“It already existed as a natural law of liberty.”
How is trial by jury a natural law?
“It was approved and guaranteed to themselves by THE PEOPLE.
It was NOT granted by Congress.”
Congress was given the power to create by the people and “by the people” meant those privileged enough to decide for themselves what the “the people” deserved. Therefore Congress granted those rights. They can take them away just a easily. The Japanese-Americans found that out during WW2. Congress didnt’ care much about “natural rights” then. They can certainly do it again. In fact it’s already happening again with immigration crackdowns.
Congressional amendments are by THE PEOPLE. Not Congress.
Come on george, even you are bright enough to get it.
Congress cannot take away the inalienable (natural) right of trial by jury.
Nice try though.
Congress ARE the people. “We the People” refers to Congress. This is a constitutional republic where we elect representatives to Represent the people. Congress calls itself “We the People” Government often refers itself as “the people” Like “the people of the state of Texas” they mean their legislature. This is basic civics. You’re twisitng it to fit your flawed logic.
Wrong. The US Congress is not “the people”.
The people are the states or more precisely the citizens of the several sovereign states. Basic civics. They are indeed represented by their state legislatures or convention.
You dont get your own definitions.
I dont care what you think congress calls itself.
We the people was before there was a Congress
We the people created the congress in article 2 of the Constitution
Congress didnt create itself, dum dum.
Congress can only PROPOSE an amendment. They cannot ratify it. Only the people can.
Very simple.
We the people, predates congress.
Courts can deprive you of your liberty, or even your life. A jury of one’s peers is an important safeguard, a rigorous form of due proces, against such deprivation.
You’re an obedient little George Soros drone, deflecting from Kaine’s remarks as criticized by Professor Turley, in which Kaine said none of our rights are given by the Creator, and if we believed otherwise we’d be the same as Iran’s mullahs.
Professor Turley also criticizes the broader anti-Constitution movement among law faculty.
Where did Kaine say that?
KAINE: “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,” he said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia (sic) law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities.
He didn’t say NONE of our rights are natural rights. He was responding to Barnes, who said doesn’t think any rights come from the government. Look at Barnes’ transcript.
You are literally making things up.
Nope, not making anything up. You quoted part of it yourself. Here’s what the above article quotes:
“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,” he said. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia (sic) law and targets Sunnis, Bahá’ís, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities. They do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”
So Kaine’s position is: if we believe that all people, including of course all religious minorities, have unalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness – meaning that no action of government can legitimately deprive anyone of such rights – then we will somehow become like Iran in depriving people of those rights through acts of government? Explain how that makes any sense. It is exactly backwards.
You clearly didn’t listen to Kaine’s testimony.
https://www.senate.gov/isvp/?auto_play=false&comm=foreign&filename=foreign090325&poster=https://www.foreign.senate.gov/assets/images/video-poster.png&stt=0
Around the 1:42 mark.
Kaine says he is a “strong believer in natural rights.”
He is responding DIRECTLY to the ridiculous statement from Barnes that none of our rights come from law and government. That is what he finds “extremely troubling.”
His position is the same as James Madison – who understood that the essence of the Lockean social compact is that we relinquish certain of our natural rights and we receive, in return, more effectual protection for certain of our rights, plus the enjoyment of positive rights, that is, rights created by the action of political society.
For example, we surrender a certain portion of our natural liberty to be American citizens. To enjoy the protection of a fire department, we must surrender a portion of our income as taxes. This is the social compact in a nutshell.
Barnes doesn’t think that any of our rights are created by law or government.
But Madison clarified at the First Congress that a bill of rights would specify two types of rights: those “which are are retained when particular powers are given up to be exercised by the Legislature” and “positive rights” like trial by jury “which cannot be considered as a natural right, but a right resulting from a social compact.”
Natural rights are rights human beings possess in a state of nature – principally ownership of one’s own body and the product of one’s labors, and the right to use violence against others to punish violations of the law of nature. Importantly these natural rights do not necessarily survive into civil society; some are “retained” and others are “surrendered” in an exchange for greater security in those that are retained. “Positive rights” are rights not enjoyed in the state of nature. “Retained rights” comprise only a subset of natural rights, which survive the social compact.
Kaine understands this – because, as he notes in his testimony – what everyone in the room deems their “natural rights” may differ – it is laws and government, which memorialize the subset of natural rights which are RETAINED natural rights in the social compact that is America. Without laws and government, there is no way to know memorialize the surviving natural rights that exist in our social compact.
Listen to Kaine’s statement carefully. He speaks as if the Declaration of Independence is wrong.
“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, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends …”
The Declaration is crystal clear: rights come from the Creator first, and government exists to secure those rights. Kaine was intentionally playing with words to blur that order. Kaine turned the founding principle upside down, which makes him dead wrong and dangerous.
“who said doesn’t think any rights come from the government.”
Says the guy who just made that up
The Constitution was not created by Congress, you moron.
The Constitution was created by THE PEOPLE.
The congress was created by THE PEOPLE in the same document.
The bill of rights was a GUARANTEE OF RIGHTS BY THE PEOPLE amended the Constitution by THE PEOPLE.
Praytell, how did the Bill of Rights become part of our Constitution?
(the FIRST CONGRESS amended it.)
For those keeping score at home, the First Congress is…. a government.
Wrong.
The PEOPLE amended it.
As they must do with all amendments.
Yikes.
Do you get that??? The Congress didnt grant a goddam thing.
The PEOPLE guaranteed themselves those rights, which they already possessed. They werent granted by the “government”.
^^^^^Don’t bother arguing with this froot loop. He’s already stuck in circular logic trap. He will never accept anything other than his circular logic.
Says the stooge who insists on the circular logic that we the people created a government so it could grant us the rights we were already entitled to.
But the Congressional based rights that you speak of are based on the natural rights, are they not?
Exactly
Not all of them.
What natural right guarantees $X to the indigent each money for food, or $Y for the elderly in support of social security?
These are positive rights, created by law.
The Founders believed that positive rights can be created, which support the protection of life, liberty, happiness, etc. Trial by Jury being the example Madison uses.
Those are privileges. Entitlements. Not natural rights.
Kaine didnt make a distinction.
He used iran leaders as an example. They dont believe in natural rights. Thats the dumbest statement ever.
Memo from George Soros to mindless drones:
Look, people, Senator Kaine said some really stupid shyt, and now, dang, Professor Turley wrote about it. Here’s the strategy from the boss man, which is me by the way, yours truly, the hansomest guy in the world. But I digress. Here it is: deflect, confuse, blow smoke. For example, even though Turley’s article is not about what the nominee said, shift the focus to what the nominee said. That will divert people from talking about what Kaine said . . . and from discussing the anti-constitution law professors Turley mentions – who just happen to be one of our proudest achievements here at Commie HQ, by the way. Heh heh, that was my brainchild. Get this, and I’m suppressing a laugh here folks, I kid you not: law professors actually attacking the Constitution, and then of course we throw cocktail parties at which they get their backs slapped as doing a great job. I mean really, that’s a good as our next objective: veterinary school professors for the abolition of pets, medical school professors who suggest not treating patients, flat-earther geology professors, business school professors for Communism. You get the idea. FWIW, we’ve got quite a few of these in the works, especially the B-school profs for Communism.
OldManFromKS,
HHAHAHAHAHA! That was great!
So, if I understand Tim correctly, does he mean that before there was government, or if there is no government, people had, or have, no rights, respectively?
Are you describing the social compact?
He is, regrettably, the embodiment of a new crisis of faith in the foundations of our republic.
With Kaine’s remarks, he seems rather to be the embodiment of the intellectual rot at the center of the Democrat Party. He suggests that a belief that humans have inherent rights and governments only exist to secure and safeguard those rights makes us the same as the Mullahs in Iran who believe the exact opposite. It’s hard to imagine a more backwards statement. In brief, Senator Kaine is a blithering idiot.
The Progressive Dems are SCARY! They are all complete lunatics, getting worse and worse everyday. I hope people WAKE UP and stop drinking the Kool-Aid, and SOON, or we won’t have a country left at all.
*. It’s worse for children who’ve been drenched in amorality until all goodness is obscured by it and live always now and forever as 2nd class citizens in a 3rd rate world.
Sen. Tom Kaine may be an agnostic. Want something more strange?
There is a US navy aircraft carrier with a Catholic Chaplin on board. The Chaplin has interfaith sermons. Including Wiccan worship.
A true test for Kaine and anyone that agrees with him is: would you support his viewpoint if government power was held by the other party? I call this two lane thinking: Lane 1- is it good for my party? Lane 2- is it good for the country? Denying the existence of natural rights and then the true purpose for government to secure them is Lane 1 thinking.
A government based on “natural law” risks devolving into a theocracy. Define “natural law”.
Simpleton ^^^^
Only a real “simpleton” would post a one-word response. Cat got your sophmoric tongue? Asking for a definition of “natural law” is reasonable given the topic at hand. Maybe you can’t because of your small, …um…brain.
^^^^ Still a simpleton.
Look it up, dunce.
Swallow it.
Look THAT one up, Anon.
Looked it up. It says you’re a homo
Not mine. I answered your request and perhaps that cat has your tongue.
A government based on “natural law” risks devolving into a theocracy.
The keyword there is risks. The Framers understood this and that’s why they did not rely solely on a belief in God as the moral justification in rejecting what the King and parliament were imposing on the colonies. They understood natural law to be the belief that moral order exists in nature, discoverable by reason, and it serves as the foundation for justice and legitimate government. This is why Jefferson carefully crafted the statement: “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”. So whether one believes in God or not, the natural and unalienable rights we have preexist any form of government.
An eloquent response, Olly. Thank you.
An eloquent response, Olly.
Thank you sir!
Grounding individual rights to liberty, property etc in a creator or natural law is not persuasive, though it permeated enlightenment thinking. If these rights did not contribute to human flourishing they would be discarded.
Many societies throughout history have given priority to other values, such as order, stability, security, solidarity, power, religion, tradition, equality and the like. They will not be convinced by appeals to a creator they may not believe in, or whom they think prefers their values, or to amorphous natural law. The argument should be based on what works best to accomplish goals that most accept. This is the view Mises articulates in his book defending liberalism.
But that is not to say that Kaine is right. The Declaration and Constitution assume the existence of rights that government is established to protect. The source of those rights can be debated, but it is pretty clear that the founders believed they existed beyond positive law.
Barnes, in his testimony, however, thinks that NO rights are derived from law/government. Of course, this is absurd. The reality is that the vast majority of our rights are derived from law and government. Our guardrails on the validity of those rights are natural rights. But, everyone here – Turley, Barnes, Kaine, are too politically motivated to acknowledge the reality.
Name one
Food Stamps. Literally any government entitlement.
Those are privileges, not rights, you IDIOT
https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/recipient/your-rights
Try again?
Statutes are literally laws created by the government. The creation of entitlement programs in statutes and regulations legally require the government to provide a an eligible person that entitlement. They have a right to it.
This isn’t rocket science. Pretty basic grade school civics.
Wrong. When you have to meet criteria, its not a right, its a privilege.
Pretty basic stuff here.
Thats like saying i have a “right” to go to a baseball game, and then requiring me to buy a ticket.
You can call entry into the game with your ticket a right if you want to, but its a privilege. Easily revoked.
Food stamps are rights, because we are all entitled to life which is an unalienable right. The indigent require food to survive, therefore they have a right to food stamps.
No, they dont. They have the privilege of getting them if they need them.
They dont require food provided by the government to survive. Thats the dumbest statement ever.
They have a right to earn their daily bread. The people can require that. Teaching people to steal is creating theft. Is that moral?
What is the purpose of a food stamp?
Are there other ways this need can be met? What are they?
Thinking of the south Korean work ethic. Georgia plant brought in employees. Why?
The purpose of government is to PROTECT our inalienable rights, our God-given rights, our rights grounded in natural law — not dole them out to us.
I hope you aren’t banking on getting social security when you retire?
You state one purpose of government. Not the only one. What is the purpose of Congress? Asking for a friend.
Tell your friend that its not to grant rights.
Daniel,
Great comment. I am not religious, but I am thankful the founders had the foresight to write the Constitution they way they did.
When you say flourishing, i think you mean the mob, not the individual.
It’s ‘easy’ for the mob to flourish when it’s at the expense of the individual.
This is the cause of the constitution, the declaration, and why the ideas are our defense for our individual existence.
the constitution makes it clear that even without it, the right are still there, because…
No individual is willingly going to “discard” their rights as long as they are considering their OWN self-interest,
and no real flourishing can happen without it. The opposing view requires tyranny to enact it.
hence your “other Values” order, stability, security, solidarity, power, religion, tradition, equality argument is wrong;
The constitution covers all that using mankind’s reasoning behind this inescapable principle that opposes against tyranny.
You need to embrace it.
So it would be OK to jail or even execute dissidents, in the name of preserving order, safety, and security?
I’ve known Tim Kaine a long time and it’s hard to fathom how far he’s fallen. He clearly knows better but he’s on the Dim campaign money trail and it shows. A lot of us trace it to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlyGmoA7TcY&t=11s
In Kaine’s defense, I don’t believe he’s a Constitutional blasphemer or heretic. He’s just deeply and irredeemably stupid, a horse’s ass. Compared to other Democrats, he’s probably slightly above middling in intelligence, but that’s an absurdly low bar. It is worthy of congratulation that he manages not to drool on himself in public.
HAHAHA wow
But that is exactly why he is a democrat…
Agreed. As a longtime Richmond resident, I can tell you that Kaine was a decent Richmond mayor, but that was the last level at which he demonstrated competence. He was an absolutely terrible governor, inheriting a $2 billion surplus and squandering it into a deficit – when the Virginia Constitution requires a balanced budget. His administration played with the numbers such that the deficit wasn’t “visible” until his Republican successor inherited the state. He’s a toad who will sell out to the highest bidder – and by “toad,” I mean that’s the level of his intelligence.
As a longtime Richmond resident, I can tell you that Kaine was a decent Richmond mayor, ….
Richmond has historically seen nothing but corruption, violent crime, poverty, poorly ranked public services but especially public schools and high βlαcκ-on-βlαcκ violent crime, typically in the same public housing properties. We moved out of Richmond a year ago out to the rural country setting, and we can now look out of our windows without fear of stray bullets piercing our windows or side of home, we are not afraid of our catalytic converters being stolen from our vehicles as was the case in Richmond, at times we leave our doors unlocked to visit neighbors, and neighbors have cocktail parties (and an upcoming Halloween Party of > 200 invitees), where all are welcome, are friendly, interact, and will even fetch something at the grocery store for each other. We were on vacation in Florida for a week recently, and our neighbors got our US mail, watered our plants, one even mowed our lawn (1 acre property) without our requesting it, and sent us text messages for check-ins.
Richmond is a fallen city. Baltimore likewise, a city I visit often for medical meetings at Johns Hopkins. Awful city, great academic center.
Richmond’s long and vexing history as a murder city
Sep 14, 2017
RICHMOND, Va. — The startling run of murders in Richmond during the past two weekends has the mayor and police chief making “a plea for peace.”
“We’re tired of being beaten up,” Chief Alfred Durham said. “We need your help.” There’s no question Richmond is seeing a vicious spike in homicides during the past year and a half. But these spikes – along with a steady drain of human life – have long been a part of living in a killing city, historic homicide reports and records show. I
n 1936, Richmond had 29 slayings in a city of 188,000. By 1942, there were 43. (Some old news accounts reported 44 that year.) The headlines were similar to the ones we’re reading today: “Big increase in murders in Richmond” After a big dip from 1943 through 1945, it was back to 43 slayings in 1946. Headline back then in the Richmond Times- Dispatch: “Manslaughter and murder soar in city. Increase in firearms blamed by police.” But homicide reports in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s were also thick with ice picks and knives and fatal beatings attributed to a variety of instruments, including fists. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, there were lots of domestic murders – women killing their wayward husbands and vice-versa, a good number of them getting away with it. White homicides often got more in-depth treatment in the news than the usual few paragraphs for βlαcκ victims.
But the βlαcκ-on-βlαcκ violent crime problem was stark and bluntly reported on 75 years ago:
“Why were there 11 times as many homicides committed by ΝεgrοΣ in Richmond last year than by white persons?” asked the first line of a newspaper report in February of 1941. There was lots of blame going around, including light jail sentences, environment, segregation and the legacy of enslavement. By the early ’50s, the public discussion of the subject – and the sensitivities surrounding it – had it sounding very much like the discussions of today. Even the locator map of murders back then looked remarkably similar to the ones of today – the same festering pockets of concentrated poverty that continue today. This past weekend we saw four killed in the Gilpin Court housing project, built in old Jackson Ward in 1943.
Homicide numbers remained high but fairly steady – 20 to 40-plus – until the late 1960s. Richmond had 52 murders in 1968 and 89 in 1972, when the city’s population was 243,000 after the big annexation of South Side.
The city was all-but killed by the skyrocketing murder rates during the crack cocaine years in the late 1980s through the mid-90s. It peaked in 1994 with 161 slayings, making Richmond the second deadliest city – per capita – in the nation.
And the roots of the tragedies – and where they are concentrated – remain stubbornly similar based on news reports then, and now.
Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc.
https://www.wtvr.com/2017/09/14/richmonds-long-and-vexing-history-as-a-murder-city
Why would God give us a right to life, only to violate it himself with an act of God?
Chicken or the egg?
Simpleton ^^^
Because death is part of the program. You exist as a story to be told over and over…that’s how it works. Government should know that and always do all that it does to better the individual story. This is called increase.
Metaphysics- it’s all genetic.
Btw you’ll relive your story in a greater or lesser world upon rebirth. Plot your story. What is its theme? Does your story have a moral? You’ll repeat it so be certain you know it. Is your story a tragedy or comedy, a good life or a ill life?
You should know. It’s yours.
What Kaine meant, as do all progs, is that there should be no higher power than the government/bureaucracy to run our lives. Our founding fathers, though they were comprised of deists, Christians and Jews, for the most part, understood that no government/culture can long endure without an agreed upon moral code to which they adhere.
The progs are, and require, a disavowal of that core principal in order to be able to manipulate the citizenry by proclamation from government with no interference with individual moral conscience. They progs truly showed their hand with this pronouncement. All those who believe in unalienable rights should be quaking in their boots at this time.
And very person who professes a faith in a higher power and still remains a democrat, should re-examine their personal commitment to that higher authority as you cannot be both a person of faith and a progressive at the same time knowing what Kaine dared to say out loud.
@whimsicalmama
Honestly – to me inalienable simply means inalienable, as in, intrinsic, inherent – inseparable. Though people are free to whatever spiritual beliefs they like (which nullifies Kaine’s comment in itself), that needn’t even be a factor for our rights to not be endowed and controlled by tyrants. Real equality – an actual even playing field- terrifies the left. This is about control, and the only fanaticism or twisting of language on display is Kaine’s.
Actually, inalienable means you can’t sell, donate, or otherwise transfer them. They are forever yours.
And that is what irks the dems, they cannot gain control over those rights and they need that control in order to transform our nation into just another tyrannical rule by bureaucracy with a figurehead.
“ Actually, inalienable means you can’t sell, donate, or otherwise transfer them. They are forever yours.”
Apparently Christians clearly believed rights were transferable, you could sell them, and you definitely could not have them. Slavery was justified as a Biblical right. So was having women or wives as property.
Where does is freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Bible? Censorship in the extremem was obviously preferable. Heresy and anyone deemed a heretic was killed.
yes, the right to individual self-determination is what they mean. If you choose a path, such as islam or catholicism that restricts those rights, that is your choice but it does not reflect upon the rights of others. That self-possessed notion is what led to the reformation and will, ultimately, lead to the downfall of islam. Oppression by any means – whether governmental or religious, will result if rebellion in the end.
They called it “The Enlightenment” when it was, in fact, a dead end for humanity.
“Where does is freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Bible?”
Same question George asked a dozen times before.
But you’re not George, right?
You prove yourself an ignorant stooge every time you open your gaping maw regarding the Bible.
That doesn’t answer his question. You can’t answer it because it’s true. There is no freedom of speech or expression in the Bible. There is no natural right to free speech or expression. That is a human created right.
^^^^ this is George responding.
Nevertheless, George, natural rights dont come from the Bible, and no one says they did, except you.
🤔 maybe your vocal cords and ears are just for singing.
The writer of Ecclesiastes talked back. He was corrected, too. Sort of who do you think you are. Lucifer argues. He loses.
You read incorrectly. Slavery was an economic system that man used worldwide. God doesn’t want slaves. He wants agreement. It’s rational.
You, Whimsical, James, and Michael hit the nail on the head. It’s very difficult to stop power-hungry people without force.
S. Meyer, Whimsical, James, and Michael,
As great thread of conversation. Thank you! Your comments are the ones worth reading. Just scroll past the annony morons. Their comments are not worth reading.
Walter
UpStatefarmer seems to enjoy your comments.
Does he help you to fulfill your fantasies and obsessions with farm animals?
Perhaps the two of you share the same fantasies and obsessions.
How does your lovely super-spy wife fit into this arrangement?
“fantasies and obsessions with farm animals”
Sigmund Fraud is again engaging in projection. When he goes to sleep at night, he doesn’t JUST count sheep. He lingers!
Walter.
Sleeping with sheep ?
This is a most unusual fantasy that you have revealed.
I originally thought that your obsessions and fantasies were relatively harmless, such as the one that your lovely wife, Mata Hari, is some sort of secret agent, and that your lovely daughter is able to transform into Batgirl.
As we delve deeper into your psychiatric problems it is becoming more and more apparent that you harbor some very dark fantasies and obsessions
Do you share any of these animal fantasies with your lovely wife, or are they your little secret.
Sig Fraud, you play the madman who insists the doctors are mad: nothing could prove your delusion better.
Walter, I’m not sure what to make of this comment.
You seem to be projecting a belief that doctors are mad.
I am sensing that you believe the medical profession has somehow failed to help you deal with your psychiatric problems.
Is this the case??
Why are you calling me Sigmund Fraud now?
You know my name is James Bond.
Is this another fantasy whereby you use me as a whipping boy to give voice to your frustrations with psychiatrists for failing to help you?
The use of the name “Fraud” instead of “Freud” is actually quite clever.
It indicates to me that you use this literary device to subconsciously deride the psychiatrists who have failed to help you.
Really quite clever.
I am happy to play along with this fantasy if it helps you.
Feel free to call me Sigmund Fraud from now on.
Give my regards to your lovely wife and daughter.
Your responses are low-level on the intellectual scale. Repetitive and reversing what the other person said. They don’t meet reasonable standards.
Walter, who is this other person.
Do you have an invisible friend?
Do your psychiatric problems include multiple personality disorder ?
Your disorders are becoming quite complex.
I can see why your psychiatrists have had difficulty helping you with your fantasies, obsessions and personality disorders.
This obviously explains your antipathy to the medical profession.
Is your lovely wife aware of all the problems with which you struggle?
Enough of this nonsense. We are learning very little about the origins of your antisemitism, All you do is blather
Walter, you say that you are learning very little about my antisemitism.
Have you considered the possibility that this is because your idea that I am an antisemite is a product of your disordered thinking due to your many psychiatric problems.
Have you considered the possibility that I am not even real.
Perhaps I am just a figment of your prolific imagination
Nah, you are a simple and dull antisemite.
OT-“Taylor Lorenz: Dark Money secretly funding host of Dem influencers”. According to the article they’re paid 8k a month. Then there’s Crowds on Demand paying protesters. Do you suppose these people are reporting this income, are they submitting 1099’s, are those who hire them reporting their names, SS#, addresses to the IRS?
YAWN.
The Hitler thing is worn out
I have all the answers, but you don’t deserve any of them.
Hitler is no answer. Get over it
Dustoff – can’t you see, Hitler wore shoes. Trump also wears shoes. Therefore, Trump = Hitler.
Mr Kaine makes his argument by constructing a straw man like the Radicals of Islam in Iran. He also ignores the fact that many of the Founders who wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were often deists or of different sects.. All seemed to recognize that rights from or derived from the creator or “God” did not mean that some men’s definition of God could oppress us or remove our rights. Hence the further explanation as defined in the 1st amendment of the Constitution. No establishment of religion is paramount but freedom to exercise religion is also a key right. That is not a contradiction.
Clearly, I believe, our rights come to us as human beings, usually expressed as our creator, whoever that may be. But, as said earlier, the constitution places a limit on that with the 1st amendment because the founders knew that religious intolerance appeared in the world, even then, and could wreck a newly founded republic. I see no contradiction but simple minds steeped in absolutism in all aspects of life would obviously see a terrible chasm. Thats on them.
The world is often many shades of gray with subtleties beyond enumerating but, after all these decades I still see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States as the clearest description of our rights and how we approach them.
I plan to remain steadfast in my belief and defense of our system as well as a pupil of the enlightenment.
Mr. Kaine, well he can continue down the road to absolutism and rage and end the poorer for it. Hopefully some day he will see the light, and maybe it won’t be a locomotive.
How many laws made in the USA are based on religious principals?
How many laws made in the USA are made by man?
Seems to me government has made all those laws, ergo, your rights are man made, not God given.
You asked the question, well then answer it
The government in the US was established by the people for the people. In other words, it IS the people. So the people recognized their own rights. No goddam bureaucrat gave it to them.
GEB,
Great comment!
Don’t leave out Salem.
Little Timmy is a moron. He was a failed governor here in VA having accomplished nothing worth noting except keeping the seat warmed for Bob Mc Donnell who was a brilliant Governor. I’m not surprised by this. It’s probably the reason he was selected to run with Hillary. He was too stupid to question her orders or positions.
“Little Timmy is a moron.”
Um… could say it takes one to know one.
Does that mean YOU too?
Turley doesn’t acknowledge the massive difference between the Declaration of Independence stating that certain rights are derived from natural law and the nominee’s statement that all rights are derived from natural law.
If all rights were derived from natural law then we wouldn’t have a legislature capable of enacting statutes. This was the point Kaine was making. If all rights are God-given rather than given by a government, then we would absolutely be Iran.
I cannot believe a constitutional law professor thinks that all rights are God-given. My guess is Turley does not think that, which means this is simply a political hit piece rather than a rational analysis.
Where does he say “all rights”?
Barnes says rights are God-given, not certain rights are God-given.
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/38e35092-e432-47bb-df53-e8c3ba4853d5/090325_Barnes_Testimony.pdf
The way the English language works — if you don’t qualify “rights” you mean all of them.
Reductio ad absurdum, again. See my earlier response to your drivel.
From BARNES’ testimony (see link above):
“In his first remarks to State Department employees, Secretary Rubio emphasized that, “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – not from our laws, not from our governments.”
He doesn’t think ANY rights come from our laws or our governments.
They dont, you idiot. Laws protect rights, they dont create them.
What right did “the government” give you?
Trial by jury.
Wrong.
The people claimed that right for themselves in the Bill of Rights.
All amendments to the Constitution must be approved by THE PEOPLE.
The people guaranteed themselves those rights. Same as 1 and 2A
Zero. The people gave the political system life.
Creator and nature’s creator indicates the laws of nature. Was evolution around at the time? Wolves and mountain lions certainly were. The idea of right and wrong? Is it right to put house the foxes in the chicken coop? Yes, the world was created and that creation has observable laws?
You overthink.
I don’t believe that’s what the nominee said. One must also view his answer in perspective or in context. Your statement is the real “political hit piece”.
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/38e35092-e432-47bb-df53-e8c3ba4853d5/090325_Barnes_Testimony.pdf
Look it up. He doesn’t think any rights come from laws/governments. Of course, Turley omits this from the article, but it is massively important if you want to fairly assess Kaine’s response.
Name one right the government gave you.
Laws protect rights. They dont grant them.
I just got back from paternity leave.
A privilege, not a right. You must meet certain criteria you take maternity leave.
A ticket to a baseball game gives you the privilege of attending, not a right.
Let’s acknowledge these freedoms were reduced to writing. The freedoms were always there before the writing happened.
Once again, you, whoever you are, prove your extreme ignorance. How do you face yourself in the mirror each morning? ALL Rights are God given. In the words of John Adams: ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’
Then what is the point in Congress passing laws? Someone needs a refresher of grade school civics.
Do I need to keep pointing out the foibles of your argument? As Bugs Bunny best said it, “What a Maroon!”
Can you list said “foibles”?
Congress passes laws to PROTECT our rights.
That’s really the only reason for governments to exist.
All freedoms are yours. Sometimes laws for highways make traffic run more efficiently but that’s the work of road builders.
They think they must create new laws when they’re in session. They really don’t “have” to create any new laws at all. They can stay home or plow the fields.
“ My guess is Turley does not think that, which means this is simply a political hit piece rather than a rational analysis.”
I agree wholeheartedly. 👍
Every day you make that same claim, George.
Get a new schtick, loser.
Ah! Another troll who hides his name.
Typical of the left.
“If all rights were derived from natural law then we wouldn’t have a legislature capable of enacting statutes.”
Another simpleton. No one said “all rights” are natural rights.
But look at your circular reasoning.
Our government was created by the people for the people. According to you, we created our government so they could give us our rights. LMAO
Statutes protect rights, they dont grant them.
From BARNES’ testimony (see link above):
“In his first remarks to State Department employees, Secretary Rubio emphasized that, “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – not from our laws, not from our governments.”
He doesn’t think ANY rights come from our laws or our governments.
Really? That argument is pure reductio ad absurdum. You don’t like the true meaning of the article, so you skew it to the extreme and pronounce it untenable. What hogwash!
Have a happy life with your “absurd” interpretation of of it. Or maybe it is Stage IV TDS?
I note that you are too much of a coward to actually post your name.
He cant decide his name. It was svelaz then george
Dear ‘Rationalizing Stooge’ (aka Anonymous), You not only added “all” into Timmy’s statement, you clearly have thought even less than Timmy did into the entire circumstances. Much could be said of Timmy’s statement and your rationalization, but to put it simply and to the point: You and Timmy need to read and think a whole helluva lot more. And if you are one of Tim’s drinking buds, I suggest less time contemplating the olive in the glass and more time reading those that influenced the authors of the Constitution.
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/38e35092-e432-47bb-df53-e8c3ba4853d5/090325_Barnes_Testimony.pdf
In his testimony, Barnes quotes Rubio in saying that “rights” do not come from laws/government. That is a pretty clear statement,
The quote: “In his first remarks to State Department employees, Secretary Rubio emphasized that, “We are a nation founded on a powerful principle, and that powerful principle is that all men are created equal, because our rights come from God our Creator – not from our laws, not from our governments.”
Dear ‘Rationalizing Stooge’ (aka Anonymous), read my comment AGAIN! I said “Timmy’s statement”.
I see you and Timmy are cut from the same block of dense wood.
Tell me, when you and Timmy are contemplating the olive in the empty glass, does the slurring of words precede or follow the mental slurring that justifies sloppy diversion?
Divine right of Kings? Seriously?
OK, Fine.
What rights has a legislature given you by enacting statutes? Name three.
Kaine once again proves with his own words what a buffoon he is. Jonathan inadvertently makes Kaine “look” good by posting an old photo of him. Today’s Kaine has a puffy face covered with red blotches and a swollen “Rudolph” nose spider-webbed with thin red veins. If Tim keeps a water bottle in easy reach on his desk, it’s a safe bet that bottle does not contain water.
Social security
Disability rights
Paternity leave
Food stamps
Any friggin entitlement.
All privileges, not rights.
@Anonymous
Ah, but we now have generations that have been raised to think they are rights, even though some of those ‘rights’ simply didn’t exist before they were born. There are larger issues at work here, a great many conflating factors, and little of it is incidental. It is probably too late for the generations caught in the web, they have never known anything different. What we do now is what matters. It can still be contained in this country if we dramatically change course, replete with lots of crying and whining and possibly violence from the aforementioned, but for now, nothing is assured. We are not done, but we trudge onward in spite of them.
Why? Because employers would work you 16 hours per day 7 days per week? Employ children? Throw the disabled under the bus to catch a ride? There are wolves red riding hood.