The World According to Oatney

Tennessee Framers: Big Government Sucks

When our State Constitution says that all power is "inherent in the people" what does it mean? That is a statement at which someone could make to a room full of people and they would be in agreement with it, but the same group of people might not grasp its meaning in this day and age. If power is "inherent in the people" where did they get the power from? We often like to talk about the importance of "human rights," but just who decided what was and was not a "human right?" While this writer has no problem with the phrase "human rights," rights are in fact not human at all. Inherent rights are granted from Almighty God through something we call free will or free moral agency. The framers of the Tennessee Constitution fully understood that truth, despite their many and varied religious views (God's name is mentioned twice in the document), and they understood that the purpose of government is to insure that our exercise of free will and the inherent rights that come with it do not interfere with our neighbor's right to also live as he or she might also please. It is for this reason that people have chosen to live in communities and, for the mutual safety and happiness of those communities, have delegated a small part of their inherent rights to form a government, the purpose for which is to protect and defend the God-given rights of the people and insure that the exercise of the rights of one does not trample upon the rights of all.

Labels: Conservatism, Duh, Elections, Federal politics, Local politics, Political correctness, Tennessee politics

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 2:40 PM