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Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate, said our rights come from the government. We dodged that bullet in 2016 like we did in 2024. The presidential candidates were bad enough, but their running mates were idiots. Tim Walz continues to embarrass himself, as Tim Kaine does. In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Kaine said the following:
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. It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia [sic] law and targets Sunnis, Baha’is, 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.
Let’s note the obvious from the Declaration of Independence:
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.
What governments are required to do is to “secure these rights.” Jonathan Turley wrote, “Kaine represents Virginia, the state that played such a critical role in those very principles that he now associates with religious fanatics and terrorists.”
If governments have the right to create rights, then they have the right to rescind rights. What the government gives, it can take away. “Our prized unalienable rights become entirely alienable,” Jonathan Turley notes, “ if they are merely the product of legislatures and courts.” All governments are theocratic. If Kaine and Company decide that the government has a right to intern people in guarded camps, then, on their say so, it is acting in a theocratic way. There is no higher law. If the courts decide otherwise, then they are the law. Five Supreme Court Justices are the gods.
Does anyone remember how the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly then-Senator and former President Joe Biden, attacked Clarence Thomas for believing that the Constitution had to be interpreted in the light of a higher law theory? While the Constitution states that it is the “law of the land,” there is almost no actual moral law in it. For example, there are no prohibitions against murder, theft, or rape. So why are these actions morally wrong? The Constitution doesn’t say. The Constitution either implements whatever moral worldview is in vogue at the time or it rests on a fixed set of external moral precepts.
Thomas believed that natural law was that external law. Ruth Bader Ginsburg recognized the need for a law outside the Constitution. She appealed to International Law for the Constitution’s external moral place to stand. This is like the belief of some prominent scientists that Earth had long ago been “seeded with life.” The logical question to ask is, “Where did the alien seed originate?” In legal terms, what is the foundation of International Law that gives it moral validity?
Should we have followed the International Law of the French in the 18th century? Reason was elevated to a god-like status. And if you disapproved, “Off with your head!”
Liberty at Risk
Without a proper understanding of civil government's biblical function and limited jurisdiction, Christians can be trapped into believing that civil government should promote policies beyond its designed purpose as long as they are for "the good of the people." This reasoning can lead many to choose security no matter what the cost to liberty.
Buy NowWhen the left-leaning members of the judiciary committee heard what Thomas had said, they attacked. Thomas maintained that there are fixed moral laws written into the created order that even the Constitution and its interpreters are bound to follow. During the hearings when he was being considered as a Supreme Court Justice, Biden wrote an article that appeared in the Washington Post.[1] He claimed the following for his version of natural law:
• It does not “function as being a specific moral code regulating individual behavior.”
• It is not “a static set of unchanging principles.”
• It is “an evolving body of ideals.”
According to Biden, natural law is whatever the courts say it is or isn’t if the Democrats get to nominate and approve the justices. “In our system,” Biden declared, “the sole obligation of a Supreme Court justice is to the Constitution. Natural justice can supply one of the important means of understanding the Constitution, but natural law can never be used to reach a decision contrary to a fair reading of the Constitution itself.” To repeat, there is almost no law in the Constitution. Biden knows this (at least he used to). This is why those on the Left (and a good number on the Right) want to be the judicial gatekeepers. Personal opinions are the basis of moral decision-making today, and those with the most power get to say what’s right or wrong. This is why there cannot be a higher law governing the Constitution and the decisions of judges. Biden’s article does not tell us anything about how we determine what’s right or wrong, and that’s the way he and his fellow Democrats want it. Republicans hold a similar view when they are in power. Turley again:
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.”[2]
Restoring the Foundation of Civilization
There are many Christians who will not participate in civilization-building efforts that include economics, journalism, politics, education, and science because they believe (or have been taught to believe) these areas of thought are outside the realm of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Buy Now[1] Joseph R. Biden, Jr., “Law and Natural Law: Questions for Judge Thomas,” The Washington Post (September 8, 1991), C-1.
[2] “Tim Kaine’s Constitutional Blasphemy,” The Hill (Sept. 6, 2025): https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5489547-tim-kaines-embarrassing-constitutional-blasphemy/