Quote of the Day
So as the nation continues to mark 250 years since the Declaration, Americans should ask themselves whether they still believe what that document actually says. If rights are unalienable, they do not vanish when they become politically inconvenient. If government exists by consent, then public officials are bound by limits they did not create and may not erase. And if one generation owes the next the full inheritance of freedom, then this generation has no right to reduce the Second Amendment to a loophole, a relic, or a slogan.
It is part of the American formula. It helped secure the first 250 years of American liberty. It will be just as necessary for the next 250.
Doug Hamlin
CEO of the National Rifle Association
July 7, 2026
Unalienable rights don’t expire at 250
While I generally agree with what is said here and think people should reflect on the document which conceived our nation and lead to its birth a few years later. There are two points I would like to make about this.
First, the Declaration of Independence is not a legal document governing our nation. It is historical background which can be used to determine the proper interpretation of other documents of actual legal documents of that era.
Second, there are far too many people in this country who think the rights are something completely different than what our constitution provides for and the Declaration of Independence asserts are true. For example, a scary high percentage of people believe there should be a right to health care, food, and shelter. They cannot seem to understand that if things like that are considered rights, then others must provide those things without compensation. No matter how you twist the words or hide the details in layers of legalize and bureaucracy, if someone gets goods and services without paying for them then someone else was, in essence, robbed in the process of providing them.
Don’t ever let conversations about rights get sidetracked into such distractions. Just tell them, “It is not a right if someone else has to provide it.”
The Declaration IS a legal document. At the very least, it is a legal separation from Britain. Many authorities assert it is more than that. We have had a system of governance, post-Independence that predates the Constitution. Taking a minimalist approach, the Declaration invalidates all British mechanisms of government. This would include the English common law that underlies/undermines so much of our judicial system. The recent birthright citizenship opinion by John Roberts is a striking example. I suggest everyone read the opinion piece by John Eastman on this topic. But it also underlies much of our self-defense law. English common law should be abolished in the US. If we find some of it useful (e.g. contracts), it can be reenacted by statute which is the constitutional way of doing things.
It is a legal document from the colonies to the king. The United States of America of today did not exist until our constitution was ratified years later. The Declaration of Independence is not referenced in the constitution, is it?
You do have a right to health care, food, and shelter, just like you have a right to firearms.
But like firearms you do not have a right to *free* health care, free food, or free shelter.
A right is not an entitlement, it is a thing that no one can morally prevent you from acquiring.
If I am sick the government cannot prevent me from getting the care I need. The government cannot legally prevent me from buying or growing the food I need, and the government is not supposed to be able to take my home, or forcibly evict me from a lease without “due process”.
Too many people don’t understand what a right *is*, and yes too many people in this country do think they *have* a right to free stuff.
Negative vs a positive view of rights.
Negative rights are what the government is NOT allowed to do TO you.
positive rights are what the government MUST do FOR you; the fact they must extract them (by force) from others first to give them to you is the quiet part the socialists don’t like to talk about in the early stages, beyond making “the rich” pay their “fair share.”
Yes, this is not made clear in most history texts and curriculums, from what I’ve seen, so it’s deliberate.
Most of the people in the world have the “positive rights” view, and the immigration process doesn’t require they ascribe to the other. This is also deliberate.