Ryan wrong on rights.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - Paul Ryan's perception on human rights - Editorial

Paul Ryan has a weird conception of rights. One of his favorite lines is: "Our rights come from nature and God, not from government."

He used that line on the morning Mitt Romney selected him for Vice President. And he repeated it, to great applause, in his acceptance speech in Tampa.

Let me try to unpack that. I'm an atheist, so the idea that our rights come from God is a nonstarter for me. But Ryan isn't the only one who invokes God. After all, Thomas Jefferson famously did, too: "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."

One problem with anchoring our rights theologically is that people can always claim that God has given them a superior package of rights. After all, the Declaration of Independence, in an earlier draft, said those inalienable rights were to "life, liberty, and property"--not "happiness." Fortunately, a more hedonist and egalitarian mood prevailed.

Thoughtful theists can argue that God endowed us with the mental faculties to determine what the good and the just should be. That, at least, allows some self-determination.

But nature? When you observe the predatory behaviors out in the wild, it's difficult to conclude how Ma Nature instructs us on the proper ways to conduct ourselves.

Odder still is Ryan's contempt for government when it comes to rights. Over time, a commonly held sense of right and wrong developed, and so some basic precepts were then enacted into law by--yes--government.

Laws, if they are just, enable us to exercise our rights--to freedom of speech and assembly and religion and privacy, for instance.

And to suffrage and our freedom to participate equally in our governance.

And to clean air, and clean water, and safe workplaces.

And to freedom from discrimination, robbery, assault, murder, and invasion, for that matter.

...