To Secure These Rights
Republicans' emphasis on "small government" is conceding our Natural Rights.
The collapse of Kristi Noem’s political career has been one of the more surprising developments to come out of the summer. After establishing herself as a national star at CPAC in February, and gaining acclaim for her refusal to shut down South Dakota during COVID, Noem fumbled away her bona fides in a series of back-to-back-to-back political miscalculations. First there was the Governor’s veto of the South Dakota House bill protecting girls sports, which reportedly stemmed from her administration’s desperate attempt to lure the NCAA into doing business with South Dakota. Then there was the spat with conservative commentator Matt Walsh over the aforementioned veto, complete with garbage accusations of “misogyny.” Most recently, Noem refused to prohibit businesses in South Dakota from enacting COVID vaccine mandates. She took to Twitter to explain her reasoning, but her defense, of course, was little more than empty platitudes about how conservatives should champion small government and not infringe on the rights of businesses.
It’s easy to write off Noem’s flaccid deflection as just another instance of “chamber of commerce” Republicanism, the exasperating business-centrism endemic to establishment Republican officials. But it shouldn’t be ignored because it clarifies an underlying problem with the conservative movement more broadly. Our political and thought leaders have twisted our understanding of the Constitution toward a laser-focus on some abstract ideal of “small government.” In doing so, they’re missing the forest for the tree. And really, they don’t even understand the proverbial tree they’re standing under.
Yes, the powers of government should be limited to protect the rights of the people. But the government also has the power and the duty to protect the rights of citizens from infringement by others. The Declaration of Independence makes clear:
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. (emphasis mine)
Our politicians seem to have forgotten that our Natural Rights are just that, Natural. They are delineated and protected from government intrusion in the Constitution, but they precede the Constitution. They are innate, inviolable by any person, group, or institution, public or private.
Vaccine (and mask) mandates are a patent violation of our Natural Rights by businesses. Requiring extraneous medical records to be shown as a condition of doing business is a prima facie violation of the Natural Right to privacy, for the same reason that state-enforced mandates are a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, the social conditioning schemes that the mask and vaxx have come to be in themselves, and represent more broadly, are an existential threat to our Right to Liberty. By refusing to protect the Rights of her constituents, by protecting the “rights” of those who would violate others’, Noem and other gelatinous politicians, like Governors Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Mike DeWine of Ohio, are doing exactly what they believe they are preventing: allowing a system of ever-creeping coercion to corrode our Rights into nothing.
Governments have a duty to protect our rights from infringement. We need a crop of politicians who even understands this principle, let alone who are willing to govern by it. Fortunately, a generation is rising, led by men like JD Vance, Blake Masters, Joe Kent, and others, who know that our Rights are at stake, and that our present political moment requires us to wield the just powers of government to secure our Rights in the face of tremendous opposition. It’s time to leave behind the era of ignorant, impotent, indignant government. The future is ours, if we only secure it.