Rights vs. Wrongs

Here's Grandpa Fred speaking in Little Havana:

“Some things are eternal,” Mr. Thompson said. “They’re handed down to us through the wisdom of the ages. And one of the things we got from that was the Declaration of Independence, which reminds us that our basic rights come from God, and not from government,” he said, leading several people to jump to their feet and applaud.

Thompson's statement about our rights descending from God has a long tradition: its source is centuries old in English common law. Some conservatives who have recently invoked this notion are Bush, Scalia, and Gingrich - just to name a few.

Fred Thompson has yet to weigh in with any specifics on, well, anything. Which means we haven't yet been treated to his aw-shucks plain-spoken horse-sense reading of constitutional issues including Guanatanamo, extraordinary renditions, military tribunals, FISA and warrantless wiretapping.

However, we do know one thing about Freddie and the War on Terra: he thinks Osama bin Laden should be subject to 'due process.'

I'm not suggesting Freddie is a secret anti-authoritarian. (Quite the opposite, I fear.) Nor, it should be said, are Freddie's casual utterances indicators of any thought, deep or otherwise.

But Fred's utterance gives an opening for some enterprising character to ask the following questions of the competitors for the Republican nomination:

Q: Do you believe our rights derive from God, not the government?
A: Yes.
Q: Then why would you support the government having the power to spy on your private conversations without you knowing and even lock you away forever without restriction? Do you support government taking away something you say God endows?

Granted, parsing the words of demagogues is a fool's errand. And of course I don't agree with any invocations of God's grants, wishes, intentions or power in political debates. But I relish the opportunity to have these God-talkers square their mutually exclusive notions of inherent rights to "freedom" and the surveillance state.

I suggest we start with Grandpa Fred. I see him as the jowly, soft underbelly.