Inalienable Rights

The role of government has come into question due to recent economic events. The recent flap over the AIG bonuses has shown the pitfalls of government intervention in business. What is the government's purpose for existing? I go back to the Declaration of Independence for the answer. It says that all men are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and that governments are instituted to "secure these rights". The role of government is to protect these rights for all men. Is giving billions of dollars to companies like AIG protecting these inalienable rights? Absolutely not.
The first thing to look at is where these rights come from. They come from God, the creator, not from men. God gives people the right to live, have liberty and property. The writers of the Declaration of Independence were influenced by John Locke for the inalienable rights. He used pursuit of property instead of pursuit of happiness, I replace happiness with property when I think of inalienable rights. All of these rights come from God and are confirmed in his law. People have the right to live, God forbids murder. People have the right to liberty, God forbids kidnapping and enslaving someone indefinitely. People have the right to property, God forbids stealing. Government's job is to protect these rights that everyone has equally been given from God. Government should not decide who has these rights and who does not. However, over the course of history the United States' government has taken God's place and handed out these rights as it saw fit. When the government hands out rights it will also begin to take them back as well.
The government began to take God's place as the granter of rights because of the errors the founders of the United States made. They did not include all men when they created this nation. The rights of African slaves and Native Americans were not protected. They were enslaved and murdered by the citizens of the United States and it was done without interference from the government set up to protect inalienable rights. Over time people saw the injustice and sought to change give African slaves and Native Americans the same rights enjoyed by other Americans. Through the passing of laws and amending the Constitution the inalienable rights of all men were closer to being protected. The problem is that these people already had those rights. The government failed them at first and then came in to fix the problem. The pattern became that those who felt their rights were not protected came to the government and instead of protecting rights the government passed laws granting rights to people. The government we have now has replaced God as the granter of rights and now bestows these rights as it pleases.
The fact that the government has replaced God as granter of rights is a major problem. That is not the problem that I plan to address. The problem is that government is not doing its original job of protecting the rights of life, liberty and pursuit of property. Not every individual's life is protected. The lives of unborn fetuses are not protected. The right to life of these unborn individuals has been given to their mothers by the government. Their mothers get to decide if they live or not. Everyone who pays income taxes has their right to liberty infringed upon. The income tax is a sly form of slavery. It is not as severe as the slavery in the South before the Civil War but it is slavery none the less. Many slaves in the south were given Sundays off to grow their own food. So they worked for their owners six days a week. Now a person who pays 20% of their income in taxes to the federal government is a slave to the federal government 20% of the time. This is not as severe and complete as slavery in the American south, but it is not acceptable from the institution set up to protect the right to liberty. The bailouts given by government recently demonstrate the failure to protect pursuit of property. The rights of companies receiving bailouts are not infringed upon, but the rights of their competitors are. If I were a competitor of AIG and they were about to go out of business, this is good for me. I now have one less competitor and should see my business increase. This is the way business should work the more efficient and effective businesses survive and the less efficient and effective businesses fail. But now the government decides that certain businesses are too important to fail and give them money to stay in business. This is one example of the government taking God's place. They believe they have enough knowledge to determine what is best for everyone involved even if they have no idea what will happen if certain businesses fail. If I am AIG's competitor my right to pursue property has been impeded by a government bailout. Also, since I am a taxpayer the federal government has taken my tax dollars and given them to my competitor to keep them in business. This shows the irrational behavior of our government. Businesses that succeed will have their profits taken from them and given to their competitors to keep them in business.
The thing to learn from this is that the government has overstepped it bounds and is not doing its job. People have allowed this to happen by electing officials who keep doing these kinds of things. Americans need to acknowledge that their rights come from God alone and make the government protect those rights.