Today’s turmoil in the streets against ICE and against Jews does not reflect the values of law and order, nor of religious freedom. These antisocial and violent activities are claimed as justified because of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Yet those demonstrations are not peaceable assembly, as stated in our First Amendment. In what sense can the demonstrations against ICE or in front of Jewish stores or Jewish houses of worship be considered peaceful? They are hostile, chaotic, filled with curses and other verbal abuse, as well as shoving, blocking, threats, and refusal to obey legitimate directives.
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The anti-Jewish fervor began when Israel invaded Gaza to retaliate against Hamas for the massacre of more than 1,200 civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. After Hamas’s hatred of Jews manifested in mass murder in Israel, Israelis entered Gaza to defeat and disarm those demons, and then demonstrations of hate for Israel and for Jews began on our campuses.
Many campus protesters set up tents on campuses from which to scream their condemnation against Israel for defending itself. Decent citizens looked on this fervor on behalf of mass murderers with utter disgust. Jewish students were frequently blocked from going to class, and Israelis and Jews were vilified. The Jewish victims of mass murder were described as instigators of their own mass torture and murder.
In today’s climate, the law enforcement agents of ICE are also being portrayed by the left as being social victimizers just as the Israelis have been for the past three years. Demonstrators, rioters, looters, so-called students, and others are being manipulated by a leftist coterie of BLM, Antifa, Democratic Socialists, Progressive Workers, communists, CAIR, and various other epicenters of cultural unhappiness. They insist that law and order is merely a cover rubric to suppress the truth of their claims that the USA is a fascist country under Trump that just wants to persecute foreign-born persons.
The grim left insists that ICE is an instrument of fascist oppression, not law and order. Leftists say that ICE actually stands for racism, hatred of people simply seeking a better life, hatred of the poor and dispossessed, a rejection of the words of hope on the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”), xenophobia, plain old selfishness, and an affirmation of white supremacy.
The above hostile views can be contrasted with the views of those who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Let us then look at the Declaration and see whether the critics of ICE and of the Jews are advancing America’s fundamental values.
The first imperative criterion for independence is stated to be “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them.” First and foremost, the validity of the Founders’ claims is based in nature and God. Before even getting to grievances, before getting to victimhood, before whining about bad treatment, the rights of the colonists were perceived to derive from nature and God — not from a class struggle, not from unfair racialism, not from wealth disparities, not from being have-nots being put down by haves, but from foundational spiritual laws.
Thus, the desire to be independent flowed out of the deepest layers of rationality known to man, not mere moral indignation, not a mere power grab, not a mere hissy fit, not a petulant outpouring of sophomoric mental incontinence, not hysteria, not foot-stomping despair, and not greed and desire to have what the “home country” had. No. The list of oppressions and the claim of independence were based upon a rational, ordered, coherent understanding of life as lived and the universe in which life proceeded on a daily basis. It was not based on needs per se, but based on a vision of an ordered universe that must meet a daily test of rationality.
Further, as though the order of nature was not enough to satisfy their need for stability and righteousness, they also affirmed nature’s God as ratifying their cause. Thus, transcendent values were introduced. We can understand this transcendent note better if we remember that Thomas Jefferson, primary author of the Declaration, was influenced greatly by the English philosopher John Locke, who was a great promoter of the idea of natural rights. For Locke, natural rights were not merely an intellectual construct, but derived from biblical teachings. In his often overlooked book The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke writes, “But by the law of faith, faith [contrasted with the Old Testament law of works] is allowed to supply the defect of full obedience; and so the believers are admitted to life and immortality as if they were righteous.” In other words, without God’s mercy upon us and the limitations inherent to the human condition, this project of independence would not be plausible.
Following these assertions about the laws of nature and nature’s God, we find the words that are so controversial:
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. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Thomas Jefferson and the Founders are often criticized by the present rioters. The statement “all men are created equal” is considered the ultimate lie and hypocrisy of Jefferson and the Founders. Since socialist Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), followed by a volume written with his wife, Mary Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1927), the mantra of the left has been that the U.S. was founded on self-interest and the profit motive and not on rationality and transcendent ideals.
However, “all men are created equal” was not a mere self-serving phrase. After independence from Great Britain was won, the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 were passed to govern land gained from the British. Slavery in those new territories was not allowed. Jefferson and Washington, although they held slaves, were among those first leaders who believed that slavery was a pernicious institution that would and should be phased out. Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration denounced slavery, but he had to rewrite that draft because of the need to have unity with Southern interests in order to fight British hegemony. Eventually, “all men are created equal” became a rallying principle for abolitionists, and at the cost of over 300,000 white soldiers, plus Abraham Lincoln’s life, slavery was abolished from the USA forever.
Rationality and transcendent commitments to the Creator remain overriding values as we move toward an unknown future. Politicians who do not denounce Hamas and give unqualified support to Israel (like Mike Huckabee), and who do not openly and passionately support ICE as it enforces the laws of our country (like Markwayne Mullin), are betraying the trust of the people who elected our president.
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