When Thomas Jefferson listed the categorical rights of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” the order in which he presented the rights was crucial.
The order was crucial because you can have life without liberty or life without the pursuit of happiness, but you cannot have liberty without life, nor can you have the pursuit of happiness without life.
Jefferson understood that these rights were universal; however, writing in the Declaration of Independence he was staking out special ground for what would become the United States, blazing a path that would make the universal rights particularly enforceable or protectable in the New World.
He was revealing that life is the necessary precursor to all else and the defense of life is central to the maintenance of Western Civilization. (This is why Kamikaze attacks shocked the senses on December 7, 1941, as fascism drove suicide attacks against Pearl Harbor. It is why the 9/11 attacks took our breath away and suicide bombings remain startling to the Westerner’s mind, even in this age of lattermost post-modernism.)
A defense of life is foundational to Western Civilization.
Two observations: Firstly, this is why the leftists in academia either muddle their presentation of Jefferson, particularly as it touches the Declaration of Independence, or forgo it altogether. The dirty leftists know that a defense of life–or a conviction that life must be protected–has to be removed from the Western mind in order to allow the collapse of Western Civilization.
Secondly, this is why the incoherent phraseology regarding abortion entered the vernacular. The leftists in academia (and elsewhere) purposefully muddied the waters, slowly turning clear lines of demarcation into grey areas, ultimately encouraging some Westerners to take solace in believing they could not know when life actually begins. (i.e., Does it begin at conception? Does it begin two weeks after that? Three weeks after that? Or not until the child is born?)
In his book The Unaborted Socrates, Peter Kreeft addresses the left’s purposeful misdirection by providing an example of a hunter who sees movement in a fence line but, because of the overgrowth, cannot tell if the movement is that of a deer or another hunter. Not knowing which it is, he asks whether the hunter should shoot or, taking every precaution to protect life, should pass on the shot to be sure he does not kill a human being.
Through the Socratic approach, Kreeft leads the reader to see how foolish it would have been to take the shot without knowing with certainty what was at stake.
Kreeft alludes to President Ronald Reagan to remind the reader of the high position life holds in Western Civilization.
He quotes from a January 22, 1983, radio address, wherein the 40th President of the United States said, “I, too, have always believed that God’s greatest gift is human life and that we have a duty to protect the life of an unborn child. Until someone can prove the unborn child is not a life, shouldn’t we give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is?”
There is movement in the fence line, but the hunter dares not shoot because he is not sure whether it is a deer or a fellow human being. He is compelled to take his rifle away from his shoulder and let the moment pass in order to give life the benefit of the doubt. And he gives life the benefit of the doubt because life is the precursor to every good thing, including liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, a Pulsar Night Vision pro-staffer, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly: awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
