Having just completed celebration of the 4th of July it’s worth revisiting Jefferson’s Declaration regarding inalienable or natural rights.

I spent the better part of a wet and soggy Sunday re-reading Mccullough’s “1776”, and then later pouring over Mark Mazower’s powerful and chilling “Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe.” The juxtaposition of two distinctly different concepts of governing could not be more clear. One group of leaders inured with a deep sense in man’s natural rights as derived by God, and another drunk with power believing that might makes right. Two distinctly different philosophies, one that sets limits to the power of the state, respects the rights of each individual and the rule of law ( and yes - process) and another that mocks process and believes that the individual is subservient to the state or the will of the powerful. It is a chilling distinction that leads to vastly different outcomes.

It is simple concept, one that all citizens or for that matter Supreme Court nominees should be able to master.