The Source of Individual Rights and the Purposes of Government

A Historical Comparison Between President Obama and the Founding Fathers

I recently purchased a copy of Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise. Released before the election in 2008, this was the primer for Americans to familiarize themselves with the then Democratic candidate's various policies for running the country. Being able to read it now, five months into his Presidency, and look back at what has transpired since his Inauguration, it has been quite enlightening.

While I could comment upon many things since President Obama's receiving the reins of power, I discovered under the section titled Honor Sportsmen and Protect the Great Outdoors, this statement, "Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right...." When I first read this statement I was instantly drawn to "creates" as it displays evidence of a basic philosophical difference which our current President has with the Founders' statements in the Declaration of Independence regarding the source of individual rights and the purposes of government: "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.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."