Paul Kengor: Are you smarter than a senator?

Inspired by the TV show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-grader?” I propose a new concept. Let’s call it, “Are you smarter than a senator?”

And let us begin, boys and girls, with this question: “Do we Americans believe that our rights come from God or government?”

If you answered “God,” then move to the head of the class. You’re smarter than Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine.

If you answered “government,” then sit in the back with the senator wearing the dunce cap. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” states our Declaration of Independence, “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.”

Most Americans learned this in elementary school. One would think it was learned by a U.S. senator from the commonwealth of Virginia, who was also governor of Virginia, nearly vice president of the United States (he was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 running mate), and who graduated from Harvard Law School.

And yet, here was Kaine during a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing:

“The notion that rights … don’t come from the government but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes,” asserted Kaine. “It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Sharia law and targets Sunnis … Jews, Christians and other religious minorities.”

Kaine continued: “And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So, the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”

No, what’s extremely troubling is the statement of 67-year-old Sen. Tim Kaine. The notion that our rights come from the Creator rather than government is the very foundation of the United States of America. It is a hallmark of our founding, as American schoolchildren know (or ought to know). It’s rudimentary stuff. But Kaine has it utterly upside down. His statement is frankly flabbergasting.

It’s easy to make fun of Kaine for this, as I have here. But in truth, this is disturbing. And sadly, he’s not alone. Last year, Politico award-winning journalist Heidi Przybyla on MSNBC spoke out against “an extremist element” of Christian Americans who “believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God.”

No, that’s not extremism. That’s Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, the first Continental Congress.

Are folks like Przybyla and Kaine really this uninformed? Do they truly not know that America is based on God-given rather than government-given rights?

I hate to say it, but many probably don’t. You would be shocked at how many Americans “educated” in our schools and universities haven’t studied documents like the Declaration of Independence. You would be especially shocked at how many law students haven’t even read the U.S. Constitution. I’m serious. Ask around. You’ll see.

That ignorance makes it easier for radical secular progressives to try to do what they want to do. They supplant the crucial missing knowledge with their ideology and theories. Education becomes indoctrination.

And that’s even more disturbing than the disturbing ignorance of Sen. Tim Kaine.