On the recordMarch 15, 2012
Madam President, first, I want to thank my colleagues for coming to the floor today and talking about the issue of energy and energy independence and the rising cost of energy. It is critically important. I wish to talk about something else, if I could, for just a few minutes, something I think is of critical importance, eternal importance; that is, the issue of human rights. As Americans, we have to remind ourselves our Nation was founded on the principles of human rights. If we read back to the earliest documents, the Declaration of Independence first says very clearly at the outset that one of the founding principles that led to the creation of this Nation, and the Republic and Constitution that followed that, was the notion that all of us are created equal. Every human being on the planet who was ever born, ever will be born anywhere in this world, was born with certain rights, and the source of those rights is our Creator. Think about that for a moment. That is not a common belief. For almost all of our history people believed our rights as people came not from our Creator, they came from the government, from our leaders. Our rights are what the government allows us to have. That is not what founded our country. This country was founded on the very powerful idea that the source of our rights and our value as a human being came from our Creator.…





