Democrat Rep Denies Black People Have God-Given Rights During Hearing, Then Things Get Hilarious

Bonchie reporting for RedState 

Truly, we are governed by the dumbest people, and I don’t mean that as a generic insult. I mean that in the most technical way possible. The United States government is populated and run by some of the least knowledgeable mediocrities on earth.

To provide evidence of that, I bring you Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), a man that’s no stranger to beclowning himself for the cameras. After all, this is the same guy who once brought a bucket of KFC to a hearing because then-AG Bill Barr rescheduled.

On Tuesday, Cohen decided to go on a rant denouncing the “right-wing” Supreme Court for doing things like upholding the constitution and forcing the Biden administration to follow the law. In the midst of that, the congressman proclaimed that women and black people don’t have God-given rights.

COHEN: I’d liked to have asked him some questions about God-given rights, and he was saying all our rights are God-given. I just wondered when God decided to give women the right to vote and why God didn’t decide to give women the right to vote back in the, uh, 1700s. The Constitution was drawn up in the 1780s. I can’t believe God would say “no, women shouldn’t have the right to vote…”

…And when God decided slavery would be illegal. God was okay with slavery until we have a war where millions of people were killed and then God changed his mind? That’s hard to fathom.

I’m sure that sounded a lot smarter in his head.

Let me help Cohen out. God is not the US government. God-given rights (otherwise known as natural rights) are not bestowed by pieces of paper written by men. That conflation not only makes no sense, but it is the exact opposite of what the phrase God-given rights means in any historical context.

The entire point of citing God-given rights is to note that inalienable rights exist outside and in isolation of any government dictate. If rights come from politicians, then they aren’t rights. They are simply allowances by dictators.

Cohen apparently doesn’t grasp that and instead believes that a right doesn’t exist until the US government bestows it upon someone. Such a viewpoint is not only constitutionally illiterate, but it’s also dangerous in that it assumes unlimited power exists in the hands of an overarching, malleable human authority.

But if Cohen’s stream of consciousness wasn’t funny enough, things got hilarious when he took to Twitter and inadvertently endorsed a post that was calling him a racist.

Unfortunately, Cohen’s view, dumb as it may be, is popular on the left. They have turned the US government into a god to be worshiped. No one has the right to do anything unless the overpaid elites in Washington give their stamp of approval. Thankfully, at least for now, the United States has a Supreme Court that is willing to check the Democratic Party’s most authoritarian instincts. That probably won’t always be the case, though.