-By Warner Todd Huston

Illinois State Representative Sara Feigenholtz thinks her job is to “give rights” to people. Feigenholtz recently blurted that out in an interview giving us a perfect example of the key difference between those interested in preserving the American system, its morals, and traditions, and those that have no interest in such niceties and instead what to wholly remake the relationship between government and citizen giving government more and more power over everyone.

In the interview, Feigenholtz, a Chicago Democrat in the 12th District, announced her intention to “give rights” to the gay community in Illinois and felt that this “giving” of rights was one of the most important jobs of elected officials.

“For me, the most precious thing I do as a lawmaker is giving people rights,” Feigenholtz said. “We have a powerful opportunity as elected officials to do this.”

As an aside, Feigenholtz then went on to disgustingly exploit the Holocaust in WWII as a means to push her “gay rights” issues.

Of course, this little admission shows there is a monumental chasm here between progressives and left-wingers like Feigenholtz and the rest of us that hew closer to American tradition.

Certainly Feigenholtz’ idea of what government should be doing runs contrary to the Declaration of Independence, that document that serves as the cornerstone of America’s philosophy of what the relationship between government and citizen should be.

The central tenet 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” is the one idea upon which our government was built.

The Declaration declared that our human rights were given to us by our creator, not government. Anyone who imagines that it is government’s job to “give rights,” as Feigenholtz claimed, is simply promulgating an un-American idea.

The founders originated a system based on the idea that our rights were bestowed upon us by God and that it wasn’t government’s role to “give” us rights nor does government have any right to remove those god-given rights. The founders thought that a government’s role is assure freedom and liberty and any government that imagines it has the role to alternately give and remove rights arbitrarily necessarily hampers freedom and liberty instead of protecting the same.

As un-American as it is, though, many Democrats, and certainly all in the progressive movement, think the chief purpose of government is to do just the opposite of what our founders envisioned.

But, to create rights and to give government the role to impose such transitory ideas on all is not an American idea and will lead to such a major alteration of our national character as to ultimately make this country unrecognizable as America.

It is doubtful that Feigenholtz is such a maliciously minded person that she is purposefully looking to undermine America. Like most of her ilk she is likely so entirely clueless of what her job as a legislator should be due to her substandard education that she is just blundering along like a bull in a china shop. Sadly she is giving us an example of a situation that is all too common thanks to our failed educational system.

But whether she is a mustache-twirling villain or simply a useful idiot is immaterial as her actions will lead to the same ends no matter her motivations. Her ideas of what government is “for” will lead to the destruction of the American character, our tradition, philosophy, and our way of life.

Sadly, Illinois State Representative Sara Feigenholtz isn’t an aberration. Her ignorance is all too common.

(H/T Bill Baar’s West Side Blogger.)