At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke about a quote from Sec. Marco Rubio about his beliefs on where human rights come from.
00:00Mr. Barnes, I was struck by your opening comments, and I asked to get a copy of them so I could read them and make sure I quoted them correctly.
00:10You state, and this is a quote from Secretary Rubio, our rights come from God, our creator, not from our laws, not from our governments.
00:18I find that very, very troubling.
00:21I'm a devout person. I was a missionary in Honduras.
00:24We've got other devout folks in this room, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, American.
00:28The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the creator, that's what the Iranian government believes.
00:38It's a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Shia law and targets Sunnis, Baha'is, Jews, Christians, and other religious minorities.
00:50And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator.
00:54So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.
01:03I think the motto over the Supreme Court is equal justice under law.
01:07The oath that you and I take, pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, not arbitrarily defined natural rights.
01:16I'm a strong believer in natural rights, but I have a feeling if we were to have a debate about natural rights in the room and put people around the table with different religious traditions,
01:25there would be some significant differences in the definitions of those natural rights.
01:30You go on to say, I believe our country and our government is the best in the world and our strength comes from our enduring values.
01:37I believe that.
01:38But then you say, and you got to choose what to say in your opening testimony, these values aren't an endless list of, quote, rights.
01:46You put the quote around that to kind of demean the notion of rights that people create and change in form to meet their own needs or desires.
01:54These values aren't identity politics.
01:57They're the historic natural rights that we have as individuals pursuing life, liberty, and happiness in the world.
02:03Pursuing life, liberty, and happiness, the State Department's Human Rights Report has just struck out all references to the rights of LGBTQ people in countries and the way countries treat LGBTQ people.
02:15I mean, do they have a right to liberty?
02:17Do they have a right to life?
02:19Do they have a right to happiness?
02:21Senator Murphy pointed out that the Human Rights Report has taken out information about freedom of association, about freedom of expression, about exploitation of children, about prison conditions.
02:33These were all part of the Human Rights Reports that have been done for years by the State Department.
02:37I think these are things that are connected to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
02:41They've now all been removed from the State Department's annual Human Rights Report.
02:46And the notion that, well, we wanted to make it shorter or more readable just doesn't pass the laugh test with me and many others on this committee.
02:54I'm not really going to ask you about your testimony because I believe you offer that in a very sincere way.
03:00And I don't want to try to change your opinion on something you sincerely believe.
03:04But the notion that our rights do not come from our laws or our government should make people very, very nervous.
03:11Because people of any religious tradition or none are entitled to the equal protection of the laws under the 14th Amendment.
03:19It shouldn't matter what their religious background is, what they think about God or the Creator, what their church affiliation is.
03:28You are entitled in this country, every person, to the equal protection of the laws.
03:34And so to demean laws and demean governments and suggest that rights don't come from laws and governments, I mean, again, I think there are such things as natural rights.
03:44And I try to live in accord with them.
03:46But I would never demean the law.
03:50We are a nation of laws, not men.
03:52Laws, not people.
03:53And if we now, after nearly 250 years, suddenly start to demean that or diminish that and suggest, no, it's natural rights, as defined by a leader, the leader of Iran or the leader of any nation, that does not create a place of safety or comfort for folks.
04:15Mr. Wilcox, I want to just now move to you quickly.
04:18Very important position.
04:19I think it might be the largest group of employees within the State Department in Virginia.
04:24We care deeply about it.
04:25All the Marine Security Guards who guard our embassies train at Quantico, the Foreign Affairs Security Training Centers at Fort Barfoot in southern Virginia that trains our State Department personnel to keep themselves and their families safe.
04:38I'm a little bit worried about the effect of the massive rifts in the State Department on the security mission.
04:44Can you tell me how you would try to make sure that your division has the resources it needs to get the job done?
04:49I do apologize.
04:50Senator, could you repeat that question, please?
04:51I'm worried about the rifts, the reductions in force, and the effect of those rifts on the security mission of the Department of State.
04:59Tell me how you would work to make sure that we have the resources we need to make sure security is job one.
05:04Yes, sir.
05:04I appreciate the question.
05:05As you all know, the diplomatic security was not as impacted as the other bureaus.
05:13We are the largest bureau next to consular affairs, perhaps, certainly by budget and number of personnel.
05:20It's my understanding that only two special agents were rift, and they were not in positions within DS at the time.
05:26We did have other security engineers and a few other labor categories that were involuntarily rift.
05:34Once confirmed, I'm going to do a full assessment, as I said in my opening statement, of the resources, the personnel, and the infrastructure that I have to accomplish our three primary lines of effort,
05:43that being embassy operations, dignitary protection, and law enforcement investigations.
05:47There is an impact any time you conduct a rift, and we lost 1,300 people on the 13th of July.
05:53There's no doubt that that impacts morale, and morale is probably more important than any other component in a paramilitary organization,
06:02and there should be no mistake that diplomatic security is a paramilitary organization with an embedded law enforcement agency.
06:08So the morale will be first and foremost in my thoughts, and I think that my style of leadership, my candor,
06:15my clearly articulating the expectations and the standards that we set for our personnel will help that.
06:21There's a lot of other things we can do in terms of the allocation of personnel and make sure they're right-sized against the mission sets.
06:27But it will be a key focus of mine, and I will focus keenly on what that impact has been,
06:32and I will be candid to the chain of command, what I understand that impact to be.
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