America First foreign policy gets an Office of Natural Rights

Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio executed a sweeping restructuring plan to implement an America First foreign policy in the State Department. Although many offices were either eliminated or combined, a few new ones were created. Among them is the Office of Natural Rights.

The very name has drawn the usual harrumphing from establishment voices who insist that “human rights” is the only proper diplomatic term. While human rights terminology is significant, the State Department has long been blind to an even more critical truth behind such language: Without human nature, human rights don’t exist.

Without reference to the inherent limitations of our shared human nature, the argument over rights becomes a mere yelling match.

If our rights are not grounded in a shared nature, they