Brad DeLong rightly attacks Supreme Court Justice Nino Scalia for saying that “government comes from God”. As DeLong says

Nino Scalia’s views on this are profoundly — there is no other word for it — UnAmerican.

Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Instead, God gives us rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent, not from God’s decree.

Amen.