Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which
...defines a single set of individual and collective rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights are held to be universal and valid in all times and places.
The first of these include:
- Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
- The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
- The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
- Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
Obviously, none of these rights existed under King Louis, and unfortunately for Santorum, the Catholic Church stood in direct opposition to the French Revolution and in support of the Ancien Régime.
Of course, this is all an aside to the fact that the notion President Robespierre Obama is about to unleash a Reign of Terror and start beheading clergy is well beyond insane.