re: #160 Ian MacGregor

It’s not so simple as that. Yes governments protect and deny rights, but there is also the idea of universal rights. Without such a concept how can one charge a country of violating human rights. A government may make genocide their policy. The millions who died in the extermination camps obviously lost their lives, but they do not lose their right to life.

The Declaration of Independence speaks to unalienable rights guaranteed not by government , but by “their Creator”. Now whether one is a proponent of Natural law; i.e., God wrote the idea of such writes on mens hearts, or they come from societal evolution, rights exist no matter whether a government supports or is hostile to them.

The Constitution trumps the DoI, and it’s the Constitution where the rights of the government are separated from the rights of the people. These were written, and thus granted to us by Men. Justify it as God Given if you like, I won’t argue, but reality is that a group of men defined these rights for the American People.