People believe they are born with rights as a consequence of their very existence. They have these 'unalienable' rights that shall not be infringed. Yet, they are regularly infringed with no 'lawful' cause. Whether it be a mugger infringing on your 'right' to life and property or it is the ATF infringing on your 'right' to be able to defend yourself and to form a militia to stand in defense for a community in opposition to a tyrannical government, specifically a domestic one.
If you are born with a 'right', there are a couple things we should ask:
If 'rights' are inherent, from whence do they come?
Why do they seem to not deter adults from treating children, born with inherent 'rights' that are theirs, as if they have no 'rights'?
If 'rights' are not granted by the 'state', then how is it that the 'state' has the ability and power to restrict your 'rights' without your consent?
So, if 'rights' are inherent, you have them at birth. Yet, adults are free to control a child in ways they shouldn't be able to if the child has these inherent 'rights'.
Sure, the child likely can't communicate its desires regarding these things, but then, if its 'rights' cannot protect it when it cannot protect itself, what do they do?
And please understand that I don't think we should treat children as adults. We are their caretakers, they are our wards. We have a responsibility to our children that we brought into the world to give them the opportunity to grow and to learn how to think and teach them how to take care of themselves. But we are not their owners. They are not property. But neither do they have 'rights' even though we're told we have 'inherent', 'natural' 'rights' we are born with.
It's not because they are children and so are not afforded 'rights'. It is because 'rights' are not real. A child isn't born with 'rights' simply because it was born. They are not something that we magically have. They have an origin that has nothing to do with natural means or inherent endowment or whatever. The Constitution is not simply listing magical 'rights' that magically make us 'free'. The Constitution grants those 'rights'. And they don't make us 'free'. We don't need magic words on a magic piece of paper to be free. We are born free. It's that we have been convinced that we can't be 'free' without these magic 'rights' that seem to be able to be manipulated and defined by government that we're told isn't who gave us our special 'rights' that make us 'free'. Strange, to me, that these 'rights' that aren't bestowed by government can magically be altered, redefined, limited and even taken away when they are supposed to be these inherent things government can't affect.
To say that we 'naturally' are born with these 'rights' that make us 'free' but that the government can alter and take them from us by writing magic words on magic paper seems to me to be akin to saying 'we naturally have our minds and government didn't give them to us but the government cant alter them and take them at a whim simply by writing words on paper thousands of miles away and, magically, they can alter and take our minds.'
That's not how it works. They can't magically alter or take our minds(but they can condition them if given opportunity and time) with words on paper because we are inherently and naturally born with our minds. If 'rights' were inherently and naturally a part of our existence upon birth or conception or whatever, then they would not be assailable simply by some asshole in a suit sitting in an office writing on a piece of paper how those natural, inherent 'rights' that belong to us are now suddenly not quite the same. Some asshole in a fucking robe couldn't say a few magic words about how we did bad things and now he's taking our 'rights' from us and slam a magic hammer and suddenly our 'rights' are magically gone.
The government can alter and remove 'rights' and that is because they are not inherent, they are not natural. They are derived from 'law' and government. It is because 'rights' do not exist that they can be taken, given, and altered simply by writing a few words on special paper. You can't take real things simply with a piece of paper that says 'that's no longer yours because i said so.'
But enough of my multi-angular illustration of the discrepancy of the perception and concept of 'rights' that allegedly make us 'free'. Let's do some history and stuff and see what 'rights' actually are and where they came from so it isn't just me saying they aren't natural and inherent and granted simply by existing.
So, what are 'rights', exactly, what is there function? To make us 'free'? You are free. You were born free. Then you were told for 18 years that without these magic 'rights' you wouldn't be free and so you now believe that it is a handful of magic words you've been taught over and over that is why you are 'free'. Or so you think.
'Rights', per the Constitution, are guarantees. Essentially, the Constitution is a contract that sets terms that the 'states' of the union, including the federal government, must abide by. 'Rights', in this sense, are nothing more than limitations upon the 'state' in how it may use its 'power' in regard to the 'people', assumed to be those who are 'lawful citizens' of any one of the 'states' of the union. In other words, 'rights', as they are used in the Constitution, don't grant freedom. They actually are restraints. Against government. Or they're supposed to be. They are supposed to stop government from being able to limit your ability to speak your mind or to limit your ability to find, receive, read, hear, watch, be informed of what is going on in the world from an 'unbiased' point of view. They are supposed to stop government from taking away your means of defense, not just against 'criminals' trying to rape or steal or murder(the one's that don't have badges) but to be able to defend and to organize with others to defend against tyrannical government, particularly the one that you think is so wonderful because it let's you have your 'rights' so you can be 'free'.
'Rights' are supposed to define the limitations of the 'authority' and 'power' government has in regard to people, individuals. You.
So, are we born with 'rights'? Are they inherently ours once we are alive?
Well, because that magic piece of paper says all men, or at least all of them within the borders someone drew on a map, have these allegedly 'unalienable' 'rights', you could say that because you were born in the right place and/or to the right people, you now are said to have 'rights'. But since 'rights' are simply legal concepts, what does it mean to be born with a legal concept? About what it means to be born under Uranus Rising. It only means as much as you are gullible enough to believe.
As you'll see further down, 'rights' are nothing but the delineation of the limits that are demanded of government by a few men and then agreed to and granted by government. They are legal terms and limits the government promises to abide by.
So, as I said above, you aren't actually born with 'rights'. They aren't real. It's simply that when you are born on this magic patch of dirt, you're told you magically have these magical 'rights' that magically make and keep you free because without them you'd be a slave or something.
So, if children are born with or given or assumed to have these 'rights' upon birth, why does it seem like the government doesn't recognize their 'rights'? If they are inherent and natural, then they should be recognized and acknowleged at birth.
Once again, it's because they aren't real. You aren't actually born with them and they are not inherent. They are concepts that you will spend your first 18 years being convinced keep you 'free' and can't be taken from you and that without them, we'd be North Korea. But think about it, if they are natural and inherent, why aren't North Koreans also born with them? Why isn't every person born with the same 'rights'? Why is it only the lucky American people that seem to be born with these magical inherent and natural 'rights' that make us free while the rest of the world gets 'rights' that aren't the same? DO I have to say it? Because 'rights' are a fiction. A concept. A legal concept. A concept that claims to restrain government. So, what 'rights' you're magically born with all depends on what 'rights' the magic 'laws' of where you are born say they are. Interesting, isn't it? That the 'rights' you get correlate perfectly with the 'rights' your government tells you you have.
Anyway, so if not all men, then who have 'rights'?
Initially, only white men of a certain age with land had any real standing with regard to the 'state'. Eventually this was extended to include younger men, those without land, other races, and women. And there it stopped. So it seems that, until you reach an arbitrary age determined by men long dead, you are not 'truly' a citizen. And though the Constitution says 'all men', it would seem that all men, even in the beginning of the union, only referred to, at first, white men of an age who owned land, then younger men and those with no land, then other races, then women.
So 'all men' nor 'we the people' does not seem to have ever meant all men or people, and it still doesn't since it only applies to the lucky, super'free' Americans.
It means, at least today, all men and women, of an arbitrary age, belonging to a particular patch of dirt and rock. This is evidenced in that anyone who did not fit the criteria of 'all men' at the time were not protected or guaranteed any 'rights' or protection of such.
Those 'people' of the assumed and accepted criteria of the time, who had the 'right' to vote and seemed to the only ones who were truly 'protected' under the 'rights' listed are the only 'people', 'men', or 'citizens' who should have any claim to the 'rights' they have as a result of their existence.
But not until they are old enough.
So, assuming that 'all men' is now meant to mean 'all people' since, for the most part, no one considers other races to be subhuman and that, allegedly, we have established 'equal rights' both for all races and for men and women(so we're told); how is it that 'all men are created equal' if all men's 'rights', inherent at birth, are not equally acknowledged, 'protected' and respected, even by other 'citizens'?
Who are 'we the people' if the Constitution and 'rights' only seem to apply to a fraction of those who are born on this patch or have 'properly' immigrated here?
How is it that we are born with inherent 'rights' but that we have no 'protection' under those 'rights' until we reach an arbitrarily defined age and only provided we belong to the proper patch of dirt and rock?
The Magna Carta was a list of demands the lords, landowners, and barons delivered to the Crown. It delineated the limitations the lords demanded the Crown have in regard to its 'authority' over them. And it only applied to them, not the 'people' of England. The Constitution is the American version of the Magna Carta. It was written by men who were the wealthy, landowners, and politically connected and influential and had been selected to design the new government by other wealthy, landowing, and politcally connected persons. The Constitution wasn't drafted with the whole of the colonists in mind. The 'rights' weren't really for most of them. The 'rights' were meant to protect those who qualified as 'men'. Simply look at who could vote. Initially, only white, male landowners in their 20's could vote. And it's safe bet they were the only ones who could honestly demand their 'rights' be respected because they are who the Constitution was written for.
The most absurd thing about it, for me, is that a handful of men were selected by a handful of men and they went and created a government with the blessing of a handful of men. And that, somehow, magically, created a system of government with jurisdiction over everyone in the area it now 'claimed' despite people have been there long before a bunch of old men with money decided to claim they made a government and everyone in the area was now an American because a piece of hemp paper had some ink and signatures. That was the process for the creation of the union. A few men write some words, tell people the words mean this is America now and everyone here is American. Imagine trying to do that today. Who the fuck would say 'Oh, you're in charge now? Well you have the parchment and the ink and signatures and you look like a person able to create a governement. All right then, I suppose I'm a Fuckenmowon.
'The people' was not, and still isn't, the whole of the population, really. Because kids apparently have 'rights' that don't work.
So, the Magna Carta simply put limits on the Crown in regard to lords and landowners and that the Constitution wasn't designed to 'free' the entire population of the colonies and every 'citizen' of this special patch of dirt for all time.
The Constitution was written by wealthy or influential men, for those men.
The 'rights' American's talk about having only have effect when the government decides they do and the government can decide to take them from you if you're a 'bad boy'.
Does that sound like some magic guarantee to protect you from government infringing on your freedom as granted to you by the grace of God/nature, inherently, as a result of your existence?
Or does it sound like the government says you have some 'rights' and tells you they make you 'free' and that they 'protect' you from bad people and that they can't be infringed by anyone... except when they decide it's more important to pass this or that 'law' than to not infringe on your 'rights'; except when you break a rule such as having a pound of a 'bad' plant, then you can't have your magic, God-given, natural, inherent, uninfringable 'rights' that 'protect' your 'freedom'. But if you ask really nicely after they put you in a cage for a long time, maybe they'll be nice and let you have your 'rights' back so you can protect your 'freedom'.
'Rights' are a legal concept and are derived from government and 'law'. Not nature. Not existence. They are nothing more than a placebo to convince people that they are safe from the government ever being too bad and mean to them because this piece of paper says the government can't do certain things and that means the government magically is incapable of controlling the press or restricting religion or limiting who can have what kind of weapons to defend themselves and on and on.
The only thing you are born with is whatever body parts you have, your mind and your freedom. Sadly, almost every one of us alive today were never told about that last part. We were told that some fucking words on a fucking piece of paper magically fucking makes us free.
You're already free. You've always been free. You were born free. You simply forgot that you are free. So, I'm telling you, you're free. Now fucking act like a free man and stop living like a slave.