Inalienable Rights
Read this wonderful essay by Thom Hartmann on what the framers of the Constitution intended with respect to our rights. Key quote: “...the Constitution wasn't written as a vehicle to grant us rights. We don't derive our rights from the constitution. Rather, in the minds of the Founders, human rights are inalienable - inseparable - from humans themselves. We are born with rights by simple fact of existence, as defined by John Locke and written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the Founders wrote. Humans are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...."”