Some suggest that rights come from government, and that government therefore has the power to remove such rights. Some suggest that rights are merely utilitarian constructs—that rights are a handy way of thinking about “stuff other people shouldn’t do to us,” but can be overridden if the concerns of the many outweigh the concerns of the few. The founding fathers, however, based their belief in rights in the framework of natural rights. Why? Because rights that spring from human beings aren’t rights at all—they’re privileges that may be dispensed with at any time. Rights that emanate from a
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