The founders believed that because human nature existed, that because human nature was rooted in reason, and that because reason had to be protected, human beings were inherently granted the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by Nature and Nature’s God. Those rights preexisted government and could not be invaded by government. Disintegrationists, by contrast, see such preexisting rights—often termed “negative rights,” in that they are rights against the government—as a chimera, or worse, as we’ve seen, as an actual impediment to equality of outcome. Rights, in the
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