I’m not sure if Charles Johnson thinks that the rights of American’s are granted by government, or if the false dichotomy in his sentence is supposed to be attributed only to the way “people like” Rep. Peter King sees things. Either way, it’s worth touching on here.
People like Rep. King are usually the same ones who claim that the rights of Americans are granted by God, not by the government.
Individual Rights are not granted by anyone as they are no one’s to grant in the first place. They are a part of us, automatically and intrinsically, by our nature of being individual reasoning beings. They cannot be granted anymore than they can be changed or taken away. This is what unalienable means.
A government’s proper function is to protect the rights of individuals, ensuring that these rights are not infringed upon by others, not to decide who should be granted them at the expense of another. But I guess a government needs to understand the unalienable nature of rights before it can defend them.
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[...] previously posted about something Charles Johnson said that had me worrying that he thought individual rights are [...]