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And I see you're changing your tune now. You're no longer saying our rights are granted by the Constitution.

These are views I've held quite a long time, so no I'm not changing my tune. In my view the Constitution is the mechanism Americans have chosen to protect our natural rights. In practice there isn't much difference between the Constitution granting rights and the Constitution protecting natural rights. The biggest example I can think of when the distinction was important was when the Constitution permitted slavery, which is a violation of the slaves' natural rights.

BTW, I'm very much in the minority. Most Americans, including most SCOTUS justices, view the Constitution as a social contract that is the source of our rights, rejecting the theory of natural rights.

"In practice there isn't much difference between the Constitution granting rights and the Constitution protecting natural rights."

There's a HUGE difference. Liberty and equality are "self-evident" natural rights. But the Constitution protected *slavery*, until the 13th Amendment.

That does NOT mean that blacks born as slaves didn't have the rights to liberty and equality (equal protection of the laws). It's "self-evident" that they did. It's merely that the Founding Fathers screwed up, in that regard. Big time.

"Most Americans, including most SCOTUS justices, view the Constitution as a social contract that is the source of our rights, rejecting the theory of natural rights."

Most Americans, most definitely including the present judges of the Supreme Court, are irrational and/or ignorant. That's why we're in the mess we're in (the federal government massively violating the Constitution).