[jethropalerobber]

Since you believe that rights only exist as something guaranteed by someone else...

i didn't say "by someone else" - there is no reason you cannot act as the gauranteer of your own rights. but a much more common and effective method is for people to collectively create an authority with the means to gaurantee the rights of all. you originally said "humans have human rights because they are human." that's a pretty lie. humans have "human rights" only to the extent that we ourselves decide to gaurantee those rights. there is nothing automatic, natural, or God given about it.

[hocndoc]

I disagree that the possession of rights is dependent on the ability to protect those rights.
By that logic, Dred Scott had no rights, as Taney said. Women in Saudi Arabia have no rights, as their theocracy says. And everyone of us has no true rights, only privileges bestowed by whatever might they can muster.