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I detect a need to control the conversation, and to dictate when it ends. That’s okay.

But I can’t help myself, just one little comment. I don’t think rights can really have any meaning at all, if their value is measurable only by the weight of the subjective opinion of whoever has access to the most physical force at any time in history.

I see your powers of detection are faulty. What I'm telling you is that I have had this conversation many, many times and that's generally how it goes.

The "meaning" and "value" of rights is an amusing topic for those who have no fear of losing them. But I am afraid you are wrong: Americans still have what rights we do because we declared them and then backed them up by a show of force. We are losing them now because we seem unable to combat internal enemies as effectively as external ones. And declaring them to be "from God" makes only as much difference as the people standing for them do... which tells me they don't come "from God" at all but from the decisions of men who discerned that staking a claim was the first step to having them.

Unfortunately, Leftists have discovered the same thing, and declaring education, housing, and health care as "human rights" was all it took to set us on the road we are on now. Again, where you claim the rights come from is only an indication of what method you intend to use in justifying them. But success is the real test.