The Left confuses and conflates rights with privileges, often has them exactly reversed, in fact.
The Left thinks being called by your “preferred pronoun” is a right, but that being allowed to defend yourself and your family, especially with a firearm, is a privilege. Progressives believe a person has a right to be sheltered from any idea, belief, or phrase that that person might disagree with, but that free speech is a privilege. Most Democrats seem to believe one has a right to an illness-free life, but not to individual liberty. They believe there is a right to a guaranteed income, but not to any job they deem “non-essential.” Progressives believe we all have a right to the sex and /or gender of our choosing, but that it’s a privilege to be able to attend the church of our choice. Democrats believe in your right to force any and every bakery-- regardless of its owner’s religious beliefs and moral values-- to make you a gay/trans/pangender/orgy/bestiality-themed cake, but that it’s a privilege to be a straight, white, Christian man.
Leftists somehow purport to believe that the right to abortion is cemented in our founding documents, but that a nationalized healthcare system board should essentially be able to tell anyone over 75 that they don’t deserve or qualify for medical treatment as that would be an inefficient use of resources. In other words, that it would be a privilege for an elderly person to be granted the same health care options as a younger person.
This all stems from leftists’ fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of both rights and Natural Law. Conservatives (and classical liberals) understand that our rights are granted at birth by our Creator and protect us from arbitrary and egregious acts by others. These “negative” rights state that others (government) can’t, say, exterminate or imprison us because of our skin color or religious beliefs, can’t capriciously take away our property, right to free speech and assembly, or ability to defend ourselves. (And can’t force us to be injected with a foreign substance of unproven and unknown efficacy or treat us as pariahs and revoke our rights if we refuse to do so.) These negative rights, or individual liberties, simply require others (government) not to do specific things that would harm us in contravention to God’s Law and are -- or were -- the foundational principles of the United States of America.
In contrast, today’s so-called “liberals” believe in “positive rights,” which impose on others (government) a duty to act or provide in a certain way. These “rights” are better termed entitlements and are hallmarks of the welfare state.
Also, they aren’t rights.
It is a great thing for every individual -- and every group for that matter -- if governments can’t arbitrarily kill them, imprison them, silence them, or steal from them. It is not good or helpful for people to think they have a right to other people’s money. Or their neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, or ass. Or anything else that is thy neighbor’s.
Those on the left have the right to say what they will. The very God, people, documents and nation they so eagerly denigrate have granted, guaranteed and defended that right for going on two and a half centuries now. They do not have the right to our houses, wives or income. Nor do they have the right to silence, “cancel,” or imprison those with whom they disagree, no matter how zealously they may argue otherwise.
Unfortunately, far too many of us -- and our Republican “representatives” -- have effectively afforded them that privilege.
It is well past time we reassert our rights. They don’t come from government or Democrats, though they desperately want us to think they do.
Our rights have been granted by our Creator, been recognized, asserted and proclaimed by the Founders, been symbolized and made tangible in the Star-Spangled Banner, and defended by all those who have served in the United States military.
It is time to start acting like we know this.