The U.S. Constitution clearly states that citizens have rights that are to be protected by government. Today there is growing confusion about what is, and what is not, a right. The following article makes a clear distinction between "rights" and "privileges" and the significance of each.
"As you can guess, natural rights imply a lot of things, and philosophers have pondered and argued about this for the last 2,500 years. Start with the Greeks and Romans and work your way up through the centuries to Aquinas, the Salamancans, Hobbes, Locke, and others.
English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) defined natural rights this way:
Life: everyone is entitled to live.
Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn’t conflict with the first right.
Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn’t conflict with the first two rights.
America was founded upon these philosophical concepts. The ideas and ideals of natural rights and natural law were embodied in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and other Founders."