4.5 Days: Who, or What, Grants Us Our Rights?

This is just too good to wait for tomorrow as my '4 Days' post. This is a clear distinction between the vision of liberals and conservatives:

"Kerry believes that the United States government, through the Constitution, 'affords' rights to Americans. My dictionary defines 'afford,' in this context as 'give, grant, confer.' In other words, we fortunate, benighted Americans have a country, a government that grants us rights.

That's an utterly inaccurate reading of the great documents of the founding of this nation. Our government does not grant us any rights at all. On the contrary, Americans start off with rights, and it is we who grant the government certain limited powers to protect those rights."

Read it all, please.