Why do some people mistakenly think the Constitution or the Bill of Rights gives them their rights?

Good point. In the United States, the People are Sovereign, and the Constitution is merely an instrument for governing on behalf of the People.

All rights flow from the People.

Because they have not read any of these documents, and wouldn't understand the big words.

The Constitution more specifically limits the government, rather then just lists duties. The Bill of Rights was born from the fear that the Constitution would be manipulated to violate the peoples rights.

The US Constitution spells out how we Govern. 'WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION, ESTABLISH JUSTICE, INSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH FOR THIS CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA..

From the Senate, to the (House)Congress, to what qualifications are required to be In these offices and how long etc... The Bill Of Rights..defines our rights, and the Amendments define the changes over time for "the common good"...

Laws that we create to protect us all from harm, and government to help us enforce these laws, are all meant for the common good. Just as REGULATIONS (rules to regulate commerce, which is Congress job to regulate)...regulate how corporations can behave..or they would dump waste at will, pollute waters ect..at will..( some republicans have claimed 'regulations hurt business"..this was shown to be flawed when actually, DE-regulation in Banking by the Bush administration caused the Banks to fail, as we had lax regulations, ( not the same rules that protected us for decades)..They are meant to protect US..we the people..NOT the banks, and NOT corporations!

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If we got rid of "all Government", as some (idiots) have suggested or called for, we would have chaos, The police we hire, the senators, our congress all have a job and it's spelled out in these documents..if people understood Civics even or had a decent education these things would by now be "self evident'....we would change the way our current Government is going before we go backwards in time..instead of BE the country we used to be..WE need to look out for us, and elect leaders who look out for PEOPLE...NOT just their wealthy donors, who keep them in office or those who will say NO to jobs and NO to progress..and lie to us....

How 'bout using fact given each and every of the historic evidence, there's a separation of church and state. examining your question, i'm reminded of an old track: "do no longer understand plenty approximately historic previous.....". The colonies of their later years and the states of the early U.S. have been divided between 2 mainstream church homes: The Congregationalists in the north and the Anglicans in the south. voters no remember what their non secular association have been taxed to help the state church homes. The theology, prayers, songs, and so on. of those church homes have been taught in the colleges. of course, the Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics and Jews have been none too thrilled to be compelled to help state church homes that weren't their own. The animosity between the participants of the various church homes replaced into destabilizing at a time while the country needed each and every of the soundness it might desire to get. with the intention to maintain the peace and help carry the greater youthful us of a mutually, a gaggle of actually sensible adult men set the rule that there is church and there is state and that they are separate issues. A citizen's non secular ideals are their own individual and private undertaking. As Thomas Jefferson reported: "What care I if my neighbor have confidence in one god, twenty gods or no god? It neither steals my handbag nor breaks my leg." this is too undesirable modern human beings won't have the capacity to maintain their non secular ideals inner maximum and out of the regular public sphere. u.s. would be greater effective for it. it is likewise very unhappy that a neo-historic bag of lies is changing the actual and intensely thrilling historic previous of the U.S. - case in point, did you recognize the via refering to organic regulation in the statement of Independence the Founders have been telling the King that they have got been as worth below the regulation as kings? on the time the persons have been to persist with and be sure via ordinary regulation, via the guidelines of parliament and via the edicts of the king. in common terms kings have been sure via organic regulation. (btw, the form replaced into written to furnish a functional shape for a clean national government using fact below the Articles of Confederation the old government did no longer have the skill to enforce fee of the taxes levied on the states to pay off the progressive conflict debt. flow discern.... The shape replaced into written using fact the feds had to collect taxes to pay off a debt. ;-p)

Remember Thomas Jeffeson's words in the Declaration of Independance: "that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights"

Every human being is born with human right. An unjust government may hinder the free exercise of those rights, but they exist nontheless.

Government cannot take away human rights, nor can it create new ones.

Well, I suppose that in the way you have stated it, the rights do come from the governments enforcement of the constitution, there fore they come from government. If the government became corrput and didn't enforce the constitution, then it would be the government blocking the rights, so why not the other way around???

Then where do our rights come from? There is no God, and people are not born with rights. We only have the rights that we fight for, against the ruling class. If no one cared about freedom of speech anymore, they would simply get rid of it. They've been trying to get around it ever since it was put into the Bill of Rights anyway.

The bill of rights is a set of amendments to the constitution.

as an Atheist I look forward to you trying to explain where our rights do come from

born with ?? really, and how is that true ?

how are we "born" with a right to 'bear arms' ?

how am I born with a right to be secure in my 'Papers' ?

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and nothing (I thought so)

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IF (big huge IF) our Rights came from an all powerful and mighty Zeus then we would not need the government to "Secure" those rights for us like Jefferson said in the Declaration.

I mean that god and his 'endowed' and 'unalienable' Rights are pretty weak and lame if God himself can't/wont 'Secure' those rights for us !

it seems to me that these 'unalienable' rights that Zeus 'endowed' us with weren't worth sh*t until We The People created a Government to 'Secure' them for us.

Those who don't are ignorant because of lack of education, especially history. They are also very accustomed to an age where they couldn't imagine the government not having so much power.