[pvn]

[ QUOTE ]
Thats the whole point of discussions like these. The legislature could get together tomorrow and pass twenty new amendments to the Constitution, taking away and granting me any sort of arbitrary rights they happened to think were clever. But when I wake up, I do not have any more or less rights than I do right now. Some of the rights I currently have might get trampled on, and the government might start recognizing rights that I've had all along, but the number of rights I currently have is not contingent on the United States government.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ding.

Further, the specific words chosen in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (and please, let's not even for a minute pretend that these words were casually chosen) indicate that the authors specifically agreed with this particular point of view. The constitution only mentions RIGHTS as possessions of INDIVIDUALS, never as possessed by states. And it's clear that the rights *recognized* therein are rights that the document forbids the government from violating, not rights that it is bestowing upon some chosen recipients.