Here's George Carlin's take on Rights. Very intriguing. Dead-on, I'd say.

Society. Prior to society, Human And Legal Rights were nonexistent. We have rights now because there is a system to support those rights.

Many of the legal rights that we have in society comes from the constitution. We get our rights from the constitution which prevents the government from depriving it's citizens of the right to life, liberty, property and happiness. We also get our rights from the bill of rights. Many of the ammendments such as the 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th ammendment provides rights to citizens. For example, the 4th ammendment talks about illegal searches and seizures. Any evidence obtained in violation of this ammendment will result in evidence tained illegal and thus excluded from trial at court. So this right protects citizens from the unfair actions of law enforcement officials.

The 8th ammendment talks about using cruel, excessive and unusual punishment. This ammendment further protects the right of the citizens by forbiding the courts from providing punishments that are excessive and inproportionate with the type of crime committed. If you were to do research on these ammendments which makes up the bill of rights, you would find that the U.S Supreme Court made several case laws from these cases such as Miranda v. Arizona, Weems v. USA, and many other case laws were made as a result of these ammendments.

Also, if you ask any professionals within the field of law where do we get our rights from, their response to you would be The Constitution and The Bill of Rights of The United States.

Taken from the following URL: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_resp.html

The Bill of Rights as a topic is discussed in much more detail elsewhere, but it is appropriate to list the individual rights that are included in the Bill of Rights. These are:

1st Amendment: Freedom of (or from) religion. Freedom of speech. Freedom to assemble. Freedom to petition the government.

2nd Amendment: Right to bear arms.

3rd Amendment: Freedom from quartering soldiers.

4th Amendment: Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrants must only be issued upon probable cause, and shall be specific.

5th Amendment: Criminal indictments must be by grand jury. Freedom from double jeopardy. Freedom from testifying against oneself. Right to face accusers. Right to due process. Right of just compensation for takings.

6th Amendment: Right to speedy trial. Right to impartial jury. Right to be informed of the charges upon which the accused is held. Right to face accusers. Right to produce witnesses for the accused. Right to legal counsel.

7th Amendment: Right to jury trial in civil cases. Facts found by a jury cannot be reexamined by another court.

8th Amendment: Freedom from excessive bail or fines. Freedom from cruel or unusual punishment.

9th Amendment: The listing of a right in any other part of the Constitution does not imply that other unlisted rights do not exist. Supreme Court decisions have found a handful of important rights that fall under the 9th Amendment, such as the right to privacy.

Other Amendments

The Bill of Rights covered most of the most important rights that had been left out of the original Constitution. However, only time could reveal other important rights that had not been covered - or time allowed enough minds to be changed to allow other rights to gain enough popularity to be protected by an amendment.

13th Amendment: Right to not be a slave.

14th Amendment: Right to citizenship of any person born in the United States. Right to equal protection of the national and state laws. Right to be free of any law that abridges the privileges or immunities of a citizen. Right to be free of any law that deprives a person of life, liberty, or property without due process.

15th Amendment: Right to vote regardless of race or color.

17th Amendment: Right to vote for Senators.

19th Amendment: Right to vote regardless of gender.

23rd Amendment: Right to vote for presidential electors if a resident of Washington, D.C.

24th Amendment: Right to vote even if a poll tax or any other tax is unpaid.

26th Amendment: Right to vote guaranteed for any person at least 18 years old.

Finally, when it comes down to the authors of the various source of rights, you should research Thomas Jefferson (author of The Declaration of Independence in the U.S). The source of legal and human rights in the U.S is the U.S Constitution and the Bill of Rights, so a good idea would be to research on who created these two sources by the way.

Check these sites out if you like:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/constitution/constitution_menu.cfm

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/marryff.html

Also, we do not get our rights from the state because if that is the case, then the Supreme Court would not have had to deal with issues regarding the infringement of rights by the state and various lawsuits against the state. We get our rights from the Declaration of Independence, Bill Of Rights, and Constitution. These rights were created to prevent injustice committed against all citizens and were created as result of the progression of society towards a more civilized or mordernised era. The creators of the Constitution and Bill of Rights would be the Nation's Founding Fathers and also, Thomas Jefferson.

Prior to all of this taking place, there were no rights, which is why the rights were created in the first place.

Human rights are obtained from nature, and by nature I mean sociological placement and biological ability, and the human mind's development on our placement in evolutionary chains. Essentially, human rights arrive from what the majority of the planet thinks the Human race owns in terms of rights, property and self-righteousness. The Whole food chain concept and human self-awareness also play a huge part in this.

Legal rights, on the other hand, arrive from the state. These are generally rights that are borrowed from philosophy(Actually, I cant think of any rights outside of those that have been philosophically extended, nonetheless...) involving humanity and its placement, such as the right to life, the right to free belief, the right to freedom of speech. All natural rights that are legally extended by the state are legal rights. According to the United States of America's Constitution's Bill of Rights, the first eleven amendments, rights that arent extended by the state dont NOT necessarily exist. However, across the world today, the natural right system is not generally acknowledged, even in places like Europe and especially Asia, not to say, however, that these continents and their countries dont have Legal rights.

As for the debate over unlimited rights, The video above is correct in leaning toward unlimited rights in that the only theoretical flaw is that people can do whatever they want, which is wrong. Some unspoken human rights include the right to responsibility, the right to realistic option and the right of obligation to serve. These unspoken philosophical laws are ones that are expected to be respected in society by individuals and are without enforcement, which is why they are often not acknowledged or even known. Saying such, Unlimited rights are the way to go. However, certain rights limit intolerable or absolutely free behavior.

If you want a source for some of the rights that have been discussed before in history, look up the Second Continental Congress and its Rights Debating society.

I would say at birth. Everyone has inalienable rights. The Government is the protector of those rights.