The Myth of Rights
Freedom Is a Fairytale With Fine Print
"Folks, I hate to spoil your fun, but there's no such thing as rights, O.K.? They're imaginary, we made them up. Like the boogeyman. The three little pigs, Pinocchio, Mother Goose—shit like that. Rights are an idea. They’re just imaginary. They’re a cute idea, but that’s all cute, and fictional. "—George Carlin
George Carlin is not wrong.
We talk about inalienable rights as if they were physical laws and absolute, but they're not like the weather or gravity. They don't exist naturally. They exist culturally. They only exist because we believe in them, and only for as long as those in power allow us to. That's not freedom. That's a myth sold as freedom. That's branding.
Rights are a social contract, not a birthright or a guarantee. Haven't you noticed they tend to vanish the moment they become inconvenient to those in control? Because when shit hits the fan, your rights aren't protected by parchment. They're upheld (or ignored) by whoever holds the authority.
Our freedom isn't strengthened by principle. It's held together by the pressure we place on those in charge.
Book bannings, abortion restrictions, immigration detentions, surveillance... They're all proof that rights disappear when they get in the way.
Carlin's joke lands because it's not a joke. It's a mirror that reflects an uncomfortable truth: We don't have rights. We have privileges on lease.
Enlightened philosophers called them "natural rights"—the rights to life, liberty, and property. They believed they were something we were born with, like our lungs or our hearts. But in reality, rights are one of the lies we tell ourselves. They're not laws of nature. They're stories. Ideas. Agreements.
If rights are self-evident, why did slavery last so long in countries built on "freedom"? Why are some rights different depending on your passport, where you're from, or the color of your skin?
Because rights aren't natural. They're fiction. You only have them because a group of people more powerful than you agree you should. That agreement could be a constitution, a court decision, or just part of a culture. Like how some countries have healthcare as a right, while others treat it as a luxury.
The moment those agreements change, however, your "rights" change with them. That's not self-evident or sacred. It's situational.
If rights were real, they wouldn't vanish during pandemics, war, or protests. But they do. Constantly. It's not the rights that protect you, it's the system that chooses to honor them. You don't get due process because the Constitution says so. You get it because there's a government in place that enforces it. But that government is run by humans. Humans with bias, agendas, desires, and the authority to look the other way when it's convenient, or when they decide it's necessary.
History has several reminders. The Trail of Tears, for instance. In the 1830s, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation had sovereignty over its lands. Andrew Jackson, backed by Congress, ignored the ruling. The result was over 16,000 Native Americans forcibly removed from their homes and marched 1200 miles to what is now Oklahoma. Thousands died from disease, starvation, and exposure.
The Japanese were stripped of their rights during WWII overnight and placed in detention camps. The Patriot Act, passed in the name of safety, shredded the Fourth Amendment. Immigrants are deported with zero due process if they happen to meet a checklist of requirements.
Your rights only go as far as the people in power allow them to. The moment they stop playing along, the myth collapses.
I've been in marketing my entire career, and America is good at branding freedom. We have some of the best slogans: Land of the free. Home of the brave. Liberty and justice for all. Stars and stripes. Uncle Sam, our symbolic and powerful Bald Eagle...
But like your rights, these are myths. A performance that isn't real. You can chant, "freedom of speech," while immigrants get prosecuted for protesting. You can claim "equal rights" while we watch entire voting districts get gerrymandered. We can say, "justice is blind," while billionaires get bailouts and the poor get time.
This performance creates enough belief and support to keep us compliant, just enough illusion to avoid a revolt. We're told we're free, so we act like we are. It goes back to how being lied to comforts us and makes the world less chaotic. The story or myth of rights is inspiring and patriotic. But that's all it is... A story. A story that holds together as long as no one breaks character.
We are living in a polarized time where each side screams about their rights or freedoms being stolen, while trying to strip the other side of theirs. Our rights are no longer universal. They've become tribalized. Conditional.
It's a slow erosion that slips by quietly. Almost unnoticed. Protesters get labeled "domestic threats". Journalists get persecuted for their coverage or barred for their affiliations, and courts are reshaping decades of precedents overnight. We’re so busy defending the idea of freedom, we don’t notice when it's being taken from us.
Which brings us back to Carlin again, who wasn't being edgy... He was being truthful.
You don't have rights.
What you do have is leverage.
But when you stop paying attention or organizing, resisting, and speaking up, that leverage erodes. When it erodes, so does the illusion of freedom you thought was guaranteed.
Rights don't protect us. Power does. People do. Community does. An old piece of parchment only matters as much as the weight it's given by its people. Freedom and rights are lies we tell ourselves for peace of mind. The truth, like always, is harsh but simple:
You only have the rights that you are willing to fight for.
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Thanks for being here. Stay Curious. Question Everything.
–Luis
🔍 Further reading:
Wikipedia—The Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850. | READ IT HERE
History.com—Japanese Internment Camps
Japanese internment camps were established during World War II by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. | READ IT HERE
Loved every bit of it
Awesome! Can't go wrong quoting George Carlin. haha