Originally Posted by Suave

You may believe whatever you want about which rights human beings are "inately" given. My point is that, no matter how strongly you may believe in those rights, they only exist in the practical sense if they are agreed upon and enforced by society (the government being a direct institutional embodiment thereof).

Let's say for example that you believe that everyone has the right to live without being insulted. There is no government at this time, of any sort. A man comes along who happens to believe that everyone has the right to say absolutely anything that they want. He insults you. Did he just violate human rights, or did he merely act upon human rights? The only way to define whether his action was in accordance with his rights as a human being is if there is a larger group, society represented by the government, who will decide. Otherwise, the man who insulted you had the right to do so, because he imposed it upon you. If you had a shotgun and you shot him for doing so, then it was you who had the right not to be insulted, because you imposed your will on him, in the form of punishment.