Screaming until you get your way isn’t a constitutional right

The fundamental rights every person possesses today are identical to those held by our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago—rooted not in government decree but in natural sovereignty, according to Michael Breeden writing in Washington Examiner.

In a thought experiment stripped to essentials, Breeden argues that an individual alone in the wilderness holds absolute authority over their own survival: gathering resources, making choices about shelter versus food, water versus rest, with no obligations to others and no claims upon them. These raw natural rights—life, liberty, and the fruits of one’s own labor—form the bedrock of what the Constitution actually protects.

The founding document does not grant rights, Breeden contends. It constrains government from becoming what he describes as a gang of wealth-extracting thieves. Constitutional protections prevent the seizure of hard-earned assets, the taking of life, or the stripping of freedom to live and choose as one sees fit. The framework is simple: you work, you keep what you make, and no one has the right to take it.

But natural rights in isolation face immediate practical limits when other people enter the picture. Breeden illustrates this through a biblical allegory: when Adam meets Eve, the dynamics shift from pure individual sovereignty to cooperative survival. She brings her own sovereign rights, and together they form the first economic and social unit.

The Mother-Child Contract and Civilization’s Foundation

The arrival of a child fundamentally transforms the equation. A mother’s investment—nine months of physical transformation, the trauma of birth, endless nursing—creates what Breeden calls the mother-child contract, describing it as the invisible, unbreakable foundation of civilization. This primal bond differs entirely from the relationship between man and woman. The mother pours her body and future into the child, who represents the ultimate stake in tomorrow.

The father, witnessing this investment, discovers new purpose: risking life, breaking his back, standing between family and danger. Individual rights become collective family rights, because protecting the mother and the future is how the species survives. This family unit—mother’s investment, father’s provision and defense, child’s promise—forms the seed of everything larger in human society.

When Thieves Force the Social Contract

As human populations multiply, most families coexist peacefully, trading meat for grain, helping raise structures, living and letting live. But some look at another man’s accumulated tools, dried meat, and healthy children and calculate a different path: why break your own back when you can break his head?

Breeden paints a vivid scenario: Adam checking his snares, ambushed by two rough characters who beat him bloody and steal what they can carry. Crawling home to Eve, holding their child that night, he faces the hard truth that next time the thieves won’t stop at beating—they’ll kill him and take everything, including his family.

This moment reveals the hard limit of individual sovereignty. A man still possesses every natural right he had when alone, but those rights have no invisible force field. The sweat of his brow and the fruit of his labor cannot protect themselves against wolves who walk on two legs.

The Birth of Legitimate Government

Adam’s solution is to gather the other decent families, those who would rather build than burn. Under torchlight by the stream, with women gripping weapons and children running underfoot, they forge the first social compact. The terms are clear: keep what you make, stand watch for each other, agree on rules. Attack a man for what he earned with his sweat, and the rest come for you—no exceptions.

They establish the basics: danger signals, rotating watches, fair trade, and punishment proportional to the crime. It’s messy and loud, but it represents the fundamental bargain at the heart of constitutional government—not the creation of new rights, but the collective defense of natural ones against those who would violate them by force.

This framework, Breeden suggests, explains why more freeloaders means less for productive citizens. The Constitution exists to prevent government itself from becoming another gang of thieves, extracting wealth through force rather than protecting the right of individuals to keep what they earn through their own labor.

With information from Washington Examiner