The Stack: Where Rights Come From And Why Truth Still Matters
What is a right—and why does it matter where it comes from?
In today’s episode, Todd Huff explores a foundational question that shapes everything from politics to culture: the origin of our rights. Are rights given by government, defined by majority opinion, or rooted in something deeper and unchanging?
Todd makes the case that rights are not entitlements, benefits, or guarantees of outcomes. Instead, they are inherent—grounded in truth and ultimately derived from our Creator. If rights are not anchored in something permanent, they become unstable, subject to political whims, and vulnerable to being taken away.
This episode walks through the philosophical and historical framework behind the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—explaining why the founders structured government to protect rights, not grant them.
If truth itself is negotiable, then rights are too. And that’s a dangerous path.
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đź“ť Transcript: Where Rights Come From And Why Truth Still Matters
The Todd Huff Show – March 24 , 2026
Host: Todd Huff
Todd Huff: All right, my friends, we are going to resume. Yesterday, we kind of took a break from going through a series. We really don't do series on this program, but we've started to do a series here. And I'll reframe it here quickly. I kind of started this idea realizing the way that we approach the issues of the day is to use the issues of the day as a springboard. To talk about things that I think matter a lot. So it's not, to me so much about the specifics of the he said, she said or the narrative of the day. You can get that a lot of places. Have at it. It certainly matters a lot of times for the overall narrative. What we try to do is use that to talk about bigger truths. Because, my friends, this is a world that is dying for truth. A world that is longing for truth. It is, in many ways, void. It is devoid of truth. And there is a competing narrative as to what that truth is. And I am of the opinion. Actually, I don't even think it's opinion. I think I would say to you, I think it's indisputable.
Todd Huff: That if the truth tellers remain silent, then lies fill that vacuum. I think that that's exactly what happens. I think that's exactly what we're dealing with here in this nation today. We're dealing with the consequences of people who knew the truth. Truth, and that extends into a lot of areas. Remember we talked about earlier in this series. Truth is ultimately just what is. Truth is reality. Truth is the state of things as they are. And I know we all have opinions on those things. I'm not trying to blur the lines there. But regardless of your opinion, my opinion, whatever, there are things that are true, even if the entire world rejects it. There are things that are true that the entire world could reject. And there are things the world could unanimously say that something is true, and it be a lie straight from the pits of hell.
Todd Huff: Those are totally conceivable things. Truth doesn't care what we think about it. Truth is what it is, and it's our job to understand it to the best of our ability and pass it on to the next generation. And we've had people who either have been preoccupied with other things, prosperity, their own standard of living. And listen, none of these things are bad. We take the kids places, and there's a lot of good things out there. A lot of good things vying for our time. But I would add to the list of things that we had better tend to ensuring that we have a nation that hears and receives truth. And that's ultimately what we do on this program every day. We help people hear and receive truth. And so I've learned through the course of now nearly 11 years of doing this program that a lot of people have no idea about things that are what's true, what is. They just have opinions that are rooted in feelings. They have opinions that are not based in any sort of logical framework or understanding of the universe, understanding of the world that's around us, understanding of history and politics and philosophy. Our search for truth, the way that we were designed to live this side of heaven. Some people have literally no idea. I would go as far to say many people, dare I say most people, have literally no idea what they think about these things. That's why they can flip flop on issues so quickly, because there's no underlying principle upon which they've built.
Todd Huff: And so we're trying to deal with that. We're trying to give a framework, a prism, a foundation upon which we can build a political ideology, philosophy. I know that that sounds way too technical, but that's what it is. And so that's how we've started this thing. Yesterday we took a day off. I think this is day number nine now that we've done this. If you want to hear the whole series, the easiest thing to do is to subscribe to the Inner Circle, which is totally free. You'll start getting this stuff in emails and you can go back and get the full story, all the things that we've written about it, all the links to the episodes. Just text TRUTH to 3177851030 and you can get the Inner Circle for absolutely free. So that's a quick recap. That's where we're headed. Today, my friends, I want to dig a little bit deeper into something that we've touched on. We touch on this periodically, but I want to spend time digging into it today. I want to spend time talking about our rights. I want to spend time talking about what a right is. I want to talk about where they come from, why that matters, what the foundation of our rights are, because this is a critically important thing to understand. And we'll talk about some historical context as well.
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Todd Huff: My friends, okay? Let's talk about this. Let's talk about rights. What is a right? Oh boy, does the world need to hear this? Does the average American need to hear this? A right, my friends, is not a benefit. A right is not an entitlement. A right is not a guarantee of any certain outcome. That is not how life is. I scratch my head. I come away from conversations scratching my head when I talk with people who think that there are any guarantees in life. You have to understand, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm around entrepreneurs, and maybe sometimes we have a very skewed version of perspective on things. But the idea that you have an entitlement to anything. Like when I say that, I mean you're not entitled to a job. You're not entitled to health care. You're not entitled to these things that other people have to give you. You're not entirely entitled to benefits. I remember, my friends, if you don't think that this is relevant, I'm telling you right now, there are people who want to gain political control of this government, and they want to create, if they can get away with it, what effectively is a new version of the Bill of Rights. Now, the Bill of Rights, if you don't know this, and it's okay if you don't, right, the first step to gaining knowledge is to realize, you know what, I got some stuff to learn.
Todd Huff: Right, at the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and the beginning of gaining knowledge is just to say, look, let me just accept that I don't know everything and let me pursue it. Let me try to learn and understand. And so we've had people on here, people in here that are scholars when it comes to the Constitution. People who listen, I should say there are people who have followed this stuff even longer than me, who are truly experts, who have a masterful understanding of, well, of things that we're going to talk about today. Natural law and rights, the origin of our rights, why our system of government is set up the way that it is. We have absolute geniuses out there amongst you now. Don't get big heads, because most of us don't fall into that category, but there certainly are some. There are people that have a very good understanding, people that have a fair understanding above average, because the average person doesn't have the slightest idea. The average person is already upset at me for saying that a right is not a benefit, that a right is not an entitlement. I have a right to that. Well, do you, is the question. What do you mean by right? But there's people who don't know. And listen, we all at one point didn't know, and that's okay. I actually think that that's a great place to start.
Todd Huff: Be honest and have a real assessment about what you understand and don't. That's how you grow. So the Bill of Rights, when the founders created the Constitution, right, the rules, the way that our government was going to function, they came up with the separation of powers. The legislative branch, the judiciary, the executive branch. They delegated powers to each of those branches. They gave oversight, checks and balances so that one branch or one individual would not become too powerful within our system. They understood human nature. We talked about that a couple of episodes ago here in this series. And they said, along with the framework of the government, right, the Constitution, to be properly understood, is a list, basically, at the risk of oversimplifying these things, the Constitution is primarily a list of delegated powers and how things function, but it's a list of delegated powers to the federal government. And who delegated those powers? The people. Because, see, rights are not, boy this will upset people too, probably not the average person in this crowd, but somebody's going to get upset at this. Rights are not for groups. Rights are for the individual.
Todd Huff: Now certainly you could say that all groups have rights, but rights are not targeting a specific group. This is completely foreign to how the founders thought about this. Rights are for the individual. And so the way that it works, and the founders recognize this, it was truly revolutionary. I've talked about this before. When they defeated the British and were instituting their new government, which began, by the way, with the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention wasn't until later. But when they began that process of acquiring, establishing I should say, a new government, they did not make themselves kings and rulers and bureaucrats and dictators. They didn't do it. They said we're going to recognize that you, the people, are going to tell the government what they can do, not the opposite. We have lived in a world where governments routinely throughout history, actively today, tell people this is what we're going to allow you to do. That is completely, my friends, completely and utterly backwards.
Todd Huff: And our founders understood that. Our founders said, listen, we have rights, which we'll talk about, is at will. It's something that you possess simply because you exist. It was given to you by your creator. I want to talk about that as well. This is a concept that many on the left kick and scream about today. In fact, it is going to be in the metaphorical crosshairs of where the radical left takes the Democrat Party. They've already taken it there, but they're going to take it there and fight this and say that the concepts of rights coming from God is a violation of the separation of church and state. It's an establishment of religion because it is predicated on the existence of a creator. They're going to say there's no such thing. Why are you forcing us to accept your religion and so forth. And there are circles out there that exist where people buy into this garbage, buy into this nonsense that says the only world that can exist is one that is secular. You can't have a religious worldview and have a role in government. That's what the modern left wants you to think. And they have convinced many Christians, by the way, and other religious groups to sit down and shut up.
Todd Huff: Because if you have an opinion, you're forcing your beliefs, they say, on everyone else. Meanwhile, that's what they're doing the entire time. Meanwhile, they are figuring out ways to silence you as a Christian in particular, as a religious person in general. They're finding ways to silence you in the public square and then saying everything must be secular. But wait a minute, our founders recognized that our rights come from God. Don't believe me? Crack open the Declaration of Independence. I can hear it now. But Todd, the Constitution does not mention the word God. I'll grant you that. The Declaration does. The Declaration does. Four times, my friends. In fact, one of those times is when it's referring to the source of our rights being our Creator. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When we are created by God, we have rights. He's the one who gave those to us. They're not there for a government to hand out, to dole out based upon whoever wins an election.
Todd Huff: It's not predicated upon that. It's predicated upon your existence. You were created in the image of an almighty, an absolutely powerful and perfectly good Creator. He gave you rights. Rights are things that you possess because you exist. Among these, and you'll find echoes of this, I referenced the Bill of Rights, which by the way are the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. You'll find within those first ten amendments things that talk about your right to speech, your right to conscience. Now it might not use that word, but that's certainly the idea that it is conveying. The right to self-defense in the Second Amendment. The right to property. Doesn't mean that someone has to give you property, but that you can own property and that you can do on that property what you will. Of course it doesn't mean anything that there's no example of any regulation at all, but the concept is that it belongs to you and you're free. You are free to live your life within certain general rules of a government, but that your rights are paramount.
Todd Huff: And we've lost that today, my friends. That is a major gaping hole in, well, in the entire Democrat Party playbook, in an entire worldview that's fueled by radical leftist ideology. Their religion, by the way, of the radical left. So a right is not a benefit. It does not guarantee outcomes, and it's not something a politician can give you. You have a right. You have your rights simply because you exist. It is not, this is a critically important thing to understand, not something that someone gives you. It's something that others are supposed to respect. And you know what? People might not respect how you exercise your rights, but they should not be allowed to prevent you from doing so. This in and of itself, in a nutshell, is one of the most critical reasons for the existence of government, is to protect the rights of its citizens. To protect them physically from enemies and war and that sort of thing, and to create a society. We went through this recently, but to create a society in this series, we went through this, create a society that allows for these things to flourish.
Todd Huff: Allows for these, for freedom to be a real legitimate thing in your society. It's not something someone gives you. It is absolutely not. Now, if rights don't come from God, and by the way they do, I want to be completely, 100% clear about this as we talk about this, you'll find that logically it is completely inconsistent, logically speaking, to say that we have rights and we have the definition of a right if they don't come from God. Then they're not rights. Hear me say that. If they don't come from God, they're not rights, because they would have to come from other people. And if they come from other people, then we've got a problem. This quickly unravels, because now it becomes the whim and wish of the political majority or the people who hold the political power in the country to be able to decide what your rights are. Rights are timeless. Rights are built and they're predicated upon and built in truth. It is simply recognizing that they exist and recognizing that we are created to be free with liberty. And again, the proper way to understand this is if you look at a continuum and you say on the far left you have people who believe in absolute government control of everything, and on the right you've got complete anarchy.
Todd Huff: Now, anarchy, I know there's some people out there who think that anarchy is the solution. Friends, it's not the solution. We need to not be on that end. We need to be as far towards freedom and lack of involvement from the government as possible, whereas we still have law and order and the protection of rights. You have to give the government enough muscle, enough might to actually protect the rights of its people, to establish law and order in a country. That's where the line is supposed to be. And we want to have a government that's big enough to do that, but not 1% larger. We want the smallest government that can do what we've told it to do. This just stands to reason, right? This just stands to reason. And I want to talk about this, and what I want to pick up after the break, if rights don't come from God, then where do they come from? Because my friends, you'll see that this quickly, completely unravels. Ever notice, my friends, how some families seem to have a plan that lasts for generations? That's not by accident. Full Suite Wealth works with people who want their wealth to make a difference for years to come.
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Todd Huff: So, friends, if rights don't come from God, where do they come from? We're going to explore that after the break. And you'll see just how ridiculous this is. But a timeout is in order. You're listening here to Conservative, Not Bitter Talk. I'm your host, Todd Huff. Back in just a minute.
Todd Huff (Sponsor): Welcome back, my friends. We’re going to talk about if rights don’t come from God, as the left insists that they don’t. They don’t come from God because, after all, the left tells you that there is no God. So of course this concept is absolute ridiculousness if you listen to them and their completely absurd and morally bankrupt version of reality. They wouldn’t know reality if it punched them squarely in the nose. But anyway, that’s what we’re going to talk about. But friends, let me ask you something before we do that. Would you rather take two soft gels a day or spend hours in a doctor’s office talking about your cholesterol? I know what I would choose, and that’s why I take Soltea. Soltea is an all natural, clinically proven dietary supplement that lowers your cholesterol. No prescriptions, no doctor’s visits. Friends, this isn’t even a drug. It is just a supplement, and science has spoken. Science has spoken on this, and it has shown that it has lowered cholesterol for lots of folks. It may be able to do the same for you as well. Listen, I know I’m friends with my doctor, but I don’t want to see him in that setting any more than I have to, all due respect to my friend. But this is a good place to start. Now listen, if you’re on medications, I’m not telling you not to take them or anything like that. I’m simply saying that Soltea has great results for lots of people, and it may be able to do the same for you. Go to https://soltea.com. That’s Soltea.com. Promo code Todd is going to save you 50% if you place a three month order for a three month supply. It’s not as much as you’re expecting it to be, and it’s half off, my friends, and you get free shipping to boot. Soltea.com promo code Todd again gets you 50% off your first three month supply. Soltea.com promo code Todd. The only thing you have to lose, my friends, are those high cholesterol points.
Todd Huff: All right, so if rights don’t come from God, where do they come from? See, friends, rights are something that philosophically exists that says, listen, it doesn’t matter what the politicians say. It doesn’t matter what they do. It doesn’t matter what votes they have. You have these rights no matter what everybody else says. You have the right to free speech, even if the majority gets together and says Todd can’t talk about politics anymore. Because for starters, I can still talk. What are they going to do about it? I mean, that sounds like an invitation for them to show us, the folks that love big government, because they will try to shut you up. They try to take away your microphone. They try to take away your reach on social media, whatever, right? This is what they do. This is what totalitarians do. And why do they do it? Because they can’t win, friends. They can’t win these battles over ideas because they are standing upon sinking sand.
Todd Huff: And instead of having to strengthen their own arguments, or better yet, since they can’t strengthen their stupid arguments, since they can’t do that, what they have to do, they have to abandon their values and beliefs. And this is not something that’s easy for people to do. In fact, you’re asking people in many cases, if they’re a radical leftist, radical leftist worldview is antithetical to truth in the vast majority of ways. I might say always, but I’ll give them a little sliver that says maybe there’s something out there that they’ve stumbled into accidentally that they’re right about. But these are people who have rejected, I’m telling you, these people have rejected truth for so long. And if I’m being candid, the reason that a lot of these folks on the radical left have abandoned, well, that have found themselves here, the reason they find themselves there is because they’ve abandoned the ultimate truth that there is a God. They so desire a universe without God that they are willing to abandon everything, every single thing that is true that comes, well, all truth comes from God. But if it can be connected, if the dots can be connected, they don’t want to believe it. They hate the concept. They hate the reality, the truth that they are one day going to stand and have to give an account for the way they live this side of heaven.
Todd Huff: And friends, listen, we all, the Bible says we’ve all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We also find ourselves doing, as Paul says, the very thing that we say that we hate. There’s a struggle, a battle within us that rages candidly. Our sinful nature, for those of us who know Christ, the nature that he’s given us, it’s at war internally, and we still make these choices. But those who have said, listen, I don’t want there to be, I don’t want to do things God’s way. I reject that concept. I’m telling you, for the majority, a big chunk of the radical left, this is what they believe. They are atheists. It’s an atheistic worldview for the vast majority of them. And for those who say that they’re believers and who hold on to some of these ideas, boy, I would need a lot of explaining as to how they can endorse some of these beliefs that are coming from the radical left. But they don’t like that. They don’t like the concept of God. They don’t like the idea of being accountable to God. And so they can’t acknowledge that rights come from him because that just undermines their entire worldview and belief system. So what do they do? Well, they decide, my friends, they decide to come up with an elaborate ideology that tries to explain things away in ways that make absolutely no sense to people who are free thinkers, who are logical, who try to make sense of things and piece it together.
Todd Huff: And one of those things, again, that they’re trying to get rid of immediately, this concept that rights don’t come from God. But if they don’t come from God, who do they come from? If we’re acknowledging rights exist and that it’s something that we’re entitled to that’s outside of a government, that’s outside of anything that someone can declare legal or illegal, then tell me where it comes from. Where does it come from? Does it come from government? Does it come from evolution, macroevolution, microevolution? Where does it come from? Does it come from nature? Does it come from Mother Earth? Where does it come from, my friends? Does it come from the courts? Does it come from a majority vote?
Todd Huff: If it came from those things, things by the way that could change at any moment, why would the founders write them down and say that these are unalienable rights? If they can be changed, then certainly they could be alienable rights, right? They’re not a permanent fixture, so why even take the time to write it down? Words mean something. If you write down a word, I love talking with the left about these things, well, Todd, the Declaration, well excuse me, the Constitution, probably the Declaration too, the Bill of Rights, these are living, breathing documents. Really? I’ve seen the Constitution of the United States, the Declaration, they’re encased. I’m pretty sure airtight. They’re not breathing. If they were looking for oxygen, they would be dead by now.
Todd Huff: These things aren’t living and breathing. Words mean things, and when someone uses a word, they’re trying to communicate an idea. Again, this is something that’s lost on the radical left because they don’t want to accept truth. They want to fill it with a lie. The consequences of where this goes if you simply accept one step, one step on this logical journey takes them away from where they really want to be, my friends. So where does it come from? If it doesn’t come from God, if it doesn’t come from God, then it is subject to change. God doesn’t change. You know, that’s something we know about God in the scriptures. God doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. In fact, when God revealed himself to Moses, he says his name is I am, the great I am, Yahweh. I am who I am. Tell the people, Moses, when I send you to free the people from slavery in Egypt, tell them I am sent you. I am. He’s in a constant state of being. He’s perfect. If he changes, if you’re perfect, my friends, and then you change something, you have to by definition change into a situation where you’ve moved away from perfection. He’s hit the balance perfectly in every conceivable way. If he makes a move, if he changes his character at all, then he becomes a step away. That step he takes, that’s the change, is that big of a step from perfection. God doesn’t change.
Todd Huff: He’s the source. He is the ultimate source of these things. Tell me where else it can be. I welcome you. That’s what we got this number. Text me, let me know, 3177851030. I challenge you. You got all the answers. You’re one of these leftists out there, tell me, my friends, tell me where these rights come from. Rights would require a foundation. It’s absolutely necessary. If it’s not God, then what is it? And if it’s not God, why does it matter? Isn’t it just opinion at that point, my friends? Got to take a time out. You’re listening here to Conservative, Not Bitter Talk. Back in just a minute. Welcome back, my friends. Third and final segment of this program, we’re talking about rights. Government gives rights, then government can take them away. Courts can give rights, courts can take them away. If a majority vote determines your rights, a majority vote can take them away. Please tell me, please tell me where rights come from if they don’t come from God. If they don’t come from God, my friends, this idea of a right as an unchangeable thing that is somehow subject to the whims of some group, government, majority vote, whatever, it just doesn’t add up.
Todd Huff: But that’s, of course, what the left doesn’t want to talk about. So I got some more things to say about this, as you might imagine. But friends, I’m going to pause here for a moment. Really quickly, think about this. Your investments are like seeds you plant, and those seeds, they grow, they multiply, and they ultimately bear fruit. But are they bearing the kind of fruit that we want? At 4:8 Financial, they believe your money should reflect your values. They specialize in wealth management and something called biblically responsible investing, and it’s all part of their purpose centered financial planning, helping you live a life of meaning and purpose. If you want to see how your investments align with your values, to what degree they align with your values, just visit https://48financial.com/todd and take a quick and easy assessment, and they will tell you to what degree your current investments line up with your values. 48financial.com/todd. 4:8 Financial, they’re here to worry about your money, my friend, so you don’t have to.
Todd Huff: So we’ve already established, and again, if you think you’ve got another answer for me, text it to me. And by the way, if you text, it’s probably good to get all of the background information and all the things that we write, even things we don’t get to here on the program that end up in the Inner Circle Newsletter. Just text TRUTH to 3177851030. Or you can text your opinions and tell me why I’m wrong at that number as well. But as we’ve talked about in this series, truth exists. And if it doesn’t exist, I always love this, by the way, if somebody says truth doesn’t exist, I love this, it’s so much fun, if this is ever said to you, there’s no such thing as truth, right? I just simply ask, is that the truth? Is it true that there’s no such thing as truth? Do you see? That’s unavoidable. And we know it. That’s the thing, we know it. It’s just that we are so rebellious and we are so in love with, dare I say, our sin and a way of living that doesn’t require submitting to God. Some people, to some degree, we’re all in that boat. But some people are permanent enemies where they’ve simply rejected any notion of being reconciled to their creator and they are digging in. They’re going to let it all rest, just basically risk it all on their belief system. But truth exists, as we’ve established. It’s unavoidable. Human beings have inherent value. We talked about that. That’s because we’re made in the image of a God who has infinite value and worth.
Todd Huff: And that value has to come from somewhere. The value that we have, we’re not timeless, we’re not eternal, we are created. We had a start date. We have value. How do we have this value? Where did it come from? It came from our creator, the same creator, by the way, who gave us our rights. And if rights are real, and they are, they certainly are, you all know this, we all know this deep in our soul, we all know that rights are real, and that if they are real and they are, they must come from something higher than government. That’s the only logical explanation. If that’s not the case, if that’s not true, rights are just basically temporary permissions or just someone’s preferred way of doing things. That’s not what rights are, though, and we know this. We know this. So, and I want to say this too, I don’t have time to get into this. I do want to address this probably in a subsequent program, but simply recognizing that rights come from God and that truth comes from God, that does not constitute a theocracy. You know, that’s an important thing. Our founders made very strong claims that have, well, dare I say that they’re rooted in biblical truth.
Todd Huff: Our founders were out there talking about government and bringing up God. And I know earlier we mentioned that the word God was not in the Constitution, and that is true. It isn’t in the Constitution, but it’s in, I think, all but four, if I’m not mistaken, of our state constitutions. And I believe the four state constitutions that don’t mention God by name certainly make allusions or references that seem to suggest that maybe the people that wrote that did recognize that there’s a creator. But folks, I’m out of time today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a great day. SDG.
