I really dont like the 'our rights come from nature and god and not from government'....not only is it insulting to the non-religious, it is clearly not accurate. Our rights come from the constitution, the founding document of the government
Jefferson, a Democrat, does not agree.
Ayn Rand does.
Nope - she believed rights came from nature. As in, her view of human nature as consisting of autonomous individuality. "Nature and Nature's God" is a claim that rights are intrinsic rather than extrinsic, but secular versions of this claim can exist as well.
Abraham Lincoln disagreed with you about what America's founding document was - subtract fourscore and seven years from 1863. In some ways the debate over slavery in the US was between privileging the Declaration and its views of natural, inalienable rights, versus privileging the Constitution's acceptance of slavery. The Declaration identifies the source and character of our rights. If rights come from the government, the Declaration's entire argument for independence falls apart. The Constitution (in terms of the Bill of Rights) is more specific on what these rights are but isn't explicit on metaphysics.
Some local branches of Madison's party called themselves "Democratic-Republicans," perhaps as a way of distinguishing them from less democratically inclined members of a predominate party, but Republican was the name of the national party.
