A right isn't a right because you decide it isn't. Clever.
Just as you say though, just as you say...
I tell you that you have a right; but I also retain the power to change that right at any time with the stroke of a pen. Is that a right or merely a conferred privilege which is modifiable at any time at the whim of those who wield the power?
You see, you do not know the difference between a right and a privilege. How is it that the Founders constructed a Bill of Rights which did not have caveats upon the rights enumerated; and yet the Congress, in their infinite wisdom, was unable to do so nearly 100 years later? Because they wanted to vote themselves power; and that was their intent.
Take the Thirteenth Amendment for example, the first amendment where the newly penned "Section 2" appeared:
AMENDMENT XIII
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Note: A portion of Article IV, section 2, of the Constitution was superseded by the 13th amendment.
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Conversely, the Congress has also laid the foundation for the repeal of the amendment through mere legislative function. They may modify it to their own liking at any time "by appropriate legislation" to strengthen or weaken it as they see fit. As the winds of politics blow as it were.
What if the congress decided that involuntary servitude was permissible for certain infractions of the law such as a traffic ticket? Or what if they decided that involuntary servitude was required for certain credentials?
In other words, what if one were made to do "public service" for receiving a traffic citation or as a requirement for receiving a diploma of graduation from high school?
Both of those exist at this time at the state level. The only thing lacking is an act of congress making it the national law.
You have a right to pick up litter along the highway and to read to old people at old folks homes -- or else. Remember that "volunteerism" bit that Clinton foisted on the public several years ago? Where do you think that high school diploma requirement came from?
Or how about the Fifteenth Amendment:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Yet there are those who are barred from voting because their right has been abrogated by "appropriate legislation".
And the Twenty-fourth Amendment:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any
primary or other election . . . shall not be denied or abridged . . . by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Yet those who have failed to pay their income tax and are convicted are denied the "right" to vote because they failed to pay an "other tax".
You do not, and apparently never will, understand what I am telling you; not because you do not want to but because a person whose politics you dislike is telling it to you and for that it must be discounted and ignored.
Black and white is black and white. The amendments say what they say and there is no changing that fact regardless of who tells it to you. Without Section 2, those amendments would enumerate rights. With section 2, they enumerate ethereal privileges.
Oh, and by the way -- It can't happen here. Keep chanting that over and over and over.
