From whence come the rights retained by the people (in the 9th amendment) and the powers reserved to the people (in the 10th amendment)?

In the Declaration of Independence, the answer to this question is contained in five different phrases:

The Creator,

Nature,

Nature’s God

The Supreme Judge of the World, and

(the source of) Divine Providence.

The Declaration declares that the individual is endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.  I think that rights retained by the people as well as powers reserved to the people have the same source.

Based on this excerpt from the Declaration, I conclude that these rights and powers are vested in the individual.

If this is true, how might these rights and powers best be described, explained, or discussed?  I mean, somebody could just hurl a bunch of labels around, terms, words.  But does that help?  I think not.

I have begun a series of youtube videos.  Currently there are 6 videos, total runtime 43 minutes.  New videos will be added as permitted by my free time.

The approach I have chosen in these videos is to discuss individual human nature in a way that helps answer the opening question by telling what the rights and powers are.

It is true that individual rights and powers are a factor in a formal federated constitutional republic.  The Constitution for the United States of America promises such an arrangement.

It is also true that individual rights and powers are a factor in an a-formal social arrangement such as anarchy or voluntarism.

Most of the text in the videos addresses human nature itself.  Only a small portion directly relates that to the Constitution.  Hence, anarchists and voluntary-ists may benefit as much as Constitutionalists by viewing this material.

You can access these videos at:

http://dctreybil.com/dctytc_index.html

Enjoy,

DC Treybil