I'm not going to be able to do this justice in a short text alone, but let me give it a shot.

Rights, is a word that gets thrown around a lot. If you want to make the world a better place, start using this word in its proper context. All Rights Derive From Property. Which brings us to ownership and property. A property right is, at its core, an assignment of ownership, and ownership is the right to excercise control over some scarce resource. Any political theory or society has to be based on some form of ownership assignment rules, enforced by government. The purpose of which is to create a scenario where there is conflict free use of scarce resources. By assigning an owner to each resource, a legal system can be created and laws can be enforced to protect the rights of the people. There are different theories to this.

In a socialist society, all means of production are in the hands of the state, you can work, and earn money and make a living and own things, but you will never obtain the means of production, and therefor it is unlikely or impossible to every gain considerable wealth.

In a communist society, there is no private property, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, we will let you live in our house, we will let you drive our car, but you cannot own them.

In America, the system of property rights is constantly changing and your property is always under some threat so long as the legislature is in session, and courts do not uphold any specific system of property rights, hence the constant conflicts we have in America, ownership and rights are not drawn in a clear and consistant way, so people are always in some sort of conflict.

In Libertarian political theory, he who has the best claim of ownership, the closest linkage, owns the property, and has the exclusive right to exercise control over it.

We can start with the body. You own your body, it is clear that you do because nobody has a closer linkage to your body than you, it is part of your identity. One who does not own their body is a slave, and human slavery is impermissible in a libertarian society. You may do as you wish with your body so long as you do not violate the rights of another. You have the right to pierce your ear, but not mine. From your body comes your labor, and it is your property, if you sell your labor, you own the fruits thereof (wages). With those wages, you may purchase other things, and those things are your property, you own them, and with that ownership comes the exclusive right to exercise control over them.

Let's go to the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." You are endowed by your creator with certain unalienable rights, these rights are inherent within your humanity, and derive from property. Without going further into the concepts of God, soul, and afterlife, we can state that your right to life is derived from the ownership of your body, and with your right to life come a number of other rights, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are examples. Another example would be freedom of speech for, this is not granted to you by the Constitution or anything else, you have the right to freedom of speech because you own that which is necessary for you to speak, mind, lungs, vocal cords, lips, etc... You have freedom of speech because you speak your mind, not because the first amendment says you do. If the government made it illegal to speak badly about the president, you would still have the Right to speak badly about the president, there would just be a threat of force applied to your free exercise thereof.

This is completely different from a privilege. If you own your home, you have the Right to be in it and say and do anything you want with it. If you visit me, I am granting you the privilege of being in my home, because I own the property. You still have the Right to freedom of speech, but if you call me ugly I can revoke your privilege to be in my home, by demanding you leave. A privilege is granted by some higher authority, the owner of the property. A privilege is often indicated by a license or permit of some sort.

Rights come with responsibilities. I'll take a great example from Michael Badnarik. Everyone says, when talking about free speech, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. This isn't true, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater, if there is no fire. Because you are responsible for all those people who paid to see the movie getting their move interrupted, you are responsible for everybody rushing out of the theater and possibly getting hurt, you are responsible to the theater owner for all those people asking for their refund after their movie is interrupted. But if you are in a crowded theater, and you see flames, and you yell "FIRE!", you could be a hero, you just saved all those people from getting hurt.

Your rights are inherent within your humanity, and derive from property, and you can do whatever you want with your property so long as you do not violate the natural rights of another. The only role of a just government is to protect your rights, I refer back to the Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". This is why we have government at all. In an anarchy, you can't really leave your house, because it is likely your property rights will be violated, your home could be burglarized, or your family could be otherwise victimized. As we know from the world we live in, this still occurs far too often, but the government is there to apply a threat of just force in the event such a thing occurs. All government is force, George Washington said “Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” If someone burglarizes your home, violating your property rights, it is the role of government to violate their right to liberty by imprisoning them. If someone crashes into your car, it is the role of government to force them to pay damages. These are the examples of the few purposes of a just government.

This sounds like the world you live in until you apply it without exception to the laws of our society.

For example, you have the to self defense, and with it, the right to keep and bear arms. In New York for example, the law requires you to have a carry permit if you want to bear arms, even if you want to buy a shotgun to keep in your home, you have to get permission from the government in the form of a background check. Now, if you had to get a background check to speak your mind, or you needed a permit to express your freedom of religion, would you be exercising the Rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion? No. You would be asking permission, which is a privilege. These laws are in contradiction to your rights, and violations thereof. Your rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, do not come from the government, and neither do your rights to self defense or to arm yourself. Government cannot then justly grant you permission to do or posess these things, because they are Rights inherent within your humanity, government does not own them and therefor cannot grant permission to them.

This doesn't necessarily mean that any maniac could buy a gun without those laws. If I own a gun store and you walk in and you are obviously deranged and talking to yourself, or you are obviously high on drugs, I have the Right, and the Responsibility not to sell you that gun. With my Right to run a business, I have the Responsibility not to arm dangerous people.

If you own your car, can you just put some gas in it and start driving? Yes and no. Yes, you have the Right to drive your car, it is your property, and you don't require permission in the form of a drivers license, or registration, the car is your property, you can do as you please with your property so long as you do not violate the rights of another. But of course, the state requires a drivers license, registration, insurance, and when you comply with those laws, you sign a contract waiving your rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure and others. These laws are in contradiction to your rights, and violations thereof.

Does this mean that in a libertarian society, people would be driving on the wrong side of the road drunk out of their minds killing people? No. With your right to drive your car, you have the responsibility to operate that vehicle safely and not violate the rights of others. If you slam head on into someone elses car, you are violating their property (their car) and quite possibly their very life, and you must be held to answer for such a thing.

Whenever you need to figure something out, just ask who owns the property. If you understand rights, privileges, and property, the question generally answers itself. When thinking about rights, compare them to your right to life, your right to freedom of speech, your right to freedom of religion. If there are more restrictions on your rights than ownership of property, your rights are probably being violated. Just because laws violate your rights doesn't mean you don't have rights, it just means that the laws are unjust.

And in the words of Adam Kokesh, when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.