Indeed, whether you regard that "omnipotent power" as being some ineffable divinity or some leviathan called "the state".
But we can indeed explore the empirical existence of the ideas that human beings employ in their undertaking of life, and make useful distinctions between those which have their origin in the nature of the individual prior to his social relations, and those which are a product of the social relations themselves.
>Indeed, whether you regard that "omnipotent power" as being some ineffable divinity or some leviathan called "the state".
Personally, I regard them as one in the same. The State is just a proxy of the will of the community one finds himself in, and Divinity just a proxy of man's will subscribed to and enforced by other men of belief.
Neither are omnipotent, but rather omnipresent as long as one finds himself surrounded by other people, and while they are not omnipotent, they are plenty powerful, -especially compared to a lone individual in most cases.
But, ultimately, everyone is a lone individual, and the "will of the community", to the extent that there even is a consistently identifiable thing, is the product of a complex of protocols and values that were already available to each individual in his own right.
Communities don't bootstrap themselves - they evolve out of the willing participation of individuals, and when the meditative mechanisms of that community fall to the manipulation of one faction or another, communities can and do break apart.
Taking the existence of a stable social framework for granted is very dangerous, and the concept of "rights" is one of the tools we employ precisely to protect that social framework's substantive foundation.
But we can indeed explore the empirical existence of the ideas that human beings employ in their undertaking of life, and make useful distinctions between those which have their origin in the nature of the individual prior to his social relations, and those which are a product of the social relations themselves.