Understanding Unalienable Rights

By Michael Shaw  

Why do we use the term unalienable instead of inalienable? Inalienable rights are subject to changes in the law such as when property rights are given a back seat to emerging environmental law or free speech rights give way to political correctness. Whereas under the original doctrine of unalienable rights, these rights cannot be abridged.

Webster's 1828 dictionary defines unalienable as "not alienable; that cannot be alienated; that may not be transferred; as in unalienable rights" and inalienable as "cannot be legally or justly alienated or transferred to another." The Declaration of Independence reads: 

“That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” 

This means that human beings are imbued with unalienable rights which cannot be altered by law whereas inalienable rights are subject to remaking or revocation in accordance with man-made law. Inalienable rights are subject to changes in the law such as when property rights are given a back seat to emerging environmental law or free speech rights give way to political correctness. In these situations no violation has occurred by way of the application of inalienable rights - a mere change in the law changes the nature of the right. Whereas under the original doctrine of unalienable rights the right to the use and enjoyment of private property cannot be abridged (other than under the doctrine of “nuisance” including pollution of the public water or air or property of another). The policies behind Sustainable Development work to obliterate the recognition of unalienable rights. For instance, Article 29 subsection 3 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights applies the "inalienable rights" concept of human rights: 

“Rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to purposes and principles of the United Nations.” 

Many call for a "Civil Society" which argues for a statutory framework that does not give recognition of the imbued nature of unalienable rights.   Modern dictionaries blur the difference, as does modern intellectual thought. The modern definition of unalienable is the same as the historical definition of inalienable. The contemporary blurring of the meaning of unalienable and inalienable is evidence of the process of dictionary evolution that Orwell forecasted in “1984.”

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Understanding Unalienable Rights by Michael Shaw
Michael Shaw is President of FreedomAdvocates.org 

UPDATE

Michael Muirhead has already commented on Facebook about this post:

Michael Muirhead

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inalienable

However, the Founders used the word "unalienable" as defined by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1:93, when he defined unalienable rights as: "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."...in other words a person may do something to forfeit their unalienable rights...for instance the unalienable right to freedom which can be forfeited by the commission of a crime for which they may be punished by their loss of freedom. However, once they are freed after serving their punishment their right is restored.

inalienable - Wiktionary

en.wiktionary.org

c. 1645, from French inaliénable, from in- +‎ [[Category:English words prefixed with in-|]] aliénable (“alienable”).[1]