That's not a definition folks, other than socialists, accept. The Declaration of Independence says, "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-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just Powers fron the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Govm't becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter, or abolish it, and to institute a new Govm't, laying the foundations on such principles, and organizing it's powers on such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Those unalienable rights are natural rights. They are absolute rights. Yet, the ones who created this doc did not hold them to be unalienable in the case of those engaged in rights violations, which were and are refered to as crimes. If the only unalienable right was conscience, life and liberty would not be included in the DoI and in fact the doc could never have been penned. The king, after all, could not deny them the right. The king did unjustly deny exercise of the right, which is the sovereignty of will, evidenced by liberty and the pursuit of happiness present by virtue of the absolute right to life. Simple right is simply a minor right contained within an encompassing absolute, or natural right.
"You have the rights to life, liberty and property, but can be deprived of any or all of those by due process of law."
Note that they are still unalienable rights, the absolute natural rights the founders and other folks had and have in mind.
Human sacrifice is no more a right, than health care is. Regardless of any claim of derivation from a real right, the claim is empty, because of it's fundamental violation of the rights of others. Similarly, their is no right to free stuff and services, nor is their an entitlement to those. Entitlement is always to right, regardless of what the con man says.
" Most of the gnarly legal questions we face deal with one person's rights colliding with someone else's."
In most cases one, or more of the rights are not rights. See the human sacrife example, or health care with other people's time, effort and resources. The safety laws are the same. The right is to choose your own safety measures taken. The govm't does not have the right to impose them, for your own good, or to impose them in conjunction with some form of heath care and claim it's to reduce costs. The sovereignty of will of some are necessarily violated unjustly by such schemes.
That's not a definition folks, other than socialists, accept.
ab·so·lute adj.
1. Perfect in quality or nature; complete.
2. Not mixed; pure. See Synonyms at pure.
3. a. Not limited by restrictions or exceptions; unconditional: absolute trust.
b. Unqualified in extent or degree; total: absolute silence. See Usage Note at infinite.
The relevant definition is 3a. -- Not limited by restrictions or exceptions. Which part of that is socialistic? Should I be looking for left-wing bias at dictionary.com?
The Declaration of Independence says,
The Declaration of Independence is a brilliant political document, one of the most succinct and eloquent ever written, but it does not carry the force of law. The Constitution does, and it doesn't speak of absolute or inalienable rights; it speaks of rights that cannot be infringed without due process of law.
In so saying, it tacitly accepts that even the most essential rights can be infringed by due process of law. As they are, every hour of every day. People are fined, imprisoned, and, less frequently, executed under color of law. We have safeguards in place to ensure that these deprivations don't happen casually or erroneously, but they happen nonetheless.
The phrase "pursuit of happiness" is a beautiful bit of rhetoric, but when the Founders came down to writing actual binding law, they settled on life, liberty and property as the three essential rights. Those are the basic three found in Locke, and also in the 5th and 14th amendments.
You can be lawfully deprived of life, liberty or property for the public good, even if you haven't committed or been convicted of any offense. You can be deprived of liberty via a military draft, and of life if ordered to undertake a dangerous mission after being drafted. You're deprived of property via withheld taxes every Friday, every other Friday, on the 1st and 15th, or every quarter, depending on your personal financial arrangements.
You seem to believe that a right can be called "absolute" even if it's lawfully infringed every day. If that's your position, we'll have to agree to disagree on the definition of the word. You haven't offered anything to move me from my position that there are no absolute rights, that, for example, your right to swing your fist is not absolute because it becomes illegal if your fist hits my face. And that, furthermore, it's legal to prevent you from swinging near my face, trying to hit my face or threatening to hit my face.
Human sacrifice is no more a right, than health care is.
The free exercise of religion is a right. Human sacrifice is an age-old practice in some religious traditions. If religious practice were an absolute right, it would include human sacrifice. It doesn't, so it's restricted. Restricted is by definition not absolute. I suspect this is a point on which we'll have to agree to disagree.