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> All rights, regardless of their "nature" require enforcement and consistent interpretation and neither of those things come for free. You start to hit on the

> All rights, regardless of their "nature" require enforcement and consistent interpretation and neither of those things come for free. You start to hit on the distinction a bit when comparing the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence, but you seem to think the ones in the Declaration are less important. The Declaration talks of "inalienable rights". These are rights that cannot be legitimately violated. That's not to say they can't be violated (slavery was obviously a thing), but that people and governments who violate them are wrong (tyrants, in the language of the Declaration). So the lack of an enforced legal framework doesn't mean something isn't a right. It can mean that some organization or person is failing to be decent, though.

moomin 9y ago
To be clear, I don't think they're less important. I think they're unenforced. But in my experience most people don't seem to really believe in the rights in the DoI if it would cost them anything. For instance, just the right to life would _definitely_ include a right to water, which is an example given elsewhere.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  There's an inalienable right to water to the extent that a government would be tyrannical because people didn't have water. I can imagine a few different scenarios where that would be the case. The "right to life" was more broadly talking about who owns a life (the individual, nature's creator, not the government). It wasn't talking about the right to be free of all death.