Inalienability is, IMO, a characteristic that one may choose to attach to rights at their definitional inception.
I agree. I think this is the crux of the defining debate (pun intended).
So when people say that rights are pre-existent and inalienable, I hear them saying "I define rights as pre-existent and inalienable. And we can see this is true because when we examine these rights... we find that they are pre-existent and inalienable."
I disagree. Here you are reducing it to a simple circular argument which, although it may be seen elsewhere, I have not seen expressed here.
Your first statement I think is all that is needed. At the time the Constitution was written, it was intended to be the ultimate 'law of the land' (or, more specifically, the Republic, and the society that makes up that Republic). The 'inalienable rights' I see as sort of a 'superior constitution', that the U.S. Constitution itself acknowledges, and from whence it logically flows. There is a hierarchy here.
When one's behavior in society is in opposition to law, the social agreement is that the law wins - unless it is wrong. When a law is 'wrong', and in opposition to the Constitution, the Constitution wins... unless the Constitution is wrong. If the Constitution is in opposition to inalienable rights, the Constitution must be amended.
But, the buck stops there. By including as a primary statement that "we hold these truths to be self-evident", it means that THIS part of the Constitution is deemed to be unassailable and nondebatable, with all other constitutional components to be measured against these 'truths', not to ever consider changing the truths, but only how to, if need be, change the Constitution.
In truth, it is somewhat circular; to me it seems they are saying these 'inalienable rights' are the ultimate authority to which ends the Constitution serves; if any of these 'truths' ceases to be, so will the Constitution cease to be.
Yes, it is a social agreement, and a product of human striving and ideals. But by specifically verbalizing and acknowledging this as being 'inalienable' and 'self-evident', it is the clear bright line that says beyond this we shall not go; beyond this point we, as a nation and a society, will cease to exist.
