Stop playing politics with human rights

I disagree, in the time frame the writing of the DOI took place those who wrote it were very religious people, the fact that they did not recognize the "divine right of kings" in no way takes away from their own religious beliefs, in fact John Locke was raised in a Puritan family and later became a general liberal Protestant Christian. There is nothing that has changed the initial intent or meaning of the DOI or the constitution that followed on from it, both were and still are IMO based upon religious beliefs .. hence one of the reasons Christian Republicans find do much purchase in using it, of course interpretations have been attached to the "true" meaning, but in essence these are more about finding the arguments to fit the premise.


Again we have to look at the mindset of the timeline mentioned and the use of the word creator, yes I agree it was put in place to create some sort of distinction from the "divine right of kings", but in essence it's meaning is the same, if you trace back the origins of the word creator you find it actually means "Supreme Being" c1300 - Creator and given that Atheism was pretty much unknown at that time, one can only come to the conclusion that the "creator" referred to would be the one worshiped by the predominant religion of the time. As time has moved on we have also moved on in our belief system - well most people have - and I feel you are placing a modern interpretation onto something that was never intended to mean what we may see today.


Agreed.


You make my point for me, it is the classic old item of does a falling tree make a sound if there is no one to hear it, I would suggest that the "self-evident" nature of rights is the same .. if the right cannot be recognized by the individual for themselves then it has to be recognized by others and as such is not strictly "self-evident" ergo it has to be explained.


Therefore the right to life is not, and cannot be, inalienable being that inalienable literally means "not subject to being taken away from or given away by the possessor", if the aggressor has the inalienable right to life and another takes away their life then it cannot be inalienable.
The concept of inalienable rights was criticized by Jeremy Bentham and Edmund Burke as groundless. Bentham and Burke, writing in the eighteenth century, claimed that rights arise from the actions of government, or evolve from tradition, and that neither of these can provide anything inalienable. Keeping with shift in thinking in the 19th century, Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts".
The signers of the Declaration of Independence deemed it a "self evident truth" that all men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Critics, however, could argue that use of the word "Creator" signifies that these rights are based on theological principles, and might question which theological principles those are, or why those theological principles should be accepted by people who do not adhere to the religion from which they are derived.
Derivation of inalienable rights from Natural Law can also be criticized on solely philosophical grounds. The is-ought problem of David Hume is the fallacy of deriving normative propositions (how the world ought to be) from naturalistic ones (how the world is) without providing the necessary justification for such a logical jump. Jonathan Wallace claims that the phrase "We hold these truths to be self-evident" is simply a "more elegant version of 'Because we said so.'"
In "The Social Contract," Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims that the existence of inalienable rights is unnecessary for the existence of a constitution or a set of laws and rights. This idea of a social contract – that rights and responsibilities are derived from a consensual contract between the government and the people – is the most widely recognized alternative.
Samuel P. Huntington, an American political scientist, wrote that the "inalienable rights" argument from the Declaration of Independence was necessary because "The British were white, Anglo, and Protestant, just as we were. They had to have some other basis on which to justify independence".



I am not debating the positive things arising from rights, I am debating that any rights are in fact inalienable, for if they can be removed regardless of the reasoning or circumstances they cannot be inalienable.