According to Webser's New Collegiate Dictionary, a right is "something to which one has a just claim...the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled...something that one may properly claim as due...." Claims and entitlements are determined by a system of laws (i.e. the government) and are valid only while that government is in power. Certain rights were held to be inalienable by a group of rebels a couple of centuries ago in this country, and as long as the government they set up remains in power, those rights are inalienable.

In your post, you acknowledged that two rights could come into conflict. If I decide that a certain type of speech offends me, my complaint will only have weight if it is enforced by the government. By being able to decide what constitutes an infringement to my free and untroubled existence, the government is given the powert to limit speech.

LB