Dr.Who
Well-Known Member
How silly of me. One need only look at the definition of 'inalienable' to see that property rights are not inalienable.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inalienable
in·al·ien·a·ble
[in-eyl-yuh-nuh-buhl, -ey-lee-uh-] Show IPA
–adjective
not alienable; not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated: inalienable rights.
and in the context of political philosophy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inalienable_rights
In the German Enlightenment, Hegel gave a highly developed treatment of this inalienability argument. Like Hutcheson, Hegel based the theory of inalienable rights on the de facto inalienability of those aspects of personhood that distinguish persons from things. A thing, like a piece of property, can in fact be transferred from one person to another. But the same would not apply to those aspects that make one a person, wrote Hegel:
“The right to what is in essence inalienable is imprescriptible, since the act whereby I take possession of my personality, of my substantive essence, and make myself a responsible being, capable of possessing rights and with a moral and religious life, takes away from these characteristics of mine just that externality which alone made them capable of passing into the possession of someone else. When I have thus annulled their externality, I cannot lose them through lapse of time or from any other reason drawn from my prior consent or willingness to alienate them."
Property rights cannot be construed as inalienable.
It is true that the property can be transferred.
But the right stays with the person even if they have been deprived of all their property.