No rights are objectively fundamental. It's subjective. If people in power don't agree to act as though certain rights are fundamental, they cease to be enforced, even if lip service is paid.
I note that the United States uses “inalienable rights”, meaning ones which can’t be given or taken away.
The only things that can’t be given or taken from me without a lobotomy are my education and internal thoughts and beliefs (that includes things like self-worth and dignity).
Each of you needs to define how you mean "right".
(NB: The definition in the OED spans 8 pages.)
I think by any definition, a right without a remedy is meaningless. If you have a right to expression but the state taxes printing presses so excessively that only the rich can print, what good is that right?
If you have the right to an attorney but cannot afford one or the cops won't let that attorney talk to you, what good is that right? If you go to trual and they say, "it's fine, your attorney is here, representing you" and you've never seen that person before in your life, that's what we call a kangaroo court.
Many would agree that you have a right to rebel if someone tries to enslave you. How did that work out for Nat Turner? These rights matter in an idealistic way? Was that Nat Turner's goal? To get 21st century people really thinking? Or did he want a family he could keep with him, his own home, his own food?
We are used to telling ourselves over and over the stories of people who believed in their rights, fought and won them. We conspicuously ignore the stories of people who believed in their rights, fought and lost and then were not just denied their rights but made into villains.
And don't even get me started on Operation Paper Clip, U.S. intelligence supported Nazi rat lines and Nuremberg.
Perhaps if you believe there is some philosophical cosmic central plexus where your case will be adjudicated after death you can believe in capital R "Rights". I do not. And so in my opinion, all rights depend on the right to enforce them.
Whist legal rights might have some enforcement mechanism, equitable or moral rights (divorced of legal aspects) typically would not. The right is recognised or might be asserted or defended, but by other-than-legal means.
Black's Law Dictionary gives a number of definitions, though as these are (largely) specifically in the context of law, their narrowness is somewhat expected. Fundamental right however has as its first definition "a right derived from natural or fundamental law", which might be construed as at least partially exceeding legal enforcement.
The whole notion of rights can become complicated, and whilst I often agree with the sentiments or goals of those advocating for certain rights, I find the specific rationale, logic, and/or empirical grounds often weak, leaning far more on rhetoric than some basis in reality. At the extreme, for any given right, based on "natural" or "fundamental" law, it's virtually always possible to construct a competing right which negates or countermands that.
The rights of speech vs. privacy, of bearing arms vs. freedom from coercion or fear, of access to healthcare vs. freedom from supporting another, of the national right to defence vs. the right to refrain from violence (including supporting it monetarily through taxes), etc.
There's a school of thought which dismisses the notion of rights, probably most famously Jeremy Bentham. I'm not sure I fully subscribe to his views (I've only read brief summaries, and don't substantially know them), though I'm inclined that way myself.
What I see are competing sets of freedoms, privileges, responsibilities, and obligations, most of which exist, as you suggest, based on the ability to assert or defend them as a practical matter, and to that degree I think we are in some agreement. I'd be more willing generally to suggests rights in a moral sense that should be aspired to. These might be your unenforceable, but not meaningless, rights.
There's a tremendous amount of historical reletivism and present-bias in discussion of rights. There've been incredibly durable and arguably thriving societies whose rights and values systems differ sharply with those of most present-day countries. There's been a considerable movement in questions of ethics, morality, and rights within my own lifetime, within my own homeland, and those developments are far less than those experienced elsewhere over the same period.
Absolutist declarations of rights tend to end poorly.
A right by its name can be given or taken away. I feel the discussion about fundamental rights is moot as it always depends on the powers that be. In that sense I prefer dane-pgp's explanation of these being more foundational rights.
Your thoughts and beliefs and your actions are what you are and not a right.
If Hitler came to power, let's say in an election but it doesn't matter since the right to vote is also a privilege according to your view, and said "alright, henceforth, all blacks lose the privilege of living", would you find that irrefutable and in conformity with your own logic? If Jeffrey Epstein took power and said "children may now be raped at will", is that a matter of a privilege being cancelled? Does "might make right" however you define "might"?
I certainly hope not.
The definition you used is about what's morally right and in that sense talking about fundamental rights that can't be taken away if you want to hold up some definition of human dignity makes sense, but even then it's subjective to some degree and depends on which school of thought you subscribe to.
Your example shows exactly this ditchomy. If freedom can be taken away and sexual consent ignored, those things can't be at fundamental or real as physical laws. But even so I have a hard time imagining most who see it this way would consider this as anything but reprehensible.
Practically, however, these rights are only inalienable as long as the powers-that-be (police, military, organs of the state) agree -- if hypothetical Emperor Epstein (or real-life President Ashraf Ghani) declares child rape to be legal, and police and courts obey him, then good luck going up against them...
> Obviously the US govt takes away its citizens' rights
There is a system of laws enacted by representatives of the people and proven out in courts, for example Eminent Domain.
To your point, that "nation of laws" concept is tending toward more of a theoretical than practical thing.
An alienable right is one which can be assigned to another.
Your physical, real (land), and usefruct rights (as with intellectual property rights) can be alienated in the sense that you can be deprived of them and then they can be assigned to another entity.
Inalienable rights can be denied to you, but cannot be made alien in the sense that another receives their benefits. Your own life, your own happiness, your own liberty, among other privileges you may enjoy, can be deprived of you. But nobody else can receive their benefits.
The notion of inalienable rights is not absolutely fixed. In 1800, you would have had an inalienable right to the function of your own heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, etc. With organ transplants, these are now alienable rights, as those organs (and others) can be removed and given to others, through advances in medical technology.
That is, the benefits or possession of property can be transferred to another. The ability to benefit or possess cannot. Those last can be denied, and the objects of them transferred, but the right to enjoy, much as happiness or enjoyment itself, is inalienable.
There may well be other types of rights that are being discussed here, and much of the confusion in discussions of rights seems to revolve around disagreement on those definitions. It becomes something of a mott-and-bailey tactic, or one of terms expressed and understood quite differently by participants.
Not "fundamental" in the sense of "impossible to deny".
Where fundamental rights are routinely denied, civil society is impossible.