Which rights in the Bill of Rights are not absolute?

Answer 1

Rights and freedom are absolute and self evident. You exist by right not because the state allowed you to, and if ever the state decides it won't allow you to exist what is not absolute is that you will stand and fight for your God given rights, or if you do fight you will prevail. If you stand and fight and do not prevail, others will because you stood and fought for truth and justice. To say there are no absolutes is to be hypocritical since the statement is an absolute. Of course there are absolutes! Those who work to convince you other wise are not concerned with your best interest, they are not concerned with truth, they are concerned with winning the argument. Freedom is not a debate, it is the way things are, and no one can know this until they choose to be free.

Answer 2

In a functioning society, it is impossible (from a practical standpoint) to have anything be absolute, as situations can always occur where adherence to an absolute ideal would not only be impractical, but often, seriously damaging (if not fatal) to the society.

In the case of the Bill of Rights, the reason that each right isn't absolute is even simpler than that: it is entirely possible for various rights to conflict with one another. For example: most of the rights in the 1st Amendment can easily conflict with one another. It is entirely possible (and, has happened, historically), where a Free Press and Free Speech have conflicted with Freedom of Religion. Eminent Domain can be seen to conflict against Unreasonable Search and Seizure.

None of the rights (either enumerated, or implied) by the Bill of Rights (or any part of the Constitution, or any Amendment) are absolute. They all must be taken into context of the other rights granted (or reserved), and the situation in which those rights are applied. This is why we have courts - to judge the application of those rights in real situations.

Answer 3

The ideas of rights and liberty is a fairly modern ideas. Until 200 years ago the world was ruled by the church and kings. People had no concept of liberty or rights and until men like Jefferson and Locke wrote that man had these things come from God they hadn't been considered. Rights and liberties are ideas and can't be absolute because they change with the society, government, and people's concepts of the idea. Our concept of our rights are different from the 1790'same and they keep evolving.