It's not more important that any other group and I'm not saying they're not Americans. In fact, I'm saying the flaws you see in that subset of these surveys is highly representative of the great flaw. I was just using it to illustrate why the polling we're talking about has to be taken with a huge grain of salt.
As for your questions about the Founders, you're making my argument for me. You have a set of beliefs, and you assume the Framers share them. That's a necessity of conservative thinking though. Everything has to define as inside the camp, or otherwise you're the alien other.
Inalienable rights are rights which are not dependent on society. They're not based on laws and customs. They're based on our shared bond: humanity. The debate isn't over the existence of these rights. The United States, along with all other developed nations, agree on a common framework of fundamental rights. Speech, religion, free assembly, fair trials (just to name a few). The debate is over the nature of these things. What are the lines? That's a question we have to answer. No freedom is without limit (you can't shout fire in a crowded theater, you can't fully practice a religion which requires human sacrifice). The debate is over what these limits are. Saying "Well, the limits are whatever the Founders would have made them" is dishonest. We simply don't know the answer, and even if we did, that wouldn't make it the right one.
In a nutshell, the Founders defined unalienable rights as those that are God given and that government shall hold inviolate. Unalienable rights are whatever a person thinks, dreams, wishes, wants, hopes for, or acts out that requires no contribution, voluntary or involuntary, from any other person other than his/her non interference.
Conservatives have no problem at all seeing that a government that requires people to purchase or acquire health insurance that they do not want under threat of penalty from that same government, violates every principle of unalienable rights.
