How Were the Pyramids Built?
Internet access. Birth control. Food stamps. Health insurance. Free education. To be called “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in jail. And on and on and on. These are all things that in the past 2 or 3 weeks have become officially human rights by one governmental body or other. It is getting to be downright absurd. Soon, maybe you’ll have the right to a car, or a plane, or your own private island. Don’t worry about who will pay for it, nor how, just go for getting your legal right enshrined and leave the coercion to the government.
Meanwhile, you don’t have the following rights: to keep more than 65% of your paycheck; to object to being sexually violated at the airport; to go to jail and expect the guards to prevent your rape; to correct information about the economic conditions of the country or the goings-on of the government; to pay taxes that will benefit you or your society and not be thrown down some governmental black hole or given to a big business; to make certain contracts that the government does not agree with; to be protected from harm if you are not out of your mother’s womb; to privacy in your online affairs; to protect yourself from unjust police intrusions; to a truly fair trial; etc…
But with the poor lines conservatives have drawnconcerning what rights truly are, there is little else that could be expected…
Let’s also put it this way. Say you were alone out in the wilderness, with ten other people, in uncharted territory. What rights do you have in this society, since there is no government? These rights will be what are truly rights (i.e. negative rights), such as the right to free speech, to live free from violence of a neighbor, or to keep the property which you better by your work. You do not have a right to someone else’s land or labor, nor to coerce them with violence if they do not give you either.
[I had a professor in law school during a presentation I gave on the economic conditions that could lead to deprivation of property via inflation interrupt me (the only time it happened in this class, as most students do topics that jive with her leftist slant) and say “you just said the right to own property is a negative right. It isn’t. It is a positive right.” One question showed what she was asserting to be false: In the absence of a government existing to grant you the ability to own things and use them as you please, would you be able to own things as your property? The answer is of course yes. Somehow we were lost along the way, and leftists and even a few righties began to believe that property ownership was not a fundamental right deserving of protection (which gave rise to all sorts of abusive positive rights being recognized). It is, just as the ability to free speech or religion is, because it exists without having to be given…]
While they are being made into rights, some programs offering the above are creating incredible dependence. A 12% rise in subsidies for food purchases this year, and 2.5% this month alone for food stamps. Some 37% of all of Alabama is on food stamps today. Can anyone honestly tell me that 37% of the people down there are too poor to afford food?
