It can and does. It’s called taxes. Not all of them, but a portion.
Ah, yes, because in all of human history no one has ever been too poor to afford food.
Hoarding food and letting others die is murder; no different than if you machine gunned your victims.
And if the are starving, they won’t care. And they won’t be beaten, because they’ll probaly have guns and come in firing; they might get shot, but not beaten. They’ll probably make a point of killing the patrons as well, given the open class war your idea of “rights” amounts to.
Because unlike poor people in your world, criminals have a right to food. Nice to know you think being poor is worse than murder.
I don’t know what this has to do with the discussion. Yes, people have been poor. and if they are in a benevolent society there will be some help. If not, the society is one that needs improving. Again, the type of rights comes into issue, i.e., natural vs social contract vs statute.
You keep trying to help your argument by implying hoarding. If I go pick a bunch of apples in the wilderness they are mine to do with what I want. If I pick all the apples and hoard them to the degree that there are no other apples and I can’t sell or use them all, then I’d dsay you have a right to them (assumiing this is the only source of food).
They are free to choose the break the law at any point. They will have to live with the consequences (if any), as well. Now, the non-starving in society may choose to act in their own best interest and provide enough food so that people aren’t tempted to take such an option, but that does not make food a right. That’s enlightened self-interest at work. Both in terms of their own immediate security and a safety net for themselves if things ever go bad for them.
:rolleyes: The reason criminals have a right to food is because locking them away deprives them of the ability to get it for themselves. Now, if you want to say that they should earn their food even in prison through some type of labor, I’m all for it. As long as the process doesn’t raise security issues. I’m all for the chain gang when possible.
A moral right to kill and eat me? I do not think that word means what you think it means. Besides which I am old, tough and sour, I’d likely kill YOU if you ate me 
I don’t understand where you are getting the idea that “society wants to kill you” and “society has decreed your death”. There is nowhere in this society where you have no legal means of feeding yourself, unless it’s the backwoods of Montana or some such. And if you are, in fact, in the backwoods of Montana, you have an duty and obligation to be accountable for YOURSELF and take care of your OWN needs.
And “society” aside, if you run across another person, whom you consider an easier means to an end (for eating) than actually caring for your own self, not only does that person have a right to defend themselves from your uselessness by any means necessary, but society has every right to prevent you from carrying on that way and endangering anyone through your psychotic beliefs and possible actions based upon those beliefs.
And that is all aside from the fact that it is HIGHLY unlikely that anyone is going to be allowed to starve to death in America.
Anyway…
Where do you get from the completely insane idea that “society is out to kill you”.
magellan01- you and I obviously have different views of what being a memeber of society means.
You seem to feel it is based on productivity, I think that by simply being alive and existing in a society, one is a member of it.
BTW, the UN agrees with me.
Well, that argument won’t get you anywhere with Americans.
Except George W. Bush, when it is convenient.
Probably. But the discussion is not about how far a society should or could go in providing for its members, it is about rights.
Well, in the sense that if you contribute nothing to it—but a are able to—you have no right to expect anything out of it, yes. And doing enough work—again, of you are able—to feed yourself, seems to require a very, very, low level of participation. Still, I have no problem with the society as a whole providing whatever it wants for its members. But those thiings do not automatiically equate to “rights” in the philosophical sense, as I took the OP to mean. Although I think that "extending too many rights can be onerous and counter-productive, if people want to join into that type of arrangement, they do have a right to self-determination. But if they go to far they could wind up in a socialist or a communist state. In which case they might soon lose the ability to control their own destinies at all.
In what way?
There’s no such thing as a natural right; rights are a purely human concept.
No, your entire argument is the justification of hoarding.
And therefore have to give food to them, because they have a right to live unless we specifically execute them.
Why am I not surprised you support slavery ?
What part of “hypothetical” do you not understand ? I’m talking about my position if I am starving and if I can’t legally get food.
If there’s ever another Great Depression, I expect millions will starve. We are, person for person and dollar for dollar, one of the least charitable countries on Earth. There’s a great deal of American charity because our vast wealth means a small percentage amounts to a lot of money, but we are a cold, hard hearted people. Take away that wealth and people will be left to starve right and left, and most Americans won’t care in the slightest.
In your extreme warped verision of atheism, sure. In my my view, and the view of the Founders, natural rights exist.
No, you have to be able to put whatever it is to good use.
Try paying attention this time. No one has a right to food. They have a right to get food on their own. When we lock them up and deprive them of the ability to get their own food, we then have a responsiblility to give it to them.
Uh-oh, you found me out. Oh wait, punishment for misdeeds does not equal slavery. :rolleyes:
Yeah, I thought of that after I posted. (Stupid board won’t let me edit!)
But, I still ask, should it?
Where does religion come into it ? Rights or anything else decreed by a god are by definition not natural. As well, the Founders were slaveowning genocidal monsters, and I refuse to take such creatures advice on anything.
The right to food = the right to survive, and without the right to survive you have no rights at all. If there is no right to food, then they ( and eveyone else ) have no right to get food; they have no rights whatsoever.
Slavery is forced servitude; why they are forced is irrelevant.
Think you have a right to food? Fine, here’s a bowl of rice. That’s what most people in this world get and they work for it. What makes you think you have a right to more?
In my opinion there’s a difference between able bodied people who “need” and receive food/housing/other for free from public programs and those who are unable to procure those things for themselves. The old adage “give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you’ll feed him for a lifetime” should apply here. Why give it to them indefinitely if they are unwilling (not unable note, just unwilling) to work for it. I would support those who are able to do community service in exchange for food/housing. It’s called working for a living, and most people figure out a way to get the job done.
The idea of food as a right is appalling to me. What’s next? TV as a right? Eating out as a right? In our age of instant gratification and credit cards, personal accountability seems to have gone out the window. We have the right to work for our food, housing and other amenities. We have the responsibility to not expect something for nothing.
Yes, we do. And it’s just like Kleenex or Xerox being used to describe any tissue paper or copy machine… it will happen, but it should be resisted by gentle correction every time it’s done.
Generically, yes – taxes “force” individuals to contribute to government programs that constitute charity. I argue that the general rule should be to focus such programs NOT on simple charity – the purpose of government funded “handouts” should always be constructive. That is, the programs should always have a specific, tangible component of assistance AND of transition towards no longer needing assistance.
Private charity, however, while it may comendably include such transitional goals, should not insist on any conditions. Charity from individuals is an act for the benefit of the recipient that also gladdens the heart of the giver.
That makes sense enough to me.
Neither of which have a thing to do with survival; nice strawman.
And if they can’t find a job, or can’t afford enough to live even though they work ? Phrases like “personal accountability” and “personal responsibility” are conservative code that mean the exact opposite of the words. They are excuses for sociopathy, for someone who wants to let millions suffer and die and feel smugly self righteous at the same time.
When I hear someone use that phrase, I consider them to be either a dupe of the Right, or a monster. A fool or an enemy of humanity.
Did I imply I did ?
So how much food does a person have a right to if they do no work for it? And what kind of food? You can talk about a right to food all you want, but until you quantify it it’s just theory.
Enough to survive in good health on, of course. Just as I think we are entititled to health care but not non-reconstructive cosmetic surgery.