Wow. One Congresscritter flubs his response to a gotcha question (and it was a gotcha question) and you extrapolate to all Republicans. Not really helpful as part of a reasoned debate.
Do you not recognize that reasonable people can disagree about the nature of rights and whether positive and negative rights exist (or passive/active if you like those terms)? Seems like you are expecting to win the debate by accepting only one definition of the term “right”.
Fair enough, but there’s at least one Republican just a few posts up who outright says that he shouldn’t have to pay for it. So there you go, there’s at least some Americans who would rather see their fellow Americans starve than have the gov’t force them to help them out. Is it really that unreasonable then to suppose that this is exactly Smith’s ideology as well?
We, as a people, have chosen not to allow people to starve. We’ve set up programs, both private and public, to ensure this doesn’t happen. That’s different from saying people have a right to food, however. I think healthcare is basically the same…we, collectively, have chosen where the current level of healthcare availability lies. While I have some disagreement with where we set the bar and, even more so with how we are funding healthcare today in the US, we have a bar and we have set it. It’s not a right.
Everyone has a right to eat food they legally acquire, but they do not have the right to go the grocery store and take food from the shelves without permission, go into any random restaurant and take food without permission, go into other people’s homes and take their food without permission, eat steak and lobster every meal, or go into other people’s wallets and take their money without permission.
Alternatively, he could have been more flip and said, “Everyone has a right to eat - that means you’re buying me lunch right? Dinner too? For the next 20 years?”
That’s not what the poster did, so I don’t see how the question is even germane. Generally, though, I would not presume that anyone was OK with seeing people stare unless they explicitly said that. I don’t see what purpose that would serve other than to demonize the other side. And like I said, that’s not helpful in reasoned debate. In the same way, I don’t think it would be helpful to characterize the other side as favoring “taking food off one child’s plate in order to give it to another child”.
Does anyone advocate people stealing from grocery stores? Does anyone advocate stealing from restaurants? Does anyone advocate marauders going into peoples’ homes and taking their food? Does anyone advocate steak and lobster for the poor for every mea? Does anyone advocate having people go into people’s wallets? And people wonder why there’s a shortage of straw.
The question is: Person A can’t afford to buy food. Should he be allowed to starve?
Not extrapolating at all. It’s you who are denying the clear implications of his (non)answer.
It is the subtext of current Republican discourse. Yeah, one guy stated the underlying premise out loud but it’s there in the fabric of all the proposals of the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus (who have the Republican party by the short hairs): the federal government should not be involved in promoting or supporting the individual well-being of any of its citizens (except fetuses, of course). Everyone is on his/her own (including the fetuses-- once they’re born, they’re on their own, too).
And it wasn’t a gotcha question. :rolleyes: Good grief. Reporters are supposed to ask tough questions. Scott Simon (a totally softball and gentlemanly interviewer) asked it THREE times. The Congressman hemmed and hawed because he didn’t want to create any sound bites that could be quoted out of context and used against him later.
I rest my case. Unless you want to call that interpolating instead of extrapolating. 
You appear to be obfuscating a very simple issue, or maybe I’m missing your point. A civilized society, if it is to call itself civilized, has at least minimal obligations for basic subsistence to all of its citizens regardless of their economic means. One can argue about the extent of those obligations, but the right to eat is surely about as basic as it gets. You must either be prepared to support that as a right or be prepared to condone starvation or some other gruesome alternative. This is not a complicated philosophical proposition.
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The question is: Person A can’t afford to buy food. Should he be allowed to starve?
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And the answer is and has been for quite some time in the US…we don’t allow people to starve. This is, of course, different from saying they have a right to food.
How can you possibly have a right not to starve without having a right to food? Are you suggesting IV stations for the poor?
Or, we do what we’ve done…we, as a society, have chosen not to allow citizens to starve, while not saying they have a right to the food. I don’t believe that Canada is any different in this respect…or, perhaps you could show me where it’s a right that Canadian citizens have to food somewhere? I haven’t seen it codified anywhere except perhaps as a sound bite from some politicians.
Again, we as a society have chosen not to allow people to starve. This doesn’t give them a right to food, however…it means society choose to GIVE them food because we don’t want them to starve. A right means they can go and take any food they want because, well, it’s their right. I guess you could say they have the ‘right’ to whatever food levels society chooses to give them, but I don’t think that puts in in the realm of ‘right’ at that point. Obviously, YMMV.
I believe Republicans would be more than happy to renege on the decision not to allow starvation.
Do people have a right to a basic education? Can they just walk into a public school and sit in a class and be taught to read, write and do math for free? What about free transportation to and from school? Can people just walk into a public hospital and be provided healthcare without having to prove their ability to pay for the service? Can people who pay very little or no taxes expect to have the fire department or the police to show up to assist them when they need help? Should they even be permitted to walk on the public sidewalks?
If so, explain why they are not entitled to basic human needs like food and shelter?
Actually, the question was how the person could have better answered the question. A loaded question should be answered in a loaded way.
I’m not sure if the poster will end up clarifying, but what options are there? If the gov’t isn’t the source of food of last resort, paid for by taxpayers, when all others methods fail then you starve (or more realistically you go steal some food or money)? It is just that simple. And his post seems to suggest that his preference is that gov’t not take any money from him to pay for food for somebody over 18.
When these congressmen talk about making drastic cuts to the safety net, they deserve to answer some very tough questions.
It was not a loaded question. And he didn’t answer it in a “loaded” way. He didn’t answer it at all, because he didn’t want to expose his fanny. God forbid he should alienate any of his voters by agreeing to a simple fact: people have a right to eat. Period. Since WHEN is that a controversial topic?? Holy crap.