Yes, but that’s hardly new. They’ve had something working against them since, well, last year, when Benedict issued Caritas in Veritate, where he said that a market economy based on self interest doesn’t work, that the government should make it a primary goal to decrease unemployment, and spoke out against patents on medical drugs and for protecting the environment.
Or 1961 encyclical Mater Et Magistra*, which said that it was a country’s moral duty to mandate a living wage, a progressive income tax system, government pension and large amounts of foreign aid paid by rich countries to equalize the global disparity of wealth.
Or even earlier, 1931’s Quadragesimo Anno, when Pius Xi condemned unrestrained capitalism and called for redistribution of wealth when necessary to serve the public good.
Or for that matter, 1891’s Rerum Novarum, where Leo XIII said that workers have the right to form unions and strike and be paid a living wage. Since at least 1891, the Catholic church has been speaking out against exploitation of workers and that states had a moral duty to care about the welfare of their citizens, and employers, their employees.
You personally, are you a dictator or something? Most of the countries that recognize inalienable rights are democratic republics. This means that rights are provided, and maintained by the people through agents employed in a hiring process known as an “election”.
Equal treatment under the law is an inalienable right, yet it was provided in the south by the federal government.
The right to be secure in your person is provided by police protection, and the courts make sure the police themselves do not abuse that right. The courts themselves are watched by the people, and as was learned the 1930s Supreme court, even those appointed for life can be disposed if they piss enough people off.
What is a freedom of the press without police to protect the press from vandalism, fear, and intimidation? What of speech without the same protection? Religion?
The point is clear, are rights exist on paper, and in our minds, but they need real action to be maintained or the stronger will trample the weaker.
Rights are not provided. They are possessed by virtue of being human, and all true rights are some form of the right to be left alone. Anything that requires someone else to provide the benefit is not a right. It could be good social policy, it could be a damn good thing to support. But it doesn’t involve a right. Some people in this thread seem to be confusing a government’s legitimate duty to defend rights (i.e., stop people from stepping on another’s rights) and providing a specific benefit that would not exist without that accommodation. Inalienable rights can be violated, but they are not provided. You’re born with them (if you believe in such things).
I always invoke the desert island test. You’re on a desert island, just you and another person. Could your right to freely express yourself be violated? Your right to practice your religious beliefs? Of course they could. But they would still be your rights.
Suppose on that island you got cancer. Your island mate is not a doctor. Are your rights being violated, since no one is caring for your health concern? Who is violating them, exactly? Say you’re a ten-year old kid. Is your right to an education being violated? Who is violating it?
Your mate thinks you’ve committed a crime, and wants to try you, but a jury of your peers is nonexistent since there’s two of you. Right to trial by jury nonexistent?
Clearly some rights are provided as a duty by fellow citizens.
I disagree. I don’t think there’s an inalienable right to a jury of your peers. We may like to describe it thusly, but it’s a wise public policy, and nothing more. If there is a right at this policy’s foundation, it’s the right not to be detained when you’ve offered no offense, your freedom to do as you’d like when you’ve harmed no one. That right exists, so when someone believes you’ve committed an offense, we take care not to proceed in an irresponsible manner.
Like all rights, it is not considered absolute and it may conflict with another’s legitimate right. So, our social policy is that we only detain if there’s cause to do so, only do so in following an agreed-upon due process. But the policy we decided upon is just the one we liked best. You might just as well say someone has a right to a trial before the king. It speaks to the same concern and human right (just not as well, we think). But on the desert island, I still have the right to be left alone–and so does my mate, who may well have had his right infringed by some crime. Those conflicts require policies to sort them out, but they’re just policies and processes. They are practical necessities.
As a right wing Catholic who grew up during the Cold War, I’d also add that the RCC as a whole was very, very supportive of Communism and its principles for most of the 20th century.
I’ll point to one specific example which will serve to prove the point. In 1527 the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked Rome and bottled the Pope up in the Castel Sant’Angelo. While some of the troops were reportedly pro-Luther (his reform movement had just started a decade or so prior to this incident) many of them were of course devout Catholics–obvious since they were soldiers serving under the Holy Roman Emperor.
Charles V himself was a devout Catholic, and while he may have not wanted the sack of Rome (Rome was arguably sacked primarily because the Emperor had failed to pay his soldiers so they demanded spoils), he was waging direct war against the papacy in the Italian peninsula, so it’s obvious he had no qualms about fighting directly against the papacy.
Also during the “War of the Eight Saints”, the city of Florence was in direct armed conflict against the Papacy. There are actually tons of examples throughout history, up until the early 19th century the Pope was first and foremost a temporal prince, with secular designs and dynastic desires. There’s very little defense for the behavior and actions of most popes from the beginning of the middle ages up through the end of the renaissance. Although isolated Popes in that span were good and righteous men who held their office in good faith, they were the exception and not the rule.
What atoms are governments made of? Laws? Are you now arguing you only believe in things that have an easy physical representation?
I’m honestly tired of playing devil’s advocate on this. My position has always been that humans really don’t have rights, not innate or government created. We have privileges under the law and we have protections under the law. How much of either is based on a host of things (cultural, political, legal, economic et al.) and there is nothing innate about any of it.
However, I will say that I find it very odd someone like yourself who obviously believes very strongly in the concept of rights, believes they only exist as the creation of a government. To me that seems to be essentially the exact opposite of the entire history of the use of the word “rights.”
I’ll say it again (but you’ve not really addressed it yet), you seem to be arguing a position in which a right only exists in the direct present tense, and only so long as you are actually able to exercise it without any infringements whatsoever. So in your world, if I kidnapped you then you’d say “you no longer had the right to liberty.” I find that highly strange.
Essentially you seem to view rights as a “state machine” and not as a “legal protection” which is what most people view a right as.
The question of universal health care (UHC) should not be called a right. Other than public education which is necessary to keep tyrants at bay, our “rights” are really attempts to keep something from happening TO us…e.g. right to liberty is a “right” keeping others from doing things TO us…our “right” to happiness is our solution to our life choices…not others deciding FOR us. The right of religion is our choice…not someone else deciding for us, etc.
The "right" to health care would DEMAND that others must do something for us, to us or must help pay for our care. We have no such "right" to demand care from others or that others may DEMAND care from us (whether that be money, time or talent). I may choose to help others....but that MUST be MY choice.
