# Reframing "socialism" into "natural human rights" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2020, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789 "2020-03-02T15:19:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/21 "2020-03-02T21:18:25Z")
Social Security is socialism. The interstate high system is socialism. Police and fire departments are socialism. ---
**Author:** ![NorthernStar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c77e96/32.png) [@NorthernStar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NorthernStar)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/22 "2020-03-03T12:37:27Z")
> [@EscAlaMike](#): > > Humans do not have a right to another’s labor. Whatever happened to the right “to have the Assistance of Counsel for [my] defence” in a criminal trial? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/23 "2020-03-03T13:18:22Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Why did our founding fathers decide that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the only natural human rights that should be protected? Well, they didn’t. > [@Thomas Jefferson](#): > > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “Among these” implies that there are others. But, more importantly, if health care were the same sort of right, we’d already have it—we wouldn’t have to worry about how to provide it to people. Simply declaring “healthcare is a natural human right” doesn’t address the huge logistical problem of how to provide it to everyone. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/24 "2020-03-03T13:26:03Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > If you look at [Maslov’s Hierarchy of Needs](https://www.thoughtco.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4582571), health care is at or near the bottom. _Maslov_? Sounds like a Commie. 😃 Seriously, though - other countries do things like[add health care to their Constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_Two_of_the_Constitution_of_South_Africa#Health_care,_food,_water_and_social_security). I just will never understand why the world’s supposed Greatest nation doesn’t have the world’s best UHC. Just for the bragging rights, if nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/25 "2020-03-03T13:27:36Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Simply declaring “healthcare is a natural human right” doesn’t address the huge logistical problem of how to provide it to everyone. This is a “huge logistical problem” that’s already been solved, though. Lots of places. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/26 "2020-03-03T13:40:42Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think a lot of the distinction is between positive rights, and negative rights. > > Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are negative rights. So are the other enumerated rights - the right to free speech, freedom of religion, etc. Negative rights are rights that no one else can stop you from exercising. Positive rights are rights to have other people do things for you. > > I have the right to speak my mind, but nobody else has to buy me a platform. I have the right to pursue happiness, but no one else has to give me the money to pursue it. Etc. > > Healthcare as a negative right means that if I want to buy healthcare, no one can stop me. Nor, if I don’t want to buy some kinds of healthcare, no one can force me to buy it. > > Healthcare as a positive right means if I want healthcare, someone else is obligated to buy it for me. > > Regards, > Shodan Positive rights are nevertheless commonly-agreed-upon rights, and have been so basically since WWII. And you can’t have the one set without the other, as all rights are really interrelated and indivisible. You can’t exercise your negative right to free speech without the social protections to do so, for instance (and if you can’t _freely exercise_ the right, what good is it?) And guess what - the police that enact that protection (mostly)? Positive right. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/27 "2020-03-03T14:11:40Z")
Well, except that Natural Rights are not executable ex proprio vigore without a corresponding _legal_ enforcement or entitlement structure. So changing the words used to describe it changes little or nothing. I agree that healthcare should be included in the categoty of essential services that are not optimally provided by the market, and that the community has to provide at least at baseline level in one form or another to “promote the general welfare and ensure domestic tranquility” but then you change the issue to how much do we provide? I mean, our policing and schooling varies dramatically in quality depending on tax base and political influence of each location (BTW, that Positive Rights are “comonly agreed upon” elsewhere or are included in various UN and other organizations’ documents ISTM would from the POV of USAmerican public opinion be a “just so” argument and fail to gain traction) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/28 "2020-03-03T14:19:16Z")
FWIW, Maslow’s pyramid has been kind of debunked ; in that while the sum of needs are common across all individuals, the “pyramidity” of it is really up in the air. E.g. some people are plenty happy with acceptance and family even when they lack basic safety or food ; etc… Beyond that, I’m with you, possibly even beyond you - I think all basic human needs (food, housing, water, heat, electricity, healthcare and internet), being the baseline of all modern existence, should be covered by the community. No exceptions. You shouldn’t have to pay for being alive, life is dreadful enough as is. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/29 "2020-03-03T14:23:34Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _Maslov_? Sounds like a Commie. > 😃 No worries, Abraham Maslo was born in Brooklyn. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/30 "2020-03-03T14:36:26Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > FWIW, Maslow’s pyramid has been kind of debunked ; in that while the sum of needs are common across all individuals, the “pyramidity” of it is really up in the air. E.g. some people are plenty happy with acceptance and family even when they lack basic safety or food ; etc… > > Beyond that, I’m with you, possibly even beyond you - I think all basic human needs (food, housing, water, heat, electricity, healthcare and internet), being the baseline of all modern existence, should be covered by the community. No exceptions. You shouldn’t have to pay for being alive, life is dreadful enough as is. Should all of Maslow’s needs be guaranteed by the community? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/31 "2020-03-03T14:53:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Positive rights are nevertheless commonly-agreed-upon rights, and have been so basically since WWII. Healthcare isn’t agreed on as an individual right, at least in the US. > [@](#): > > And you can’t have the one set without the other, as all rights are really interrelated and indivisible. > > You can’t exercise your negative right to free speech without the social protections to do so, for instance (and if you can’t _freely exercise_ the right, what good is it?) And guess what - the police that enact that protection (mostly)? Positive right. Police protection is there to enforce the negative right of free speech. That is, the police are there to protect you from other people infringing on your right to free speech. If you want to publish a pamphlet or something, the police will prevent people from stealing the pamphlet or beating you up, but they don’t provide the paper or help with the printing. Exercising the right is up to you. And there isn’t even much of an individual right to police protection. If you get robbed, you can’t sue the police for not protecting you. Again, negative rights are rights you exercise on your own, and the government can neither prevent you from exercising them, and will not allow other people to prevent you. Positive rights are rights that other people have to provide for you. Having a lawyer is a good example. It started as a negative right, but has developed into a positive right. If you want to speak to a lawyer, you must be allowed to do so (negative right). If you so desire and cannot afford one, the state provides you with a lawyer (positive right). We could go the whole hog with criminal defense as Bernie et al. want to do with healthcare, so that every defense lawyer was a public defender and was paid by taxpayer money. Whether or not it is a good idea is another matter, but that would be defining the right to an attorney as a fully positive right. Same thing with practically anything else. You want shoes. You can buy a pair, and no one can stop you. If someone tries to steal your shoes, the police should/will stop them. Or we could say the government provides everybody with shoes, because wearing shoes is a positive right. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/32 "2020-03-03T15:03:09Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think a lot of the distinction is between positive rights, and negative rights. > > Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are negative rights. So are the other enumerated rights - the right to free speech, freedom of religion, etc. Negative rights are rights that no one else can stop you from exercising. Positive rights are rights to have other people do things for you. > > I have the right to speak my mind, but nobody else has to buy me a platform. I have the right to pursue happiness, but no one else has to give me the money to pursue it. Etc. > > Healthcare as a negative right means that if I want to buy healthcare, no one can stop me. Nor, if I don’t want to buy some kinds of healthcare, no one can force me to buy it. > > Healthcare as a positive right means if I want healthcare, someone else is obligated to buy it for me. > > Regards, > Shodan This. I prefer the Enlightenment philosophers’ definition of “right.” I think a good litmus test is that if you were the only person left on the planet, and your “rights” were being violated (say, entitlement to healthcare) then it isn’t a right. That, however, does not mean that I think any civilized tribe shouldn’t make it a fundamental privilege. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/33 "2020-03-03T15:29:29Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Social Security is socialism. > The interstate high system is socialism. > Police and fire departments are socialism. I think you meant to write social_ist_, not social_ism_. [/nitpick] ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/34 "2020-03-03T15:33:05Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > I think all basic human needs (food, housing, water, heat, electricity, healthcare and internet), being the baseline of all modern existence, should be covered by the community. No exceptions. You shouldn’t have to pay for being alive, life is dreadful enough as is. Part of me wants to enthusiastically agree with you here, but part of me wants to sneer and say “Yeah, nobody should have to pay for being alive—and nobody should ever die or get sick and we should all get a pony.” Some people look at a statement like “all basic human needs should be covered by the community” or “you shouldn’t have to pay for being alive” to mean “You can choose to be a complete parasite and sit on your ass all day and all your basic needs will still be provided for you”—which logically leads to either everyone choosing to be idle and therefore nobody getting their needs met, or to some workers and some idlers, and the workers have to work extra hard just to provide for the basic needs of the idlers. [It’s the “defectors” point of view.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17123845&postcount=16) Personally? I think there may be some danger of this, but it’s not the main danger we have to worry about in our society right now, where (it looks to me) the biggest issue is not scarcity of resources but unequal distribution and access; and the parasites who are the biggest problem are the rich. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/35 "2020-03-03T15:34:49Z")
> [@NorthernStar](#): > > Whatever happened to the right “to have the Assistance of Counsel for [my] defence” in a criminal trial? The assistance of counsel clause only means you are free to bring your own lawyer if you so wished. It was not until _Powell v. Alabama_, 287 U.S. 45 (1932) that the Supreme Court ruled that if the state wants to charge you with a capital crime, it is under an obligation to provide defense counsel free of charge. That decision was based not on the assistance of counsel clause, but on the Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The reasoning is that you cannot have a fair [DEL]criminal[/DEL] capital trial without a defense lawyer, and an unfair capital trial violates your right to _due process_. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/36 "2020-03-03T15:45:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I think a lot of the distinction is between positive rights, and negative rights. > > Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are negative rights. So are the other enumerated rights - the right to free speech, freedom of religion, etc. Negative rights are rights that no one else can stop you from exercising. Positive rights are rights to have other people do things for you. > > I have the right to speak my mind, but nobody else has to buy me a platform. I have the right to pursue happiness, but no one else has to give me the money to pursue it. Etc. > > Healthcare as a negative right means that if I want to buy healthcare, no one can stop me. Nor, if I don’t want to buy some kinds of healthcare, no one can force me to buy it. > > Healthcare as a positive right means if I want healthcare, someone else is obligated to buy it for me. You’re making a valid point that there are different kinds of rights. But do you agree that there are positive rights that do exist? And as an individual, do you agree that there are positive rights that should exist? > [@Shodan](#): > > Police protection is there to enforce the negative right of free speech. You could apply this same principle to health care. A public healthcare system would enforce the negative right to life. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/37 "2020-03-03T15:50:26Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Why did our founding fathers decide that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were the only natural human rights that should be protected? Are you serious? You do realize that health care in their day consisted of leeches, purgatives and emetics, along with amputations? Any pharmaceutical treatments were likely poisonous and probably along the lines of emetics and purgatives anyway. It just wasn’t a thing that they had any sort of conception of being a natural right. And this was true until VERY recently- the germ theory of disease wasn’t even a thing until the latter third of the 19th century, and it took a while after that for it to take hold and be widely used. Even then, antibiotics didn’t come into common use until the 1950s, nor did hypertension drugs. Basically until the past 60-70 years, medical treatment was pretty rudimentary for anything but actual trauma/injuries. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/38 "2020-03-03T16:03:04Z")
> [@EscAlaMike](#): > > “Single-payer” (i.e. - government run) healthcare is Socialism though. You can’t redefine your way around it. Socialism is state control over the means of production. If the state controls healthcare, then it is socialism. Literally nobody wants the state to _control_ healthcare. They want the state to _fund_ healthcare. And on the question of “rights”, some people are being willfully obtuse. It’s like the sign on the wall at the hospital about “patient’s rights”. Do you guys go flip out at the hospital about how “no, in fact, you _don’t_ have a right to be treated with courtesy and respect!” We all agree that healthcare is _not_ a god-given, natural right like freedom of speech or the right to keep and bear arms. It’s a “right” like when you have an argument with your wife and she tells you to go away and you say “it’s my house, I have a right to be here”. Do you mean you have a Constitutional right to sit in your house in front of your wife to antagonize her? The government takes houses from people left and right. So clearly that isn’t right. No, “right” means different things in different contexts. We know what they’re _trying_ to say, even if they word it in a way we disagree with. Try to look past the poor phrasing, and consider the actual policies they propose. Because you’d want the same courtesy from them regarding your own poorly phrased arguments on some other topic. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/39 "2020-03-03T16:15:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You’re making a valid point that there are different kinds of rights. But do you agree that there are positive rights that do exist? And as an individual, do you agree that there are positive rights that should exist? Yes, positive rights exist and should be enforced. For example, if I enter into a contract, I have the positive right to have the other party fulfill his obligations under that contract (and he has the same right towards me). Likewise children have the positive right to support by their parents, etc. > [@](#): > > You could apply this same principle to health care. A public healthcare system would enforce the negative right to life. Not the same thing. I want to exercise my right to live, someone wants to kill me, the police stop that someone from killing me. At that point, their duty ends, and I am in the same place I was before. The police don’t have to assist me any more than they would if nobody wanted to kill me. No one is trying to make me sick, so the healthcare system wouldn’t be protecting me from anyone the way the police do. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789/40 "2020-03-03T16:23:39Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Yes, positive rights exist and should be enforced. For example, if I enter into a contract, I have the positive right to have the other party fulfill his obligations under that contract (and he has the same right towards me). Likewise children have the positive right to support by their parents, etc. > > Not the same thing. I want to exercise my right to live, someone wants to kill me, the police stop that someone from killing me. At that point, their duty ends, and I am in the same place I was before. The police don’t have to assist me any more than they would if nobody wanted to kill me. > > No one is trying to make me sick, so the healthcare system wouldn’t be protecting me from anyone the way the police do. > > Regards, > > Shodan Our society already acts as if everyone has the right to have house fires fought. Do you believe this is a bad thing? If so, why is it bad? If not, why is it different for health threats to bodies? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reframing-socialism-into-natural-human-rights/848789.md?page=3)