You dont have a "right "to be given anything!

Great Debates
61

In general, I support the things that are needed to keep society running: roads, military, courts. I also support certain services that benefit us all: education, baseline healthcare for the poor, limited welfare.

But that is off the OP. I am arguing that people can’t have a right to things like cars, or housing or healthcare. The gov’t can make programs that give people these things, but you can’t have a “right” to them. and no one should have an absolute right to the property of others based solely on need.

In case anyone is not from the US, we do have housing projects and subsidized housing for the poor. The us is actually pretty socialist in some ways.

62

Well I agree with you on this myself. Besides I would imagine that housing would be covered under welfare, in my state it always did.

The truth is…I can’t see that we have a right to anything tangible just as you have stated. It does look as though the Constitution was designed to protect only the intangible and what a man can accumulate as property on his own. If we have interpreted it to mean otherwise I’m sure that is not exactly how it was intended. Doesn’t seem to me like it was originally meant to be an all inclusive document only a guide. Naturally we have spun off of it quite a few things that it doesn’t implicitly state. It really is the Bible of the American people isn’t it? A document that can be interpreted and enforced in many different ways.

Needs2know

63

Phobos:

I just want to point out again that even the rights we’re currently guaranteed by the Constitution frequently involve rights conflicts, where some people must give up part of their rights for others: consider my previous example of segregationists who had to accept some curtailment of their right to freedom of association in order not to deny blacks the right to equal protection of the laws. Or the necessity for some curtailment of the right to freedom of speech and the press in the case of those who are telling or printing lies about public figures.

I think your comment about “stealing” is at the heart of the matter: in this society, we accept the necessity of making such compromises about our “negative freedoms,” but we’re not at all comfortable with the idea of having to sacrifice property for the sake of others’ rights. (Although I’m sure that if we looked closely, the distinction would turn out to be pretty blurry: for example, many segregationists resisted desegregation not so much because they didn’t want to restrict their freedom of association as because they were afraid of losing money from people who wouldn’t patronize anyplace that was desegregated.)

Mr. Zambezi:

I know that those are the type of rights the Constitution is primarily concerned with, and I know that the Constitution currently doesn’t guarantee a right to housing. (And thank you for the explanation of why the due process amendment is still more about a negative freedom, btw.) Where I still think your OP and the above remarks are taking way too much for granted is in the assertion that those are the only possible “true rights.”

Other societies, and even our own US-approved UN Declaration of Universal Rights, do recognize rights that are more than the individual’s “ability to do” or “freedom from being done to.” The reasoning behind that position often proceeds along the lines that without having certain positive rights, negative freedoms are meaningless; a person doesn’t really have freedom of speech if exercising it would mean starving to death, for example. Now sure, there are lots of reasonable arguments to be made along the lines that positive rights are unworkable in practice, or too prone to abuse, or require dangerous amounts of government control, etc.; but I still don’t think it’s logically valid just to dismiss the whole issue by announcing that “those aren’t true rights.”

(However, on rereading yesterday’s posts I tend to agree with you that my tone was sometimes gratuitously snippy (goddam frustrating XSL transformation), and for that I apologize.)

64

Appology accepted, Kimstu.

Actually, I am arguing that positive rights are unworkable and that they must infringe on the rights of others to some degree. Now that degree may be acceptable to society.

But the UN “rights” while good hearted, are meaningless. They could pass a charter stating that everyone has the right to 10 Lobsters a day, but that is not going to happen unless they have the power to provide them…meaning, of course, A One World Government ::groans from the crowd::

On the other hand, they can guarantee negative rights easily. For this reason, I think that negative rights are by far superior. Positive rights are, as I stated earlier, campaign promises, or undeliverable ideals. Negative rights are deliverable and IMHO, more valuable.

Jail provides a host of positive rights, including food, warmth, shelter, recreation, access to law books; but there is no freedom to pursue liberty or happiness, nor is there free speech or the right to bear arms. I will take my chance on starving with negative rights, thank you very much.

65

Mr. Z.:

(Oh dear, here we go again)…huh?!? How would it be “easy” for the UN to guarantee negative rights, that is, restrict people’s governments or societies from infringing individual rights to free speech, press, etc. etc. etc., without the enforcing power of a One World Government[tm]?

66

There are two types of ‘rights’ natural and political.

A ‘natural’ right is simply the ability to do something. You have the right to kill me, because you can.

When we enter society, we recognize that there are some natural rights which are detrimental. If I have the right to kill my neighbor, and he has the right to kill me, then we get to live in fear of each other and waste a lot of energy in defense.

Thus, we enter into a social contract. I agree to waive my right to kill my neighbor, on the condition that he waive his right to kill me. We thus create a NEW right, artificial in nature, to be free from murder.

A government grants political rights through the restriction of natural rights. It grants me the right to free speech, by restricting the rights of my neighbors to stuff a sock in my mouth if they don’t like what I’m saying.

An ‘inalienable’ right is a right that should be off-limits to the rights-restricting process of social contract. This simply means that the government cannot decide to restrict, say, the right to life in order to produce a new political right, because the right to life is ‘inalienable’.

If a government grants a ‘right’ to three meals and a nice apartment, it can only do so through the restriction of the rights of others. In this case, a restriction on the right to keep what you earn. This is the essential conflict - we recognize the right to self-determination and the pursuit of happiness. We recognize the right to property. Yet we grant ‘rights’ like minimum wages and welfare at the same time. You cannot have both. The only way someone can have a ‘right’ to something they did not earn is to take it away from someone earned something and had a ‘right’ to keep it.

We continue with this dichotomy because we have created political distance between the people who create new things and the people who claim to have a ‘right’ to them. In a smaller society, it would become immediately obvious that the two rights cannot coexist. If I build myself a home and someone else does not, we cannot BOTH have a ‘right’ to shelter. He can either take my home by force, depriving me of my rights, or he can build his own home. Either way, there can be no ‘right’ to ownership of the creations of man, other than by the creator himself. Anything else breaks down into a logical contradiction.

67

For the first time I find myself in agreement with Libertarian and not with mattmcl. Matt’s post was a strawman. Of course, Lib didn’t take long to misrepresent matt’s argument either.

MrZ,

Perhaps I was overhasty. I agree that housing is presently not a right. Are you arguing that it CAN not become one or that it SHOULD not become one?

Jaakko,

Glad you delurked.
I found your post both accurate and well stated.

68

Kimstu: the Un members can only guarantee that they will not infringe on teh rights of others. It’s liek the Constitution; it promises that the feds will not infringe on your rights, but is pretty much silent on whether or not your neighbor will infringe on your rights.

2sense. I am saying that rights to tangible goods, or positive rights SHOULD not be instituted because they are illogical, unworkable, un-guaranteeable and will, in most cases, interfere with the negative rights of others.

69

A bit of a clarification about “inalienable”. it doesn’t just mean you the government cannot take away that right. It means that right is fundamental to being. You yourself cannot even give away that right. I.e. you cannot be alienated from that right.

I agree with Mr.Z (unlike the coffee debate :). The right to liberty etc. is a right that is inherent in being a humna being. If you want to put that same definition of right to housing then you are saying everyone has the irght to (adequate) housing. This includes Bill Gates, Jack Welch, etc. This does not mean they have the right if they cannot afford it themselves. It means they have the right, period and someone…me, you, have to provide him with that housing, if he wants.

However, if you modify it to say, adequate housing to those who cannot afford it, then this is conditional not on being a person but on being poor. This is not a right in the broad, philosphical sense but in the more legalistic sense

70

I know, Tretiak, you think that no one has a right to house…unless they injure themselves horribly through their own mistakes; then they should be able to sue someone for the price of a house, right? :slight_smile:

71

Hi **Tretiak **,

I don’t think that you definition of inalienable rights is very useful. If I can not give up my right to life or liberty then what should the government do if I am proven to be a homicidal maniac?
Mr Z,

Thanks for the clarification.
I am not certain that I understand exactly how you feel that positive rights are illogical.
I agree that they would not be guaranteeable in every instance, but why should that stop us from trying? Doctors can not save everyone. Should they not try to save anyone? Is modern medicine unworkable?

72

Mr. Z.:

Um, yeah, but the if the UN (or the US) is really going to guarantee any rights, positive or negative, then it has to have some enforcement power in place so it can step in when requested in cases where your local government, employer, etc., infringes your rights. Heck, it would be just as easy for the UN Declaration to guarantee everyone’s right to the lobsters and diamonds you mentioned earlier as to guarantee the right to free speech, if it isn’t required to back that up by actually doing anything to defend those rights. (Which in fact is a pretty good description of the actual effective force that the UN Declaration now has among many of the member nations that supposedly resolved to adopt it.)

Tretiak:

Very inspiring, like most rights rhetoric, but what does it actually mean in practice? Does the Constitution currently guarantee us any inalienable rights, ones that may not be infringed or curtailed under any circumstances? Freedom of speech, maybe? I just signed a non-disclosure agreement with my employer: seems to me as though I’ve certainly deliberately “alienated” some of my freedom of speech thereby, and if I choose to regain that freedom by violating that agreement I don’t think I can expect the courts to back me up.

73

Sam Stone:

AHunter3 in the What is Property? thread explained this issue much better than I can:

Exactly. “Inalienable” rights, “God-given” or “nature-given” (as opposed to SS’s ultra-pragmatic “natural”) rights, “universal” rights—they’re all just meaningless noise absent a social consensus that commits a society to actually defending them. These terms are useful only as rhetorical attempts to create or influence such a consensus.

74

Actually I should have been talking about unalienable, if we are discussing historical documents on the issue. I wasn’t trying to inspire,just note that that is what unalienable means. And of course, the Constitution says nothing about unalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence mentions three: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I would say that speech is not unalienable. That is just my spin on it, of course.

75

Thanks, 2sense.

I think it’s better to discuss these things on their merit instead of a contest of doctrines. Then again, I do enjoy philosophical discussions as much as the next guy…:slight_smile:

As for my opinions on this matter, I think a society should try and ensure the basics of living (food, housing, health care and education basically) for everyone, as long as it can be achieved without hurting the welfare of any individuals or the country as a whole.

Once that is ensured, I see no interest being served in neglecting the less fortunate, apart from tax breaks getting you a few more dollars you didn’t need to live a good life anyway.

Whether all this is a right is up to the people.

76

Kimstu, let me rephrase: The UN (or the federal gov’t, or the state gov’t) can only guarantee that the UN itself will not infringe on the rights of others. No one can gurantee that a certain right will never be violated by some third party.

I cant contract for the actions of a party over whom I have no control. Even if I were as powerful as the US gov’t I could never guarantee that others would not violate your rights.

Boy, if the UN can’t even secure free stuff like free speech, how on earth can they get expensive things like food and housing?

77

No, but if you sue the violator and win, then the gummint has to take action (strikes down the unconstitutional law, orders the third party to stop discriminating, whatever). I think it’s generally accepted that that’s what “guaranteeing your rights” means, and the guaranteeing body has to have sufficient legal authority to make that effective.

Slowly. :slight_smile: And note that free speech isn’t really free of charge, either: it costs plenty of money to handle all those court cases in order to protect it.

78

Let’s look at it this way, shall we:

You’ve put the right of Person A to have as much private property as he wishes against the right of Person B to have adequate housing.

They’ve come in conflict.

Therefore either:

A) Person A’s right to part of his personal property is infringed by Person B’s right to adequate housing.

or:

B) Person B’s right to adequate housing is infringed by Person A’s right to hold as much personal property as he can and wants to.

It can be argued, quite successfully, that Person B’s rights in the matter are the more compelling.

(Sorry, there seems to be no way to word this that doesn’t load it…)

79

only if it is a zero sum game. That is, if person A being wealthy actually stops person B from getting housing…and it doesn’t.

I would say that the situations are:

  1. person A’s right to keep what he earns is infringed by B’s desire to get something for nothing (to take A’s money from him)

or

  1. B’s right to a free place to stay is being infringed by A’s failure to relinquish his right to his own posessions.
80

OK, I’m sorry. My argument was largely irrelevant to the debate. I had a bad day. My cactus died. Yeah. But:

Well, let’s look at Britain. They (or was it the city of London? I can never remember these things) privatized their water system under Ms. Thatcher. The water system is now grotesquely wasteful and inefficient; this is because it is cheaper (in fact, free) for the private company to tolerate the waste than it is to fix the pipes.

It is the nature of the beast that private companies are oblivious to concerns except profit. That’s all there is to it; that’s an ethically neutral fact. It is also why we need institutions which are set up to act in the public interest and to provide for the well-being of the people in ways that cannot be guaranteed by the short-term profit motive. Those are supposed to be governments. To the extent that the system does not encourage governments to do this, it is ineffective and ought to be changed.