soup lines for everyone

UNIVERSAL RIGHTS

There are only two certainties in life - death and taxes. Despite this, a lot of people believe in universal positive rights. Everyone has a right to health care, a home, a decent paying job, a good education (material rights) the socialists say. Not just the right to pursue these things but rather they must be given to everyone on earth even if they are capable but unwilling to get things on their own (due to systemic dicrimination of course). And to achieve this 'material security' they propose taking away other's negative rights (liberty of action, the right to own property, freedom of thought). Progressives dictate that it is everyones legal responsibility to make sure everyone else has these material rights through paying taxes to the state which then provides all these benefits - and if you refuse to subsidise the materially challenged, you will be imprisoned. And that sums up the problem with positive rights in the first place. How can they exist across time? Did they apply when humans lived as hunter-gatherers? Will they apply when the earth goes out of balance due to global warming in ten years? If positive rights don't have this continuity of existence, then when were they created and by whom? If one willingly chooses to do nothing, is the rest of society still obligated to provide them with positive rights though government? Does one have the right to willingly harm themselves? If one expects "from all: what one is capable" then who judges what ones capabilities are? (or is the assumption that human nature is altruistic when removed from the capitalist rat race?) The same problem arises in determining "to all: what one needs." Legitimate governments are created to protect individuals' negative rights not to bestow positive rights on select groups. The only thing universal in socialist mantra is suffering.