>
> Food is not a human right because it cannot reasonably be so. This is not
>a question of libertarianism but common sense.
So far so good.
You have to think of it from
>the point of view of what happens when something goes wrong. Let me give
>two quick paragraphs of questions to illustrate the inevitable quandaries.
>
> Let's say that I, living in Washington State, in the U.S., am dissatisfied
>with my portion of the apple harvest. So, I go to court and claim that my
>right to food has been violated. First, against whom do I file the claim?
>Is it King County? The state government? The federal government? Is it
>the
>apple growers? Which apple growers?
Depends on the legal form of the right, of course, and that can vary.
>>
> The above is why we basically have two underlying concepts of rights in
>the
>US and Britain: negative rights (that which people and governments must
>*not* do to an individual) and property rights - *not* so-called "positive
>rights".
No it's not. The problems you identify have nothing to dow ith negative and posutiverights. They arise with create rights to things to which, because of the variable need for them and their nature, there cannot be rights.
But there can be positive right to the means to get these things, namely money. Make it a right to have a job that pays a minimum remuneration, or to receive a subsidity if you can't work, or if you do nonmarket work that is valuable tos ociety (raising children, for example). You can enforce your right against the govt, go to the Labor Dept to get your job, Health & Human Services to get your subsidy. Absolutely none, not a single tiny one, of the problems you raise arise.
>Positive rights turn inevitably into a quagmire.
Not so. Show how with my proposal.
a civil entitlement to a government subsidy like Medicare.
>That's fine, but it isn't a right. It's a contract among parties.
?? A right in morality is something that oughtn't be taken away from you without your say-so. A right in law is a claim which you can a legally enforce. So how is a right you have on the basis of a govt program nota right?
Within
>the contract each member has rights, but there is no general, a priori
>right
>informing the contract, other than the right of citizens to, through
>duly-elected legislatures, create large-scale, civil agreements amongst
>themselves.
Maybe not, but who cares? ACtually, thsi is not the usual view. Most people think that even if the populace deciedes by democratic means to kill the Jews orenslave the blacks, they will have violated their (a priori, absolute, extra-historical) rights. Don't you think so too?
>> You are opening a whole can of worms with the right to money enough for a
>living. I agree with you but this is new territory. Credit money, being
>created by government and bank fiat, is indeed a commodity to which we
>could
>establish a general right. It is far different from food because it is
>itself a contract of sorts.
?? Not in law. Contract requires definite terms, offer, acceptance, consideration, and is a privatea greement that only binds the parties contracting. (Sorry, mention contract to a lawyer, see what happens.) Money's utterly different.
This is the way down which socialism will
>ultimate travel, in my view.
OK, so we are in the neighborhood of statrring to agree ons ome things. The proposal I'm making has been called "Basic Income" by its advocates (Phillipe van Parijs, for one).
jks
>
_________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com