Of the guaranteed income proposal, Dennis Breslin writes:
"A guaranteed income program may well be preferable but implicit is that food and other basic needs are to be met and that gov't is obligated to provide for that."
The problem is that the government does not have the means to provide for the needs. It must either buy the goods or take them. If food were to become a natural right, the government would be both empowered and obliged to take the goods. That is the problem.
"So expressing things in terms of rights guarantees nothing."
Completely wrong. This attitude is exactly why the Europeans are so casual with their guarantees of "rights". Most rights are subject to the vagaries of the state apparatus in their systems. In America a right implies a direct claim that is superior to any other claim but those also founded on natural rights.
"Rights are only as useful as those applying or enforcing the obligation."
Rights have implicit superior force in the American system and that is why we can't throw the word around haphazardly.