[lbo-talk] negative freedoms

[Eric]

>I'm sorry, Ian, this is wayyy too glib.  We don't go immediately 
>from a right to a job or an adequate income, a right to a decent 
>education, and so forth to an Orwellian nightmare or a Huxleyian 
>dystopia. To get us onto the slippery slope, you have to show us how 
>the first steps make the slide to the evil reductio plausible, 
>likely, certain.

I'm tempted to say this is complete nonsense. There's no sliding 
involved, no step necessary to go from rights to dystopia, because 
they are (of) the same regime. In other words, rights are not just 
magically brought into existence. They are granted, secured, and 
maintained by the same entity that ensures evil (as you call it, 
though I would say control or something like that).