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Originally posted by Catwoman
*Stares at screen with dazed expression.
STOP PRESS! Catwoman agrees with right winger (kind of)
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Welcome to the club. We have a secret handshake. I'll show you later.
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That made a lot of sense. The entitlement/gratitude thing. My only question:
Are they not entitled? Is it not a human right?
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There is not a basic human right to be provided with food and shelter. Human rights are all derived from their origin in the “natural person” – they are all rights of freedom, not of benefit. We recognize that living together in society interferes with some of those rights. The stated, enumerated human rights (bill of rights, etc.) are those rights which social interaction and centralized power tend to compromise, but which we agree to protect as a society: speech, freedom to gather, religion, etc.
Shorthand – there is no right to
receive anything from anyone. All rights are protections of
freedom to , for lack of a better term.
So what are people entitled to? A freely competitive society, in which no one, or no institution, can interdict their freedom to work, and to receive the benefit of that work (food and shelter).
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What I'm saying is, social merit (and thus entitlement) is not necessarily dictated by financial contribution.
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Let me make your argument for you (man, what a pretension ass of a thing to say – sorry). If you’re going to argue for an entitlement, it can’t be on the basis of social merit, because that’s not what you really believe. You don’t really believe that the guy who gives away his blanket should get food and shelter, and the guy who spends all day sipping Boon Hill should be left to die. What you believe is that all people have inherent value, that there is dignity in the human nature, and that society should recognize that value, and do the minimum necessary (at least) to sustain life.
And with that, I agree.
(more later … I have to get some work done today)
-sm