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By definition human rights are intrinsic and universal. Everyone has them and everyone is responsible for not violating others'. Right off the bat we can see th

By definition human rights are intrinsic and universal. Everyone has them and everyone is responsible for not violating others'. Right off the bat we can see that claiming high-speed internet as a human right is asinine, because high-speed internet didn't even exist a couple of decades ago, thus access to it can't be claimed as an intrinsic right of the human soul. It also fails universality. If even one person lacks broadband internet, then we would all be obligated to provide it or we are failing to uphold their rights. So if a person in Montana doesn't have broadband, everyone in e.g. Uganda and Malaysia is complicit in a human rights violation. It really is this silly, because human rights are not limited to any government or institution. They are a universal responsibility and mutual obligation between individuals as well, so defining them positively implies absurd moral conclusions. Venturing into meta-level ideological territory, I can't help but perceive the theory of positive rights as a cynical tool for expanding government powers. It mandates utopian promises, it sucks the air away from reality-based alternatives that look anemic or even cruel by comparison, it requires nuance to argue against, and it functionally cements the government as the source and provider of human rights. It could not be better propaganda for the state.

uoaei 7y ago
Positive rights are a tool for expanding government services. This hardly grants power to the government except when citizens become dependent on it. Which is the case a priori, since the government acts as protector for the citizenry. So the relationship between government and citizen becomes at least no more exploitative than it was when introducing the service of positive rights.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  No, it goes deeper than providing services. If the goal is only to provide services then that can simply be done for the sake of it. We can run welfare programs because it makes society run better or even just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy. But when we elevate those services to the status of faux "human rights" then it weakens actual rights. If your right to association is on the same playing field as my "right" to public housing, then disbanding right-leaning political parties is on the table because they threaten my human rights. This may seem like an absurd example but we already have absurd arguments like the "right" to feel safe outweighs the right to bear arms, or the "right" to not hear hate speech outweighs the right to free expression. Balancing positive "rights" that must be supplied by the government against actual freedom-from-coercion negative rights is a monumental expansion of state power. Enshrining positive rights, as desirable as the ends are in themselves, is a serious and fundamental distortion to the ideological foundations of liberalism.

uoaei 7y ago

Positive rights are a tool for expanding government services. This hardly grants power to the government except when citizens become dependent on it. Which is the case a priori, since the government acts as protector for the citizenry. So the relationship between government and citizen becomes at least no more exploitative than it was when introducing the service of positive rights.

homonculus1 7y ago
No, it goes deeper than providing services. If the goal is only to provide services then that can simply be done for the sake of it. We can run welfare programs because it makes society run better or even just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy. But when we elevate those services to the status of faux "human rights" then it weakens actual rights. If your right to association is on the same playing field as my "right" to public housing, then disbanding right-leaning political parties is on the table because they threaten my human rights. This may seem like an absurd example but we already have absurd arguments like the "right" to feel safe outweighs the right to bear arms, or the "right" to not hear hate speech outweighs the right to free expression. Balancing positive "rights" that must be supplied by the government against actual freedom-from-coercion negative rights is a monumental expansion of state power. Enshrining positive rights, as desirable as the ends are in themselves, is a serious and fundamental distortion to the ideological foundations of liberalism.