4 ms·

It is not a matter of them being more "fundamental" There is no way for a government to provide you with healthcare (positive rights) with out infringment of m

by syshum 6y ago

It is not a matter of them being more "fundamental" There is no way for a government to provide you with healthcare (positive rights) with out infringment of my negative rights to my labor (i.e they must take a part of my labor via theft what you call taxation in order to provide you with the right to a service). The only other way for a government to provide a service would be indentured servitude where they require a person to provide the service under threat of violence / imprisonment That is why I reject the concept of positive rights, because they require that other people have their labor, property, or self ceased by the government to fulfill those rights that is fundamentally unethical to me negative rights do not have this ethical problem

nicoburns 6y ago
There's no way for government to protect your property rights without infringement on my negative rights to my liberty either. This is particularly obvious in the case of private ownership of land. Without private property rights I would be free to walk across and otherwise make use of that land it is your property rights which take that freedom away from me. And this isn't a theoretical issue either: prior to the enclosure of land in the 15th-19th centuries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure), most land here in the UK was common land that anybody had a right to make use of to graze animals and make a living. The expansion of private property directly took away that right and deprived many of their livelihoods. Even today we still have the Right To Roam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#United_Kingdom) and at least walk on private land which provides for significantly more freedom than is available in the US (there is close to zero danger of being shot just for walking somewhere in the UK). For other property it's less obvious, but enforcing your property rights still requires encroaching on my liberty. For example, without property rights, I would be free to walk into a shop and take whatever I wanted to. Or rock up to your unlocked car and drive off with it. The only way that this is prevented is through active enforcement by the state. Ultimately, if I persist in doing these things then I will be physically imprisoned. And it takes significant resources to run the policing and justice systems, just like healthcare. Now obviously nobody thinks I should just be able to walk up and take your care. But other forms of private property are controversial. In particular the idea that you ought to be able to keep all of that wealth that people give you (without taxation). You are only able to hold onto that wealth in the first place because the state enforces your right to keep it. There is nothing a priori that says that the state (which ultimately represents its citizens) must always enforce that right. To summarise, many "negative rights", including the right to private property, have exactly the same ethical problems as "positive rights". At which point it becomes a simple matter of what you consider moral and important. You're right that state-provided healthcare deprives you of wealth that you could otherwise have. But the reverse is also true. You having the wealth deprives others of healthcare that they could otherwise have. You just happen to think that property rights are more "natural" and important.
- syshum 6y ago
  I have already address most of this so we are just talking in circles, as it is not the government that protects my property rights, this is point I dont think we can get past as you seem to believe that government is the source of rights and I do not. Under no rational ethical foundation of cooperative society would anyone have the right "to walk into a shop and take whatever I wanted to" that would not be a civilization at all something you seem to inherently recognize but still insist using this straw-man to advance your flawed view of rights The argument about Real Property(land /natural resources) is a better one, and one I am actually sympathetic to but this argument was not one I ever used to support my position, in fact I am very much a Georgist and do believe that land & natural resources should be "owned" by humanity collectively and I have ethical problems with the foundation of homesteading. That said this discussion was around wealth generated not by land but by labor, if you want to fund a public healthcare system under a Georgist single tax system then I would be amenable to this discussion but taxing wages is theft of labor, it is akin indentured servitude and there is no way to get around this fact. However in modern society no one suggests such a public finance method, the default go to funding model is theft of Income, either personal or business. I can never support such an unethical system

by syshum 6y ago

nicoburns 6y ago

There's no way for government to protect your property rights without infringement on my negative rights to my liberty either. This is particularly obvious in the case of private ownership of land. Without private property rights I would be free to walk across and otherwise make use of that land it is your property rights which take that freedom away from me. And this isn't a theoretical issue either: prior to the enclosure of land in the 15th-19th centuries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure), most land here in the UK was common land that anybody had a right to make use of to graze animals and make a living. The expansion of private property directly took away that right and deprived many of their livelihoods. Even today we still have the Right To Roam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#United_Kingdom) and at least walk on private land which provides for significantly more freedom than is available in the US (there is close to zero danger of being shot just for walking somewhere in the UK). For other property it's less obvious, but enforcing your property rights still requires encroaching on my liberty. For example, without property rights, I would be free to walk into a shop and take whatever I wanted to. Or rock up to your unlocked car and drive off with it. The only way that this is prevented is through active enforcement by the state. Ultimately, if I persist in doing these things then I will be physically imprisoned. And it takes significant resources to run the policing and justice systems, just like healthcare. Now obviously nobody thinks I should just be able to walk up and take your care. But other forms of private property are controversial. In particular the idea that you ought to be able to keep all of that wealth that people give you (without taxation). You are only able to hold onto that wealth in the first place because the state enforces your right to keep it. There is nothing a priori that says that the state (which ultimately represents its citizens) must always enforce that right. To summarise, many "negative rights", including the right to private property, have exactly the same ethical problems as "positive rights". At which point it becomes a simple matter of what you consider moral and important. You're right that state-provided healthcare deprives you of wealth that you could otherwise have. But the reverse is also true. You having the wealth deprives others of healthcare that they could otherwise have. You just happen to think that property rights are more "natural" and important.

syshum 6y ago
I have already address most of this so we are just talking in circles, as it is not the government that protects my property rights, this is point I dont think we can get past as you seem to believe that government is the source of rights and I do not. Under no rational ethical foundation of cooperative society would anyone have the right "to walk into a shop and take whatever I wanted to" that would not be a civilization at all something you seem to inherently recognize but still insist using this straw-man to advance your flawed view of rights The argument about Real Property(land /natural resources) is a better one, and one I am actually sympathetic to but this argument was not one I ever used to support my position, in fact I am very much a Georgist and do believe that land & natural resources should be "owned" by humanity collectively and I have ethical problems with the foundation of homesteading. That said this discussion was around wealth generated not by land but by labor, if you want to fund a public healthcare system under a Georgist single tax system then I would be amenable to this discussion but taxing wages is theft of labor, it is akin indentured servitude and there is no way to get around this fact. However in modern society no one suggests such a public finance method, the default go to funding model is theft of Income, either personal or business. I can never support such an unethical system