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> Every right requires infrastructure, investment, and labor to ensure. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness aren’t free. People had natural rights long

> Every right requires infrastructure, investment, and labor to ensure. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness aren’t free. People had natural rights long before the concepts of infrastructure, investment, or labor were ever conceived. > Whether or not housing should be a right, rights that are expensive to provide but are nonetheless provided anyway are nothing new. My point wasn't about expense. It was about a perceived entitlement to resources and help outside oneself. Housing in itself is not a right as it depends on resources and labor that don't belong to you. Such resources and labor are not rights.

danenania 4y ago
We all depend on labor and resources that don’t belong to us. There’s no right to property, speech, or even life itself without institutions like the police, military, and courts. There’s no right to vote without a massive election bureaucracy. There’s no right to education without a school system. Why are we given rights like the ones I mentioned, but not housing or healthcare or basic income? It’s simply because the we haven’t collectively decided that the state should provide them. But it could. There’s no fundamental difference between providing housing and providing police protection, roads, schools, parks, and elections.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  You have a very odd definition of rights and their defense. Rights are something every person is born with. They don't originate from government instituions, resources, or labor. Rather these things, protect or enhance them. There is a right to speech because I have the ability to speak, not because government has the ability to defend it or to take it away. There is a right to vote because people are freely able to form relations and petition for their own interests. While there is a right to learn (i.e. seek and out obtain information), there is however no particular right to a school-based education, as one is not entitled to being taught by others. Police protection exists because the state has a monopoly on violence. Even if the police were never present however, as in the case of very remote areas with small populations, one always has a right to self-defense. Roads and schools are not rights. They're paid for by other people's money and built by the labor of others. Parks are pieces of land the government has almost always wrongfully taken by way of eminent domain. Elections are a complicated case. Individuals have a right to vote, but state legislatures have wide berth to set the terms of voting within their respective jurisdictions. While I would say there is a right to vote, there isn't a right to an election on terms or rules one finds favorable for one's self.
  - danenania 4y ago
    You're just arbitrarily defining some things as rights, and others not. These things aren't etched into sacred tablets--they are decided collectively by a society and its government and are always evolving. There was no right to vote until enough people decided there should be one and made it so. Housing is no different.
    - Dracophoenix 4y ago
      No sacred tablets here. A right is an ability or activity one is able to purse without the intervention or interference of others. There were rights before government and society existed and if government and society collapsed tomorrow, you wouldn't lose your rights. It's a contradiction to says that society and government decide rights. A right to vote is predicated on freedom of association among a nation's individual citizens. A person determines for himself whether he will or will not vote. It's not for society's sake that a vote is cast.
      - danenania 4y ago
        This is getting to only be about semantics. That’s your definition of ‘rights’ based on your specific set of political beliefs, but it doesn’t reflect common usage or what people are referring to when they call housing or healthcare a right. They mean that society, via the state, should provide those things to everyone. And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection. The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then.
        Dracophoenix 4y ago
        > This is getting to only be about semantics. That’s your definition of ‘rights’ based on your specific set of political beliefs, but it doesn’t reflect common usage or what people are referring to when they call housing or healthcare a right. They mean that society, via the state, should provide those things to everyone. Semantics matter. If we can't even agree on the meaning of our terms, then we're talking past each other. Political beliefs aren't necessary to define rights. And I'm well aware of claimed "meaning" of rights. However, as I stated earlier, such a meaning is contradictory. If a provision must be received from others, then it's not a right. It is a privilege. What the state gives, it is able to take away. Housing that is provided, subsidized, or constructed by the state isn't a right as at any point in time as the state can withhold payments to, modify, take, or demolish such housing. > And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection. People defended themselves long before there were professional policeman. Additionally, police officers can steal from, maim, and kill people just the same. The badge doesn't inhibit them from choosing to violate the rights of individuals. I don't see how that disproves my point. Safety is product of exercising the right to defend or remove oneself from a dangerous situation. I don't need to seek permission or pay someone protection money to secure my safety. > The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then. Nothing prevents the state from killing people and stealing their stuff too. Governments have done that before, and many still do it today. Every government is composed of people who are little better in a moral sense than the average individual. However, If you truly think that power is what makes rights meaningful, then you contradict your earlier statement about housing being a right, even in the popular sense of the term. If power makes right, then no rights exist, as people are no different from resources. Resources don't have rights and the state has no obligation to resources.

danenania 4y ago

We all depend on labor and resources that don’t belong to us. There’s no right to property, speech, or even life itself without institutions like the police, military, and courts. There’s no right to vote without a massive election bureaucracy. There’s no right to education without a school system. Why are we given rights like the ones I mentioned, but not housing or healthcare or basic income? It’s simply because the we haven’t collectively decided that the state should provide them. But it could. There’s no fundamental difference between providing housing and providing police protection, roads, schools, parks, and elections.

Dracophoenix 4y ago
You have a very odd definition of rights and their defense. Rights are something every person is born with. They don't originate from government instituions, resources, or labor. Rather these things, protect or enhance them. There is a right to speech because I have the ability to speak, not because government has the ability to defend it or to take it away. There is a right to vote because people are freely able to form relations and petition for their own interests. While there is a right to learn (i.e. seek and out obtain information), there is however no particular right to a school-based education, as one is not entitled to being taught by others. Police protection exists because the state has a monopoly on violence. Even if the police were never present however, as in the case of very remote areas with small populations, one always has a right to self-defense. Roads and schools are not rights. They're paid for by other people's money and built by the labor of others. Parks are pieces of land the government has almost always wrongfully taken by way of eminent domain. Elections are a complicated case. Individuals have a right to vote, but state legislatures have wide berth to set the terms of voting within their respective jurisdictions. While I would say there is a right to vote, there isn't a right to an election on terms or rules one finds favorable for one's self.
- danenania 4y ago
  You're just arbitrarily defining some things as rights, and others not. These things aren't etched into sacred tablets--they are decided collectively by a society and its government and are always evolving. There was no right to vote until enough people decided there should be one and made it so. Housing is no different.
  - Dracophoenix 4y ago
    No sacred tablets here. A right is an ability or activity one is able to purse without the intervention or interference of others. There were rights before government and society existed and if government and society collapsed tomorrow, you wouldn't lose your rights. It's a contradiction to says that society and government decide rights. A right to vote is predicated on freedom of association among a nation's individual citizens. A person determines for himself whether he will or will not vote. It's not for society's sake that a vote is cast.
    - danenania 4y ago
      This is getting to only be about semantics. That’s your definition of ‘rights’ based on your specific set of political beliefs, but it doesn’t reflect common usage or what people are referring to when they call housing or healthcare a right. They mean that society, via the state, should provide those things to everyone. And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection. The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then.
      - Dracophoenix 4y ago
        > This is getting to only be about semantics. That’s your definition of ‘rights’ based on your specific set of political beliefs, but it doesn’t reflect common usage or what people are referring to when they call housing or healthcare a right. They mean that society, via the state, should provide those things to everyone. Semantics matter. If we can't even agree on the meaning of our terms, then we're talking past each other. Political beliefs aren't necessary to define rights. And I'm well aware of claimed "meaning" of rights. However, as I stated earlier, such a meaning is contradictory. If a provision must be received from others, then it's not a right. It is a privilege. What the state gives, it is able to take away. Housing that is provided, subsidized, or constructed by the state isn't a right as at any point in time as the state can withhold payments to, modify, take, or demolish such housing. > And you absolutely would lose your right to safety without police or some other form of protection. People defended themselves long before there were professional policeman. Additionally, police officers can steal from, maim, and kill people just the same. The badge doesn't inhibit them from choosing to violate the rights of individuals. I don't see how that disproves my point. Safety is product of exercising the right to defend or remove oneself from a dangerous situation. I don't need to seek permission or pay someone protection money to secure my safety. > The ‘right’ might exist in your own mind, but it won’t do anything to prevent someone else who doesn’t share that belief from killing you and taking all your stuff. Rights are only meaningful with power behind then. Nothing prevents the state from killing people and stealing their stuff too. Governments have done that before, and many still do it today. Every government is composed of people who are little better in a moral sense than the average individual. However, If you truly think that power is what makes rights meaningful, then you contradict your earlier statement about housing being a right, even in the popular sense of the term. If power makes right, then no rights exist, as people are no different from resources. Resources don't have rights and the state has no obligation to resources.