There is also a middle ground: Instead of 'rights,' call internet access, health care or jury trials 'good.' Have governments pursue 'good.' They will argue ab

There is also a middle ground: Instead of 'rights,' call internet access, health care or jury trials 'good.' Have governments pursue 'good.' They will argue about whether laissez faire is better at achieving this good then direct provision, but the groundwork is less idealistic & thus more likely to be rational. If something is a 'right,' it makes it automatically take precedence over anything that is simply good (like faster internet access). This is a problem if you are deciding between connecting a small number of people or improving the service for a large number of people. I don't think the distinction between positive & negative is useful for anything more then a rule of thumb. It's just that positive rights tend to cost less to grant. If we were comfortable with fewer absolutes, I would favour replacing rights with good, bad, better, worse. *For the sake of predictability & a workable battle cry, it may be useful to grant tentative rights. But I wouldn't call them rights. "The government has decided to grant everyone access by 20XX."