Nobody has a right to anything that has to be provided by someone else. From Paul Rosenberg at freemansperspective.com:
The thought that something like “the right to a secure retirement” could destroy us seems a little crazy at first. Who, after all, opposes old people living comfortably? Nonetheless, many rights do destroy, and it recently struck me that I had never seen a clear and dispassionate explanation of why. And so I’ll rectify that.
The Two Rights
This will be brief, so please follow me.
When we say “rights,” we are making “should” statements, like “old people should spend their final years comfortably.” At first that sounds okay, but right is even stronger than should, and implies a demand… a must. That can be problematic because there are two types of these must statements:
- You must do something.
- You must not do something.
Must not statements are like those in the US Bill of Rights, telling the government that it may not impinge upon free speech, the practice of religion, peaceful assembly and so on. “Congress shall make no law.” These statements aren’t usually a problem.
The must statements, however, are a problem, because they make a universal demand. When you say, “we have a right to a secure retirement,” you are also saying that someone, somewhere, must make it happen.
Gods And Rulers
Demands that a right be satisfied are made to unspecified providers. Thus they accrue to gods and rulers. And with gods no longer in style, they go directly to rulers, who are expected to satisfy the demands.
To make secure retirement happen, however, the ruler must provide goods and/or money to old people. And those have to come from somewhere: roof repairs and microwave ovens don’t come from magic incantations, after all; someone must work to provide them.
So, since the ruler won’t personally work for the goods, he or she must take them from other people. Thus the seemingly benevolent “right to a secure retirement” leads directly to the forcible taking of personal property and the labor that produced it. That’s not seriously arguable.
Property rights are about to go up in smoke with the squatters?
Property is theft to the comrades.
To each according to his hovel, squatters of the world unite, in the land of free EBT milk and honey.
And angry about it.
Maybe soft weak and stupid just pisses them off.
We need some smell of napalm in the morning here.
Rand articulated Paul’s conception decades ago when she made the point that “one cannot claim as a right that which must first be provided by someone else.”
To do so is to “legitimize” slavery and morally empower it!
Ayn Rand, decades ago, identified Paul’s conception when she stated, “one cannot have a right to that which must first be provided by another.”
To do so “legitimizes” slavery and morally empowers it!