Some of these gaps between what is a Right, and what is right is where Charity fits in. We can feel a Natural Charity for people who are suffering, due to no fault of their own, and even sometimes for people who are suffering due to their own bad choices. If we feel that Charity we may CHOOSE to act on it. Then it is our choice to give money, or help in some other manner from our own time and/or money. As Barry stated, no one else is being harmed by our choice, but ourselves, and we have chosen to take that small harm/inconvenience, because we have weighed that choice in our own lives.
When it's a larger situation, we can choose to pool our time/money with other like minded folks, who also agree that they wish to participate, through a church, where we have chosen to donate and trust that the leadership is making good decisions that we agree with for the most part. Or through crowding funding, such as GiveSendGo or GoFundMe, again, where feel that the money will be going to help the situation and not just to admin fees (A big problem with many secular "charities".)
When there is government intervention in the form of enforced compliance, we no longer have the choice as to where our money is going. As Barry mentioned, we may not agree with it from a moral or ethical standpoint, or even we just may not agree, at all. The government has put so many regulations in place that its hard for people to take care of themselves, and hard for them to take care of each other. (No collecting rainwater, no growing gardens, no sending food or supplies to disaster victims, no selling the product of your own creating - enforced seatbelts, enforced insurance for vehicles, health - taxing property and life insurance.) So, by creating more "rights" to enforce, they are creating more theft that we must finance AGAINST our own right to choose and thus removing our incentives to rouse our own senses towards Charity and serving each other. We are not allowed to love our neighbor, or practice the character building trait of self-sacrifice. And I think this is on purpose, even if it is not a conscious consideration by the non-entity of government.
I often find it ironic that the very people who are all about evolution and Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest", are also the ones that tear down people's livelihoods over a mouse or bird, or even a few people's stupid choices such as drinking or jumping off buildings or driving fast in their quest to "feel good" and exercise power over other people's choices in their own smug "morality".
Many of the continuing problems with our society were on display yesterday. We have elected leaders that are self serving and incompetent. Any rational person would recognize RFK’jrs desire to make our country a better place to live. He has no personal agenda that would preclude him from confirmation, in my opinion. Of course, I don’t agree with every one of his positions. If this is supposed to be a wise deliberative body, then we are in real trouble. Shameful.
Possibly trite, if not misguided, I offer the following to this conversation.
Kindness and understanding, combined with wisdom and common sense, applied to our engagements with others, whether in thought, word, or deed, would dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, all our personal, community, and global disputes.
You have drawn attention to a crucial distinction when you say "Real human rights are never win-lose. They do not elevate the rights of some while diminishing the rights of others. Real human rights are win-win." The classic example of the distinction, especially for Americans, is the affirmation in the Declaration of Independence of the right to pursue happiness. Not a right to happiness, an outcome, but a right to pursue happiness, an aspect of the right to liberty or freedom which is framed separately as a rhetorical means of emphasizing its importance to the human condition.
These real human rights are rights to act to achieve an end, not a right to the end.
All rights have correlative obligations, but the correlative obligation of a real human right does not require others to *do* anything, only to abstain from interfering with the exercise of the right. By contrast, fake human rights require others to do something, to sacrifice their own rights in the service of the one claiming the right.
Real human rights are win-win because each and every person is both a beneficiary of the right and a subject to the non-interference obligation requiring recognition of and respect for the same right reposing in others.
Thank you for this. I love this distinction between real human rights and "other" types of human rights which I learned through Prof Brownstein. I love your example of "the right to PURSUE happiness", rather than it being an outcome.
In university (several decades ago) I was very interested in human rights. The movements against tortue and political imprisonment made sense to me. But then when things started moving into "economic rights" and demanding that you have a right to a job and a right to housing and it was the governments responsibility to provide it I just didn't follow. How could the government possibly do this?
For most of my life I believed healthcare was a human right. But these days, I find it difficult to disagree with anything the Prof Brownstein has written above.
That being said, I don't know how it would work in practice given health is so complex. How do you determine what is attributable to someone's actions (or lack thereof) and what isn't? There are people who have never smoked who get lung cancer.
On the other hand, I have relatives with various health problems who do "do all the wrong things" and have for some time. They live on government welfare of one sort or another, have done for some time and likely will forever. The more time goes on, the more I struggle to have compassion for them. They are also propped up generous relatives. Sure, it's those relatives free choice to do so, and it's better than the government funding them. But as per the case with the government, there are others who are not getting those funds as a result, including those who do all the right things and have equally challenging health problems.
Kylee, You raise many unanswerable questions. I'm writing an essay now about liberty and responsibility. More personal responsibility is called for, but expecting change overnight would be cruel. So, we work on the margins and move in the right direction. We are compassionate for the ignorance of others as we would be for our own. As you explain, there are no easy answers to how that works in practice.
I agree moral responsibility is called for and that expecting change overnight would be cruel.
I also agree with you on the importance of compassion.
I do struggle though when it is not a matter of ignorance.... I mean, eating junk food and spending the majority of your time scrolling on your phone is not good for adults let alone children... some people I know who live this way were not raised this way. They were raised eating healthy, in a strong community, had good educations..... Their health unsurprisingly continues to deteriorate over time and they and their kids need greater and greater support (which gets provided by the government and relatives). Sigh.
I look forward to your essay on liberty and responsibility!
The problem with calling Healthcare a human right is that healthcare is a scarce commodity. We do not have an unlimited availability of healthcare. This leads the government to reframe “solutions” to scarcity such as abortion and assisted suicide as forms of healthcare.
Oh my they put poor Bobby Jr thru the ringer. yup! free speech is (should be!) a natch'ral right (too bad he couldn't elaborate as you've done here on his behalf) an' I'll add that it therefore should not be policed as is bein' done now (s'long as it doesn't impose hardship on others, calls fer violence, etc)
BUT it's quite ironic that free "health/care" --an oxymoron if ever I heard one!--means policin' from the start!--which conventional MediSin 'er pro-cede-jure their team will OK, which one iz deemed illegal, immoral 'er fattening! Makin' poli-seize, Big MediSin chooses WHAT consty-toots "care" an' what they think is "good fer yer health" -- nuttin' natch'ral 'bout that at all b/c it's an industry (an' frankly they want'cha sick as that brings in the big $$$) so a "right" ta that kinda sub-par "treatMint" is no right I'd wanna have...
I DO carve out fer emergencies tho'--not as a right but as moral "right thing" ta do--anyone no matter whut their habits, level of inebriation, polly-ticks, 'er misfortune should be allowed urgent care (not talkin' about folks that misuse that system fer regular care... that's gotta stop). If useless admin budgets warn't so bloated, there'd be ample funds ta cover the under- or uninsured in a true emergency--most hoss-spit-alls do have some private backin' fer a "fund" fer such things, so this would be like "charity" but reserved fer serious stuff (i.e. car accidents not gender bender frankenstein stitchery/witchery!)
I'm worried they're gonna tie Bobby's hands 'hind his back from the git go. Lotta BIGS on DJT's team...
An' my gosh, the "Burn" & Pocahantas are really nasty people... throw in Caroline (who rolled up her sleeves ta villify Bobby) & her truly mean son Jack Jr. inta that sorry mix. Don't folks see it? yeesh..
"I'm worried they're gonna tie Bobby's hands 'hind his back from the git go." You're probably right, but he will wake up many, and that's when real change will begin.
...if they don't tie a gag 'round his mouth too! (I know grim ta think thatta way but if they don't let'im TALK (which appears possible), there's precious little he kin do ta even "wake up many" (He said he was FOR Warp Speed...that DJT did great with it?!?!) So I'm already raisin' one eyebrow... the other's poised...
Also, I wuzn't too keen on Bobby Jr sayin' that AI Nurses are "just as good" as real ones (when grilled) an' that AI/Telehealth is prepared ta serve rural areas whose hoss-spit-alls are closin'. Kinda made me wunder if he's not ALREADY been compromised...
How could any sane person disagree with finding the root cause of our childhood health epidemic right now?
The sick people in this country are the ones taking Western medicine and eating Western foods. The healthy people are the ones avoiding them. And we will bet anyone $100,000.00 to prove it
Humanity has been granted certain unalienable rights—the Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property among them.
But every political cudgel weaponized in a Senate confirmation hearing is not a “right.” Just as surely as “insurance” is a terrible model for the day-to-day provision of healthcare.
“Rights” as we use the word in the United States of America is a very specific political term and concept. “Rights” are conditions of a freely-conducted life, bequeathed to us at birth by a Creator who made us in His image, NOT granted to us by the state.
For this reason, “rights” were carefully enumerated in highly *specific* terms by our country’s founders, for the express purpose of forbidding the government from infringing upon them.
A service, whether delivered by a government or some other entity, can NEVER be a “right.” It belongs to a completely different category of thing.
Therefore, marxists trying to call “health care” a “right” are twisting language. It is a perversion. It cannot be tolerated.
Some of these gaps between what is a Right, and what is right is where Charity fits in. We can feel a Natural Charity for people who are suffering, due to no fault of their own, and even sometimes for people who are suffering due to their own bad choices. If we feel that Charity we may CHOOSE to act on it. Then it is our choice to give money, or help in some other manner from our own time and/or money. As Barry stated, no one else is being harmed by our choice, but ourselves, and we have chosen to take that small harm/inconvenience, because we have weighed that choice in our own lives.
When it's a larger situation, we can choose to pool our time/money with other like minded folks, who also agree that they wish to participate, through a church, where we have chosen to donate and trust that the leadership is making good decisions that we agree with for the most part. Or through crowding funding, such as GiveSendGo or GoFundMe, again, where feel that the money will be going to help the situation and not just to admin fees (A big problem with many secular "charities".)
When there is government intervention in the form of enforced compliance, we no longer have the choice as to where our money is going. As Barry mentioned, we may not agree with it from a moral or ethical standpoint, or even we just may not agree, at all. The government has put so many regulations in place that its hard for people to take care of themselves, and hard for them to take care of each other. (No collecting rainwater, no growing gardens, no sending food or supplies to disaster victims, no selling the product of your own creating - enforced seatbelts, enforced insurance for vehicles, health - taxing property and life insurance.) So, by creating more "rights" to enforce, they are creating more theft that we must finance AGAINST our own right to choose and thus removing our incentives to rouse our own senses towards Charity and serving each other. We are not allowed to love our neighbor, or practice the character building trait of self-sacrifice. And I think this is on purpose, even if it is not a conscious consideration by the non-entity of government.
I often find it ironic that the very people who are all about evolution and Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest", are also the ones that tear down people's livelihoods over a mouse or bird, or even a few people's stupid choices such as drinking or jumping off buildings or driving fast in their quest to "feel good" and exercise power over other people's choices in their own smug "morality".
Tiffanie, I appreciate your outstanding addition to my essay! Thank you.
Many of the continuing problems with our society were on display yesterday. We have elected leaders that are self serving and incompetent. Any rational person would recognize RFK’jrs desire to make our country a better place to live. He has no personal agenda that would preclude him from confirmation, in my opinion. Of course, I don’t agree with every one of his positions. If this is supposed to be a wise deliberative body, then we are in real trouble. Shameful.
You are spot on, Mike. And VT and MA residents should be ashamed of giving permanent Senate seats to Warren and Sanders.
RFK Jr. absolutely has a personal agenda. He's made millions from anti-vaccine lawsuits and has conflicts of interest.
https://www.vox.com/health-care/397452/rfk-jr-confirmation-hearing-elizabeth-warren
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-financial-disclosures-millions-in-both-debt-and-income-awaits-hhs-confirmation/
Possibly trite, if not misguided, I offer the following to this conversation.
Kindness and understanding, combined with wisdom and common sense, applied to our engagements with others, whether in thought, word, or deed, would dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, all our personal, community, and global disputes.
I suggest it's that simple and that hard.
Warmly ... John
John, I'm glad you point us to the highest levels. Thank you.
You have drawn attention to a crucial distinction when you say "Real human rights are never win-lose. They do not elevate the rights of some while diminishing the rights of others. Real human rights are win-win." The classic example of the distinction, especially for Americans, is the affirmation in the Declaration of Independence of the right to pursue happiness. Not a right to happiness, an outcome, but a right to pursue happiness, an aspect of the right to liberty or freedom which is framed separately as a rhetorical means of emphasizing its importance to the human condition.
These real human rights are rights to act to achieve an end, not a right to the end.
All rights have correlative obligations, but the correlative obligation of a real human right does not require others to *do* anything, only to abstain from interfering with the exercise of the right. By contrast, fake human rights require others to do something, to sacrifice their own rights in the service of the one claiming the right.
Real human rights are win-win because each and every person is both a beneficiary of the right and a subject to the non-interference obligation requiring recognition of and respect for the same right reposing in others.
Thank you for this. I love this distinction between real human rights and "other" types of human rights which I learned through Prof Brownstein. I love your example of "the right to PURSUE happiness", rather than it being an outcome.
In university (several decades ago) I was very interested in human rights. The movements against tortue and political imprisonment made sense to me. But then when things started moving into "economic rights" and demanding that you have a right to a job and a right to housing and it was the governments responsibility to provide it I just didn't follow. How could the government possibly do this?
Thanks for your reflection Gary Judd KC.
Gary, I appreciate the wisdom and the essential distinctions you have added to my essay. Thank you!
Well done. Natural Rights vs. Claim "Rights."
The states of VT and MA are lost causes: they refuse to stop voting for the very same people who created the problem in the first place.
Furthermore, Colonel Sanders and Liawatha Warren are the Epitome of Leftist hypocrites that LIE every time they open their mouths.
This is a really tough one for me.
For most of my life I believed healthcare was a human right. But these days, I find it difficult to disagree with anything the Prof Brownstein has written above.
That being said, I don't know how it would work in practice given health is so complex. How do you determine what is attributable to someone's actions (or lack thereof) and what isn't? There are people who have never smoked who get lung cancer.
On the other hand, I have relatives with various health problems who do "do all the wrong things" and have for some time. They live on government welfare of one sort or another, have done for some time and likely will forever. The more time goes on, the more I struggle to have compassion for them. They are also propped up generous relatives. Sure, it's those relatives free choice to do so, and it's better than the government funding them. But as per the case with the government, there are others who are not getting those funds as a result, including those who do all the right things and have equally challenging health problems.
Kylee, You raise many unanswerable questions. I'm writing an essay now about liberty and responsibility. More personal responsibility is called for, but expecting change overnight would be cruel. So, we work on the margins and move in the right direction. We are compassionate for the ignorance of others as we would be for our own. As you explain, there are no easy answers to how that works in practice.
Thank you for your sage advice Prof Brownstein.
I agree moral responsibility is called for and that expecting change overnight would be cruel.
I also agree with you on the importance of compassion.
I do struggle though when it is not a matter of ignorance.... I mean, eating junk food and spending the majority of your time scrolling on your phone is not good for adults let alone children... some people I know who live this way were not raised this way. They were raised eating healthy, in a strong community, had good educations..... Their health unsurprisingly continues to deteriorate over time and they and their kids need greater and greater support (which gets provided by the government and relatives). Sigh.
I look forward to your essay on liberty and responsibility!
Thanks again.
The problem with calling Healthcare a human right is that healthcare is a scarce commodity. We do not have an unlimited availability of healthcare. This leads the government to reframe “solutions” to scarcity such as abortion and assisted suicide as forms of healthcare.
Bernie Sanders has the right to get a medical license and treat people for free but we all know that he's an outrage grifter.
Exactly, Neal. The definition of healthcare is disturbed. Taking more pills is not healthcare.
Oh my they put poor Bobby Jr thru the ringer. yup! free speech is (should be!) a natch'ral right (too bad he couldn't elaborate as you've done here on his behalf) an' I'll add that it therefore should not be policed as is bein' done now (s'long as it doesn't impose hardship on others, calls fer violence, etc)
BUT it's quite ironic that free "health/care" --an oxymoron if ever I heard one!--means policin' from the start!--which conventional MediSin 'er pro-cede-jure their team will OK, which one iz deemed illegal, immoral 'er fattening! Makin' poli-seize, Big MediSin chooses WHAT consty-toots "care" an' what they think is "good fer yer health" -- nuttin' natch'ral 'bout that at all b/c it's an industry (an' frankly they want'cha sick as that brings in the big $$$) so a "right" ta that kinda sub-par "treatMint" is no right I'd wanna have...
I DO carve out fer emergencies tho'--not as a right but as moral "right thing" ta do--anyone no matter whut their habits, level of inebriation, polly-ticks, 'er misfortune should be allowed urgent care (not talkin' about folks that misuse that system fer regular care... that's gotta stop). If useless admin budgets warn't so bloated, there'd be ample funds ta cover the under- or uninsured in a true emergency--most hoss-spit-alls do have some private backin' fer a "fund" fer such things, so this would be like "charity" but reserved fer serious stuff (i.e. car accidents not gender bender frankenstein stitchery/witchery!)
I'm worried they're gonna tie Bobby's hands 'hind his back from the git go. Lotta BIGS on DJT's team...
An' my gosh, the "Burn" & Pocahantas are really nasty people... throw in Caroline (who rolled up her sleeves ta villify Bobby) & her truly mean son Jack Jr. inta that sorry mix. Don't folks see it? yeesh..
"I'm worried they're gonna tie Bobby's hands 'hind his back from the git go." You're probably right, but he will wake up many, and that's when real change will begin.
...if they don't tie a gag 'round his mouth too! (I know grim ta think thatta way but if they don't let'im TALK (which appears possible), there's precious little he kin do ta even "wake up many" (He said he was FOR Warp Speed...that DJT did great with it?!?!) So I'm already raisin' one eyebrow... the other's poised...
Also, I wuzn't too keen on Bobby Jr sayin' that AI Nurses are "just as good" as real ones (when grilled) an' that AI/Telehealth is prepared ta serve rural areas whose hoss-spit-alls are closin'. Kinda made me wunder if he's not ALREADY been compromised...
How could any sane person disagree with finding the root cause of our childhood health epidemic right now?
The sick people in this country are the ones taking Western medicine and eating Western foods. The healthy people are the ones avoiding them. And we will bet anyone $100,000.00 to prove it
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/the-sick-people-in-this-country-are
Healthcare is not a human right.
Humanity has been granted certain unalienable rights—the Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property among them.
But every political cudgel weaponized in a Senate confirmation hearing is not a “right.” Just as surely as “insurance” is a terrible model for the day-to-day provision of healthcare.
You beat me to it —
My comment:
“Rights” as we use the word in the United States of America is a very specific political term and concept. “Rights” are conditions of a freely-conducted life, bequeathed to us at birth by a Creator who made us in His image, NOT granted to us by the state.
For this reason, “rights” were carefully enumerated in highly *specific* terms by our country’s founders, for the express purpose of forbidding the government from infringing upon them.
A service, whether delivered by a government or some other entity, can NEVER be a “right.” It belongs to a completely different category of thing.
Therefore, marxists trying to call “health care” a “right” are twisting language. It is a perversion. It cannot be tolerated.
the farmer looks after the heard.. so yes healthcare is free to the alcoholic.
The "General Welfare" clause is what led to our socialized/communist medical system. It's also what led to vaccine mandates.
Fine sounding words. But RFK Jr. by his actions would interfere with prevention of diseases, both acute and chronic.
https://news.immunologic.org/p/rfk-jr-says-he-wants-to-tackle-chronic