It's My Right?

Let's keep the conversation going. In my post on Obama's 2015 State of the Union, I suggested that democrats try to prevent certain kinds of suffering for all Americans, and use the ideas of rights to get people on board. After all, if something is a right, it pretty much becomes the government's job to provide it for all Americans. Obama called healthcare a right and now it is universal. Maybe you agree with this idea, maybe you don't, or maybe it depends on what kind of rights we're talking about.

Here's a way to see it. All rights can be put under one of two headings: negative rights and positive rights. Negative here doesn't mean bad, it means an American is entitled to not have something bad.
For example, the right to life is a negative right because it's something that the government has to make sure won't be taken away. It doesn't give life. A barrier to life probably implies death and we have police and the military to make sure that's prevented. Both republicans and democrats are totally on board with this. Other negative rights are liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Sound familiar?

Positive rights are different. They are things actually given to you, either products or services. For example, you may not have known this but NYC and NYS have "right-to-shelter" policies, which means that at least in theory, everyone in the entire state should be sleeping under a roof every night. Here, republicans and democrats can be on opposite ends. Why, though?

Here's the biggest reason why: positive rights cost money. A lot of money. See for yourself.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/19/us/budget-proposal.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

Notice some of the costliest expenses.
- Social Security: $848 billion
- Medicare: $505 billion
- Military: $572 billion
- Vet compensation; $85 billion
- Food Stamps: $82 billion

Because military is required for any country to secure its own people, no side is really going to make a major dent in that budget. Because its dishonorable to both sides to not pay the people who've put their lives on the line, vet comp won't change much. But, you will often see Social Security, Medicare and Food Stamps in the center of budget debates. One reason is that they cost so much. A second reason is that republicans have a much more limited view of positive rights, of rights that are going to benefit SOME. Obviously the military will benefit everyone.

Where do you stand, given that our country is around $17 trillion in debt? Are rights only negative? Are there positive rights, things Americans should be given by the government? If so, what?

The 2015 State of the Union: A Perspective on Worldview

Obama just delivered his 2015 State of the Union. In it, he painted an entire picture of what has happened during his presidency. Graduation rates are at all-time highs. Solar power is being utilized more than ever. The stock market has reached record highs. But how should we really assess the speech?

You'll often hear republicans say, "At the end of the day, someone will end up poor. Somebody is going to live the hard life and that's fine. It's not the government's job to solve all of those people's problems." Whether they want to admit it or not, that really is a reflection of a kind of social darwinism. 

President Obama's rhetoric ("a fair shot for everybody") and policies (executive decisions on immigration, Obamacare, free community colleges) is a reflection of another kind of worldview: utopianism.

Both of those are the extremes, for sure. But, we can see how the ideas from the fringes seep into the moderate forms, because as a democrat who holds to this ideology, Obama is going to try to abolish certain hardships and suffering from America, like the kind of suffering caused by not having health insurance when you fall ill. That's why he calls healthcare a right, because he believes Americans should not have to suffer in that kind of situation.

So how you assess Obama's speech, and even his presidency, will often boil down to where you lie on the spectrum. At the one extreme is total social darwinism, survival of the fittest and total neglect of the needs of the struggling people. On the other hand is an attempt to create a society free of all suffering and hardship, in other words, a utopia. Now, that may sound nice, but books like Divergent and The Giver show us how severely freedoms can be trampled upon for the sake of everybody's welfare. If you fall on the middle, then which sufferings should be abolished from America? As examples, at least with regard to what the government supports or condemns, we've abolished murder and slavery.

So, where do you stand on the spectrum?