There is a lot of talk about rights these days, the right to health care, the right to free college, housing and even a guaranteed minimum income. But are these rights or merely wishes?
And if they are in fact rights, whose obligation is it to provide fulfillment of them?
The Declaration of Independence states that all people “are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments only secure these rights — that is, they create the political conditions that allow one to exercise them. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are silent on the subject of education, medical care, income or housing for Americans.
David Kelley, writing for TheAtlasSociety.org, believes that a right is a privilege, something you possess free and clear, and something that you can exercise without asking anyone else’s permission. My right to free speech imposes no obligation on anyone else, except that of non-interference. I know, tell that to Antifa or the University of California at Berkeley, but hopefully those are only current cultural aberrations and not the norm.
According to economist Walter E. Williams, a right is something that exists simultaneously among all people. As such, a right imposes no obligation or burden on another. As an American you are born with these rights. And natural rights, being natural, do not change over time. They are not given to us by the government and cannot be taken away by government.
Human rights, on the other hand, constantly change. According to The Heritage Foundation, an entire cottage industry has sprung up to advance an array of new economic and social rights conceived of, defined by, and promoted by government and international bureaucrats.
Most of today’s Democrat presidential candidates support an array of economic and social rights such as the right to medical care, reproductive rights including late term abortion, housing, the right to a free and fair world, the right to own property, the right to free education, even the right of foreigners to access our country and all that it offers, etc., but they have a misguided concept of what constitutes a right in a free society.
Remembering that rights must not impose obligations on others, most of what these presidential hopefuls insist on as rights are actually wishes. Wishes, by the way, that would substantially grow the size and cost government if granted. Universal health care cannot be a right if physicians and other medical professionals and personnel are forced or obligated to perform or not perform certain procedures. The government regulating physicians, insurers and pharmaceutical companies has stepped way over the line of fulfilling this so-called right to health care.
As Williams states, “If you agree that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy and that Congress does not have any resources of its very own, the only way for Congress to give one American something is to first take it from some other American. In other words, if one person has a right to something he did not earn, it requires another person’s not having a right to something he did earn.”
I can think of no better example than the ridiculous cry that college should be free.
According to Quora.com, the number of students who were projected to attend American colleges and universities in 2018 was 19.9 million. Why should the rest of the country’s 330-some million people foot the bill for those who will presumably earn more than those whose tax dollars provided their free education?
As citizens of a free republic it is our duty to preserve it. If you would like to take a free online course on the U. S. Constitution go to: www.freeconstitutioncourse.com.
Mikie Kerr is a constitutional enthusiast who writes a monthly column for West Hawaii Today.
