Consider this question from the Presidential debate in Nashville:
“Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?”
—Tom Brokaw, debate moderator
It seems to me that we have to begin by asking what good a right is. We can make up all sorts of phrases and call them rights, and maybe that makes us feel good. But it's like what we just went through with the mortgage crisis if we don't ask the question “who's going to pay for all that good feeling?”
If a right means anything at all, it seems to me that you need to be able to enforce it. Otherwise, it's just words on paper.
So can we have a right of health care? I claim not. I claim that a necessary property of a true right is that it is cost-free. If not, then it is a risk that you will bankrupt the country over it.
For example, equal rights is cost-free because there is no cost to saying that everyone should be treated equally. You can treat everyone equally even when you have no money left. Free speech can be a valid right because it costs nothing to let people speak.
But health care costs money. Social security costs money. This is the issue of the so-called “entitlements.”
The problem with costing money is that if we have only finite resources, we end up in a situation where we simply cannot afford it. Suppose you are a country of one million people and you tell each of them they have a right to a thousand dollars, but you only have a hundred thousand dollars. There's simply no way to pay. So either you're lying that they have the right or it's permissible to bankrupt the country just to satisfy the rights of the citizenry.
One way to resolve the dilemma is to say that rights are an evolved notion and that only once you reach a certain level of prosperity can you have them. This model suggests you must seek to stay above the level of evolution that brought you such rights, and you must recognize when you fall below that line to remove the right. That kind of right is ephemeral and one might argue it isn't worth saying you have a right in that case, since it can just evaporate.
I prefer to see these things as goals, not rights. It doesn't mean we don't want to do them. It means that we need to understand that citizens shouldn't complain if we can't do them because luxuries come before necessities. It sets a direction for our society and a statement about what we're about to say this is what we want to achieve.
Having a cell phone or HBO or an iPod may seem like good rights to have, but having food or clothing or shelter are better ones if you want to go that route. And yet, if Climate Change gets bad, I'm not even sure we can guarantee those things or call them rights under my definition.
It may seem unethical to claim that food, clothing, and shelter is not a right. I don't think it is. I think these are goals that are readily achievable under most circumstances, so they're reasonable goals to set. But I still prefer to call them goals, not rights. Just to keep the accounting straight.
The same with health care and social security. Calling them goals doesn't make them less important, it just makes it clear that they are not, contrary to oft-cited opinion, inalienable rights. They are a noble but fragile achievement. There is an ongoing cost to them and a need to keep continual focus on servicing them if they are to continue to be achieved.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
—Sherlock Holmes
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Comments
I like your approach to this, and I think it's consistent with another take I've come across, that what we call rights are what we (as a society) have worked out, through a long history of negotiations, as an arrangement with our government (that is, the laws we follow). Under this view, we're doing just what's needed to get universal health care in place (if it's successful). If it eventually turns out that some entitlement becomes unaffordable, we renegotiate.
Obviously if one has a “right” to threat others equally—one also has a “right” not to do so. How then does one get the “right” to be treated equally?
(This, of course, goes to the question of whether there are any “rights” at all!)
I might add that I have debated a peripheral issue in several Internet forums—the question of whence rights derive! That is a totally different, although perhaps essentially related, question. If “rights” are, as some argue, derived from some god or another—the slant of your questions must be altered.
However universal healthcare is categorized (you argue well that the category is significant) it is needed just as public education, a police force, and fire departments are needed. Such healthcare should be considered a basic benefit of paying taxes and being a responsible citizen.
Free speech can cost you financially, in the form of legal fees, but it still remains a right.
Great post and rated.
When the right to full and proper education is neglected, government foots the bill by increased entitlement programs like welfare.
When the right to proper healthcare is neglected, government foots the bill by increased subsidies to hospitals to cover the cost og unnecessary ER visits.
When the right to adequate protection is neglected, government foots the bill to the tune of 10 billion a month for an ill-advised war with the wrong country.
It is this neglect, and much, much more, that contributes most to rising deficits and exploding debt.
You have stimulated deep thought with this post. Therefore, I credit you with not neglecting my right to use my brain, even on the weekend!! Rated.
We could, of course, define equal health care to be a right. Perhaps that's what you meant. That doesn't say how much we promise, but it says that we can't give more to one person than another. It doesn't cost to be even-handed, it only costs to guarantee a particular level. If I promise to share lunch with you I'm not telling you what I have in my lunch bag, just that we're going to divide it equally. Back to health care, it would mean as our resources went up and down, so would the health care to which we are all entitled.
We're soon up against a situation where people have planned on a promise of social security and we're going to find out if we can make that promise. People will scream they have a right to it, but that won't make it any more accessible if there's no money. So why set the expectation that we'll meet any given level? It just makes people plan badly. We should tell people we'll do what we can, we can tell them what we're going to try to do, but that's that. If we'd made it more iffy, maybe people would have engaged in more oversight of the system because they would be (rightly) nervous.
I compliment you on starting a dialogue to consider how we as a society might pay for all of the things we may wish to do.
Aren't "rights" already defined by the Bill of Rights plus a few other Amemdments like the 14th (equal protection--an important one). I am not familiar with your local, but I could also imagine that you may have additional "rights" based upon the constitution or charter of your state. Individual states have constitutions too. I have not given this a detailed analysis, but I think all of the rights in the Constitution are free in an economic sense. One might even make an argument that they encourage economic growth.
I think you accurately described everything else as an entitlement, and they do cost money. That's where you have to manage the budget.
I did wish to comment on your remarks about your right to free speech. You do have the right to talk when you shouldn't at the dinner table. That is your right, but nobody can force your friend to remain your friend. He might get tired of you and decide he was finished with your friendship.
The same goes for your workplace. You could be mouthy with your boss and disruptive at work. Again, it's your right, but you don't have a right to that job, and you would likely get fired. Then if you tried to return to work even though you had been fired, your boss would most likely call the police and have you arrested for tresspassing since it is not your property. In principal you do have a nearly absolute right to free speech, but for various reasons people do not usually exercise it: societal pressure, customs, popularity , success at work.
To me, the nature of rights is less an argument over the cost of them than it is about the role of government vis-a-vis the individual. Thus, the "Bill of Rights" suggests that the government shall make no laws impinging or denying an individual's right(s) to: assemble, worship, speak freely, etc.
When it comes to the government "providing" things/services, I agree that it is misrepresentative to call those things/services "rights." They may be necessities, privileges, nice-to-haves, priorities, golden calves, it doesn't matter.
What I think citizens have a right to expect from government are a few things (that may or may not be quantifiable):
- equal access to services (or entitlements) that are provided under the law or by the government (non-discrimination, no separate but equal)
- faith/confidence in the government's word or execution re: safety, infrastructure measures
i.e., we may not have right to bridges and levees, but dammit, if the government is going to build them with our tax dollars, we have a right to have them actually work
- a truly democratic process for assigning priorities and allocating spending
Where health care falls I don't know for sure. Like SSA, I think it is both a privilege and a reasonable expectation for an advanced society. Further, I think it makes economic sense to "socialize" the safety net and provide a more even playing field for all.
Thus, perhaps it is more a "responsibility" of a compassionate and progressive citizenry to make it happen that it is a right we should be demanding.
lpsrocks, you might be shocked to hear me take a slightly opposing point of view on the bridges thing, but to do my position justice I'll need to do it under separate cover another time. (If I forget, remind me. I've got one or two pending topics for posts that address such issues, so I'll try not to go astray here.) The other points I agree with. (And even with the bridges I'm not that much in conceptual disagreement, it's just an issue of framing things ... but you'll see.)
Eric, I get where you're going but by the same token you could say people in China have the right to free speech because they can still say bad things about their government, it's really just that after they say it some bad effect happens. If you take that model, then having the right to say something bad to your employer but then to get fired is not much of a right. The point in the US of the free speech right is that the government, at least, which is who the right is against, is not allowed to retaliate.
Specifically, the last two clauses.
As a case in point, the indigenous peoples of India (not a plug for my piece elsewhere on OS) were granted privileges with regard to their lands by the beneficent British Raj, but not the rights to those lands. Absent legal land rights, the successor to the Raj, the present democratically elected Indian Government has found no hindrance to strip these minority people of their territories and disperse them to the four winds.
I don't believe this would be a desirable outcome for healthcare, should a successor government come into office with different "goals" in mind.
Absolutely not! The cost has nothing to do with what is or is not a right.
To use the example of healthcare, consider 4 individuals who need organ transplants. Two need kidney transplants, one needs a heart transplant, one needs a liver. At the moment, it is costing thousands of dollars to keep these people alive (dialysis, hospitalization, medication, etc). Now considered a 5th, healthy, individual. It would cost nothing to kill that person, and use his organs to give the other 4 people life saving transplants. Are we allowed to kill the 5th person to get transplants for the other 5? Emphatically not! Even if it cost nothing? Still no. Even if it saves money? It doesn't matter!
Why? Because the 5th person has a right to life, to bodily integrity, to autonomy. That right vests in the person and limits what others can or cannot do to him, what the government can or cannot do to him.
Consider the law. Trials cost money. Why can't we just take people accused of murder and kill them? Why waste money on trials? Why? Because they have a right to a trial by a jury of their peers. The fact that it may be easier and more economical for us to simply kill them does not mean that we can abridge that right. Even a poor man, or a destitute man, has an inviolable right to a fair trial, and the costs have no effect on that right.
Rights are inviolable. They are not subject to the demands of the marketplace nor the whims of people who might not feel like paying taxes to support those rights. That's the essence of rights. They are not open to discussion, they cannot be violated, and they certainly cannot be violated because those with money can't be bothered to care about the rights of those without.
Does that mean you believe you don't have a right to counsel when charged with a crime? Or is it only a right if you get free counsel?
Guns cost money. Does the Second Amendment not confer a right?
I think you have made a number of assertions here that may not hold up under scrutiny.
You said, “If a right means anything at all, it seems to me that you need to be able to enforce it.”
Then you said, “I claim that a necessary property of a true right is that it is cost-free.” The problem here is that your thesis seems self-contradictory by virtue of the claim, “…you need to be able to enforce it”.
In general terms, enforcement will cost money.
Then you say, “…equal rights is cost-free because there is no cost to saying that everyone should be treated equally.”
There is no cost in saying that everyone has a right to healthcare, either, but there is cost in providing that right. Again, enforcement of “equal rights” has proven quite costly monetarily, as well as on a societal level. I have the impression that this thesis confuses being able to acquire rights with what rights are. We have yet to achieve “equal rights”. But we still recognize such a concept.
The problem here seems to be with terminology. There are different types of rights, and I personally have not heard anyone call healthcare “an inalienable right”, but rather a right. Perhaps others have heard healthcare referred as an “inalienable right”.
What you have referred to as “entitlements” are “legal rights”, which are different from “inalienable rights”. Notice that the Founding Fathers included “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” among inalienable rights. Yet, even here, we find we must expend monetary resources in protecting and insuring those rights, and we often fail in doing so.
The inability to acquire a right does not make it “not a right”, it merely makes it inaccessible.
Huh?
Just a thought.
Nice piece and I respect your position.
Greg
It is possible to create rights that are in conflict with one another. The right to free speech and the right to privacy are examples. Nothing can fix overpromising other than case-by-case examination of the conflicts and repairing them as needed. But if you believe there's a right to not be killed by the state for parts, well, first of all, you'd want to find that. It's probably next to the privacy right in the famed penumbra of the 9th amendment. But it's free for the state to offer in that it costs the state nothing not to kill you. Now it may cost the other people in your story something, and society may think it a net gain to save four people at the expense of one. To do that, you have to withdraw the right not to be killed (if you think it was there). But even then, what's free is for the state to say the four people can gang up on the one, if the state wants to say that. (If the state promises to do the ganging up for them, then it costs the state to make this promise and terminologically what makes this not a good candidate for what I'd like to call a right is that it's possible to bankrupt the state by asking it to do such gangings up.) Personally, I hope people are safe from the state granting such rights to gang up, much less helping out, but if they're not safe, it won't be because I suggested a terminology change, it will be because there's a shift in morality that's beyond the scope of this conversation.
Since we are spending so much energy talking about health care, another way to frame the question or argument is by asking several different questions
1) do we as individuals/citizens have a right to [receive] health care?
which is a vastly different question than:
2) do we have a right to affordable health care? AND
3) do we have a right to government-sponsored or guaranteed health care?
re: #1 - I think most would say yes. and there is currently no law preventing us from purchasing health insurance or privately acquiring health care services.
re: #2 & 3 - I don't have a good answer. I guess I believe that it should be a priority over many of the other things our government spends money on, but not necessarily something I would take up arms to protect. so...
Another aspect of this is the constitutional requirement to "provide for the general welfare".
"The commitment to promote the general welfare of all persons, as opposed to protecting the interests of a narrow section or class of the population, encapsulates what is most unique about the United States of America--that it is the only modern nation-state republic founded on this principle."
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/welfare.htm
Often rights overlap, and this might be one of those times.
I'm just sayin'...
You seem to be conflating a number of different things. As far as I can tell, you are treating rights and entitlements as interchangeable. They are not. Rights are granted in the Constitution. They are the direct expression of our moral principles. Rights are not legislated. They exist independent of legislators, cannot be abrogated by the legislature and cannot be created by the legislature. In contrast, entitlements are created by legislators, and can be implemented, suspended or changed by legislatures.
For example, freedom of the press is a right enshrined in the Constitution. There is nothing the legislature can do about it. If they pass a law that infringes on that right, the Supreme Court will eventually declare it unconstitutional and void.
Social Security is an example of an entitlement. There is no "right" to Social Security. It is a program created by Congress and the president and could be ended by Congress.
Currently, there is no right to healthcare. We could amend the Constitution to include that right, but it is not there now. In my judgment, Congress ought to create an entitlement to basic health care for every American. That is not going to happen any time soon.
Many of the rights we cherish and hold inviolable now are implied rights, construed, constructed out of the Constitution (thus the frothing at the mouth of the so-called "strict Constructionists). The best description is, of course, Justice Douglas's : specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which gave us the right to contraception, which then led, of course, to Roe v. Wade(1973).
As to the right to healthcare, as you know, the right to emergency room treatment is notionally granted in most states (specifically by statute in Massachusetts). As importantly, and once again as you know, the right of a patient to be seen "in time of need" and the concomitant obligation of the physician to treat him/her has been foundational in medical ethics from Hippocrates to the Code of Ethics of the AMA. It is really the subversion of this right by managed care organizations and their associated stakeholders and political allies that even causes us to question today whether this is a right. Given the proper configuration of politics and judicial appointments (hopeful of both in an Obama administration), I believe health care will soon be deemed a right in the USA.
WOOF
Our Consitution and the rights contained in it regulate our relationship with our government. They do not regulate our personal, private or business relationships. Some laws may take up such issues, but I think it is fair to say that the Constitution does not.
The other side of the "rights" coin is responsibility. Just because we have a right to do something, does not mean we should do it. For example, if you have a personal squable with your boss and out of pique you call him a jack#$% in front his own superiors or a large number of fellow employees, you do so at your own peril. This is just an example, so let's not try to judge the merits from a hypothetical example. My only point is the founders of our country had a loftier purpose in mind than this: seeking the truth. Only by engaging in an open, honest, and vigorous debate can the citizens of the US possibly improve their lives.
Another example might be a friend who rates a women based on looks everywhere you go and uses derogatory terms to refer to them. You warn him numerous times about how he is treating women as objects and his foul language, yet he continues merrily on his chauvinistic way. If you broke off your relationship with him, you would be exercising your right not to associate with him and also your disapproval of his irresponsible use of speech. All quite fair and reasonable.
Straight from the Constitution:
privacy- Amendment 4
voting/elections- article 1 sections 2,3,4,5
article 2 section2
"right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"- This is from the Declaration of Independence a document not unkown to the framers of our Consitution. Read the PREAMBLE. The wording is differnt, but the meaning is essentially the same.
public education, abortion, contraception- Amendment X
The federal government does not guarantee the right to an education (nor abortion or contraception on the face of it). However, most states do have some educational guarantees in their constitutions. Why do some people say leave leave abortion to the states? Amendment X basically says if we don't cover it in the Constitution, then it's the purview of the states. (The supreme court has covered this in Roe vs. Wade. I suggest you read the court's opinion.) The same could be said of contraception; it's a purview of the states. Some might also make a property arguement under article 4. It talks about the "seizure" of property. Get your hands off my trojans!
For those who are interested: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/index.html
Rights create a legal duty in the government. Goals do not. If we want to actually do something we can't create goals, it is like designing in a screen door on the back end of a passenger jet, you might get some kind of lift off, but it won't make a transoceanic flight. Goals don't have the structure to support a change in values.
Do you think we would have equal rights to voting for people of color or women if we didn't declare by law that all people have a right to vote? It is a selfish, materialist argument that gives cover to people who don't place any value in achieving goals, but rather in things remaining the same. Making changes always costs money. Money is the measure of commitment. If we don't put our money where our mouth is, then we are just lying to look good.
Entitlements are part of a political conversation and actually the term has little legal standing. It is a pejorative term and we don't need to muddy the water with more politico-speak, we need to make government responsible for doing the things that individuals cannot do well for themselves: create universities, hospitals, clinics, healthcare, and highways, things that are meant to serve communities, states or the nation itself.
Your idea that equal rights is cost free is crap. Nobody wanted in corporate America to pay women equally with men for equal performance. If having goals of equity had any power there wouldn't be so much disparity in wages between people of different genders and ethnic backgrounds. Goals don't have any power. Without the passage of the equal rights amendment women continue to make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Twenty years ago if was 76 cents. But that’s how goals work.
You seem to overlook the point that I have made in 2 posts with Kent already. "Rights" are defined by the constitution, and they do not regulate personal, private or business relationships. (There are some laws which do, but again they are not "rights" as such.) "Rights" regulate our relationship with government. Equal rights therefore simply means that our government cannot treat a black man, white woman, asian man or hispanic woman differently (assuming that they are all citizens). For example, in the past there have been a number of golf clubs which were "exclusive," meaning no blacks. Why is that OK? Because they are private institutions. Thanks to Tiger Woods and current public sentiment such institutions are becoming fewer and fewer by the day. You cannot legislate discrimination out of existence, nor more than you can force people to love and respect each other. People have a right to choose whatever associations they wish of their own free will.
My view is this.
1) Rights are essentially free. They are principals or ideas which shape the form of government. Compare the US to the Soviet Union, and you could argue they enrich materially as well as spiritually.
2) Services. Government provides certain services, such as national defense, building of infrastructure, etc.
3) Entitlements. Although Susan is correct that the term has a negative connotation, I believe there is some logic behind it. The only entitlement I can think of is social security right now. Maybe some other members have other ideas.
It is an entitlement because it is something which you pay for over many years and expect to benefit from in the future. For example, you have been working 25 years and paying into social security. Then, suddenly someone in Washington says, "Ooops, we spent all of the money. There is nothing left. Sorry." You would be hopp'in mad because you are "entitled" to the benefits for which you theoretically paid for over 25 years. Other government services do not possess this dynamic.
Healthcare could seemingly fall into either category: a service or an entitlement. It's a matter of semantics.
By the way, are we talking about federal, state or local government? Based upon that we will be talking about a slightly different set of services and entitlements. I don't think the federal government pays for firemen and police in our towns (unless you live in Washington, D.C.). Then you could draw up a list of services and set priorities.
I thought about this a bit last night looking in confusion at some of the issues raised by a few people here, and let me say that a bit of what I'm doing with the terminology might be to shift the terminology from "entitlement" (the Republican word, which has a kind of "gimme" quality that some conservatives seem to want to wiggle out of) to "goal" (which has a certain "we should want to aspire to help" quality that I think good citizens should want). I fear that the Democrats are not going to get what they want by just wanting to pass laws saying this is a "right" because that is effectively a synonym in the Republican parlance for "gimme" when there is cost involved. I think we need to revamp the system into something where people aspire to help one another. And some of that involves actual policy shifts. But I think those policy shifts are held back by terminology. (I'll try to do a post on some of this another day to restart this discussion.)
" if you mean to assert that our only rights (in the U.S.) have to be specifically enumerated in the U.S. Constitution."
No, that is not what I meant, or I would have said that.
The fundamental problem here is that you have simply made up your own personal definitions of "rights" and you are not entitled to do that. The definition of a "right" is long established and that's the definition you must use in any philosophical discussion.
Rights exist regardless of the cost. When we finally chose to recognize that African Americans are equal to and had the same rights as all other human beings, it cost the slave owners of the South millions of dollars. That makes no difference. Those rights are vested in African Americans just as they are vested in all human beings regardless of how much it cost people to recognize them and enforce them.
Whether you realize it or not, your argument is incredibly regressive. You are making the same argument that the aristocracy has made throughout history: only wealthy people have rights, because they are the only people who can afford to have them. They were wrong, and your argument is wrong, too, regardless of how appealing it is to people who resent paying taxes.
When we start mixing in words that have merely political meaning we simply muddy the water.
Personally, having paid into Social Security since I was 14 years old, you can call it a goal if you want, in the privacy of your home, but when I am 66 years old, they had better mail my check on time, because that was my money they took and it was my retirement that it was meant to benefit.
If we declare by legislation that healthcare is a right, then we have to also legislate how we are going to support and manage that declaration. It's that simple.
"The money collected from payroll taxes goes to pay monthly benefits to 43.9 million beneficiaries (March, 1998).
These include:
27.3 million retired workers
3.3 million dependents of retirees
4.6 million disabled workers
1.6 million dependents of disabled workers
7.1 million survivors of workers: spouses and children "
http://www.network-democracy.org/social-security/bb/adss/works.html
Another informative article is available here: http://www.heritage.org/research/socialsecurity/bg1827.cfm
Don't kid yourself that because you paid into the Social Security system since you were 14 that this "guarantees" you a "right" to any of this funds.
“The program does not have individual accounts and tax receipts are not invested on behalf of the worker. Instead, current receipts are used to pay current benefits (the system known as "pay-as-you-go"), as is typical of some insurance and defined-benefit plans.” —Wikipedia: Social Security debate. I don't think this claim is in material question. There are some variations in how people summarize it, but, in effect, it is immediately paid out to cover workers needing payments now. And although surpluses are allegedly set aside for later use, the fact is that they've been borrowed against in such a way that that they are either spent or seriously at risk, depending on how again you choose to summarize it. (I'd just say that it seems to me that the same financial practice applied in a private 401K by private trustees would almost surely land those trustees in jail.) In effect, Social Security relies on an able-bodied workforce of appropriate size to make its ongoing payouts.
You can say loudly and in an insistent tone that you expect it to be there, and I'm sure many who've paid in for years would do the same, but that doesn't make it be there. It just means there will be angry people when the economic truth is finally reckoned with, much as has happened with the stock market. My voice here is not the one telling you things are ok, mine is the one telling you things are at risk, and I'm suggesting that we should use words that help us see it. Argue with that if you like, but more soothing words won't make us more secure.
Platform Fight: Great Message on Social Security
posted by John Nichols on 08/08/2008 @ 08:39am
For too many years, Republicans and Democrats have promoted the lie that Social Security is "in crisis."
Getting Americans to buy into this fantasy is the first step in achieving what the financial services industry -- which donates generously to politicians in both parties -- really wants: privatization of Social Security so that the federal government will start promoting speculation on Wall Street rather than assuring that Americans will have the resources they were promised upon retirement.
The truth, as honest financial analysts have always argued, is that Social Security is secure -- and will be for decades if Congress agrees to minor reforms, such as requiring wealthy Americans to pay their fair share.
In a major victory for progressives -- and for real-world economics -- the draft Democratic Party platform acknowledges this reality.
"We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis and we should do everything we can to strengthen this vital program, including asking those making over $250,000 to pay a bit more," reads the draft language.
If that line survives the platform-writing processes final stages and becomes a major theme of the fall campaign, America may finally have a real and responsible debate about preserving Social Security.
And there is no question that Democrats, running on the theme that Social Security is sound and can be preserved for the long term with rational reforms, will win that debate. In fact, the only question is this: How many savvy Republicans will adopt the "Social Security is not in crisis" message?
......................................................................................................
There is no agreement about the future of Social Security and everyone can find information that supports their particular view.
With regard to health care, my company pays for my benefits and my husband and I pay an additional amount to cover what Medicare doesn't cover for him. I don't think it does any good to have a 'Chicken Little' conversation about Social Security. The sky is not falling right now. There have to be some changes, that is obvious. I just grow weary of the tone that people take, as if people who don't agree with our conclusions are worthy of condescension when they dare arrive at a different conclusion. We've all been being played about this issue for a long time. That doesn't mean I am going to sit still for having cared for my mother for the last years of her life, to my own financial detriment, and then allow Social Security to be manipulated so that I cannot depend on getting the benefits that I have worked for all my life too. There was no opting out of the system possible for me, and I doubt that an informed citizenry would allow that table to be turned against contributors to Social Security. It will take work, but there isn't another choice. Finally, your insisting that it won't be there doesn't make what you think any truer. It's opinion only at this point.
Since you raise the question of why some remarks were not off-topic, I'll answer on that:
First, this post was about terminology. That was why I wrote it. To discuss terminology. The very first post on the thread says you're not interested in terminology, so understand that I read your subsequent comments through that lens.
Second, the reason I'd replied about the Social Security Administration (SSA) and had not said anything to Coyote on the same matter is that it's material to the question of rights whether there is a property right is involved. The SS money you pay is not property of yours entrusted to the government that the government has promised to maintain for you and give back at an appropriate time. It is money you pay directly to people who need it now and in the hope that there will at the appropriate time be someone who is working and pays you.
It is not, in my estimation, material whether in fact Social Security is solvent. The answers to whether policy is well-designed should cover both cases (solvent and not). Buying a car on credit is ipso facto a risk that you might not pay the money back. Arguing that you're a good credit risk doesn't make it not a risk. My problem with the "rights" thing is that it's like agreeing to talk about good credit risks as "certainties", saying that anyone above a credit score of 500 isn't a risk but a certainty. No, it's still a risk.
My point is that we could end up in a situation where, as a debtor nation, our first responsibility is to pay our debts, we simply may not be able to take the income from those Americans and use it on ourselves. Whether this will happen is not material. Good policy should not be designed so that it only works in certain cases and not others. Good policy should anticipate and be resilient against changes in circumstance. In the worst case, if we fail to pay our debts a war could break out, but even in milder cases pressure can be placed on the US that deny us critical resources if we fail to honor our obligations first. And while we can "print money", we do so at the peril of losing our international buying power. And, importantly, all of this is true whether or not it is actually going to happen.
This discussion is about what words we should use to make risk apparent, not about quantifying that risk. If we even might back down on what we pay our elderly, etc., then it seems unfair to me to have told them these are rights.
You also pasted some text about how people “have promoted the lie that Social Security is "in crisis."” You should know I am extremely skeptical about anyone correctly using the term lie. If I say the sky is purple and you say blue, and even if you can show with instruments that there is not a spec of red in the sky, you still have not got enough evidence to call me a liar. To bring a claim of lying, one has to first show that there was reasonable reason that whatever misconception I had was due to an attempt to deceive rather than some other more innocent reason. And such cases are complex, and I'd prefer not to air them here. I especially have a problem about such an accusation in a pasted quote, because you are not making the claim yourself and so you can then deny that you meant to say that and can hide behind the opacity of the fact that you were just quoting someone else. That's not a helpful debate posture, and so again I'd prefer that you make your own statements here so that you personally can defend them, not paste someone else's.
I would ask you not to take my comments personally, though it's probably unavoidable that you will. I doubt that my remarks here are capable of reflecting well upon me either if that makes you feel any better. I admit to some procedural frustratino here because I do think OS could have more detailed rules of etiquette on matters like these so that each of us didn't have to invent them on the spot. But in the end, I'd say that each person should decide what works well on their thread, and the market will sort out whether they're being fair.
The Constitution states clearly:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
All these things cost money.
Contrast this with health care where to allow you to be saved from some disease may mean spending time diagnosing you, cooking up pills and potions, tending to you, etc. That is what I mean by cost. It requires affirmative effort that might simply not be available, subject to resource.
Education, likewise, is the result of a teacher teaching, or someone writing a book, or someone giving you a computer that teaches you.
Just left alone in a forest, you don't get an education in the sense anyone means it. Nor do you get health care. But you do get the right to speak as you like, the right to move around as you like, etc.
Now if bullies come along and they try to keep you actively from speaking, that's a different thing. It would cost them money not to do that, but what you're getting when the government comes to your aid there isn't a right to speak, it's an alleged right (I'd call it a goal, since it costs) to police protection. You could find out on a busy day that you couldn't get that protection.
You can claim those things are the same, but that's like claiming that it's the same price to fly to the moon as to walk across the street when you consider that theoretically it's possible that someone could put a million armed troops on the other side of the street and you could have to spend less to get a rocket to the moon than to fight off those forces. Yes, that's true. But the ordinary metric of getting to the other side of the street is to ask what it costs to walk. If people do something to prevent you, that's not something you should bill to the cost of walking, that's something you should bill to the cost of living in an adverse environment.
And, in general, legal rights are rights against the government, they are not rights against other people. The government may give you free speech rights, but your friends can still tell you to shut up. And certainly even if we pass universal health care, you can't stop arbitrary people on the street and make them give you medicine. So distinguishing between the cost of the government providing you something and of people around you providing you with something is important.
So I'm not saying you can't use the word Right how you like. But you should know that when you talk about the right to free speech, you're talking about something qualitatively different than the right to an education or health care.
a better definition is: a freedom of action or protection from the action of others which is enjoyed by members of the ruling class.
people not in the ruling class may have privileges superficially similar, but distinct since privileges may be withdrawn. the recent abrasion of 'civil rights' demonstrates the difference.
if america were a democracy, the rights of citizens would be defended by the ruling class, themselves. but it is not.