Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

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> There aren't any fundamental rights which require someone else to provide them to you.

This is, of course, totally false. From the moment of birth your parents have to provide sustenance and safety, or you'll die. Similarly, someone must teach you a native language, if only indirectly, or you'll be unable to communicate or acquire skills. If a parent neglects a child and fails to provide them "services" (or whatever), the state will absolutely take the child away and punish the parents.

As an adult, you have the right to a system of justice that allows you to argue grievances and petition for redress against others. You have the right to police and fire fighters. Those are all services provided to you.

I used to think that everything was a transaction when I was a hardcore libertarian, but I'm not anymore. There are bazillions of things that we take for granted that are just table stakes in a modern society, like the rule of law, an educational system, clean air and water, and yes, healthcare. A hospital can't refuse you emergency care if you can't pay, and that's absolutely a right established in the social contract.

Rights are a mix of inherent and acquired capabilities as well as courtesies granted by a social contract. Until you start paying back every person from whom you've learned a word in the English language, yeah, you are getting tons and tons of things for free without realizing it.

Bluntly claiming someone's post is false is rather rude isn't it? particularly on a subjective philosophical topic.

Governments are never "givers" they are just different systems of trade-offs, which can also be in terms of services and freedoms. For example, you have a right to justice if you are wronged. Society can either step aside and let you seek it yourself, or, if that behavior (vigilantism) is outlawed, then they are obligated to instead provide you with a system to seek justice within. Or they could come up with some alternative to allow you to protect your right. From this perspective, your right is not an entitlement and you don't have to postulate a new entitlement every time the govt creates a new program for (ostensibly) helping people achieve their rights better.

> This is, of course, totally false.

Your example is one of the state punishing you, not an example of a fundamental right. Services provided to you is not a right simply because the government provides them.

The proper role of government is as guarantor of fundamental rights.

> you are getting tons and tons of things for free without realizing it.

This is confusing rights with getting things for free. Nothing about fundamental rights prevents you from providing free stuff to others. In fact, you have a fundamental right to choose to give your stuff to others for free. Heck, I work on D every day, and give it away for free. My salary as CEO of the D Language Foundation is $0. There's nothing non-libertarian about that, since I freely choose to do it.

As for children, as a hardcore libertarian you should be aware that the notions of fundamental rights apply only to legally consenting adults. Children enjoy only a subset of those rights.

> Your example is one of the state punishing you, not an example of a fundamental right. Services provided to you is not a right simply because the government provides them.

I'm not sure which example you are referring to; I gave several. But if you're referring to the state punishing you (by taking away your kids for not feeding them), keep in mind the state will by default become the ward of orphaned children and it will indeed pay foster parents to take care of the children.

The broader point that we clearly don't agree on is that rights are in fact negotiated in a social contract. They are an agreed upon set. In man's state of nature before civilization, there are no rights and no authority but power: violence and threats of violence. Even proto-societies that develop in groups of primates, the rules are set by convention and agreement. Almost any statement that either you are I could come up with that starts off with "well clearly the inherent rights include X and Y and Z" is false on its face. We can really only talk about rights in the context of them being respected. By whom? The members of society and particularly its governing bodies.

Again, I gave several examples. Providing for children, even if the state does it, is clearly not in dispute, and that alone refutes your rather bold statement. Emergency medicine is another; that's something that applies to adults. In any modern society it's accepted that my human rights "force" EMTs to render emergency help, regardless of my ability to pay[1].

[1] I can't think of many countries besides America where emergency bills can be astronomical, but even there, regardless, a hospital must make every reasonable effort to save your life and eat the cost if you cannot pay.

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