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Rightful Freedom's avatar

I think some would and some wouldn't. Charitable organizations do provide lots of temporary and permanent housing for people in need.

Do you think that the government would, given a lot of power and money, really solve the problem? Government doesn't have a great track record providing housing. Government 'projects' are usually very undesirable places to live. And while the USSR probably provided housing for almost everyone, especially of you count the gulags, not many people were very happy with it.

Is there a real solution that will provide everyone in the world with a nice house? How much of your freedom and money would you be willing to give up for it? How much of my freedom would you want to take away from me to force me to help implement it?

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Thaddeus Robinson's avatar

Not picking on them, but some "Charities" are doing well for themselves, feeding @ the public trough.

According to Forbes, the NGO Catholic Charities USA received $1.4 billion from government support compared with $1 billion in private donations. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service reported more than $93.1 million in U.S. government grants in its 2021 financial statement

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

You are absolutely 100% right. The big charities and foundations have become as bad as the big corporations in their cooperation with big government. The Ford Foundation and Rockefeller foundations are examples. Utterly reprehensible and a force for evil.

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Christopher Cook's avatar

Here is a simple way to phrase it:

A right is anything you wish to do that does not initiate force against another.

Anything that initiates force on another is not a right.

Half the rights in the UDHR are real rights. The other half are the kinds of rights you are describing herein: something where force must initiated against one person so that another person can have his "right" satisfied.

Those are not rights. Those are instances of violence.

There will NEVER be peace in this world so long as people continue to call those "rights."

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

Right!

As Jefferson said, "...rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. "

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Christopher Cook's avatar

Yep. He got it. Too bad the system he and his fellows gave to us doesn’t actually secure and protect rights.

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

I may be wrong but wasn't Jefferson in France during the Constitutional Convention? Anyway, yes. He supported it and the system failed, no doubt about that. The people who think that turning back the clock to an era of originalism will fix everything are deluded I think.

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Christopher Cook's avatar

I think he was, but I am not sure. He was in France quite a bit…and boy oh boy, did he love the French Revolution! (‘Tis a black mark against him, IMO.)

Also, I am halfway through Daniel Mallock’s “Agony and Eloquence” and from what I have learned so far, Jefferson could be a real trash-talking jerk!

Also, I have learned a bit more about how the Constitution was rammed through…not cool.

Overall, the more I learn, the more disinclined I am to deify the founders as I once did.

Indeed, the Anti-federalists seemed to be far closer to the mark. But they were overwhelmed and outgunned by the others, so we ended up with the Constitution, which is very much not the holy writ we have been raised/trained as conservatives to believe it was.

There is no glorious zero-state of the constitution to which we can return. That is conservative mythology, unfortunately. I believed it myself in the past. 😢

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

"...the Constitution was rammed through..."

Indeed. Washington declined to preside at the Constitutional Convention, more than once I think. He was finally convinced to do it mostly by Hamilton. Washington was genuinely loved by Americans as "That great good man". If he had not presided it was probably unlikely that the Constitution would have been ratified.

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Christopher Cook's avatar

Wow—interesting counterfactual possibility!

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Without the word "Inalienable" the term "Rights" is meaningless. Authoritarian Bodies grant "Rights" to the citizens. But, these can be removed or altered at the Authority's whim. We saw enough of that in the last three years.

Also, "Rights" are nothing more than a "Licence" if they are not "Universal".

They are like the Dispensations for sins, sold to wealthy individuals by the church.

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Christopher Cook's avatar

100 percent.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

Sadly, in the "Democratic" sense, Rights are seen as a One way street. In logic, Rights cannot balance if not offset by Responsibilities.

Rights based on vested or Special interests make n sense. The "Right to housing suggested by Sue with goats, would indeed be a "Nice" thing. But.....Who decides the standards? Who decides which people are not capable?

Parts of the Canadian government are now making a Right to Housing into an election issue; meanwhile the bureaucracy is mandating building standards which ensure that the simplest house will cost $300/sq.ft. plus land ($500,000)/house...

Who will pay? Certainly not the ones buying votes.

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

"Who will pay?"

Good question. My guess: The productive people will pay, and the government regulators who get the money will keep most of it themselves before paying for any housing for the people whose votes they politicians are buying.

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Christopher Cook's avatar

There is a right to SEEK housing. To build one’s own house. To voluntarily contract with a builder or seller of a house.

There is no right to be given a house at someone else’s expense. That right does not exist. Any attempt to execute that fake “right” is an act of violence, a violation of someone else’s real right (the right not to have one’s money taken by force).

The “right” to be given housing at someone else’s expense does not suddenly exist because the person being given the house is a sympathetic character, or “deserves it.” That “right” does not suddenly exist even if that person would otherwise freeze to death in the snow (sad as that may be). That “right” does not exist. Full stop.

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Paul Repstock's avatar

"a violation of someone else’s real right"...That is the reality in Canada's semi Totalitarian and semi Socialist , Governance. We are not quite all the way yet. But, it is obvious that the various Governments are trending in that direction. By selectively channelling resources to competing groups and interests, the play the ancient game of divide and conquer.

As for "Right to build your own home": That does not exist in BC. I don't know about other provinces. A self-built home would never be allowed connection to services?

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Christopher Cook's avatar

Wow. So not only does BC violate rights by taking from you and giving to others for them to buy homes, they prevent you from using your own wits to provide shelter for yourself? And people call this “freedom”?

All democracies have been trending in this direction since their inception…because it is baked into the cake of all such systems.

We cannot repair democracy or take it back to some sort of “original” or “perfected” version of itself. It is inherently flawed.

Tyranny is inevitable in democracy because democracy is fundamentally tyrannical. It may be less openly or aggressively so, especially in the early going, but it contains the fundamental flaw: it is not consensual.

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Thaddeus Robinson's avatar

Especially people in influential positions, who help the intellectually corrupted believe such, when it serves their interests

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William Hunter Duncan's avatar

I let my ex's brother live with me for awhile. He was basically homeless, she was in Africa with the Peace Corp. I told him, I'm willing to help you, as long as I feel like you are helping yourself. But then he lost his job, for not showing up. Then he had an interview and slept through it, didn't go. Then I came home one day, he had a friend over, I walked into my bedroom and there was a goddamn dog on my bed. Why is there a fucking dog on my bed?

I didn't know until later he was addicted to heroin. I assume he was doing it in my house. I finally told him after about two months, you need to figure something else out; I told you I would help you as long as you help yourself, but you aren't doing anything to help yourself. After that, he spent a lot of time on the street, in and out of treatment, seemed like he was trying some times, but also sometimes it seemed like his head was fried. Not sure where he is now. His sister, my ex, it turned out, did not want to do a lot to heal from her trauma.

I think you do not necessarily have a right to housing, or unlimited amounts of healthcare, or a monthly check. Not if you are unwilling to do anything to earn housing, keep yourself healthy or heal yourself from trauma, or be useful somehow.

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The Sue With the Goats's avatar

I agree, generally, though I think everyone should have some sort of roof over their head. Some people aren't capable of providing that for themselves, so, what to do about them?

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Rightful Freedom's avatar

Good question. I agree that many people really do need help, people who suffer through no fault of their own, and we, as individuals, should help those people. But whether or not those people have a right to use government to force us to help them, is, to me, something different.

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The Sue With the Goats's avatar

Do you think if government support ended "we as individuals" would step up to meet the need?

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Thaddeus Robinson's avatar

No one has the right to compel someone else to pay for their "rights"! while the U.N. is espousing 30 basic rights, their plan is to eliminate the right to life for many of us, by way of WHO, etc., and the right of any freedom for those who remain.

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