Letter to the editor: Food & health care as 'rights'

Those who claim food and health care are human rights are dangerous tyrants. The right of one individual does not place an obligation upon another.

For example, I have a right to express myself, but I cannot demand that the government force you to listen or build me a stage. Food and medicine require the expenditure of time and labor — their production is not “free.” Rights are free.

If food and health care are rights, and I decide to quit my job because I’m lazy, I would have every reason to expect other people will feed me and provide for my health care. Similarly, those who frame abortion as a “reproductive right” establish a rationale that would require those morally opposed to that practice to pay for another’s “procedure.” This is tyranny writ large.

The Democratic Party has helped to establish a social “safety net” for those unable to provide for their basic needs. However, the Democrats have morphed into a body whose ideas cannot withstand intellectual scrutiny and could work only with a sprinkling of magic fairy dust. The current array of Democrats running for president are just telling people what they want to hear — don’t fall for it!

Don Liddick

Bullskin