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

Tribune-Review
| Sunday, July 7, 2019 10:00 a.m.

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


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