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Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15838/everyone-has-the-right-to-_______________/

“Everyone has the right to _______________”

February 28, 2011 by

My friend and colleague Leigh Johnson directed me to this video, courtesy of GlobeMed at Rhodes College. It’s a photo project for the World Day of Social Justice. Students and faculty members filled in the blank above. Naturally, my question with regard to the positive rights offered (clean water, health care, $0 education, etc.) was “at whose expense?” This led us to consider (someday) team-teaching what may very well be the perfect liberal arts college course in which students will write the perfect liberal arts college paper. I suggested that students get the following assignment:

“Fill in the blanks. ‘Everyone has the right to ____________ at the expense of __________.’ Write what you put in the first blank on your right hand and what you put in the second blank on your left hand. Between now and the end of the semester, write a twenty-page essay in which you explain precisely how you propose to see that the rights on your right hand are guaranteed by the people on your left hand.”

Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be a while before we can teach such a course. What are your answers? Feel free to respond with civility and dignity to the question (and to one another) in the comments.

And while we’re at it, if you’re in a generous mood you can help Leigh with a project she is doing in one of her classes. It involves taking a picture of yourself with a word expressing one of your “core values.” Addendum: Leigh reminds me that entries are due on 3/1. Here’s more info, and here are my entries:

Perception:

Reality:

{ 21 comments }

Ron Paul 2012! February 28, 2011 at 4:34 pm

Everyone (as sovereigns) has the right to contract and agree to any terms and conditions they desire (Common Law: the Law of the Land) at the expense of edicts, rules, regulations, statutes, or ordinances which appear to dictate otherwise by Color Of Law provided under Admiralty Law: the Law of the Sea / Uniform Commercial Code.

jon February 28, 2011 at 4:50 pm

their self, everyone.

i would hand you 19 blank pages with a cover letter stating the golden rule.

Jordan February 28, 2011 at 6:54 pm

Everyone has the right to whatever they want at everyone else’s expense.

Eric B February 28, 2011 at 7:18 pm

Everyone has the right to live, at the expense of their mother’s body.

augusto February 28, 2011 at 7:19 pm

Everyone has the right to laugh at the expense of court economists.

Lee February 28, 2011 at 7:30 pm

Nothing. Anyone.

Michael Richards February 28, 2011 at 7:37 pm

lol

Jeff Hamrick February 28, 2011 at 7:36 pm

Of course, it is a fallacy that every right comes with a meaningful cost derived at somebody else’s expense. For years, I’ve heard that respecting the right of every person to marry the one they love will “cost” heterosexuals something. It will do something to their children. It will impose some utterly vague inconvenience on straights as they come to understand marriage differently. It will force the state to shed pennies here and there to allow LGBT individuals to enjoy the same estate tax, Social Security, etc., benefits. While this “right” comes with a cost (and the general point about NFLVR is well-taken), let’s be clear about the real reasons that people complain about certain costs: these complaints are often a thinly-veiled way to encode bigotry or disdain for a group of people, whether those people are a pair of lesbians living in the hood or a family in sub-Saharan Africa hoping for a clean water source.

Daniel February 28, 2011 at 10:18 pm

A simples separation between positive (bullshit) rights and negative rights does away with any confusion regarding what are actually rights and what are actually privileges that come at others’ expense.

Daniel Hewitt February 28, 2011 at 7:37 pm

FDR had this one wrapped up. From his “second bil of rights” speech:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security.

J. Murray March 1, 2011 at 6:42 am

FDR failed to fill in the second blank and explain why the second blank is responsible for the “rights” of the first.

Daniel Hewitt March 1, 2011 at 7:42 am

He probably thought that a dose of economic reality would ruin his really cool speech ;)

Braden Talbot March 1, 2011 at 10:05 pm

FDR is correct in every right; he just fails to clue us in on his second blank. We have a right to all those things so long as it’s a private contract with a cooperative, consenting private party.

But we all implicitly know who is in that second blank – you and me. =D

Phinn February 28, 2011 at 10:05 pm

Property. No one.

Anon February 28, 2011 at 11:36 pm

Now that “right” means “entitlement” rather than “restriction on government,” there is no longer a word that means what “right” used to. An entire political economic concept and social attitude, wiped from the language without a trace.

Anonimuz March 1, 2011 at 12:10 am

Everyone has a right to a free copy of a movie, at the expense of the movies producer.

niku March 1, 2011 at 3:44 am

The format is biased towards expressing “positive rights”. A better one would be:
Nobody has the right to ________.

J. Murray March 1, 2011 at 12:38 pm

anything

C. Rakish Spagaletto March 1, 2011 at 12:19 pm

Some people have a right to ________. The remaining people have a duty to provide that right. If they fail to provide it, the violence that will initiated on them will be _________.

Lee March 1, 2011 at 12:29 pm

Everything. Justice.

niku March 30, 2011 at 2:20 am

Anthony de Jasay, in Liberalism, Loose or Strict:

The presumption of liberty must be affirmed vigorously, if only to serve as an antidote against the spread of “rightsism” that contradicts and undermines liberalism and that has done so much to distort and emasculate liberalism in recent decades. “Rightsism” purports solemnly to recognize that people have “rights” to do certain specific things and that certain other things ought not to be done to them. On closer analysis, these “rights” turn out to be the exceptions to a tacitly understood general rule that everything else is forbidden, for if such were not the case, announcing “rights” to engage freely in certain acts would be redundant and pointless. The silliness that underlies “rightsism” and the appalling effect it has on the political climate ….
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_09_3_7_dejasay.pdf

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