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Economic Bill of Rights-from the Sander camp.

vegas giants;1070263353 said:
Rights are determined by the will of the people and enforced by the government. They are subject to change. These are facts you can not deny.
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I don't know with whom you are trying to have an argument. I stated twice that rights are a social convention.

vegas giants;1070263353 said:
The people have determined they want some positive rights. So they become rights.
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As a matter of fact, these decisions are indeed consequential. However, it's not because you try to write for a 4th time that rights are conventions that it makes any choices regarding those conventions legitimate.

vegas giants;1070263353 said:
The rest is philosophy you can argue with your bartender.
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Take a look around. It's a politics forum... what do you think people debate here? More to the point, this discussion began with a comment you made, mocking a conservative by saying the right to life covers a governmental mandate for single payer healthcare. That wasn't a descriptive statement, nor a bit of legal advice on US constitutional law. It was intended as a comment on the moral status of a single-payer healthcare system, in direct conflict with your attitude here. If you want to end a discussion, don't try to cloak moral statements as neutral empirical claims and act as if you were not trying to make a case for your favorite set of policies. It's just pathetic and cowardly.
 
TheEconomist said:
I don't know with whom you are trying to have an argument. I stated twice that rights are a social convention.



As a matter of fact, these decisions are indeed consequential. However, it's not because you try to write for a 4th time that rights are conventions that it makes any choices regarding those conventions legitimate.



Take a look around. It's a politics forum... what do you think people debate here? More to the point, this discussion began with a comment you made, mocking a conservative by saying the right to life covers a governmental mandate for single payer healthcare. That wasn't a descriptive statement, nor a bit of legal advice on US constitutional law. It was intended as a comment on the moral status of a single-payer healthcare system, in direct conflict with your attitude here. If you want to end a discussion, don't try to cloak moral statements as neutral empirical claims and act as if you were not trying to make a case for your favorite set of policies. It's just pathetic and cowardly.
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I'm glad we agree. Rights are created by the people and single payer healthcare could be one of them.
 
vegas giants said:
Take a stand. You guys keep running
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Actually, you're the one running. You made claims about single-payer healthcare that you stopped defending, hide behind a half baked moral relativism before asking me to talk morality with my local bartender. Maybe that's why they're not answering: the local bartender is listening and replying more cogently, even if she or he is intoxicated.
 
TheEconomist said:
Actually, you're the one running. You made claims about single-payer healthcare that you stopped defending, hide behind a half baked moral relativism before asking me to talk morality with my local bartender. Maybe that's why they're not answering: the local bartender is listening and replying more cogently, even if she or he is intoxicated.
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That's nice.

Rights are created by the people and they can choose to add single payer to that list
 
vegas giants said:
I'm glad we agree. Rights are created by the people and single payer healthcare could be one of them.
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Yes, but if you're going down that path, you will run into tough problems. It's hard to delineate what are rights once you include positive rights and it cast the problem into a black-and-white, all-or-nothing kind of language that doesn't do justice to the incremental nature of the problem and the reality imposed on us by limited resources.

vegas giants said:
That's nice. Rights are created by the people and they can choose to add single payer to that list
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You don't seem to realize this argument doesn't do what you think it does. It doesn't show why this one should be added, let alone why other views of rights should be superseded by a view which extends them to include such things as health care. At best, it is merely descriptive; at worst, it's moral relativism which excuses everything, including turning the US into the 4th Reich. A good argument would allow you to include single-payer and exclude the undesirable possibilities.
 
TheEconomist said:
Yes, but if you're going down that path, you will run into tough problems. It's hard to delineate what are rights once you include positive rights and it cast the problem into a black-and-white, all-or-nothing kind of language that doesn't do justice to the incremental nature of the problem and the reality imposed on us by limited resources.
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It's not hard at all. The people decide what will be a right.

Easy oessy
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
That would be the right to a good job.
You don't need to force most people, so unless you are arguing for 100% perfection, it can safely be understood that most people will TAKE those good jobs when they are available.

Are you actually saying that "you agree with all of them provided that everyone suddenly become perfect?"

And by the way, why are we suddenly advancing retirement to seventy? What's the extra five years supposed to accomplish?
And with regard to age eighteen does this mean all higher education is now abolished?
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Lots of able-bodied people get government assistance. If we are to afford free stuff for everybody, people need to work.
 
Rickeroo said:
Lots of able-bodied people get government assistance. If we are to afford free stuff for everybody, people need to work.
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That's not what I asked. Of course lots of working poor still get assistance.
I asked if you're trying to force eighteen year olds out of college.
I'd make exceptions for good students who want to get higher education.

Of course I also said that most people will take decent jobs that are offered, but I get the impression you're all about the myth of "free stuff", which indicates that you think 99.999999999999999999999999999% of all people receiving assistance are just bums.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
That's not what I asked. Of course lots of working poor still get assistance.
I asked if you're trying to force eighteen year olds out of college.
I'd make exceptions for good students who want to get higher education.

Of course I also said that most people will take decent jobs that are offered, but I get the impression you're all about the myth of "free stuff", which indicates that you think 99.999999999999999999999999999% of all people receiving assistance are just bums.
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It was a long list of free stuff. With all that stuff, there would be no need for college. There are plenty of people that physically can't work, then there are the legions of old people that can't work. Plus everyone under 17. All these people, plus all able-bodied people, are going to be getting that free stuff. It has to come from somewhere, so that's why I suggested that those people who can work do work.
 
Rickeroo said:
It was a long list of free stuff. With all that stuff, there would be no need for college. There are plenty of people that physically can't work, then there are the legions of old people that can't work. Plus everyone under 17. All these people, plus all able-bodied people, are going to be getting that free stuff. It has to come from somewhere, so that's why I suggested that those people who can work do work.
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I agree wholeheartedly.
I'm just convinced that the one thing we're going to need more than anything else is plenty of higher education because the jobs of the future are mostly robotics or artificial intelligence related. Automation is coming and it's going to eliminate lots of conventional jobs we take for granted today.
Our workforce, even the lower rungs, will have to be trained in those fields if they want any kind of decent job with wages that they can live on.
Otherwise the welfare population and the homeless population is just going to grow and grow.

Every generation that has invested in those sorts of things has benefited in the long run, so it is not "free stuff", it's an investment in the future. Every society that has foregone those things has drifted into third world territory.
 
vegas giants said:
It's not at all. You are simply confused.
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People have been disputing policy issues and ethics for millennia, some of them spending the bulk of their lifetime pondering these questions day in and day out, but Vegas Giant knows what to do. "The people decide what will be a right," he tells us. If we have the audacity to claim this is a lousy argument, that it doesn't legitimize the majority, he will make the astoundingly idiotic remark that it could work this way and sometimes does work this way. It is as if the man cannot process the idea that something can happen and be objectionable at the same time.
 
It's a long list of free stuff when we cannot even provide decent border security. Priorities are upside down.

Of course it's easy to promise what you cannot deliver.
 
We each should have the right to pursue the means needed to provide the needs/wants we desire without taking from others by any other means than an exchange both parties perform willingly.
 
Individual said:
We each should have the right to pursue the means needed to provide the needs/wants we desire without taking from others by any other means than an exchange both parties perform willingly.
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And if you get sick, or become an orphaned kid, then you can die in the streets.

Yeah that sounds pretty reasonable- it’s how things work in the jungle.
 
KLATTU said:
Josh Miller-Lewis
✔
@jmillerlewis
We need a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights:

- The right to health care
- The right to education
- The right to a good job
- The right to affordable housing
- The right to a secure retirement
- The right to a clean environment#DemocraticSocialism


comments?
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This is nothing new with Sanders. These are from the Universal Declaration of Rights- a document spearheaded by the US in 1948, and signed by most countries of the world by now.

Initially, Saudi Arabia and Yemen did not sign it, because they didn’t like the idea that people should be able to vote for their politicians and that women should have the same rights as men. South Africa did not sign it because it was against their system of apartheid. And the Soviet bloc countries did not sign it because it said people should be free to leave their countries and should not be forcibly kept there if they don’t want to stay there.

But since then, even these countries have signed on.

So how ironic that these ideas are now so under siege in the same country they originated.

Like Sanders has said, economic rights ARE human rights.
 
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ataraxia said:
And if you get sick, or become an orphaned kid, then you can die in the streets.

Yeah that sounds pretty reasonable- it’s how things work in the jungle.
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Are you saying you wouldn't provide any aid to those in need unless forced by government?
 
Individual said:
Are you saying you wouldn't provide any aid to those in need unless forced by government?
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Charity is great. But when has it ever been an adequate substitute for formal systems of support from the government?

Do you think stopping FEMA and just leaving disaster relief up to charity will work out? How about getting rid of all traffic lights at busy intersections and just leaving it all up to the freedom of patriotic Americans?
 
ataraxia said:
Charity is great. But when has it ever been an adequate substitute for formal systems of support from the government?

Do you think stopping FEMA and just leaving disaster relief up to charity will work out? How about getting rid of all traffic lights at busy intersections and just leaving it all up to the freedom of patriotic Americans?
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Never ever ever
 
ataraxia said:
Charity is great. But when has it ever been an adequate substitute for formal systems of support from the government?

Do you think stopping FEMA and just leaving disaster relief up to charity will work out? How about getting rid of all traffic lights at busy intersections and just leaving it all up to the freedom of patriotic Americans?
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State and/or local governments should be left free to step in, and even borrow from the Federal government if they/their citizens are willing to become responsible for repayment.

Traffic lights?
 
Individual said:
State and/or local governments should be left free to step in, and even borrow from the Federal government if they/their citizens are willing to become responsible for repayment.
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You are not being clear. First you say government is bad and charity should be enough. Then you admit charity is not enough and is no substitute for formal government policies and systems. Why should the size of the jurisdiction matter?

You have to be clear what it is you want.

Traffic lights?
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Example of government nanny state, right? Leave it entirely up to the charity and judgment of patriotic citizens, right? Always works better.;)
 
ataraxia said:
You are not being clear. First you say government is bad and charity should be enough. Then you admit charity is not enough and is no substitute for formal government policies and systems. Why should the size of the jurisdiction matter?

You have to be clear what it is you want.



Example of government nanny state, right? Leave it entirely up to the charity and judgment of patriotic citizens, right? Always works better.;)
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I did not say "government is bad" nor did I say "charity should be enough". You appear to have completely ignored/incorrectly stated my words in your response.
 
Individual said:
I did not say "government is bad" nor did I say "charity should be enough". You appear to have completely ignored/incorrectly stated my words in your response.
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When I talked about FEMA, your initial reaction was that these things should be left up to charity, not government help.

When I pointed out that that charity had never been enough in these situations, you said state government can help.

It can’t. When a state has been devastated by a large natural disaster, it is usually reeling and can’t really provide the robust help its citizens need. That’s why governors issue states of emergency in such situations. Would you say FL or TX were just being stupid and lazy when their governors issued states if emergency to get federal aid this last time they were devastated by hurricanes and flooding?

Besides, why would state governments forcing their citizens’ tax money to be paid for emergency relief not be an example of tyranny and fascism, but the federal government would be? I thought you said charity is usually a good enough option.

And if charity is not good enough for such disaster relief, why would it be enough to systematically take care of, say, orphaned children?
 
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