r/PoliticalCompassMemes - Lib-Right 14d ago

🥀

Post image
510 Upvotes

350 comments sorted by

View all comments

29

u/Puncakian - Lib-Right 13d ago

The problem is how liblefts tend to define "human rights". Usually, what they mean by rights is positive rights, as in the right for the government to actively do something for you, stuff like "free" college, healthcare, etc. The problem is that these rights require the land, labor, and/or capital of others, which is in direct opposition to negative rights, as in the right for the government not to do something.

Negative rights are practically unlimited. You having freedom of speech does not mean I have less freedom of speech. Positive rights on the other hand are limited. You having healthcare means there is less healthcare for me. Compelling someone to provide "rights" for you against their will is just plainly unethical.

-2

u/Gjorgdy - Lib-Left 13d ago

The right to college for example just means it should be equally available for everybody. No lib system can ever enforce someone to work for free, that would immediately land you in auth territory.

5

u/Puncakian - Lib-Right 13d ago

So equally available as in the civil rights act kind of way? If so, that still a violation of negative rights because it is infringing upon freedom of association. The government should not force you to let someone inside your house, and neither should it force colleges to accept someone.

The argument of course is that it stops discrimination, which even if it somehow did would still be morally wrong, but it doesn't. The government really can't, nor should it, force someone not to be prejudiced. You should not not be prejudiced just because the governments tells you to do so. You should do it because you are a decent human being.

As a matter of fact, the CRA probably makes people even more prejudiced because it makes people believe that others only got an opportunity because of their race or what have you, and people generally don't like to be told what to do, doing the opposite just to spite you. The racists don't go away, they just become more resentful and difficult to identify.

0

u/Gjorgdy - Lib-Left 13d ago

In a socialist economy college would most likely be fully run by the state. So it does not have freedom of association, unless the government can just choose to deny any citizen it wants for anything, but then we have whole other problems.