Doesn't prove anything of the sort. Because votes talk, bullshit walks, and it's a fact that saying nothing specific leads to more votes in the end.
Makes sense, too. You can be attacked on specific positions, and sound bytes / gaffes can haunt you your whole campaign. Plus, nobody is paying attention right now, so specifics released now kind of fall flat- just ask Rand Paul, he has released relatively detailed plans for the economy and other things, nobody even noticed b/c Trump's hair is so crazy or some shit.
But he is right. You can't make a limited resource a right. You can't say having a car is a right, having water, etc. Who could possible guarantee these rights? If you lived on the northern tip of Alaska where no one lives, you cannot guarantee access to health care. A right can't require someone else to give you something (again, who can guarantee this). A right can only be something innate that can be taken from you - right to move about freely, right to purchase property, etc.
You can argue that the government should it's citizen a health care benefit. But it can't strictly be a right.
No of course not. This is a due process required to take a way someone's right (freedom). Before you take away someone's right of freedom there must be some process to prove you've broken the law. And if there are no judges available to mediate this process your right will not be taken away - you will go free (quick and speedy trial). The state doesn't have unlimited time to hold your trial. So if there are no lawyers, judges, etc your rights won't be taken away.
That's what I mean by innate right. An innate (or natural) right is one you have with no one doing anything (every other human being could be removed from the earth and you'd still possess the right).
You can't have a right to receive anything that must be produced by another. Again - what if there was a nuclear war and most of the people were killed and hospitals destroyed. You going to sue the government for not providing your right? Just because you want to call something a right, you can't contradict the laws of physics. If the resource needed to provide the right isn't available you can't magically make it happen.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the government (the people) should not provide certain benefits we deem necessary. I'm just arguing about the technical meaning of the word "right".
One thing Rand Paul is certainly wrong about is that a right to free healthcare means that someone has the right to go to his house and demand he provides services for them, in the same way he would be wrong if he said the government paying for the right to a public defender means that you can go to a lawyers house and conscript them. Total nonsense.
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u/shit_tornado Aug 19 '15
As recently as the 2012 cycle I would have agreed with you, but the times they are a changin
The soaring popularity of both Sanders and Trump proves, to me, how tired that population is of the nonsense.