Why we are all living on the taxpayer's dime & private property is a creature of government.

All rights, both negative (private property, abortion, etc...) and positive (education, health care, etc...) require government action financed by the taxpayer. In their great book The Cost of Rights (1999, W. W. Norton), political scientists Stephen Holmes (Princeton & NYU law) and Cass R. Sunstein (University of Chicago), explain why:

"All rights are claims to an affirmative governmental response. All rights... amount to entitlements defined and safeguarded by the law" (p. 44).

Thus all rights, even negative rights have direct budgetary costs; costs paid by the taxpayer, for these rights are created and maintained by government. Anyone who ownes so much as a bike or toothbursh is taking advantage of a government entitlement. Again I will let professors Holmes and Sunstain explain:

"Staring hard at costs shatters the libertarian fiction that individuals who excercise their rights, in the classical eighteenth-century sense, are just going about their business, immaculately independent of the government and the taxpaying community... 'private wealth,' as we know it, exsists only because of government institutions" (p. 29).

Thus, "the simple insight that rights have costs points the way towards an appreciation of the inevitability of government and of the various good things that government does, many of which are so taken for granted that, to the casual observer, they do not appear to involve government at all... Public policy should not be made on the basis of some imaginary hostility between freedom and the tax collector, for if these two were genuinely at odds, all of our basic liberties would be candidates for abolition" (p. 31).

The point here is quite simple: laws and declarations have to be enforced in order to have meaning. The UN Declaration articulates moral rights we all have; the Constitution, etc... affirms these moral rights and makes them legal rights, but without effective enforcement and government action these rights are meaningless. We all are endowed with certain rights by the virtue of our humanity but we cannot enjoy any of those rights without government. Take the right to own private property. The law declares it a right to be enforced by government, thus making it a legal right. Government then takes action to actually provide that right; it uses taxes to establish and maintain those institutions (courts, etc...) which facilitate the ownership of private property. In other words, without government and taxes, we may still be entitled to our rights, but shall not enjoy any of them.

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written by Glennsopinions, April 03, 2008
Well, sure. The Constitution guarantees us certain right and there is a cost to finance the government that will protect those rights. It is provided for in the Constitution. That's not rocket science.

What the government does not provide for is the bloated, over-taxing, over spending, over regulating government we have today filled with bureaucrats working at 25% of the output that is required to make it in the private sector.

Hopefully, you read to here. I have noticed that when I answer with numbers that I can back up, make some well thought out observations based on my years of life experience and success in business, you just answer "I did not have time to read all that, but here are a few points"

But when I insult you intentionally, you will take the time to respond and insult back without any factual information. What's up with that?

Education is necessary. But heed these words. The real knowledge comes when you add your life experiences. You can graduate with honors,graduate at the top of your class, Have BS, BA, MBA, MA PHD, whatever. But when you keep yourself elevated above above the masses because you are a self-described intellectual or academic you become arrogant are setting yourself up for a great fall. I have dealt with your types before. That's why I never list my education. Lets just say that when I went back to school when I was 35, I have never left and have few things hanging on my wall. But does that make me better than the kid that just got his first job bagging groceries? No, just older and wiser. I was taught humility early. Some of my business adversaries thought me stupid and always underestimated me. They never saw me coming until they saw my tail lights .....

Good Luck with that ....
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written by cooldaddy, April 03, 2008
The Constitution creates these things, not the government. The government was created to protect the Constitution. The Founding Fathers never intended the mess we have today. Someone here needs to take a class studying the Constitution.
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written by cooldaddy, April 03, 2008
As a side, Center Left Liberal: I have read your posts and with all the references you make on a number of subjects, I was wondering if you actually have any opinions that you thought about on your own. Have you been out in the world to seek your fame and fortune yet? I'll bet you posted this because you are being supported by tax dollars in some way and are trying to justify yourself.

Glennsopinions: You are letting this educated idiot get under your skin. You need to tone it down and not attack personally. Let him speak. His views will show him to be what he is. A socialist communist leftist who doesn't have the first clue about why and how the United States came to be and what it is suppose to stand for. Unfortunately, the country is pretty warped right now.
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written by Glennsopinions, April 04, 2008
Point taken, but when someone uses inaccurate data or completely warps the numbers, leaves out information or out and out presents made up numbers as fact, they need to be called on it.
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