“There is no moral absolute.”
That is a serious philosophical error right there, and evidence of the influence of post-modernist Marxism.
Rights most certainly do derive from moral absolutes. If there are no morals and no Creator to to set them up, then there can be no rights as in our natural human rights to the things that are referred to in our Constitution. My right to life and liberty most certainly commands moral respect and adherence. If there are no absolutes, then you can employ clever sophistry to obviate them.
I’m generally with “Barrett” in #7 in his explanation of how to handle the adversities faced by our fellow citizens and society at large. No one has a “positive” right to material things, but those of us who are WISE understand that a proper balance has to be struck, based upon MORAL CONSIDERATIONS (which derive from our Judaeo-Christian traditions), as part of being responsible citizens.
The whole concept of positive rights derives from the way in which lawyers and politicians (they are often the same) fight for their constituencies. They have to harden their claims using the very technical language of law and tradition in order to make an argument. They don’t deal in the nuances of ethics and morality, which govern how we think about the social safety net.
In an ideal world all citizens would be charitable, wise, and also solicitous for their own material well being as well. But the world is not that way. This is why the best thing we can hope for is some mix of private charity and compassion and government also stepping into the breach. We have to ever be vigilant about the balance that is struck here. Today, just as was the case in the 1960′s and 1970′s, we are moving towards the collectivist end of the spectrum. This will fail society and make us all poorer into the bargain, because it will redistribute too much and kill incentives and job creation.
Look at history, people. Socialist experiments and societies have all failed. There are very understandable reasons for this, but our kids under age 30 were not allowed by their teachers and then professors to have any discussion about the failures and atrocities of socialist societies. The 20th century is a graveyard of failure, brutality, and deceit on the part of the Marxists.
