What do you think the feds might come up with that I would dislike?
It's hard to imagine what some future culture might determine to be a right. What you and I might consider obvious rights now would have been unimaginable at one time. It seems prudent to me to allow them to develop by other than fiat.
When you think of rights, you probably think of civil rights as opposed to bigotry. But there are those who see rights for animals, for example, maybe a right for cats to be safe rather than to be allowed to run around and get attacked by foxes. A powerful rights lobby might get that enacted into law some day. Or that animals have rights to not be eaten. Wouldn't you rather see some state or two try that out and see how it works that rather than impose it on the whole nation?
Another growing rights arena is the right to taxpayer support. There's the negative income tax, for example, to enable the performance artist's right to a career of his choice even if the market won't support it. Then there's the right to health care. Now, you may not have a problem with that in principle, as I do, but what if it gets extended to include two weeks at the beach each year for those under stress. I have a cousin on Medicaid who can't afford her sickly dog's medical bills. She thinks she has a right to have them paid because her dog is good for her health. Maybe we'll someday have the right to a dog provided and supported free for those who can't afford one and, of course, space to keep it.
What about the right to heating and cooling, an expensive proposition possibly made worse by global warming? Or the right to have dikes built to protect one's property from flooding? What about the right to breathe free of pollution? Those may seem far fetched now, but in fifty years with an inattentive public, who knows. The right to an education through the doctoral level isn't that far fetched. The right to gasoline isn't that far fetched, either.
I wouldn't be so sanguine that all rights in some future climate enacted would meet your approval. It seems to me to be simply prudent to give people the right either to smoke or to be free from smoke in bits and snatches and see how it goes rather than impose it nationally. |
