Lazs got it. Both Boroda and Vad are like animals in a Zoo. And please don't take it as a personal attack. I myself was a Zoo animal as well. I came here from Poland in '82.
Boroda and Vad,
You have a Zoo/Plantation mentality (the right to free education, remember?). As long as I am fed and as long I have a "right" to work, I don't need no stinkin "phony" rights. You probably can't understand why blacks in US fought on the Union side either. In your view, they were fighting "against their own good interests", huh?
The reason that you were hungry is not that the state failed to provide you with food. You were hungry, because the state prevented you from making your own food. Not in a literal sense of course, but as in clipping your wings. People are yearning to achieve and produce, and unless you are a lazy bum, you're capable of not only to feeding yourself and your family, but you are able to produce much more. That's where the progress comes from. Let the people be, and they will specialize, produce surplus and then exchange with others thus creating a thriving society.
There is probably a lot of reasons why Russia, Poland and a lot of other formerly commie states have so many economic problems. In my opinion, the major one (if not the top one) is that people's minds are fcucked up by decades of socialist garbage. Just like you two, when someone is hungry, he does not try to find a way to produce, he waits for the state to bring the food to him. After all this is his "right" to be fed. As a result the "smart ones" turn to stealing from others and crime in general, the timid rest "the dumb ones" is starving and dreaming about the good old times of Stalin when at least we had a tree bark to chew on.
I've never regreted any of the commie "rights" I left in Poland. I came to the US with one wish. And the wish was to be left alone and be "permitted" to "make" my own food. In Poland I felt like tiny, worthless, dispensible ant. Here I feel a man. I came here with my wife, two daughters under 2, one suitcase and thousands of dollars in debt because I had to borrow money to get here. No one ever gave me anything and I've never expected any one to do so. For every buck I've earned, I've produced 3 or 4 for my employer. And let's leave it at that since this thread is not about me.
I don't mean to belittle you, but I honestly pity you both.
BTW, anything that requires another person's property or labour by definition can't be a right. There is a simple test of what is right and what is not.
If you can exercise it being by yourself on a deserted island, it IS a right. If you can't, it is NOT.
Now, just try this...
food? no, you have to get/produce it yourself.
healthcare? don't think so
shelter? see above...
not being a victim of an accident?
having someone else to support you in your old age? nope
freedom of speech? sure, why not
freedom to bear arms? would be stupid if you did not
freedom from gov opression (including taxes) ? sure
you get the gist of it, I hope.
