Yes, and no. How we answer depends a great deal on what we mean by “right.” A right can be that which sound ethics requires that no one take away from me. Our forefathers, for instance, argued that we have an inalienable right to keep and bear arms. It would be wrong for the state, or my neighbor, to take from me any of my guns. Or, on the other hand, too often a right is understood as that which others have an obligation to provide for me. Taking the second amendment here, I doubt anyone would argue that my right to keep and bear arms means that the state has the right to tax you in order to pay for me to have a gun. Politically speaking, in other words, rights rightly understood are more about what the state may not do to restrain me than they are about what the state must provide me.
Do I, for instance, have a right to high-speed internet access? A smart phone? I hope we can all agree that the state would be wrong to forbid me to have these things. In that sense these things are within my rights. On the other hand, I hope we haven’t yet sunk so deeply into an entitlement mindset that any of you would suggest that the state has an obligation to provide any of these things for me. There was a time when I only had a dumb cell phone, the kind you get for free when you sign up for service. I didn’t have an I-phone because I couldn’t afford one. Is it right that some people should have I-phones, while I have to actually push real buttons on my phone? Of course it’s right and fair.
Health care, though, that’s not a luxury is it? Aren’t we all due the basic necessities? No, we’re not. Where, I wonder, would one find in the Bible, or in the Constitution, anything that suggests that the state has the right to tax my neighbor in order to provide health care for me? Or more basic still, food for me? Why then are we debating this at all? Every member of Congress, and the President of these United States, swears an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Every professing Christian recognizes the Bible as our alone ultimate authority. So again, why the debate?
Because when we want something and can’t afford it, we’re quite content to ask the government to tax others to pay for it. This crosses the political spectrum. We think the good guys want limited government and the bad guys unlimited government. Yet I remember like it was yesterday the standard bearers of limited government arguing against Obamacare not because it was federal overreach but because it would damage LBJcare, Medicaid. No, that debate isn’t about freedom versus tyranny. It is instead about one group of socialists dickering with another group of socialists about who will receive what piece of the pie that was wrongly stolen from others. All because we’re so wrong about rights.