| richardhutnik said: I would say also the "everyone's special" culture, which goes into the whole self-esteem racket, goes beyond the welfare state. It is lower standards to make them feel good about themselves, because of the belief that esteem was a magic bullet. I would also argue an ethics system based on "rights" as opposed to based on something else, combined with self-esteem, is a formula for must dysfunction. The rights frameworks gives animals "rights", because you have no other basis for framing that cruelty to animals is wrong. This framework of rights, which is the basis of modern secular western ethics systems we have today, end up having its limits and causes much contention we have today. When one argues that the poor has rights, and thus they MUST get helped, the end result is a compulsive tax system, and government intervention, that takes from one group and gives to another and never works as well as something voluntary. If you were to have an ethics system where it is something like people who have more have a duty to help those who are less fortunate, then the system ends up voluntary and works better. But keep arguing rights, and inanimate objects are said to have rights also, and stuff like not poluting (producting negative externalities) is not addressed unless someone champions the Earth and says it has rights. |
Positive rights are eventually ruinous, while negative rights are not.
