No, it isn’t, argues Jeff Jacoby in this Boston Globe column.
Unfortunately, most people are incessantly told that they have a right to everything important in life. Jacoby point out that that idea destroys the negative rights concept of the Founders. In other words, real rights entail non-interference with your freedom of action. If you are forced to help pay for all the things politicians deem to be “rights” (like the right to health care, education, housing, food, etc.), you have less and less freedom to pursue your own desires in life. It’s far better, Jacoby argues, to leave the relief of truly needy people to voluntary action than to open the Pandora’s Box of “positive rights.”
