Exactly, people are missing that rights and laws are an agreed upon arrangement to find a set of compromise for everyone to live together happily, which results in stability and often overall growth in economy, invention, social enjoyment and entertainment, etc.
You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat.
There is no longer any plot of land anywhere that is not owned by someone else. Think of those plot of land as plates. One who doesn't own any of it is hungry, you tell them to get their own food, but they can't take from any of the plates of anyone else, so you can't use any land to try and get your food from. Now this person tells those who have all the food, hey I have the right to food as well, and people say, I don't think that's a necessity, well why is your right to your land and your plates of food a necessity as well? You can't have it both ways. If you want to have the right to own the plates of food, you must also provide food to others somehow, because you've taken up all of the abilities to get food from others.
> You can't just tell someone they're not allowed to take food from your plate, while simultaneously not providing anything for them to eat.
You can, and a lot of people do say this. And it was said many times in history, and ... people were maimed for it regularly. (And every day we get the reports, pictures, videos about people inside a fence saying that those who are outside should just go and try their luck somewhere else.)
The whole point is that wordgames are not going to get us the desired utopistic society where people feel that obligation to act to uphold others' rights in accordance to their power/ability for doing so.
It needs a culture that cherishes this, enforces this, perpetuates this.
In essence we need a control loop that keeps society on track, and this system has to be aware of all the usual problems (the optimal set-point of intolerance of intolerance, top-down systems tend to consolidate power, bottom-up systems can easily oppress minorities, political arbitrage of resources for favors is an ever present problem, and so on).
Seems like we're in agreement, unless I'm misreading something.
Obviously, you can say that, but the people you say it too now also loses their reasons to uphold your words. If you tell me I can't have food from you, and I also have no other way to get food, I'm going to have to disregard your right to property you were hoping to have and force my way into your plate of food.
And now we're back at the typical human power struggles and infighting.
I think your point is that simply asking for food when you don't have it doesn't magically solve the problem. And I agree, but if you think about who you're asking it makes more sense. You're asking those who have all the food or means of producing food to give you some, or to do something about your lack of food. They were handed ownership of food and food production, now there's people who feel they don't have the food they need. They're complaining to those who own the food and its production, which to me makes sense, since they are the best positioned to solve the problem as the owner of the food and food production. And those who don't own food or food production have little ability to do anything about it. That's what I was trying to convey, there's no where else to try my luck, everything is already fenced up.
This is kind of just a debate on equal opportunity and equity I guess. Everyone should have equal opportunity, and those who haven't in the past might need equitable retribution to make up for it.
Asking for that I think is very different than asking to be handed things without effort. I think most people simply ask for justice, if you had land and couldn't make food with it, so be it. Most people might accept their fate. Now it be nice to also deal with those unlucky in their attempts, but now it's a different debate. If you never had land to begin with, had your land taken, etc., that's another story.
I'm also 100% in agreement with the following:
> It needs a culture that cherishes this, enforces this, perpetuates this.
Even though I'm not so sure how best to nurture such a culture.
Yes, with the added twist that the people who don't have enough vastly outnumber those who have a lot. The real problem is not Elon and Bezos and the other token billionaires. After all their net worth is in their companies, most of it is unrealized capital gains.
The real problem is with the folks making over 150-200K but still think they are living "paycheck to paycheck"
So in reality it's not as simple as farmers telling homeless people to go somewhere else, but there's no more land left. It's more like the have-lots telling the have-a-bits to watch out for have-nots, and this works perfectly. Conservative populist rhetoric is very effective in suburbia.
> equal opportunity and equity
Yep. The big problem with this is that many people consider one time help as now take this and we're even "equal opportunity". Of course what's needed is a strong social safety net that helps people back on their feet. Shelter, healthcare (mental hygiene too!), education.
Again it's not cheap. And even though the economy is not zero-sum over long term, yearly budgets are. Hence the fight about how much on what to spend.
> culture
I think simply (ah yes, simply! :} ) going incrementally, starting with the best cost-benefit programs and areas. Focusing on cities where there's enough like-minded people to enact the policies, learn from the consequences, course correct, while not losing sight of the goals.
It's just a fairy tale. Laws aren't agreed upon; they're initiated by conquest and continue through the establishment of institutions that preserve an occupation over generations.
There may be some kind of "democratic" process for public participation in law-making, but that's not the same thing as laws being "agreed upon."
There may be some kind of cultural process for raising children to accept the laws that existed and were put in place by adults before them, but even that's not the same thing as laws being "agreed upon."
Pleading: But sir, you must respect my laws.
Reply: I do not see the necessity of that.