I was reading a thread on a message board, and a discussion about food being a right came up. This was in reference to a law in FL (IIRC) stating that homeless people could not be fed in a public park. A lot of debate went on back & forth as to what this really meant, the point that rich people couldn't be fed in a park either, etc. Of course, this lead to discussion of what rights really are, and the difference between rights and societal obligations, such as you might not have the "right" to be fed, but any responsible society has the *obligation* to take care of their lesser citizens, etc.

During this discussion, one poster made a point:

Rights are better defined as things society or the government can't take from you, not things the government must give to you.

Now, I realize that this does get into how laws are made; for example, if the government makes a law that restricts people from getting, oh, snarfblats, and I need a snarfblat to survive, then the government & that law is infringing on my right to life. And this is a slippery slope argument, which leads to many of the debates that come up about abortion - rights of mother, rights of fetus, definition of "person", etc.

But I thought that this was a very well made point, in general. However, as I love philosophical or socialogical discussions, I thought I'd bring it up here.

(I'm evil that way, sometimes.)