I guess this is the final question that America is asking itself.

[1-Old-Man]

Does anyone have a right to a place to live, food for themselves and their family, clean water, an education for their child, or the benefit of representation in their own Government if it is not profitable for someone else?

If the answer is yes, that a person has a right to all of those things without concern that someone must profit from it for it to happen, then we have one hell of a lot of changes that must be made.

[daleanime]

1. Yes we do.

[kaiden]

2. VOTE!

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Perfectly put.

[questionseverything]

4. yes at at least a minimun level

we need a system of( gasp )social ism at the bottom incomes that every1 gets

past that a system of capitalism that lets each rise according to their own merits,ideas and work

[nomorenomore08]

19. Like how it is (or used to be) in the Scandinavian countries.

Even now their standard of living is markedly above ours.

[Oakenshield]

44. Markedly?

How about completely? Last year Norway was NUMBER ONE on the prosperity index. Denmark then came in second, with Sweden in third.


Meanwhile the grand old US of A ranked at the impressive number of twelve.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

49. That sums everything up for me

We need a strong safety net to support people in need until they can get back on their feet, as well as some kind of economic structure that supports private enterprise (aka capitalism) but also protects people from unscrupulous/amoral business practices and ensures a level playing field for everybody to rise according, as you say, to their own merits, ideas, and work.

[questionseverything]

55. safety net to support people in need until they can get back on their feet

with the changes in the economy(loss of manufacturing jobs and a change to service jobs for low skilled workers) we may have to accept that millions will never"get back on their feet"......a great fast food worker making 8 bucks an hour 30 hours a week will never be able to support themselves totally but that does not mean that job has no value or worth so i suggest stop making it difficult for those persons to receive food stamps,in fact raise the income guidelines to include more peops,which takes the shame away and helps the economy by increasing gdp $1,79 for every dollar spent(huge return on investment there) and further props up the economy by leaving a little more disposable income to be spent

now the down side of my idea is that my plan would actually make it so govt is subsidizing the owners of said fast food joint but that could be corrected in tax code changes(my favorite being the death tax...there is no fairer time to tax a person than upon their death as their children have already had every advantage and are generally successful on their own and the dead guy doesn't miss it)

[Hydra]

5. Priorities

Right now, our priorities are money, growth, power and resources.

I'd rather see people and environmental health come first. Taking over the world is a luxury when the world is going to hell.

[PowerToThePeople]

6. we have one hell of a lot of changes that must be made

n/t

[we can do it]

7. I think the final question will be what the fuck did we do to ourselves

[stillwaiting]

36. We, the people of America, have not been active citizens, but mere constituents living in America.

Most people simply don't pay attention, and they don't want to begin paying attention.

Way too many people are apathetic or disempowered at this time for me to think we have much of a chance for any reforms that could begin to reverse the trend we've been on the past 3 to 4 decades, but that doesn't mean we can stop trying to awaken the masses from their very deep and hypnotic slumber.

At this point I might even be open to a shaming campaign to wake the fuckers up.

[HiPointDem]

8. obviously we do not have those rights.

[SalviaBlue]

9. Well put.

My answer is yes.

[Maedhros]

10. It's a very curious notion that we have here in the U.S.A.

Everything must be "monetized." Nothing is worthwhile unless it generates profit.

We're all Ferengi, now. Maybe we should replace the Constitution with this:

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition

[DonCoquixote]

13. consider that ferengi

is the Arabic slang word for American, and that explains a lot about what we have allowed ourselves to become.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

28. This is so well put - we are now the Ferengi. nt

[sabrina 1]

11. We are living in a world created and influenced by Ayn Rand.

[nomorenomore08]

21. And it's a dystopian nightmare! Surprise!

[GalaxyHunter]

12. Sounds like Zeitgeist and the Venus Project.

[VPStoltz]

14. Profit it the ONLY thing that counts once it starts rolling in.

One of the reason cons are against renewable energy is because the Kochs can't figure out how to make a profit off of the actual sunshine, wind, and water.

[JDPriestly]

20. Yes. Heard that from the horse's mouth way back in the 1970s.

Not from the Kochs, but from a man in the Canadian nuclear power industry.

With solar energy, there is no product to sell. He meant there is no on-going profit to be had. You sell the panels, and the household can run with just a small supplement from say gas or something. And the solar house we were talking about was in Massachusetts, not in Southern California where we have maybe 15 inches of rain per year, sometimes more, but often much less.

It's sun, sun, sun, here, but we are not fully using the sun's potential energy. It's just not profitable for the corporations.

[ceonupe]

27. Wrong

They already have so has most of big business.

I always beloved once they own the patents and machines and the delivery new grid system these technologies will rollout mass market.

It won't be homebrew and your local zoning ordinances will make sure its difficult to out up your own turbines windfarms and solar arrays and even if you get a place to out all that with a collective or community coop how Dow you transport that power.

The Koch brothers and the rest of the 1% are heavily invested. Who do you think invests the money needed for these companies after the federal money drys up for the startups.

Look at what happens to fisher and watch who gets the goods (patents and processes). After the bankruptcy.

[CrispyQ]

37. Some comedian once said,

"When they figure out how to put a tap on the sun, we'll have solar everything by midnight."

Until then, we will destroy our ecosystem using filthy energy, so a few assholes can make money.

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Another anarchist socialist Nazi

trying to make trouble, I see.

[antigop]

16. K&R. Thank you, 1-Old-Man. You are a wise old man. nt

[tclambert]

17. The answer is: No, we don't have those rights. But we should.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? We don't have the right to happiness. We do have the right to "pursue" happiness. Life and liberty? We really don't have a right to those. The corporate interests can take those from us if it makes them a penny of profit. Hey, they're people, my friend, and they have a right to profit. That right trumps all of your rights because it turns out they aren't really people at all. They are better than people. Their rights are more important than yours.

[avaistheone1]

42. True.

I hate that it is true, but that is the quality of life and justice in this country now.

[SavageWombat]

18. I'm not sure

I'm not sure that "right" is the correct concept here. No amount of appeals to decency can force the universe to provide for your family.

But I think a civilized society has the RESPONSIBILITY to provide these things for their citizens.

[1-Old-Man]

26. I agree with you on the choice of words. "Right" is probably not correct ...

I agree that it is certainly not a right. By my definition a person can not have any right that imposes a duty on another (other than a demand for tolerance) but that in itself may not negate the notion that while a person can not be compelled to care for another maybe people can. By accepting that at some level we are a communal society, no man is an island and all of that, then it may follow that though we can not place an obligation on any individual to provide for those without but we can place an obligation on our combined selves to do so. It seems to me that all Governance that is not a dictatorship admits to that possibility.

[Omnith]

47. well put

[tecelote]

22. Old enough to remember when everyone thought...

America stood for liberty and justice for all. I believed it as a kid.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. In the 60s there was a debate over the 13th Amendment as they passed the doobie....

The interpretation was the idea that you shouldn't have to be forced to work for someone else at all. Certain things should just be available and work is to give you more than the basics.

These days you bust your ass to just scrape by. There's less "reward" than there was even in the 90s.

Meanwhile the folks at CNBC sneer when someone talks about the "happiness index" which they consider to be a profit killer that's really unnecessary to consider unless you are weak.

[Fire Walk With Me]

24. They are all human rights, and rights are for everyone. n/t

[Tace]

25. Right On 1-Old-Man!

Although, obviously, not everyone is compassionate.

[Bonobo]

29. It has been asked and answered.

America is quite clear on the answer, in fact.

Just look at how some European countries answer the question and you have to conclude that the US has already "spoken" (or been spoken to).

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. Those old self-evident truths. We once left our mother country over them,

now many of us deny that there is such a thing.


& R

[Android3.14]

31. Right or responsibility?

Equally, I have to ask if every adult individual has a responsibility to provide enough money to a government in order to provide everyone with those things?

[1-Old-Man]

32. I say yes.

[Kablooie]

33. Our once and future oligarchic feudal overlords say no.

The great and wonderful Gods that the Tea Party kowtows to five times a day, know that profit is the only thing of of value to a living being. If you do not generate profit for your overlords you have no right to existence and should be allowed to starve.

Unless you are an embryo, of course. Then you must be saved at all costs.
But if your mother has not generated profit for her overlords, once you've been born, you shall be allowed to starve too.

[bravenak]

34. Hell yeah.

[bluedeathray]

35. We only have a "right", to that which we're willing to seize.

Americans who think that way right now are kicking our asses.

Until we seize America back, and set up the type of society we want, nothing will change.

And our corporate masters KNOW that most Americans are too complacent to make that happen. After all, on average it's still a pretty cushy place to live.

[CrispyQ]

38. That is the question of the century.

"In a just society, there is no limit to how high one can climb, but there is a limit to how far one can fall."
~Jared Bernstein, author of "All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy"

I believe the government should serve the People & that includes the following for every citizen, at no charge:

3 hots & a cot
health care
education through college
child/elder care
transportation via a comprehensive public transpo system


The playing field is tilted & the angle is getting steeper every day.

[boston bean]

39. This country was founded on the basis of Christianity!

Jesus, gave us capitalism, for GAWD sakes, you are speaking zealotry!!!

[1-Old-Man]

40. As any fool can plainly see.

Dam me and my heretical ways.

[treestar]

41. Everyone does

Tribes and ancient societies had a place for everyone.

The work ethic thing always took care of itself.

The Tea Party thinks they worked for what they have, failing to acknowledge their good fortune.

[n2doc]

43. 4 essential freedoms

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

[deutsey]

45. Yes, they used to be covered by the inalienable rights

of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The right, however, only sees these as privileges that can be easily revoked. The less we do to correct that assumption of theirs, the more "privileges" they revoke.

[Corruption Inc]

46. Abraham Lincoln quote on Liberty and Tyranny

"...We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatable things, called by the same name———liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatable names———liberty and tyranny."

http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/lincoln-on-liberty-and-tyranny/

[AAO]

48. They make it so you'd rather be dead, but they won't let you do that either!

Damn sadists! But I will prepare for such an eventuality, and let them throw my corpse in prison if it makes them feel important. They wouldn't want to set any precedents of us being able to control our lives without punishment.

[Civilization2]

50. Yes and yes,..

Profiting off of others should be discouraged not praised. Every being born on this planet has EQUAL claim to the resources we find here, no one has any right to take more then enough, to take from others to the point of their deaths, as we see now.

Call it socialism, call it fair distribution, call it egalitarian, call it what ever you like, we will change the system until we achieve a just society. Without these changes we will parish, as the corporate-military system has proven, it has no comprehension of cause and effect.

[silvershadow]

51. But that gets in the way of privatization. Privatization is as big a threat to our Democracy as

is secret interpretations of law and secret courts, packed with one side, picked by one side- those courts act in a manner completely opposite that which our founders painstakingly crafted. Kinda makes the Supreme Court moot. Not sure how we can right the ship of state, but I would say we are now having a discussion which may lead to that...I really don't see it leading to anything other than a constitutional convention down the road, because the forces are too great now, at this point, for there not to be.

[Squinch]

52. Yay! Well said.

[libodem]

53. I had a rather conservative aquaintance

Forcefully ask me what right does anyone have to health care? We are supposed to have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This pursuit of happiness thing has really gotten kicked in the ass especially if it has any thing to do with consuming recreational you know what.

We are getting our own European austerity cuts with this obstructionist congress. All the money floated to the top. Now they don't want to share. They don't want to pay for the government to help us. They got something for nothing ,but nobody else gets to. Even the faith based initiatives make people beg at a church. Then they are targeted for indoctrination with religious beliefs to make them into the "deserving poor".

With the resources this country has there is no reason to not get people the help they need. We are turning into a service economy. We are all basically serfs. There has to be a way to make enough serf jobs for anyone who wants one. It should pay enough to live on. I hope to see more co-ops in the future. Especially for young single women with a child. Somehow the childcare should be traded or paid for so families can work and not have all the earning go back into daycare and gas.

It's fucked to be amongst the working poor. Not everyone is lazy or undeserving.

I suppose it is easier to fund the police with water hoses, sound cannons, and riot gear, than to give people a decent wage and affordable housing. McConnel and dead eyes Cantor would far rather see us slaughtered in the streets vs fund our food stamps. You know I'm right. Don't you?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

54. If we have a right to life, then we must have a right to those things which sustain life.

Why do Americans freak out if a "ferriner" kills an American, but care little if disease or rampant gun proliferation or mental illness does?