Debating a commie-- Part two: Free food, water, and shelter
(Part one: Right to life: https://dullhawklibertysaloon.locals.com/post/129160/debating-a-commie-part-1-right-to-life-i-recently-got-into-an-online-debate-argument-with)
The commie insisted that since food, water, and shelter are necessary for life, and life is a human right, those essentials must be free for everyone.
But they can't be.
"Free" doesn't just mean you don't use money to obtain them-- money is a placeholder for value, and that value is usually a proxy for some work that was done. "Free" would mean you get them without anyone working for them.
If you get food, someone had to work to, at least, collect it. It was probably also planted, harvested, processed, prepared, and distributed, or some combination thereof. All of that is work-- a cost. Whether you do the work or someone else does, it is never free.
Water must be collected and filtered, sterilized, stored, and distributed. That's work. If you've never had to work for drinking water even when water was all around you, you may not be aware of the work involved, but I have. I know.
Shelter-- housing-- must be built and maintained. Someone has to do work to make it.
If you expect someone else to do the work to provide these essentials, and for you to get the benefit of their work without compensating them, you're advocating theft. Or slavery.
Food, water, and shelter are never free. Even if they don't cost any money. I know because I've done the work to provide them (in primitive form) for myself from scratch before. There is always work involved.
You do have a right to food, water, and shelter-- but this only means no one has the right to prevent you from doing the work to provide them for yourself using property you have a right to use through ownership or an agreement with the owner. It doesn't mean anyone else is obligated to provide them for you at their expense.
This also means no one has a right to forbid you from planting crops in your front yard, collecting rainwater that runs off your roof, or living in a brush hut on your own land. A government position can't create such a right because such a right is a lie.
I feel like a SHTF event is imminent. Notice I don't say I think it is, rather it's just a feeling. Possibly triggered by the upcoming election.
I don't have a crystal ball. I'm almost definitely wrong.
If you can see it coming, it's not going to happen. That's almost a guarantee.
Just like the Coronapocalypse came at us out of nowhere, triggered by unexpected government overreactions to a fairly normal virus, a more serious event will also be a surprise. Consider the Coronapanic a practice run. It should have shown you the holes in your preps if you were paying attention.
I lucked out with the panicdemic because I was ready. Well, maybe it wasn't completely luck; I've prepped for years "just in case", and it finally paid off. I was pretty sure I wouldn't see it coming when it finally happened, and I didn't. But it didn't matter because I stay ready all the time-- and I have done so since well before the Y2K fizzle. I intend to be just as ready, if not more ready, the next time something ...
Sometimes it's good to just listen to people's stories without interrupting, even when you know the stories are nonsense.
My 2nd wife used to tell of a ghost that lived in her house when she was a kid. It was an interesting story even though I didn't believe it. I learned quickly that her family was very prone to believe anything as long as it fit with their magical worldview.
Other people tell me stories about beneficial things political government can do. These stories are no more true-- in the sense of being objective reality-- than ghost stories, but they can still be informative if you want to know which particular superstitions a person is living under.
Interrupt and you'll never hear the whole tale. Listen and you might be entertained by some fantastical tales of magical realms. Just don't bet your life on them being true.
My nature is such that I simply can't see government as a solution to anything. This puts me at odds with most of the rest of my species.
Yes, I think "social media" has become a horror. This doesn't mean I want government to regulate it; it means I think people who don't like it (or are too dumb to know not to take it at face value) should probably stop using it.
The same is true of so many other things I don't like.
Litter/pollution, scammers, sexual predators, abortion, animal cruelty, Hillary Clinton, poverty, drug abuse, pandemics, crime, and all manner of awful things.
I may hate them, but that doesn't mean I want government to step in. Look how often that has the opposite effect anyway; making the original problem worse-- or at least not solving it-- while also creating a host of new problems that never would have existed otherwise (anti-gun legislation being a perfect example).
And even if government intervention doesn't make this specific problem worse this particular ...
