Some folks want to have the access to clean water legally defined as a right. Is it a right?
If so, then shouldn't access to food be a right also? Is access to food a part of the right to life? My understanding has always been that those who want food need to work for it. Earn money to pay for it or plant and care for it or gather it yourself. Many people die of starvation everyday, yet no one is saying that access to food is a right. (Many people seem to think that health care should be a "right" too. So ... you should have the right to see a doctor for free, who will tell you that you are starving, but you would have no "right" to have access to food? But I digress.)
Is this wish to legislate access to clean water as a right merely a response to the fact that people die faster without water than they do without food? Or is water so essential and access to it so limited that access to it must be legislated to keep society working? Or is this just the latest in a long line of fear-mongering, control-of-the-populace scare tactics?
"And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. "~ Genesis 7:19
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muFear-mongering, control-of-the-populace scare tactics! Fear-mongering, control-of-the-populace scare tactics!! hahahahaha!!! I think that this is just another step towards communist america. I do find it regrettable that so many die of starvation and thirst each day, and if I had the water and the resources and time, and psychic ability to know where they are and when they need it and how much they need, I would give them the water they need. Unfortunately I do not, and neither does anyone else. Water is a basic component to life, yes. People need it all the time. We should be generous if we come across these people. I don't think that public access to water should be a right though. Most people are decent and would give anybody the water they needed if they asked politely. The room for abuse of this right far outweighs the need for it, and it will only lead to a string of cases which waste the court system's time, and angry people who demand goods which are not theirs. Consider how much nicer your attitude will be asking someone else for water when they don't have to give it to you. This is just an attempt to give away what I have paid for to other people. I know that sounds horrible (because it's just water), but the water I pay the city utilities for is mine to do with as I wish. I have no reservation against giving it away to people who are in dire need of it, but I hate it when someone else gives my things away for me. When the government starts giving away my stuff, who's stuff is it really? Is it mine? Or does it belong to the government who can do whatever it wants with it. This is just a tactic to get a foot in the door, to make americans feel like what they own isn't really theirs. Public access to water seems like such a good idea too. Water is a crucial element to life. After water, why not food? That's essential to life. After food and water, why not housing? That's essential to life. Why not property? When you try to do things with your property, like, build a building, do you need anyone's approval? Sometimes you might not be able to build because you don't have a building permit, or an endangered species lives near or on your property and you might disturb it. Who's deciding what get done with your property? Why not all the other things you have? Why not health care? Why not your money? Lots of people need more money. This is just a step towards communism. I don't like it. Have we stooped down to a level in this country where when a person who is dying of thirst asks you for a drink of water, you say no? Access to water should not be a right, it should be upon the shoulders of human decency.
Mom,
I've heard it said before that breathing clean air -- that is, air not contaminated by industrial biproducts, cigarette smoke, and so forth -- is a right. Indeed, my state's laws, if not explicitly, at least implicitly declare breathing clean air to be the right of every Oklahoman. Most Okies also consider good health care services to be the right of every Oklahoman, particularly of those who "cannot" (somehow these people manage to own boats and jet skis and plasma tvs, all kinds of toys and devices to entertain themselves, but they cannot pay for their own health care. hmmm.) pay for their own health care. Yes; Oklahoma is well on its way to becoming the liberal hell that is Massachusetts and other such states.
The "right" of every child to have a "good" education has long been thought of as an unalienable right in America. Of course, in liberal dominated America that really just means that all children living in America have the right to a "free" public education in the doctrines of liberalism, which will "secure the [curses of liberalism] to ourselves and our posterity;" that their parents are required to just go along with this.
Anyone who doubts the public school system's ability to properly educate their children to the extent that they are driven to deprive their children of a public education, then, is considered a nutjob who ultimately must be stopped. Why? Because it upsets the liberal order of things to have a segment of society which resists the institution of the destructive ideology of liberalism. So to choose to homeschool your children, for example, is tantamount to creating "public disorder," all things, here again, defined by and measured against liberal terminology, which has long been taught in American public schools.
I hear you on the homeschooling thing, Terry.
The reason I compared the right to water to food is that I haven't heard anyone calling for the access to food to be legislated(yet). Food is as necessary as water and yet, folks understand that the people who produce food or who own the land that food is grown on have the right to charge for it.
Why then, is water different? I speculate that some of the difference may be that large water resources are held in common. Or it may be that when one purchases waterfront property, one's right to access that body of water must be mentioned specifically in the contract to purchase. Like mineral rights. You don't have to have it spelled out that you can grow a garden.(Unless you have chosen to give up your property rights by buying a home in some draconian subdivision.)
I have been looking at the Great Lakes Compact. It's an interesting thing that there are no compacts to protect food grown here from being shipped to other parts of the world. Isn't our topsoil a limited resource too? Or is that different because it can be renewed with fertilizer?
I haven't noticed those folks who mine ore or coal having this sort of difficulty selling their products overseas.(With the exception of those things-uranium, plutonium, etc. that are heavily regulated.)
Oil producers are selling their wares internationally without a fuss. Access to oil could be said to have a serious impact on someone's quality of life, so why the special treatment for water?
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