There are rights, and then there are “rights”. There are national rights, state rights and local rights. A state or local right would be something like the right to access your property. Someone who owns land around yours cannot keep you from accessing your land. The national rights are carefully delineated in the Constitution Bill of Rights: religion, speech, press, assembly, keep and bear arms, private property, etc. 

The national rights are carefully crafted by our founders to be universal, God given, unalienable rights for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Notice the word “pursuit” – not a guaranteed right! The most important aspect of national rights is that they do not require taking of money/property from someone else to satisfy your rights. State or local “rights” might.

We often forget that the federal government isn’t our only level of government. The founders didn’t. The tenth amendment clearly states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution . . . are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.” 

So when a national politician says that we have a right to ________ (you fill in the blank), he/she is likely trying to buy your vote, emotionally if not by direct payment. They are telling you that the federal government should do something that the state or county, or city/town, or the people have the authority to do! Yes, slick lawyers/politicians/courts have found some ways around the Constitution but not always with desirable results.    

The right to health care for example is not an unalienable federal right according to the Constitution. Most “health” measures proposed at the federal level of government require money to be taken from some to be given to others. This is nice for vote getting but not in the spirit of the Constitution. Such “feel good measures should be done by the States, Local Government or we the people. Some folks like to quote the bible for caring for the needy but I don’t believe the bible says this should be accomplished via government.

Ask yourself, who is most likely to know who needs health care; your church, the Rotary/Lions, the city/town, County State or a bureaucrat/politician in Washington DC? The “right” to health care, affordable housing, payment of college loan debts, etc. at the federal level is simply Horse Puckey.