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Comment by homonculus1 | Hacker News Reader

Personal responsibility is a pretty simple concept: if you cannot afford necessities like food, shelter, and medical care (which are not "human rights" in the sense that you do not have the right to compel other people to perform the labor required to supply you with these things) then you should not be buying alcohol, especially not at marked-up prices for having someone serve it to you, and neither should you be blowing your tax returns on other discretionary items. Everything else is just excuses. Nobody should be prioritizing "having fun" over food and shelter, and those that do are not entitled to have their impulsive behavior subsidized by others.

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I mean, you can do both. I would argue it is the responsibility of a good and just society to take care of all its members. You should still try to feed, house and treat that person even after poor decisions, but you should also have systems and policies in place to help prevent those poor decisions in the first place.

System such as: - Keeping more of their own money via taxes for Employment Insurance when they lose a job. - Arming them with better decision making skills via education - Having a system for healthcare that works fro everyone, funded via taxes, such that having a job or money is not relevant to receiving lifesaving medical care.

>(which are not "human rights" in the sense that you do not have the right to compel other people to perform the labor required to supply you with these things)

Food, shelter, and medical care are absolutely human rights: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

>(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care

"Food, shelter, and medical care are absolutely human rights" NOT IN 'MURICA they are not.

/sad sarcasm as some feel this way

Is the UN going to step in and help ensure those rights are upheld? Of course not.

I wish they would and I also wish the UN would monitor elections in the USA.

The UN can say whatever they feel like but the notion of positive rights for able adults is arbitrary and unfounded. You aren't entitled to the care of society unless you uphold your part of the social contract and contribute in return.

Or in other words if you have a right to others' labor, then by not working you are violating their human right to yours, and therefore their obligations cease.

The end result of your line of thinking is that the disabled (who are unable to contribute) should be left to die or be executed.

Which is the way things are, unless the able care about them or the disabled able to convince the able to help them then yes they will be left to die or be executed.

>able adults

I already covered this. Children and the infirm lack the capacity to produce so they owe nothing.

Also do note that nowhere have I argued that the genuinely destitute should starve, even capable adults. But if you have the spare cash to throw away on being a regular at a bar, as in the scenerio at hand, then I have no sympathy.

>I already covered this. Children and the infirm lack the capacity to produce so they owe nothing.

How do you define "able enough to work"? What if someone has severe mental deficiencies but can still lift and move things? Can you determine with near certainty who is able enough to work and who is malingering?

These are not new problems, but your proposal is worse than the status quo.

Food, shelter, and clothing are needed to live but not a right, there is a difference that is lost on everyone including the often misinformed UN.

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