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While I agree that "positive rights" frequently amount to legally mandated wealth transfer, saying your neighbors must "work as slaves" is a bit extreme. A slave has no choice as to whether they work, what they work on, and how they work.

Personally, I have no problem with the fact that property rights are not absolute (taxation and regulation being the primary inroads). That limitation of the property right results in much that I think is good.

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What if nobody opts to work in broadband? How will the "right" be satisfied? You may say that someone would choose to do so but what if they couldn't charge for their services because to do so was denying somebody who couldn't pay their "right". And then you'd probably mention that the government would pay for it. And I'd ask where the government would get the money. The answer, of course, being the tax powers you've already mentioned.

If I'm taxed and a growing portion of my labor is taken to pay for something I don't receive and would not agree to pay for freely, how is it not either slavery or theft? As someone noted on reddit a week or so ago (in reference to social news not politics per se)--the larger the democracy, the larger the oppressed minority.

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