THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF RIGHTS

I'm learning the ropes of taking care of a baby, but I still don't get on the internet that often.  (Example: my friend said, "So how about that volcano business?" and I said, "What volcano?")  However, today I did read something that got my goat.

Via Mark Steyn, who says, "No matter how fast Obama Europeanizes America, you can't out-Euro the Euros": Vacationing a human right, EU chief says

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports.

"Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life," Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15.

And this is the slippery slope of rights.  Once we believed that we only had "rights to action."  Now by declaring that we have the right to health care, we have fundamentally shifted to saying we believe we have the right to someone else's labor.  So where does it end?  Once you have the right to money from another taxpayer's pocket, who's to say it should end with health?  It's good for your health to be stress-free, and vacations help you relax.

So then they're a right too.

I find this slippery slope frightening...

Posted by: Sarah at 03:02 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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