Maggie's Farm

RonF my friend... I have to take issue with you on your definition that rights [I assume you mean human rights] equal entitlements. Mr. Obama is also befuddled about this question, as he is about so many other things. Our government began its slide into deep doo-doo when the definition of government 'benefits' was changed to 'entitlements.' The two terms are not equivalent, as you know. 'Benefits' are either monetary funds or privileges which a legal entity, whether governmental or private, grants to its stockholders and/or its employees when the entity is financially healthy and chooses to give its investors or citizens a piece of the pie.
Entitlements are a different kettle of fish. They are a duty, no matter whether the government or other legal entity is in a state of financial health or desperately ill. Somehow, the rogue semanticists which our government keeps in the basement of the White House to devise new meanings for accepted words in order to get the current administration off the hook [remember the Global War on Terror morphing into "the overseas contingency?"] These 'basement guys' changed the accepted definition of 'benefits' into entitlements, something the government has to pay its citizens whether it has enough money to do so or not.
This is a much more accurate way to think about the situation than Mr. Obama's somewhat sloppy definition of 'positive rights' or 'negative rights'..
What does it mean to us, the poor, harried taxpayers? It means that by this semantic sleight of hand we still have to turn our increasingly empty pockets inside out to try to pay endless benefits to the jobless, who are either Occupying Wall Street or demonstrating against the government in other even more unattractive ways. S. I Hayakawa would be horrified by this illogical thinking.

The important question is what can we do about this. My advice is to be careful and stay healthy so that when November comes around, you can march into the voting booth and vote the rascals out. Maybe then we'll get some relief.

Marianne