Positive rights are the right to shelter, the right to education, the right to health care, the right to a living wage. These things are - these are, I would call them, more properly, political rights rather than positive rights. And they are extremely tricky, because now we are dealing with things that are zero sum.
P. J. O'RourkeEast Germany was so total in its totalitarianism that everything was banned which wasn't compulsory.
P. J. O'RourkeA dugout is much superior to a conventional manufactured canoe because you can get soaking wet without bothering to capsize it.
P. J. O'RourkeWhen government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
P. J. O'RourkeAfrican famine is not a visitation of fate. It is largely man-made, and the men who made it are largely Africans.
P. J. O'RourkeIf the dollar weakens, then presumably all the things that we make in the United States - Buicks, for instance - can be sold cheap all over the world, and everyone will be buying our goods, and we'll get all sorts of yen-denominated, or yuan-denominated, or euro-denominated securities, and then everybody else will be worried.
P. J. O'Rourke