My seed planter who helped me learn of voluntarism once told me this and cross post it. he wishes to remain Anonymouse
Positive Rights VS. Natural Rights
Rights are the essential basis for all human interaction. Human rights are the moral imperative that governs how we act towards one another and, equally, how we should expect others to act towards us. All things claimed as human rights essentially fall into one of two categories, positive rights and natural rights.
Well-meaning people often claim humans have the right to be provided all manner of goods and services. These are called positive rights. Positive rights are all the rights that can only exist if they are actively given by someone else. For example, you couldn't have the right to education unless a teacher can provide you that right. Likewise, the right to a job is contingent upon an employer, or healthcare upon a doctor. Positive rights usually grant things that humans don't have yet wish to be provided.
Positive rights are positive because they claim what people have the right TO. Things like a job, an education, or even a product such as a vehicle.
The other type of rights are natural rights, also known as negative rights. Natural rights are natural because they are rights that do not require a service or product to be given by another person. They are any right that we can reasonably claim through our natural existence. These rights that we can claim by our very nature are thus not contingent on an action, nor even the existence, of any other person, group, or entity to grant the right. Natural rights therefore boil down to three rights, the right to your life, freedom of body and mind, and any property produced through the use of your life and liberty. All of these are guaranteed as far and for as long as nature allows. These rights do not require another person give you life, body, and property, but simply requires that no one artificially prevents your access to those thing.
Natural rights are often called negative rights because they declare what people have the right to be free FROM. These are the rights to be free from murder, theft, and slavery.
Both types of rights can be denied but only positive rights must be granted. Denial of positive rights means that someone is refusing to give you use of their property (ie. products), body (ie. services), or life (ie. time) . Denial of natural rights means that someone is refusing to allow you the use of your own property (ie. theft), body, (ie. slavery/imprisonment), or life (ie. murder)
How do we know which of these rights are just. Human rights must be fair and equal among all humans regardless or race, sex, or class. In order to be equal rights they must be universal, equitable and consistent. If rights cannot be applied the same way to every human then human rights are meaningless.
Natural rights, as previously stated, are the rights to things that we inherently own through our nature and independent of those things owned by others. Since we do not naturally own the life or body of another we can never claim ownership of another human being. No one naturally has more or less right to their life and body. As such, these rights are completely equitable among all humans. Since everyone equally owns themselves and no one can own another, the natural rights of one cannot conflict with the natural rights of others. In this way natural rights are entirely consistent.
Positive rights are given from one person to another based on human needs and desires. Since human desire and need are malleable and vary from person to person, positive rights can be equally malleable. Thus positive rights can never be universal. What one person thinks someone needs might not be what another person needs. Positive rights can, also, be added to, subtracted from and rearranged, based on cultural whims. These rights to certain goods or services do not exist by yourself but are contingent upon the resources of others. If you are unlucky enough to be born where no one is willing, or hasn't the resources, to grant those rights then you do not have those rights. Therefore these rights not at all equitable.
Positive rights lay in a perpetual state of potential conflict with other positive rights. One positive right can always potentially trump another. For example, the positive right to a living and the right to food are in complete opposition. Someone who claims the right to food could force someone who makes a living from selling food to abandon the right to make a living in order to give that person their right to food. Likewise someone who has the right to a living could deny someone their right to food in order to protect their livelihood. This is a paradox and makes positive rights a meaningless and capricious war of subjective values. Positive rights are not even internally consistent.
Ultimately positive rights and natural rights cannot equally coexist because, foundationally, natural rights must be threatened or removed in order to guarantee any positive right. If someone claims a positive right to a service or product then logically someone must ultimately be forced to provide it or be forced to fund its provision. For example:
Lets say that some society grants the people the right to "widget x" (this can be any positive right). Now let us say that there is no one provide widget x. How would people have the right to this widget if there is no one willing or able to provide it? Some one would have to be forced through some sort of coercion or violence to work to provide it. To be forced to work for the benefit of others is slavery.
What if there were people able and willing to provide widget x but some citizen doesn't want to pay for it or fund its production? If it is a right to have this product or service then no one should have to pay for it. Rights are guaranteed and therefore must be freely available. Again, rights must apply equally available to everyone or else it isn't really a right. No one wishes to pay for this other persons widget when they have worked so hard to obtain their own. Who pays for this widget? If no one volunteers then someone must have their wealth forcefully taken to provide for another. To have wealth or property forcefully removed from someone is theft.
This means that, fundamentally, positive rights are based on an acceptance that someone has the right to enslave and steal to ensure people are provided certain goods and services. Natural rights are based on the the acceptance that aggression is wrong and no one has the right to enslave, steal, or murder. Rights based in violence cannot coexist with rights based in peace.
Since positive rights can never be freely provided in an equitable and universal way then they can't even be called rights. Natural rights, on the other hand, are completely consistent, equitable, and universal. Therefore natural rights are the only type of rights than can reasonably be considered legitimate and positive rights are not actually rights but merely privileges.