Shouldnt food be a "basic human right"???

Since the argument is that healthcare should be a "free" "basic human right", why not all the screaming about food being 'free'? Wouldnt food come before healthcare?

Why cant we walk into grocery stores and restaurants and demand free food, whenever we're hungry??

Or, assuming healthcare were such a right, what else ISNT a "right" by the time we start assuming the work and materials and tools of others as being something we have a RIGHT to?

[edit on 22-3-2010 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Food is a basic human right because you can walk outside your house and eat an insect, a plant, some fruit, whatever...or go fishing or hunting for that matter. People have the ability to make their own food or go get it for free. Health care needs doctors, insurance agencies, and so many other people involved for it to work.

Apples and oranges.

[edit on 22-3-2010 by Smell The Roses]

What about the right to a mate?

The government should be in charge of dating and marriage too.

They can test everyone and tell you who you can be paired with, but more importantly who you can't be paired with.



yea government control. [/sarcasm]

reply to post by Smell The Roses


Sound slike survivalist type stuff you just described. ("Bugs", etc) Thats liek saying we can rip strips of burlap to make bandages, and use needle nose pliers to pull out bullets.

I expanded my question to ask why we cant go into stores etc and demand free food. Please address this a little more clearly.

reply to post by sporkmonster


The government is in charge of marriage... its called a marriage "license" (i.e. permission to get married).

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Eating fruit and hunting and fishing is far from a survivalist attitude. It is actually how we used to eat back before the power hungry took control of the food system to profit from it and make everyone lazy and fat.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Why cant we walk into grocery stores and restaurants and demand free food, whenever we're hungry??

some do !!!
it's called food stamps

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Shouldnt food be a "basic human right"???

Yes...it is...hence foodstamps.

Care to refute that?

Since the argument is that healthcare should be a "free" "basic human right"

Who is arguing that? Do you have a source for this completely false claim?

The health care bill will not make healthcare "free".

Deny Ignorance?

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Actually since the economy tanked about 10% of food from Walmart and Target goes to food shelves.

So it's not totally free yet -- but food is a human right according to the United Nations -- so is housing.

Originally posted by Smell The Roses
reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss

 

Eating fruit and hunting and fishing is far from a survivalist attitude. It is actually how we used to eat back before the power hungry took control of the food system to profit from it and make everyone lazy and fat.

Youre going way out of context of the OP. The premise is your 'right' to food, as in the food in stores and restaurants.

But following your sidestep... should we be allowed to going into other peoples gardens on their property and take their food? Do we have the RIGHT to take apples from other peoples trees?

Originally posted by OutKast Searcher

Shouldnt food be a "basic human right"???

Yes...it is...hence foodstamps.

Right... the 39 million strong bread line. But if its a basic human right, why dont we all have it, and why even bother with food 'stamps'?

I'm not actually arguing for such a 'right', but rather throwing out some cynical context for these people who think they have a right ot the work and resources of others.

Who is arguing that? Do you have a source for this completely false claim?

Millions of people. Many have been right oin this site for years. Stay tuned, theyll be here...

The health care bill will not make healthcare "free".

Right. Nothing is free. Earlier I read someones blog declaring that 3X high speed internet should only cost $1 per month for everybody. As if just saying it should cost that much negates the realities of what things cost, or that we wouldnt pay for it one way or another. Nothing is free.

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Here this is a good thread on food myths:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

You know what else should be a basic human right? Survival of the fittest. People need to learn how to fend for themselves instead of suckling the teat of big government. It may sound harsh, but hey, ya know let me tell you some of the total BS I see personally on an lmost daily basis....

I go to the grocery store to do some shopping for my family, I stand in line at the register behind some 400lb chick with 9 kids running all over the place. She then pays for groceries (mostly candy and chips and sodas) with food stamps, then load said groceries into her brand new escalade,mercedes or bmw. Now you tell me why I should care at all about people like this? If all somone wants to do is sit around and pop out children while collecting food stamps and welfare checks? This entitlement crap needs to end. I know some people need help and have done everything in thier power to help themselves...these people deserve our help and generally grateful for the hand up, I have no issues with this. However, the people that feel like I/we/government OWES them the welfare check and foodstamps needs to be cutoff. The best way to help people out of poverty is to make them uncomfortable in thier poverty. Same goes for healthcare. Its a good, a product not a right, to think otherwise, is well, uneducated and shows a fundemental misunderstanding of the way our system of government was framed. If you want socialized medicine, move to Canada, we don't want you here dragging down the rest of us that worked hard all our lives to get to where we are.

reply to post by SM2


www.abovetopsecret.com...

Between 1985 and 1992, the legal entity called Cargill received $800.4 million in tax subsidies via the Export Enhancement Program, a continuation of the infamous “Food for Peace” policy, writes Kneen. Promoted by Hubert H. Humphrey and instituted as PL 480, food became a Cold War tool, i.e. “for Peace.” If we can induce people to “become dependent on us for food,” then “what is a more powerful weapon than food and fiber?” Humphrey declared, according to “Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies” by Noam Chomsky.

According to the United Nations "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" article 25 section 1:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

...but they're not full of red-blooded Americans, so who cares what they think.

Originally posted by links234
According to the United Nations "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" article 25 section 1:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

...but they're not full of red-blooded Americans, so who cares what they think.

Excactly, why should we care what the UN thinks?

reply to post by links234


www.abovetopsecret.com...

Actually, most of the nation recipients of tax-subsidized Cargill food dumping were, and are, net exporters of food already — policies imposed by colonial trading patterns. The food (for Peace) has been bought cheaply by neocolonial regimes, and then sold at a huge discount on the local market — in Somalia, for example, at one-sixth of the local prices. Many examples of these misguided policies can be found in “Betraying the National Interest: How US Foreign AID Threatens Global Security by Undermining the Political and Economic Stability of the Third World,” by Frances Moore Lappe, et al.

Food "should" be free. Healthcare "should" be free. Everything "should" be free.
None of it ever has been. None of it is. None of it ever will be. Someone always pays...something...at some point.

TAANSTAFL

[edit on 3/23/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


That's not true -- for 90% of human history -- the Bushmen culture -- food was free:

www.primitivism.com...

Of food, or the contrary... But in his own district a native is very differently situated; he knows exactly what it produces, the proper time at which the several articles are in season, and the readiest means of procuring them. According to these circumstances he regulates his visits to different portions of his hunting ground; and I can only say that l have always found the greatest abundance in their huts."(8)

reply to post by drew hempel


Yup.
They just sat there and an antelope would jump into their lap, cut it's own throat, gut itself, dress itself, build a fire and roast itself.

reply to post by Phage


70% of the Bushmen diet was from gathering food.

books.google.com... E7Kq1xOpk&hl=en&ei=2FKoS5rnL4WWtgf20LisAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bushmen%20percentage%20of%20food%20from%2 0meat&f=false

Bushmen of Southern Africa Photos - National Geographic
Gathering once provided 70 percent of the Bushman diet, but ancient scrubland has been ... Now government relief provides the bulk of the people's food. ...
travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/.../bushmen-south-africa-photos/

As the original link I gave -- their food gathering time was 3 to 5 hours a day.

And Phage -- when the Bushmen did hunt an animal it was not eaten until the next day so that the spirit of the dead animal would not tell the other animals that humans had eaten it.

books.google.com... U&hl=en&ei=klOoS8LELM20tgf02J2_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The tribe spends only 30% of their time hunting and gathering

Andrew Zimmern's new book.


[edit on 23-3-2010 by drew hempel]

[edit on 23-3-2010 by drew hempel]