We have discussed the concept of rights versus wishes on this blog before when I wrote about Lizzie Warren’s plan to provide child care to every family as a fundamental “right” at the expense of everyone else. I decried Warren’s lack of understanding of basic economics and rightfully described her as a socialist.

Not to be outdone, however, here comes Kirsten Gillibrand – yet another candidate for the Democratic nomination to challenge Donald Trump in next year’s Presidential election – with her “family bill of rights,” and if you think Warren is a moron akin to Occasional-Cortex, Gillibrand says “hold my beer and watch this!”

Today I’m announcing my Family Bill of Rights: a new economic policy platform that will lift many of the financial burdens on families and help level the playing field for children. pic.twitter.com/Zd6fugLlLx

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) May 22, 2019

I can’t even with this moron.

The right to a healthy and safe pregnancy.

Except when you want to murder your kid at 39 weeks, right? And then blame Fox News for allegedly “distorting” the plain words of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam that were so horrific, that even pro-choice Democrats withdrew their support for a bill that would allow the procedure as too extreme.

And although we all want women to have a safe and healthy pregnancy, Gillibrand’s wish includes taxpayer funds and government-funded health care. No one has the right to others’ resources and labor. That’s why Gillibrand – with her limited understanding of rights versus wishes – thinks that pregnant women’s right to be pregnant necessarily includes care at the point of a government gun.

The right to give birth or adopt.

I actually agree that every stable, loving family should have the right to adopt – as long as they are able to care for the child and give it a solid, well-founded home. As an adoptive parent, I remember the thousands and thousands of dollars in court costs and legal fees we paid to adopt our daughter, how we worked to show the court that we would provide a stable, loving home for her, how we had to show that we had a steady income stream and could actually afford another child, and how we had to undergo numerous criminal and financial background checks to show the court that our daughter would be safe in our home. Pay stubs, reference checks, home visits… they were all part of the process. Legal fees were outrageous by the standards 20 years ago, and from the cursory research I’ve done, that situation hasn’t improved.

I also understand that the legal fees are cost-prohibitive to many adoptive parents. It isn’t fair that many families may not be able to afford the initial costs associated with adoption, but may be able to provide a stable, loving home to a child who so desperately needs it. Life isn’t fair, and I do think that some lawyers and agencies treat adoption as a cash cow. That’s something that can and should be remedied – not by government force and more regulations, but by providing more options. And yes, I believe that any family that has stability, income, and love to give should be able to give a child in need that home, and I don’t care if said family is green, purple, gay, or straight. (And no, I’m not in the mood to debate this with social conservatives. Your views differ, and that’s fine. Leave it at that.)

The right to safe and affordable nursery.

I’m trying to figure out if she means that every family that breeds needs to be given a crib, baby food, and diapers, because she claims that daycare is also a right, which I will address below. Whatever it means, she thinks that “when” she becomes President (yes, please take a break to laugh hysterically at this), she will sign some kind of law that will create more rights out of thin air.

Paid family leave.

Again, this is a great thing to have. I know many qualified, intelligent college graduates entering the workforce who believe they will eventually have families do take this benefit into consideration. But to make it a requirement at the point of a government gun? Nope. You know what it will do? Prompt smaller private companies that can’t afford interim labor while their employee is out on paid family leave to reconsider hiring candidates – particularly women – of childbearing age.

But Gillibrand doesn’t think strategically and doesn’t understand unintended consequences, so she’s pandering to the “GIVE ME ALL THE THINGS FREE” crowd in pathetic hopes that someone notices that she’s running too.

Affordable day care and universal pre-K.

This is a stupid statement that likely creates the “right” to other people’s time and resources to care for a child. Although we all want child care to be more affordable, government control will simply prevent providers from setting the proper value on their own labor and skills, allow substandard care givers to enter the system as long as they abide by government requirements that many times cater to the lowest common denominator, and remove incentives for better care, since every care giver would be bound by an “affordable,” government-controlled compensation.

In other words, Gillibrand has no clue what a “fundamental right” is, and wants to impose government control to create her version of “rights” in order to out-socialist the socialists already in the race and pander to the “free shit” crowd.

I’ve quoted the great Dr. Walter Williams before when defining rights versus wishes, and I will do so again here.

In the standard historical usage of the term, a “right” is something that exists simultaneously among people. As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.

Contrast those rights to free speech and travel with the supposed rights to medical care and decent housing. Those supposed rights do impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy. If one does not have money to pay for a medical service or decent housing and the government provides it, where do you think the government gets the money?

Gillibrand is a US Senator. She is a lawmaker. She needs to comprehend the concept of rights versus wishes and differentiate between the two.

But no. She would rather use her “phone and pen” in her first 100 days as President (please take another break to laugh at the idea) without understanding costs and without understanding or acknowledging government force to impose her wishes on the rest of us, limiting our rights.

No thanks. We have enough of those idiots trying to infest the White House. We don’t need any more.

Featured photo: Donkey Hotey on Flickr; cropped, license 2.0 creativecommons.org