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by phiskk 3222 days ago
For an admittedly artificial example of positive vs negative rights.

If you consider, say, a person living in the middle of a desert.

A right to privacy amounts to just being left alone, and enforcing that would only be required if another party were actively violating that right. <- It's easy to argue for this.

A right to water, on the other hand, might require that some other party be forced to provide water to this person in the desert. <- Here many people might quite reasonably argue; why should others put themselves out to facilitate this persons life choices.