[whatshisface]

You also have to watch out that asserting positive rights that are sometimes impossible to provide (like healthcare) will confuse people when governments attempt to claim that other, deeper rights are "impossible to give." (For example, they might try to argue that they can't afford to not torture, comparing it to how their impoverished country can't give everyone free internet.)

[komali2]

Why is that? If a country tries to claim it cannot afford not to torture, can't we simply point to all the countries that manage without it, as I do for the healthcare debate?

[dragonwriter]

As anyone who lived through the more recent Bush Administration witnessed nearly daily, people claim “not torturing” is an impossible right to give while denying all positive rights—and acted on that argument—so I fail to see the relationship.

[whatshisface]

Denying every right is the last step of the manuver I'm describing, the first step is to re-define right to mean comfort. Bush-era politics just went straight to step 2 and it didn't work on us.

I suspect that the current UN rights council may be an example of this in action. See: the track record of the members on negative rights, the number of positive rights on their list of rights.