What Is a 'Right'?

What Is a Right and How Do We Know?
from National Review Online

By Bill Whittle

During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama was asked if he thought health care was a “right.”
He said he thought it was a right. Well, if you accept that premise, I think you can ask some logical follow-up questions: Food is more important than health care. You die pretty quickly without food. Do we have a “right” to food in America? What about shelter? Do we have a “right” to housing? And if we do have a right to housing, what standard of housing do we have a right to? And if it is a right, due to all Americans, wouldn’t that mean that no one should have to accept any housing, or health care, which is inferior to anyone else’s… since it’s a right?