Hi
This is the US. That bastion of rights for people. Until it is about rights for non-Americans: E.g., Americans have a right to guns, but Americans don't want other people to have a right to food.
It is hilarious to see how this is (attempted) justified, though. Absolutely hilarious.
We do not have a, "right to guns," as outlined above.
We have a right to keep and bear guns.
If it were a right to keep their own food, thus prohibiting (as much as the UN can prohibit anything) poisoning food crops and other similar starvation-directed jackassulation, I'd be totally Ok with it, but it's not. It's a, "right to food."
I'm also Ok with it as long it's
YOUR food, too.
What's going to happen when everyone around you stops growing food and demands a part of your surplus? What happens when everyone stops growing food because they have a right to whatever food's available?
I has happened.
Here in the US, as a matter of fact... although it wasn't the US at the time.
The first wave of pilgrims had a communal living arrangement where everyone had a right to use all the community's property, and, apparently, everyone figured that everyone
ELSE was going to grow the food and chop the firewood.
(This is what's wrong with Communism. "From each according to his ability to each according to his need," has everyone deciding that what they really need is to eat some cheese, drink some wine, and catch some rays, and that their real ability is getting a really,
really good sun tan!)
ANYHOW!
From the time they landed in December of 1620 until the spring of 1623, they had problem with starvation... not because they didn't know how to farm - Squanto had clued them in on that - but because they had no incentive to do better. They all figured that everyone else would cover them for food and firewood.
In 1623, though, The governor of the teh colony, William Bradfored by name I think, ordered that the land be parceled out and issued to families. Each family, then, could grow their own food, or cut their own firewood, or whatever else they wanted to do, and sell their surplus at market.
They could keep all they grew and dispose of it as they saw fit,
but they were responsible for feeding themselves.
Folks buckled down and got a move on. They planted a
LOT more corn than they had before.
They never starved again. Who'd guess?
North Korea has a lot of arable land and trained farmers, yet they produce less per acre than the South. Why is that?
Nigeria used to be the #1 food-exporting country in Africa, now they're starving and have a Godzillion-percent inflation rate. Why is that?
In Communist Russia, for a long time, the most productive part of the economy was all the little garden patches the government allowed the grandfathers and grandmothers to have, and whose proceeds were the property of said old folks. Why is that?
Ok, says I, give help to the starving, but don't go communal on the food! We've already seen what happens with that!
The "right to food," should be the, "right to keep the food you grow." Let the government of all those starving countries turn loose of their manpower and let them grow and keep their own food, and sell the surplus.
I'll bet there'd be enough food pretty quick.