Quote from Kassz007:
Education absolutely should be a right. This is one of the reasons (or selling points at least) for the war in Afghanistan. How does this befuddle you?
What is considered a right changes all of the time as the years pass. Think of a woman's right to vote, or the whole slavery issue. I would not be surprised at all if in 100 years it is considered a right to have access to broadband internet, just as a country's citizens should have the right to appropriate health care.
You're confused.
The right to vote is the right to participate in a government that governs that individual. No taxation without representation, remember?
You absolutely have a right to anything that you can obtain for yourself without stealing - education, for example. BUT, if you believe it is your RIGHT to FORCE someone to spend their resources educating you, then you violate property rights. That is theft. Why do you have rights to others' property?
The problem is that if you have right to absolutely everything that you desire, then that means there are no private property rights. When there are no property rights, everything becomes a public good. When everything is a public good, who will have the incentive to produce it?
This is the fundamental problem faced by my homeland - the Soviet Union. And BTW, my aunt and uncle were both surgeons there before moving to Toronto. They were shocked to find that in some ways the Canadian health service is worse than the Soviet Union's (again, we're talking worse for serious illness, not basic stuff).
This isn't brain surgery. You just have to think about your own incentives.