I read a book once which argued that the problem with modern political discourse is it pits the “I don’t want things taken from me” (liberty!) people against the “XYZ is a human right” (entitlement!) people. And that a better way to frame the cultural argument is “XYZ is my responsibility to society.”

As a simple example, “Internet access is a human right,” is just a sneaky way of saying “someone should give people free Internet.” Who is someone? It’s left unspecified, which is skipping over the entire mechanism by which we deliver the Internet. It’s much more revealing to write, “To live in a healthy society, it’s our responsibility to make sure every person has Internet access.” Suddenly, oh, crap. The someone is me!

Healthy society is created through constant effort, by all of us, as a gift to our fellow members. It’s not extracted from us as a mandatory payment to our overlords who will do all the work.

[…] the best gifts are the things I never would have bought for myself, because they seemed too expensive or I didn’t even realize I would like them or they were too much work to obtain, or because someone hand-made them just for me. These feel like luxuries of the sort capitalism cannot produce, because deciding, going out, and buying something for myself isn’t luxury, it’s everyday. It’s lonely. It’s a negotiation. It’s limited by my own lack of creativity.

— Avery Pennarun, The Gift of It’s Your Problem Now, apenwarr, 2021