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A right to water?

Posted by xthinker88 10 years ago to News
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So this is a popular meme going around facebook now. One of my friends posted it in agreement that nestle should be embargoed. We have been having the following "discussion":

Me: They don't [have a right to water]. He is absolutely right. It is impossible to have a right to anything that requires the effort of other humans to provide unless that effort is purchased by trade.

You have the right to the water that falls from the sky onto your face or your property. If it takes other people to get the water, and make it clean, and provide it for you, you have no right unless you pay for it or they choose to give it to you as a charity case (in which case you still have no right to it). They are not your slaves.

FB friend: I'm pretty sure this pertains to the drought in CA and what Nestle is doing out there, Mark. Also, some states do not allow people to collect rain water for personal us.

Me: What is nestle doing out there? Expecting pay for the effort and intelligence that goes into the water that they provide? They should.

Nobody has a right to water. They don't have a right to the labor and intelligence and capital it takes to dig wells, to pump water, to lay pipes, to treat water and store it, and to deliver it to your door. They do not have the right to enslave the people that do these things. Which is what "a right to water" means. The right to enslave all those who get the clean water to your house for those who have the "right".

California should pay out the wazoo for its dumb ass policies. Eventually reality cannot be avoided. CA has been taking more that its agreed share of the Colorado River for decades to water the desert - which is what most of Southern California is. Now it's coming back to bite them. They've allowed millions of immigration criminals to be welcome in their state. Now governor Brown complains about population. They've done everything possible to make energy production in their state as expensive as possible. Now that they need desalinization they cannot afford it because energy is the main cost of those processes.

They are paying for their stupidity, their progressive policies, and their denial of reality. Tough.

If nestle can figure out a way to profit from this mess - good for them.


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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Since I grew up in or near that sort of environment I would make it a matter of personal rights and do quite well. If I grew up in LA i shudder to think WTEff I was doing there unless it was to escape NYC. In the wilderness the sole law is to the victor belongs the spoils.
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  • Posted by 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    How about we drop you in the wilderness and see how your natural rights feed and clothe you?

    There is no such thing as a natural positive right. All rights are negative and reference basically being left alone. Rights TO things are actually thinly veiled claims that you have a right to another's life.
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  • Posted by broskjold22 10 years ago
    Let's also address an important comment/point made here by xthinker88: "Governor Brown complains about the population". If you are tired of hearing about how humans "stress the environment", about "minimizing our footprint", and (free) "market failures", you're not alone! All these bromides are the precursors of directive 10-289...
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years ago
    Of course. Why not? At least one gallon per day in the tropics and one half gallon a day in the temperate zone. Like any of the basics needed to survive water, air, food, shelter, clothing it's a natural right.

    That does not include filling swimming pools and watering lawns.

    There is a second catch. If you move from a water rich area to a water poor area do gain or lose the right to water. And let's say you gain. Assume the affected area, for ease of math, has 10,300,000 people and enough water for 300,000. 10,000,000 move in.Note: The same applies to any species. Fine! Now go google how much water is pumped into LA and Orange and Riverside County daily. The figures are buried in spray and mirrors system worthy of thhe US Congress but 131 gallons per day per capita imported was suggested in a few places. Now they want more. Endangered species in the northern counties , Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and the Columbia river be damned - especially humans.

    As far as paying for it? They haven't paid their electrical bill to the other states yet!
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    That's why I put "good intentions" in quotes. That is what the lib-progs claim but we know it's utter nonsense.
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  • Posted by DeanStriker 10 years ago
    good post and thinking; I agree.

    If someone has a link to something about what/how nestle is involved, that would be helpful to me for filling in the knowledge gap.
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  • Posted by radical 10 years ago
    You can take my water from my cold, dead fingers.
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  • Posted by waytodude 10 years ago
    Please let's not talk about this to loud. All the people in California might hear they have a problem and move out and infect more of our already doomed nation.

    Thanks xthinker for your thread. Well said.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Interesting. I wished it was a little longer and more detailed, but it hits the high points.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years ago
    I live in California so I speak from experience. This state is the textbook example of "good intentions" paving the road to hell. Our collectivist government exists only to increase their own power and this is mainly accomplished by increasing the looter based voting pool. As productive businesses flee the state taxes are increased to make up for the shortfall, that is the classical liberal-progressive solution. Silicon valley is about the only major production center left in the state and that is due in large part to favorable tax arrangements made in typical crony capitalism fashion. The continuing disappearance of productive members of the business community is strangely reminiscent of Atlas Shrugged.
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  • Posted by jimslag 10 years ago
    Awesome conversation, I think you nailed it. The same scenario is playing out in Detroit, where the local water utility is cutting off people who are millions of dollars behind in their bills. They complained to the UN about the utility taking away their "right" to have water. If I don't pay my bill, no water, plain and simple. Not to them, it is the system hating them and taking away their rights. California is just a lost cause, the people have no one to blame but themselves for voting in the bleeding heart liberals. The Snail Darter is more important to them than the water or the ability to water crops for food production. Out here in New Mexico, we got a lot of dairies from California because of all the regulations and prohibitions against their industry in California. Colorado and other mountain states are the recipients of former Californiacators who left there, but the problem is that they bring their liberal politics with them (the Blue Disease). Personally, I was stationed in California for about 5 years and I still call it The Land of Fruits and Nuts. I will leave it at that.
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  • Posted by evlwhtguy 10 years ago
    "California should pay out the wazoo for its dumb ass policies. Eventually reality cannot be avoided. CA has been taking more that its agreed share of the Colorado River for decades to water the desert - which is what most of Southern California is. Now it's coming back to bite them. They've allowed millions of immigration criminals to be welcome in their state. Now governor Brown complains about population. They've done everything possible to make energy production in their state as expensive as possible. Now that they need desalinization they cannot afford it because energy is the main cost of those processes.

    They are paying for their stupidity, their progressive policies, and their denial of reality. Tough."

    Sounds just like Atlas Shrugged!!!!!!
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  • Posted by Temlakos 10 years ago
    Those screaming about "water rights" ruined their argument. They did not take steps to bring in more water.

    That said, Objectivists have room to debate a workable theory of rights to water sources one finds in the wild--rivers, lakes, and the mega-wells we call "aquifers." And, of course, desalination projects. Which, by the way, they were talking about in the early Sixties. I used to see the PSA's for "desalting the waters of the sea" when I was five or six years old.
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    Posted by vido 10 years ago
    Yep, and if they aren't happy, Nestle can still take its engineers and equipment and go find customers elsewhere...
    Periodical deep droughts are a feature of CA climate, lack of preparation and investment, accompanied by careless overexploitation of limited resources is the mark of people having never had to think ahead, elected by other likeminded people.
    At the end, all they get is more sand and no water, plus nobody where producers once used to work, but were chased away by collectivist legislation.
    California is a good illustration of the decay of a great civilization once looters are put in a position of power.
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