Too many people in modern Western societies confuse legitimate “rights” — such as voting or speaking one’s mind — with “privileges” that others have to pay for. In the United States, government-funded medical care — which many wrongly assume will be “free” — is really medical care paid for by “somebody else.” Yet many consider it every bit as much a “right” as the right to attend a City Council meeting or to bear arms.
Across the Atlantic, the “rights” racket is even more ridiculous. The commissioner for enterprise and industry in the European Union recently declared foreign travel a “right” that must be guaranteed with EU tax dollars. Commissioner Antonio Tajani said the young, the elderly and anyone who cannot afford to travel around the European Union ought to get subsidies to pay for those trips.
“Tajani … believes the days when holidays were a luxury have gone,” The Times newspaper of London reported. “‘Traveling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,’ he said.”
The cost of ensuring everyone’s “right” to foreign travel may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but Commissioner Tajani does not think cost should be an object.
“Why should someone from the Mediterranean not be able to travel to Edinburgh in summer for a breath of cool, fresh air?” his spokesman asked. “Why should someone from Edinburgh not be able to travel to Greece in winter?”
Here is another question: Why should nations that pursue such dubious “rights” be shocked when they run out of money?