There is the argument, that since rights to life, liberty and property require police, courts etc to be enforced, they are also positive rights, and therefore there is no real distinction between negative and positive rights. How would you respond to this?
I haven’t heard about rights to life, liberty and property, by the way… Sure, if anarcho-libertarians advocated them it would be positive rights.
I would say that there is a difference between defending one’s property and forcing others to defend it for you.
If the police, courts and state apparatus in general gets to decide what it’s going to defend or grant us, then there’s no such thing as negative or positive rights - only privileges granted by the state, which owns us.
Negativity/positivity has to do with who pays. There is no good reason that courts and police must be public monopolies. Hence, there is no reason why they must be inherently “positive”. That is, there is no reason why I should pay for all my own security and all my own court services without any forcible subsidies from “the public.” The rights which emerge from non-monopolistic, non-subsidizes courts and police (security) would, then, be wholly negative rights - rights concerning the use of what is already yours, not rights to someone else’s goods or services.
Clayton -
The problem is with the assertion. The right to life, liberty, and property, do not require police. These exist with or without police. The right to health care necessarily requires money spent, and the right to social safety net programs requires spending, but life, liberty, and property exist without enforcement.
Negative rights are rights that require other people to not do something, to leave you alone, to not steal from you or stab you. Receiving something is always a positive ‘right’, i.e. a privilege. Police protection is a privilege.
what if I payed for it? Checkmate.