Comment by pixel_popping
16 hours ago
I think despite needing money, it can still be considered a right, IDs cost money but you have the right to have them, and I'm pretty sure it means it could extend to government paying for it eventually (depending on your social class I guess).
Something being a right does not mean that it will be provided for you. It simply means the government will not infringe on that.
The provided rights are called positive rights, and the not infringe rights are called negative rights. Freedom of speech is a negative right and a right to legal counsel is a positive right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
Thanks, yes I didn't really think about that distinction. I would say that "positive rights" is a fairly modern concept, for example the right to legal counsel was not originally a positive right, that was something that was determined by a series of court decisions in the mid-20th century. Most rights are still in the "negative" sense, i.e. things that cannot be prohibited or limited, or only narrowly so.
But in this case, a "right" to mobile data is just an entitlement that the people/governemnt decided to provide. The article isn't loading for me but I'm assuming this was not a constitutional change establishing this new specific right.
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Ah, so it's like the right to own jewelry (historically, there have been places where only nobility could legal own and wear it): you have the right to buy them, no one would stop you or take them away from you, but you still need enough money to buy it.
I imagine the same applies to the rights to live, to have access to water, and to receive medicine help (which is IIRC is why the Soviets claimed they refused to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: they argued for their version of the declaration that would actually bind the stated to make sure those goods/rights are actually universally provided; incidentally — and it's one of the examples they've actually used — that would mean that e.g. printing political leaflets for distribution, falling under free speech and political distribution, would also have to be paid for by someone. As you may imagine, most of the other countries weren't particularly fond of the idea that they'd end up themselves financing the printing and distribution of Communist propaganda).