Rights
Are they things which we can demand a government provide for us? Are they things which we can demand a government NOT block us from acquiring on our own? Does the right to bear arms mean the government gives us each a firearm and training? Or does it mean we are free to seek out our own firearms and training?
In america, we have rights spelled out in the constitution. These “inalienable” rights are not the full list. The list does not imply that anything not on the list is not a right.
Maybe internet really is a right. Maybe driving a car is a right. Maybe we have lots of rights we don’t know about and many of them are currently being violated.
This is why the 100 watt light incandescent bulb ban is so disturbing. It’s an eminently practical and desirable device, carried to a ptitch of perfection by a century of use and manufacture, banned on the rhetorical grounds that a more energy efficient substitute for it putatively exists.
I would submit that when we gave up our right to purchase and use 100 watt incandescent light bulbs, we gave up the essence of our rights as Americans and free men.
I have a stash of them, but one burned out today, and to me each such occasion is an adumbration of the end of the world, and I react accordingly. I replaced this one with a 75.