Water is not a human right?

[Hypoxia]

Did the Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Say Water Is Not a Human Right?

The CEO of a multinational company that makes billions annually selling bottled water called the idea that human beings have a right to water "extreme."

The statement is controversial not only because it stands in direct contradiction to the position taken by the United Nations and human rights organizations, but also because Nestlé, like other giant water bottlers, sources its product for pennies on the dollar, often in locations where water resources are scarce or challenged.

Whatever his words, what is your reaction? Is water a right? I might argue that water is necessary for life. If you've no right to water then you've no right to life. Do you have a RIGHT to live?

BTW we've boycotted Nestlé for many years because of their infant formula marketing policies implicated in the deaths of millions of children worldwide. But Nestlé ain't the only assholes. In Guatemala we heard of local water sources taken over by Coke and Pepsi for soda production, forcing peasants to walk ten miles to get their own water for survival.

Climate and weather patterns are changing. More areas will be affected by drought. More humans will lack water. Have they the right to live? Have you?

 

[jomar]

Today’s new commodities, like air.

 

[the_kuntess]

Did the Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Say Water Is Not a Human Right?

The CEO of a multinational company that makes billions annually selling bottled water called the idea that human beings have a right to water "extreme." Whatever his words, what is your reaction? Is water a right? I might argue that water is necessary for life. If you've no right to water then you've no right to life. Do you have a RIGHT to live?

BTW we've boycotted Nestlé for many years because of their infant formula marketing policies implicated in the deaths of millions of children worldwide. But Nestlé ain't the only assholes. In Guatemala we heard of local water sources taken over by Coke and Pepsi for soda production, forcing peasants to walk ten miles to get their own water for survival.

Climate and weather patterns are changing. More areas will be affected by drought. More humans will lack water. Have they the right to live? Have you?

No, water is not a given right. The bar is set at oxygen. End of story.

 

[sharingfantasies]

No, water is not a given right. The bar is set at oxygen. End of story.

I wouldn't be surprised if the goal was to pollute the air so much that we have to buy clean air in tanks. Someone will profit off it.

 

[Adder4321]

The only right that we have as humans is to die. Everything else is just nonsense that we thought up to try and make ourselves feel superior to other animals.

That being said, as humans we should do our best to assist each other. It would be pretty bad, to say the least, to let people die when we could easily save them.

 

[the_kuntess]

The only right that we have as humans is to die.

Yup. Pretty much.

 

[Hypoxia]

The only right that we have as humans is to die.

US Constitutionalists here might differ with you. Some may insist that firearms must be involved. "You have the right to kill or be killed."

Many jurisdictions around the world may also differ about our right to water. More than a few provide free public water access. Not only cities; drinking fountains line the paved paths in the hills of Italy's Amalfi Coast, and water taps extrude in many US parks.

Gandhi led a revolution in India by insisting people could make their own salt from seawater and not depend on high-taxed monopolies. As water supplies are increasingly privatized and monopolized, expect resistance.

 

[the_kuntess]

US Constitutionalists here might differ with you. Some may insist that firearms must be involved. "You have the right to kill or be killed."

Many jurisdictions around the world may also differ about our right to water. More than a few provide free public water access. Not only cities; drinking fountains line the paved paths in the hills of Italy's Amalfi Coast, and water taps extrude in many US parks.

Gandhi led a revolution in India by insisting people could make their own salt from seawater and not depend on high-taxed monopolies. As water supplies are increasingly privatized and monopolized, expect resistance.

Yeah....all good. but nothing is legislated. Free drinking fountains are gravy.

 

[domroger]

Not in the US it seems .The coal and fracking industries etc can pollute ground water to their hearts content without any comebacks .

 

[Adder4321]

US Constitutionalists here might differ with you. Some may insist that firearms must be involved. "You have the right to kill or be killed."

Many jurisdictions around the world may also differ about our right to water. More than a few provide free public water access. Not only cities; drinking fountains line the paved paths in the hills of Italy's Amalfi Coast, and water taps extrude in many US parks.

Gandhi led a revolution in India by insisting people could make their own salt from seawater and not depend on high-taxed monopolies. As water supplies are increasingly privatized and monopolized, expect resistance.

I didn't mean man made rights. I meant the rights that we naturally have. The natural order is "kill or be killed" and no amount of attempted control by humans will completely change that. In the end, the constitution is just another sad attempt by mankind to control a world that it can't even begin to understand.

And before you say anything, I don't believe that we shouldn't help those less fortunate than ourselves. I've come to the conclusion that just because those natural laws exist, that doesn't mean that you have to follow them. You've just gotta understand that they exist.

 

[Hypoxia]

I put this piece in the Politics forum. I'm certainly aware that nature doesn't issue rights -- but political structures attempt to. Thus policies and laws may embody rights to speech, belief, privacy, voting, etc.

My question for political discussion: Is water, and thus life, a human right? The USA Declaration of Independence states a right to life but that's not a legal document. What good is a legal right of speech without a right of survival? If you lack a right to water, you effectively lack a right of life also. How to deal with this?

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Only when you're a bunch of unformed cells in a womb.

Once you're born, and baptized, not really.

Did the Chief Executive Officer of Nestlé Say Water Is Not a Human Right?

Do you have a RIGHT to live?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Capitalism commodifies and reifies everything.

Left unregulated you will license the air you breathe through a regulator.

 

[Hypoxia]

Only when you're a bunch of unformed cells in a womb.

Once you're born, and baptized, not really.

Then if someone kills you, your rights have not been infringed?

Capitalism commodifies and reifies everything.

Left unregulated you will license the air you breathe through a regulator.

That's the basis of many SF tales. Pay your air tax or suck vacuum. It's logical in a privately-owned environment. Are public spaces obsolete?

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Only if they're an illegal from a shithole country.

Then if someone kills you, your rights have not been infringed?QUOTE]

 

[srgreene]

No, water is not a given right. The bar is set at oxygen. End of story.

Why is water different from oxygen in this regard?

I do not believe any adult has a "right" to water. That is a wrong way to look at natural rights, which I regard a social convention, necessary for a just civilization. The basic natural right is that my freedom to move my fist stops where your nose begins. You do have the right to earn water,an, once earned, nobody has the right to take it from you. Now "special rights", like, say, the "right" to Social Security (hey, I'm coming to that age) are a different matter, and they can be created or taken away at the whim of governments. And Uncle Sam will take away that "right", at least in its current form, from my grandchildren's generation.

Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" played with the idea of rights. In the novel, people on the moon had to earn air to breathe. They formed communal groups- basically an extended family- to sustain one another. BTW, the concepts I have adumbrated cannot strictly apply to children, and any society except the most depraved or threatened with extinction will care for them. Oxygen is not necessarily "free", and I think humans need to be aware of that.

 

[srgreene]

Capitalism commodifies and reifies everything.

Left unregulated you will license the air you breathe through a regulator.

Air too is subject to the tragedy of the commons. Capitalism is the only economic system capable of sustaining liberty among large groups of people. Free minds and free markets!

 

[stickygirl]

why is gravity taken for granted? about time someone taxed it then all those shithole country people can float off into space

 

[the_kuntess]

Why is water different from oxygen in this regard?

.....Oxygen is not necessarily "free", and I think humans need to be aware of that.

Water is so easily controlled. Access to oxygen is pretty much free.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Capitalism commodifies and reifies everything.

Left unregulated you will license the air you breathe through a regulator.

Licence = regulation.....if there are licences it hasn't been left unregulated smart guy!



Capitalism is anti-licencing, it's the leftist who insists on making sure only elites get to make money via "sensible regulation" who are all about that selective licencing bullshit.

Then you turn around and bitch about the 1% being so unbelievably rich after making sure they are the only ones who are allowed to access a laundry list of markets.

 

[Hypoxia]

Water is so easily controlled. Access to oxygen is pretty much free.

Except in Beijing, Athens, and other heavily-polluted areas, or on the train line out of Lima, Peru that hits 18,000 feet elevation. Buying bottled oxygen is advisable in such places.

Okay, not many people go to elevation. But many DO reside in toxic filthy air. Choice: buy air, or sicken and die. Reducing pollution controls should really boost 02 tank sales. I'm sure some capitalists are working on that.

 

[the_kuntess]

Next problem is the most polluted areas house the poor who have no dosh to buy air. The wealthy can afford to move.

 

[phrodeau]

Right-to-lifers seem to only concern themselves with fetuses, with no access to fresh water or air.

 

[Hypoxia]

Right-to-lifers seem to only concern themselves with fetuses, with no access to fresh water or air.

Anti-choicers fight for the un-born, not the un-dead. Once you've been born, you're un-dead, so tough shit.

But that leaves you un-blessed. You gotta get blessed to be un-damned. Confess your sins and pay your tithe.

Some religions don't care if you're dead; they'll baptize you or your ancestors anyway -- the un-resurrected. Is that soul theft?

But I digress. The un-watered will soon become the un-alive. It's not funny. Do you have a right to life post-partum?

 

[KUJACK]

Face it

If you do not have, life , what good is air or water