Anyone can have a positive impact on the economy, over some finite time. What is a government program in existence today that actually contributes positively to the economy?
I am saying, and you know this but chose to pretend not to understand, that if someone actually nets negative, they don't get a check back from the government. That's risk. Even Roth IRA income is taxed eventually, it is just deferred. I don't even know what you're trying to say with the capital gains part of your response. So what? Day traders are taking on even more risk. Investments have a better chance of working out for you the longer you're willing to stick with them. You don't have an opportunity to make > 10% in regular investment as you MIGHT in Day Trading, but long term investment generally has less risk of negative return. Day Trading has a very high chance of losing principal.
You're calling my argument specious but you think we need to raise taxes to get back to a time where people didn't expect something for nothing? Raising tax rates on some and giving it to others is exactly what creates that expectation. I can't comment on your own personal financial situation, but if you feel more prosperous when paying more taxes, sign a check today making up the percentage you aren't paying now.
The USSR fell apart from how they tried to keep pace with the nuclear and space races. Fear will drive people only so far. And without people who take the time and money to be smart enough to build a rocket that can safely make it to the moon and back with human cargo, how would that have happened? Even mother russia can't threaten a fry cook into suddenly understanding how to build a solid fuel booster system. What the heck is escape velocity again?
I'm not saying people won't work, I'm saying they won't do anything other than bare minimum. You don't get a palm sized computer than can stream netflix movies from a country full of mediocrity. How blind can you be to what that would mean? Is across the board mediocrity actually better in your book than everyone having their own opportunity to move beyond what they are now?
Also the false ideology WILL crumble exactly as it does in the book. Those who are meaningfully creative may label themselves Liberal or Democratic now, but when they see their work stolen from them, I guarantee you that more of them than not will react in a very libertarian way. Warren Buffet can give 100% of his wealth and income to the government, but that is the tiniest drop in the bucket of their budget. But that's his choice. If Bill Gates was still in charge of Microsoft and the government came along as said he had to give Windows and MS Office away for free because people "needed" it, you think he would allow his business to be crushed by such a ridiculous request? If Ted Turner had to give up all but one of his company assets...one channel for example, do you think he's still going to feel like running a media empire? I mean it wasn't FAIR that he had such a large percentage of the market. Atlas Shrugged shows things happening on a pace that I think even someone with your delusions would be able to realize that something terrible was happening. But it happens much more insidiously that is portrayed by Rand. Good business owners adjust to try to maximize their profitability within whatever regulations the government cooks up. Sometimes it seems like a back and forth struggle with business gaining ground as often as they lose it. But in fact it's more like business takes 3 steps forward for every 4 steps back. Harder to notice that it's all moving backwards, and it may not look like a cliff behind them, but it gets pretty steep and even the most business savvy CEO will not be able to withstand a government that presumes to redistribute based on greater societal needs.
While my statement does have a similarity to the plot of Atlas Shrugged, it is just a fact, and i'm not using a fictional book as the basis of my argument. If you think people who make more should contribute more in taxes AND those who are able to hold onto more should then be taxed EVEN MORE you're full on proponent of redistribution. Pretending like there are limits/thresholds where the excessive taxation ends assumes that the need to continue to take more to prop up those who view government provided sustenance as their right will actually level off. It won't, it will just keep growing. Even if the government was as close to 100% efficient with redistribution as it could be, eventually that bar of $250K will edge lower and lower till no one is making more than middle of the middle class. Now tell me, do you really think people will contribute to that sort of societal rape at the same level as they do now? Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet would all be down to $50K per year just like everyone else. If you don't reward exceptionalism, you're rewarding the opposite. Bill Gates is known as a philanthropist because he gives a buttload of his hard earned money ON HIS OWN. Not because he's coerced by taxation. You people who think redistribution will work...I hope beyond hope you won't have to see the true utter end that will come from it. I hope you'll see before it goes too far that it should not exist even at a small level.
A lot of the details of Atlas Shrugged end up sounding a bit goofy today, almost a caricature of the conservative view of liberalism turned full on communist/socialist. And while I won't expect to ever find a hideout in the Rockies hidden from view by a massive cloaking system, you and everyone else will lose the creative genius that thrives in a free market. Not because they run off an hide, but because they will just lose the will to be exceptional when exceptional is seen as unfair to the less exceptional.
How is taxing income that comes with risk (investment income) more than income that comes with no risk (salary) fair? People lose money investing all the time, would they get those higher taxes back? Money being invested has already been taxed, why should it even be taxed again just because you invested it and it paid off? Let alone be taxed MORE or even the same as standard income? As far as the graduated tax brackets, those are also unfair. Why should anyone pay a higher percentage just because they earn more? They will already PAY more in number of dollars because they earn more.
The only thing the government can do to positively impact the economy over any scale of time is to back the hell off. Even if it somehow made sense to steal money from one person and give it to the other, every single thing the government does is done so utterly wastefully that any potential gain disappears. That means cut everyone's taxes and cut spending to match. You can whine all you want about taking away someone's government subsidies, but that's too flippin bad, people who are reliant on the government to sustain them will lose out regardless.
not interesting at all. It's an even WORSE "disparity" to even begin to consider an injustice. Please don't be confused by people who would try to tell you that anyone has any right to something someone else owns, it just isn't true.
So now you want to tax wealth? Get the hell out of here. A graduated income tax is bad enough. But saying that because someone keeps their money that is somehow an injustice to those who spend it? Bill Gates having $40Billion in the bank is not a crime or an injustice against John Doe who makes $7 an hour flipping burgers and has to live with his parents. You are a poisoned mind. A fool. You want to know what would happen if you attacked that wealth? Eventually no one would be motivated to do the things that being to earn them such wealth. Progress would stop dead. You wouldn't have any of the cool stuff technologically that you have today. Sure there may be an occasional person who comes up with a brilliant idea that advances some sector of industry or whatever, but what you really end up with is a bunch of people who will only do what is need to just get by because that's as much recognition for their work as they get. Think people will play NFL football for $35,000 a year? Not in this lifetime. This is just the stupidest concept you could have possibly brought to an already silly topic.
But you're not GIVING anybody anything. We're talking about not TAKING as much. Remember, they're taking money from people that is NOT theirs. And decided to give more back to people based on their need turns it from taxing to stealing.
I really don't mind that they keep trying to add different new and improved widgets to every gadget we have. They clearly don't have a foolproof way to truly understand how something would be useful to an end user without stumbling on it anyway. I see some of the things they do in SciFi (minority report for example) as someone trying to take a stab at what people will want to do/benefit from in the not to distant future. While some of it ends up being mimicked in reality, that often results in the realization that while it looked cool, no one finds it useful and it dies out. However, I am fine with them doing this. The creative process for making ground breaking advancements is often trial and error, and a lot of times the advancements come in a form different than the original idea intended. If they want to push the envelop with this vague notion of "being able to do all the things we couldn't do now due to low processing power" then by all means...go go go!
So he said the book would be free in his kickstarter project. He made more than the necessary amount on kickstarter and now he wants to maybe make some money off of it. I would highly recommend that, if he wants to make money, he instead set another kickstarter project (perhaps even with a similar output) coinciding with the release of the book and set a higher goal so he can feed him/his family if that is what is needed.
Deserve? If people all got what they "deserve" this world would be a very lonely place. From a natural selection point of view, if they can't do what it takes to survive, then they will die. It's not that they "deserved" it, it was just naturally going to happen. Much like we will all naturally die eventually...do any of us derserve to die? I don't know how to answer that. If someone in my family were unable to support themselves, I would absolutely do what I could to help them out. I don't want them to die just because they can't feed themselves. Do I think if my mother is disabled and unable to feed herself that the whole of society must be lawfully compelled to contribute to her sustenance? Not at all. That is draining the strong to prop up the weak. If you make that compulsory the society will collapse, no matter how large. I believe your right to choose how the fruits of your labor will be distributed are greater than the rights of someone else to take them regardless of the reason they may take them.
Whacky is subjective, yes, so an argument based on a subjective description is asking for an endless debate that goes no where but...within Christianity and other similar religions the concepts of heaven and/or hell as actual final destinations is very common and therefore from a societal norm perspective, not whacky. On the other hand, some people take "God's will" to mean they shouldn't try to use "earthly means" to intervene when a child becomes sick, even gravely ill, or they will handle poisonous snakes knowing that God will protect them if it is his will....those are not very common and therefore from a societal norm perspective are whacky. Heaven and hell's existence is impossible to prove or disprove. So is the existence of anything that exists only in stories. You can point to scientific evidence that certain things are implausible, or you can point to people who have near-death experiences, but neither of those actually prove anything about the existence of heaven and hell. How some people use the idea of heaven and hell doesn't make them any more or less real or literal. It MAY be evidence that heaven and hell were concocted as a population control mechanism, but there's only one way to find out, and I don't know how I'd report back on the results one way or another.
"the markup for it is rediculous"...saying it's ridiculous is your personal opinion. And if enough people won't pay it to where it's not profitable for them, then they'll adjust. That may mean lowering the rate, that may mean raising the rate for current customer base to see if they'll still pay it, that may mean adding value options to the service till enough people find it a worthwhile value, or that may mean they have to drop the service all together. As a customer you either think it is worthwhile and buy it, or you don't feel it is worthwhile and you don't buy it. You want an incredible markup? How about Soda and Beer? You can see the ridiculous markup in action when you note that it is sold at wildly different per-ounce prices depending on container and delivery method. A restaurant charges you $2.50 for free refill soda. You drink three of those and you've probably drank less than a 2-liter bottle that you can buy for 99 cents at the grocery store. And even that 99 cents is a 90% markup on the production cost of that one bottle. But people buy both. Some people don't want to pay $2.50 for soda at a restaurant so they opt for the free water. That's their choice. It is not your choice to force a business to lower its prices just because you don't want to pay that much. They have said 4G costs this much, would you like to buy it? Two answers you can give: Yes i would like to buy that service or No, I would not like to buy that service. Sure, in some industries there is room for bargaining, and sometimes if you call up a service company like this one they will have special deals, but in generally the question is still a yes or no. Not an acceptible answer: CRY CRY CRY THIS IS TOO HIGH PRICE THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!!!!!
Well...affirming belief in literal biblical creation, heaven and hell isn't exactly going off the whacky scale on religion. Those tend to be pretty much accepted tenants in some way of a majority of religions. Things like women on their periods needing to not have contact with anyone during that time, that may be a questionable literal thing...
Yes if you want 4G, you have to pay for it, OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS WHAT A CONCEPT! If you think that is unreasonable you are a complete idiot and will never understand why that the ONLY way things work.
I would answer your question but I don't know what you're asking. I do not know how much spectrum costs to buy or how much it costs to tear up a road, but there is some price that someone thought was reasonable enough to pay X for it. I was recently in the market to buy a new car. I had in mind what my budget was and what I thought was important, and I found several cars that were above my budget that had things that I wanted, while many that were well within my budget. I ended up buying something close to the top of my budget but that met everything I felt I needed in a car. I could say that the cost of manufacturing that car should mean car company could sell it for $5000 less and still make a "reasonable" profit. But I was willing to pay the price I paid (still very good deal compared to invoice/dealer invoice etc...). Not everyone can afford a 30+ thousand dollar car, but there enough of those people that will still buy a "lesser" car at a lower price that car companies find it worthwhile to sell lower end cars. That's why you don't see $500,000 cars filling up car lots, similarly you don't see $500 cars filling up new car lots. Do I have a RIGHT to buy a Ferrari on an Altima budget? Only if a company will sell me one for that. It may greatly improve my quality of life to own a ferrari, but an Altima does what I need and is within my budget. And if an Altima wasn't in my budget, a $500 clunker that gets me from point A to point B may be enough. Or I might have to use a bus or a taxi or car pool. No one...>NO ONE owes you anything unless it's an agreement between you and that person. That includes things that REALLY are essential like food and water. No company is responsible to feed you.
Be careful how hard you push the idea that these inalienable rights don't come from a creator. Because if you succeed in that declaration, then your inalienable rights may just start to be viewed as just some minor suggestions. Rights that have their basis just in mortal reason can always be bent to whatever a person or persons feel is appropriate. Groups like PETA try to protect what they feel are an animals rights, but most people see animals as subservient/sources of sustenance/just plain nuisance to be gotten rid of. Just because humans have an advanced, evolved ability to think and communicate doesn't make them any more worthy of any rights.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone can have a positive impact on the economy, over some finite time. What is a government program in existence today that actually contributes positively to the economy?
I am saying, and you know this but chose to pretend not to understand, that if someone actually nets negative, they don't get a check back from the government. That's risk. Even Roth IRA income is taxed eventually, it is just deferred. I don't even know what you're trying to say with the capital gains part of your response. So what? Day traders are taking on even more risk. Investments have a better chance of working out for you the longer you're willing to stick with them. You don't have an opportunity to make > 10% in regular investment as you MIGHT in Day Trading, but long term investment generally has less risk of negative return. Day Trading has a very high chance of losing principal.
Please enlighten me, and tell me how that communistic regime was destined to succeed...
You're calling my argument specious but you think we need to raise taxes to get back to a time where people didn't expect something for nothing? Raising tax rates on some and giving it to others is exactly what creates that expectation. I can't comment on your own personal financial situation, but if you feel more prosperous when paying more taxes, sign a check today making up the percentage you aren't paying now.
The USSR fell apart from how they tried to keep pace with the nuclear and space races. Fear will drive people only so far. And without people who take the time and money to be smart enough to build a rocket that can safely make it to the moon and back with human cargo, how would that have happened? Even mother russia can't threaten a fry cook into suddenly understanding how to build a solid fuel booster system. What the heck is escape velocity again?
I'm not saying people won't work, I'm saying they won't do anything other than bare minimum. You don't get a palm sized computer than can stream netflix movies from a country full of mediocrity. How blind can you be to what that would mean? Is across the board mediocrity actually better in your book than everyone having their own opportunity to move beyond what they are now?
Also the false ideology WILL crumble exactly as it does in the book. Those who are meaningfully creative may label themselves Liberal or Democratic now, but when they see their work stolen from them, I guarantee you that more of them than not will react in a very libertarian way. Warren Buffet can give 100% of his wealth and income to the government, but that is the tiniest drop in the bucket of their budget. But that's his choice. If Bill Gates was still in charge of Microsoft and the government came along as said he had to give Windows and MS Office away for free because people "needed" it, you think he would allow his business to be crushed by such a ridiculous request? If Ted Turner had to give up all but one of his company assets...one channel for example, do you think he's still going to feel like running a media empire? I mean it wasn't FAIR that he had such a large percentage of the market. Atlas Shrugged shows things happening on a pace that I think even someone with your delusions would be able to realize that something terrible was happening. But it happens much more insidiously that is portrayed by Rand. Good business owners adjust to try to maximize their profitability within whatever regulations the government cooks up. Sometimes it seems like a back and forth struggle with business gaining ground as often as they lose it. But in fact it's more like business takes 3 steps forward for every 4 steps back. Harder to notice that it's all moving backwards, and it may not look like a cliff behind them, but it gets pretty steep and even the most business savvy CEO will not be able to withstand a government that presumes to redistribute based on greater societal needs.
While my statement does have a similarity to the plot of Atlas Shrugged, it is just a fact, and i'm not using a fictional book as the basis of my argument. If you think people who make more should contribute more in taxes AND those who are able to hold onto more should then be taxed EVEN MORE you're full on proponent of redistribution. Pretending like there are limits/thresholds where the excessive taxation ends assumes that the need to continue to take more to prop up those who view government provided sustenance as their right will actually level off. It won't, it will just keep growing. Even if the government was as close to 100% efficient with redistribution as it could be, eventually that bar of $250K will edge lower and lower till no one is making more than middle of the middle class. Now tell me, do you really think people will contribute to that sort of societal rape at the same level as they do now? Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet would all be down to $50K per year just like everyone else. If you don't reward exceptionalism, you're rewarding the opposite. Bill Gates is known as a philanthropist because he gives a buttload of his hard earned money ON HIS OWN. Not because he's coerced by taxation. You people who think redistribution will work...I hope beyond hope you won't have to see the true utter end that will come from it. I hope you'll see before it goes too far that it should not exist even at a small level.
A lot of the details of Atlas Shrugged end up sounding a bit goofy today, almost a caricature of the conservative view of liberalism turned full on communist/socialist. And while I won't expect to ever find a hideout in the Rockies hidden from view by a massive cloaking system, you and everyone else will lose the creative genius that thrives in a free market. Not because they run off an hide, but because they will just lose the will to be exceptional when exceptional is seen as unfair to the less exceptional.
How is taxing income that comes with risk (investment income) more than income that comes with no risk (salary) fair? People lose money investing all the time, would they get those higher taxes back? Money being invested has already been taxed, why should it even be taxed again just because you invested it and it paid off? Let alone be taxed MORE or even the same as standard income? As far as the graduated tax brackets, those are also unfair. Why should anyone pay a higher percentage just because they earn more? They will already PAY more in number of dollars because they earn more.
The only thing the government can do to positively impact the economy over any scale of time is to back the hell off. Even if it somehow made sense to steal money from one person and give it to the other, every single thing the government does is done so utterly wastefully that any potential gain disappears. That means cut everyone's taxes and cut spending to match. You can whine all you want about taking away someone's government subsidies, but that's too flippin bad, people who are reliant on the government to sustain them will lose out regardless.
not interesting at all. It's an even WORSE "disparity" to even begin to consider an injustice. Please don't be confused by people who would try to tell you that anyone has any right to something someone else owns, it just isn't true.
So now you want to tax wealth? Get the hell out of here. A graduated income tax is bad enough. But saying that because someone keeps their money that is somehow an injustice to those who spend it? Bill Gates having $40Billion in the bank is not a crime or an injustice against John Doe who makes $7 an hour flipping burgers and has to live with his parents. You are a poisoned mind. A fool. You want to know what would happen if you attacked that wealth? Eventually no one would be motivated to do the things that being to earn them such wealth. Progress would stop dead. You wouldn't have any of the cool stuff technologically that you have today. Sure there may be an occasional person who comes up with a brilliant idea that advances some sector of industry or whatever, but what you really end up with is a bunch of people who will only do what is need to just get by because that's as much recognition for their work as they get. Think people will play NFL football for $35,000 a year? Not in this lifetime. This is just the stupidest concept you could have possibly brought to an already silly topic.
But you're not GIVING anybody anything. We're talking about not TAKING as much. Remember, they're taking money from people that is NOT theirs. And decided to give more back to people based on their need turns it from taxing to stealing.
That's why you give tax breaks to everybody and cut the size of government. Win-Win-Win
Let's see how many people engage in honest discussion about why the report would be requested to be removed. With only 10 comments having been posted when I read this one, look how many align with his concern: http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3227495&cid=41859301
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3227495&cid=41859311
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3227495&cid=41859329
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3227495&cid=41859353
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3227495&cid=41859379
Unlikely that it would have made it past unit testing.
I really don't mind that they keep trying to add different new and improved widgets to every gadget we have. They clearly don't have a foolproof way to truly understand how something would be useful to an end user without stumbling on it anyway. I see some of the things they do in SciFi (minority report for example) as someone trying to take a stab at what people will want to do/benefit from in the not to distant future. While some of it ends up being mimicked in reality, that often results in the realization that while it looked cool, no one finds it useful and it dies out. However, I am fine with them doing this. The creative process for making ground breaking advancements is often trial and error, and a lot of times the advancements come in a form different than the original idea intended. If they want to push the envelop with this vague notion of "being able to do all the things we couldn't do now due to low processing power" then by all means...go go go!
So he said the book would be free in his kickstarter project. He made more than the necessary amount on kickstarter and now he wants to maybe make some money off of it. I would highly recommend that, if he wants to make money, he instead set another kickstarter project (perhaps even with a similar output) coinciding with the release of the book and set a higher goal so he can feed him/his family if that is what is needed.
Deserve? If people all got what they "deserve" this world would be a very lonely place. From a natural selection point of view, if they can't do what it takes to survive, then they will die. It's not that they "deserved" it, it was just naturally going to happen. Much like we will all naturally die eventually...do any of us derserve to die? I don't know how to answer that. If someone in my family were unable to support themselves, I would absolutely do what I could to help them out. I don't want them to die just because they can't feed themselves. Do I think if my mother is disabled and unable to feed herself that the whole of society must be lawfully compelled to contribute to her sustenance? Not at all. That is draining the strong to prop up the weak. If you make that compulsory the society will collapse, no matter how large. I believe your right to choose how the fruits of your labor will be distributed are greater than the rights of someone else to take them regardless of the reason they may take them.
Whacky is subjective, yes, so an argument based on a subjective description is asking for an endless debate that goes no where but...within Christianity and other similar religions the concepts of heaven and/or hell as actual final destinations is very common and therefore from a societal norm perspective, not whacky. On the other hand, some people take "God's will" to mean they shouldn't try to use "earthly means" to intervene when a child becomes sick, even gravely ill, or they will handle poisonous snakes knowing that God will protect them if it is his will....those are not very common and therefore from a societal norm perspective are whacky. Heaven and hell's existence is impossible to prove or disprove. So is the existence of anything that exists only in stories. You can point to scientific evidence that certain things are implausible, or you can point to people who have near-death experiences, but neither of those actually prove anything about the existence of heaven and hell. How some people use the idea of heaven and hell doesn't make them any more or less real or literal. It MAY be evidence that heaven and hell were concocted as a population control mechanism, but there's only one way to find out, and I don't know how I'd report back on the results one way or another.
"the markup for it is rediculous" ...saying it's ridiculous is your personal opinion. And if enough people won't pay it to where it's not profitable for them, then they'll adjust. That may mean lowering the rate, that may mean raising the rate for current customer base to see if they'll still pay it, that may mean adding value options to the service till enough people find it a worthwhile value, or that may mean they have to drop the service all together. As a customer you either think it is worthwhile and buy it, or you don't feel it is worthwhile and you don't buy it. You want an incredible markup? How about Soda and Beer? You can see the ridiculous markup in action when you note that it is sold at wildly different per-ounce prices depending on container and delivery method. A restaurant charges you $2.50 for free refill soda. You drink three of those and you've probably drank less than a 2-liter bottle that you can buy for 99 cents at the grocery store. And even that 99 cents is a 90% markup on the production cost of that one bottle. But people buy both. Some people don't want to pay $2.50 for soda at a restaurant so they opt for the free water. That's their choice. It is not your choice to force a business to lower its prices just because you don't want to pay that much. They have said 4G costs this much, would you like to buy it? Two answers you can give: Yes i would like to buy that service or No, I would not like to buy that service. Sure, in some industries there is room for bargaining, and sometimes if you call up a service company like this one they will have special deals, but in generally the question is still a yes or no. Not an acceptible answer: CRY CRY CRY THIS IS TOO HIGH PRICE THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!!!!!
Well...affirming belief in literal biblical creation, heaven and hell isn't exactly going off the whacky scale on religion. Those tend to be pretty much accepted tenants in some way of a majority of religions. Things like women on their periods needing to not have contact with anyone during that time, that may be a questionable literal thing...
Yes if you want 4G, you have to pay for it, OH MY FREAKING GOODNESS WHAT A CONCEPT! If you think that is unreasonable you are a complete idiot and will never understand why that the ONLY way things work.
I would answer your question but I don't know what you're asking. I do not know how much spectrum costs to buy or how much it costs to tear up a road, but there is some price that someone thought was reasonable enough to pay X for it. I was recently in the market to buy a new car. I had in mind what my budget was and what I thought was important, and I found several cars that were above my budget that had things that I wanted, while many that were well within my budget. I ended up buying something close to the top of my budget but that met everything I felt I needed in a car. I could say that the cost of manufacturing that car should mean car company could sell it for $5000 less and still make a "reasonable" profit. But I was willing to pay the price I paid (still very good deal compared to invoice/dealer invoice etc...). Not everyone can afford a 30+ thousand dollar car, but there enough of those people that will still buy a "lesser" car at a lower price that car companies find it worthwhile to sell lower end cars. That's why you don't see $500,000 cars filling up car lots, similarly you don't see $500 cars filling up new car lots. Do I have a RIGHT to buy a Ferrari on an Altima budget? Only if a company will sell me one for that. It may greatly improve my quality of life to own a ferrari, but an Altima does what I need and is within my budget. And if an Altima wasn't in my budget, a $500 clunker that gets me from point A to point B may be enough. Or I might have to use a bus or a taxi or car pool. No one...>NO ONE owes you anything unless it's an agreement between you and that person. That includes things that REALLY are essential like food and water. No company is responsible to feed you.
Be careful how hard you push the idea that these inalienable rights don't come from a creator. Because if you succeed in that declaration, then your inalienable rights may just start to be viewed as just some minor suggestions. Rights that have their basis just in mortal reason can always be bent to whatever a person or persons feel is appropriate. Groups like PETA try to protect what they feel are an animals rights, but most people see animals as subservient/sources of sustenance/just plain nuisance to be gotten rid of. Just because humans have an advanced, evolved ability to think and communicate doesn't make them any more worthy of any rights.