Jim Kalb has a good piece on the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It needs to be revisited and rewritten. It would be nice if there were a realistic set of agreed-upon universal human rights that the international community could genuinely use. Many of the rights are in the UDHR are socialist agenda items that American would find abhorent. Americans tend to think in terms of rights that protect individuals from their government. The socialistic items are in terms of what individuals can demand of their governments. But the only way governments can provide for such universal entitlements is by appropriating resources from its citizens. So ironically, the best way to provide for maximum freedom is to minimize entitlements. In America, there is no ground floor of minimum entitlement but a patchwork of charities and welfare for those at the bottom of the ladder. Some, invariably fall through the cracks. I think it would be more appropriate to establish a bare minimum entitlement safety net such that the laziest or least capable adult in the country has sufficient nutrition to maintain life, a bare minimum of housing, and a minimum standard of medical care. Children should have a sufficient entitlement that they have reasonable chance of becoming productive citizens instead of lifetime burdens on the state. One could call this tempered liberalism. Individuals still have incentive and opportunity to succeed or fail in the economic world but with a safety net that puts a limit on the damage of complete failure. In regards to children, it would remove a great portion of the underclass that develops due to inescable poverty. Right-wingers and libertarians should note that the any benefit received in this plan by those who are far enough up the ladder to not use the safety net translates into more income to inject into the economy or help mitigate their share of the taxes.