When there's no clarity about what is and isn't a right, you get tyranny

You knew some Freedom-Hater would come up with this:

Rep. Ilhan Omar said she plans to introduce a "Homes For All" bill that she hopes will guarantee a home for every person in the U.S. 

"It is a moral stain on our country that we have half-a-million or more people facing homelessness," the Minnesota Democrat said Thursday at a congressional town hall for women of color. "In a few weeks, we are going to introduce our 'Homes For All' legislation, which will, hopefully, guarantee a home for everyone." 

Omar said homes would be guaranteed by having the federal government invest "in the creation of millions of homes." She added that Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and "the squad" would be joining her in sponsoring the bill. 

"I am really excited for the opportunity to work on this legislation and get it done so that we don’t have an Ilhan that arrives in America and gets to see — have it be the first thing she sees, people sleeping on the side of the streets in a country where people come to seek prosperity and hope," she added.

The discussion of the fact that those "sleeping on the sides of the streets" have addiction issues and mental illnesses is important to include in the overall conversation about this wacky initiative going forward, but for now, let's focus on what she's predicating this on. She thinks having a home is a right.

It 's impossible for it to be a right for the same reason that it's impossible for health care or having a job to be a right. We have no right to the effort of our fellow human being. Foundation-pourers, flatwork crews, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and roofers have to be lined up. And practitioners of those arts only exists because there are people motivated to become such practitioners. It sounds theoretical, but the question must be asked: What if, starting tomorrow, nobody in the world wanted to be any of those things? How would anybody exercise this "right" to a house? Would the government make certain people go into those  fields?

And then there is the matter of choice. Government is going to hand all these people without homes a particular domicile and say, "Here's your place to live, comrade. Move in." Never mind the matter of preference. If you want a side courtyard, or a day room off of the kitchen, or a walk-in basement - well, you don't get to shop around and find those features. Without competition, nobody's busting his tail to come as close as possible to your desired array of features.

Then there's the redistribution aspect. Government is going to take your hard-earned money at gunpoint to put somebody else in a house. And anytime the state is taking Citizen A's money to address the wants or even needs of Citizen B, Citizen A has lost control over what was his. It's called redistribution.

It will be interesting to see how far this cockamamie stunt goes, given that it joins Medicare for All, college loan forgiveness, and a raft of other goodies as shiny campaign-season objects being dangled before the post-American public, which, for all its dulled senses, still understands, at least to some degree, that none of this is affordable.

But that's the secondary matter. The first principle that's relevant here is the imperiling of basic freedom.