The Internet Could Be A Right Like Voting Someday

My friends Ned and Jamelle together make an intriguing argument about the internet: it could become a human right. Now hear me out here. The internet is becoming increasingly necessary to interact at any normal level with the rest of the world. Think about it school wise. If you’re a student here at Michigan but don’t have any access to the internet (which is impossible because there are computers all over the place here) then it’s near impossible to do well in any of your classes. As a student, internet access is a right. This could be true for society as a whole. Ned hits the point home:

There’s a tendency in certain circles to think of human rights as being “natural” rights, or rights that somehow existed prior to civilization. You sometimes see this used as an counterargument against the concept of positive rights; most recently the positive right to some basic level of health care coverage.

But I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to talk about natural rights. The right to vote that Jamelle brings up is a pretty good example of why; does it really make sense to talk about the right to vote existing prior to anything to vote for? Can someone have the right to a fair trial before the existence of a criminal justice system?

—Daniel Strauss