“Fundamental” “Rights”

One of the reasons I always look askance when someone describes a policy position in terms of fundamental rights is this ridiculous story and others like it:

The poll, which collated the answers from more than 27,000 people across 26 countries and was conducted on behalf of the BBC World Service, found that 87 per cent of interne t users felt that web access should be a basic right. More than 70 per cent of non-users felt they should have access to the net.

In Japan, Mexico and Russia, nearly 75 per cent of respondents said they could not cope without their internet connection. Ninety per cent of those polled in Turkey believed web access was a fundamental human right, making it the strongest supporter of the widely held sentiment.

The respondents to this poll who claimed that having access to the Internet is a fundamental human right are all ri-goddamn-diculous. So let’s say you can’t afford the Internet (or maybe you can’t afford it after paying rent/for food/for a cell phone/for cable/for Netflix): Someone’s supposed to just give it to you, free of charge? Because that’s what they’re saying when they call something a “fundamental human right,” akin to freedom of speech or religion. It’s the same argument you hear with health care, that it’s a fundamental human right, which is similarly ridiculous. Having access to a good or service provided by others regardless of your ability to pay for it is not a fundamental human right. I’m sorry, it just isn’t. Even if that means you won’t be able to surf the web.