Rights and freedoms

This cartoon (via Donald Sensing) is a simple and mostly right. But it's less right for being so simple. The "adults" in both frames are actually correct.

The "old-style conservative" (a tautology, I know) in the top frame is talking about the freedom of doing what you consider right. Things like speaking your mind, associating with the people you consider good, or worshiping the supreme being of your choice, including Nonesuch. Those freedoms can be taken by force, but they are not given by any government. You have them because that's how you think.

The "liberal" in the bottom frame is also right. The government nowadays gives you many rights. The right to pension in the old age, the right not to be hungry and homeless even if you don't work, the right to medical attention whether you can pay the doctor or not. These are the rights that government gives you. They used to be alms, things that religious people had to contribute because their religion said so. Nowadays they are ... still alms, but extracted by IRS. You can have them because other people think you have them. And yes, if you have a scrap of decency, those other people do have a claim on your time and effort.

If conservatives want to have a good discussion, they need to clearly separate the freedoms that the top frame talks about, and the rights (entitlements?) that the bottom frame refers to. Those things are governed by different rules even if we use the same word for them.