This weekend, NPR interviewed Representative Adrian Smith, Republican of Nebraska, and asked him a gotcha question. Is every American entitled to eat? The segment was about cutting food stamps, and NPR's agenda was clear. Show that Republicans don't care if Americans starve, which is why they want to cut food stamps. Smith answered, well, they, nutrition, obviously, we know is very important, and I would hope that we can look to, it is essential. It is essential. This was not enough for the media who declared Smith a Dunderhead. After all, doesn't everyone have the right to food? Now, imagine a land where there's a right to food, housing and health care. Imagine that such rights were enshrined in the constitution of that land. That would mean that everyone in the land could live free without the burden of worry over such basic resources, right? No. The South African Constitution guarantees a right to all of these

commodities. In fact, the Constitution even creates a legal duty for the government to help secure

such commodities. Yet there are some 11 million food insecure people in the country, including

1.5 million children with chronic malnutrition

and growth stunting. Life expectancy in South Africa is 57 years. There are currently 12 million

people in the country without adequate housing. The population of South Africa is about 55 million

people. Declaring a commodity a right, it is obvious, does not make that commodity materialize,

and it certainly doesn't make it materialized in the most efficient fashion. Markets make commodities materialize in the most efficient

fashion. In the United States, nine out of ten Americans live above the global poverty standard.

96% of poor parents say their children were never hungry in the past year, according to

scholars at the Heritage Foundation, and a poor child is more likely to have

a cable TV, a computer, a widescreen plasma TV, an Xbox or a TiVo in the home than to be hungry.

Even the Department of Agriculture, the government agency responsible for administration of food stamps,

upon which approximately 15% of Americans now rely, admit that well under 6% of Americans' households

have to worry even about decreased

calorie consumption. Want to know what fills the gap for Americans when they're poor? Feeding America,

a private charity that receives $900 million per year in food donations, the vast bulk from private

companies. In fact, there is a strong link between food stamps and obesity. So, is America

worse off than South Africa, despite our

Constitution not mandating food is a right? Of course not. We're significantly better off,

because it turns out that using government to confiscate wealth from the very people who produce

cheaper and more plentiful products ends up exacerbating scarcity. Declaring things rights

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