There's a word that starts with N and is very offensive to me in many contexts. We'd all be better off if it were used less frequently. I'm talking about "need".

Sometimes we hear about what people need.

"People need help with their mortgages"
"People need more affordable health care"

Sometimes we hear about what people don't need.

"No one needs a powerful gun like that"
"He doesn't need that much money"

I agree with these statements most of the time. Hell, let's pretend such statements are always completely true. So what? The fact that you need something does not make anyone else owe it to you. And you can't take something from another person by force simply because you need it. Who thinks this way?

On the other side of the coin, you can't take something from another person just because you've decided that they don't need it. How do you know for sure and what business is it of yours anyway? You don't need a blue shirt. If we're going to ban or confiscate things on the basis that they aren't needed, why are you allowed to have blue shirts? Can't you get by with green or black ones? This is retarded. How is the lack of a need even remotely considered justification for taking a thing?

What people need and what they have the authority to take are completely unrelated. What we each need is a lot. What we have the authority to take is absolutely nothing. What we get to keep is anything and everything we've earned. Needs are therefore irrelevant to public policy. This seems so obvious, and yet, the N word is probably the most common argument for policies that violate our rights. Why do we continue to accept it?

The bottom line is this: When a person's needs go unmet, that's unfortunate. When you intentionally take something from another, that's unacceptable. Unfortunate never wins out over unacceptable. The unacceptable is, by definition, not one of your options.