Moreover, entitlements are always financed by compelling others to pay. Thus, they lead to more and more interference with individual freedom as government grows in size to administer its programs, seizing the fruits of individuals' actions both to support itself and to fulfill its entitlement guarantees. In other words, there is a hard and fast difference between rights and entitlements, a difference which the past seventy years of government policy has blurred to the point of indistinguishability. A free society must recognize the distinction. Otherwise, it has no way of knowing which claims of rights to acknowledge and which to reject as spurious.
Legitimate rights are easy to recognize.
They can be acted on by individuals without the assistance of government and without forcibly interfering with other individuals. Entitlements, on the other hand, cannot be fulfilled except through specific government actions which require forcible interference with others. Protecting rights is thus compatible with limited government. Granting entitlements requires an ever-expanding and increasingly meddlesome state. The more entitlements the state grants, the more it must extend itself to make good on its promises, and the greater its level of interference with people's actions.