Is it possible you've created a false dichotomy here? Or maybe you're confusing positive rights and negative rights?

When I say someone has the right to life and property, I mean they have the right to obtain those things without someone else blocking them, assuming their actions to obtain them didn't violate the non-aggression principle. These are negative rights. More on that here.

When you talk about "right to life" you seem to imply to me it's a positive right in that others have a duty to guarantee some amount of life to you. That creates conflicts and slippery slopes. Safety and physical protection is implied, but then we can extend it to food, water, clothing, shelter, healthcare... maybe even transportation? Very quickly (to me) it becomes obvious that these "rights" are now opposing duties on others which infringes on their liberties. I'm all for the freedom of movement (a negative right), but I can't condone forcing someone else to give me a ride.

The false dichotomy you mention, I think, relates to a government monopoly on force represented as the police force as being the only way someone can maintain their negative right to life. Detroit Threat Management is an example of alternative solutions which, to me, are far more effective and completely voluntary.

So if we're going to stop at negative rights, what next? Many progressives think we'll just have a terrible world with individuals dying in the streets or marauders raping and pillaging. This, to me, is silly. Steven Pinker's work shows how the world is getting better and safer. He attributes it in large part to the Hobbesian Leviathan, but I think he under-values the role of our increasing circle of empathy as a species. Just as the novel increased our awareness and connectedness, the Internet is doing the same thing. Human beings (according to ideas like non-violent communication, NVC) love to meet the needs of others. Violence is just a tragic expression of an unmet need. If we had better mechanisms in place (I'd argue voluntary ones), then I think we'd see an much greater increase in human well-being and we could all take personal responsibility caring for and protecting those who can't care for or protect themselves. This isn't utopian dream thinking or over-simplification. To me, it's grounded in how human beings actually and naturally function when removed from the myth of authority.

I hesitate to share all these views with you as I perceive you disagree agree strongly with some of them, and I don't wish to alienate you or your audience. I find you to be an intelligent, rational person who I enjoy interacting with, so I think we could have a lot of fun talking through these details more to better understand each other and ourselves. Even if we disagree, I think we can learn and benefit from continued dialogue.

The challenge, I think, is many push in one direction (i.e. more government welfare programs) which others belief actually makes the problems which are supposedly being solved by such programs worse. That creates a lot of conflict when one group says "We need more X!" and the other group says, "Don't you see X is actually contributing to the very problem you claim to care about!?!" That's what many conversations between those who support government and those who don't boil down to. The key, I think, is to press through that uncomfortable surface layer and dig deeper into what most people in these camps actually want: an increase in human well-being. The more we can measure and understand that, the more we can (hopefully) start to agree on what works, what doesn't, and what has unintended consequences.

I put some thoughts down a while back on how to improve the world from my perspective. I'm curious if you have something similar I could read? I do love talking to people who actually care about this stuff. :)