Ed Morrissey explains. But people who don’t understand, or care about the Constitution (like this Congressman who is apparently in perpetual violation of his oath of office) won’t get it. And I liked the question about whether sex is a human right. If I was asking that question of a clueless attractive female, I’d follow up with, “Then you’ll have sex with me, right? Let’s go find a room.” And if/when she refused, I’d accuse her of violating my human rights. Or she’d have sex with me. So it would be win-win.
78 thoughts on “Why Health Care Is Not A Right”
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Health is legally defined as a human right in the UNDHR, which the United States joined, and the US has signed (but not ratified) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In most of the OECD it is uncontroversial.
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Duncan, you are literally a day late and perhaps a dollar short. Scroll up. If you’d like to add something to the discussion (such as the degree to which other people must supply you with everything you need in life free of charge), go right ahead.
In addition, the idea of a deep libertarian commitment to non-coersive principles by a collection of plantation owners in the 1780’s is somewhat suspect…
…, but only if you take modern notions of personhood for granted.
In response to my critique of Chris Gerrib’s democracy-uber-alles defense of legalized pocket-picking, to wit:
“Apparently if fifty-per-cent-plus-one of the populace elect enough thieves and theocrats to office, whatever the thieves and theocrats do is right because the majority elected them.”
. . . Rand comments:
That’s because Chris, like most statists, believes in neither enumerated powers, the Constitution, or any limits on government.”
If you want to see the dfference between a republic and a democracy, Chris Gerrib is your man. All he’s done is update the old doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings to the Divine Right of Mobocracies.
Even stupider, if that’s possible, is Duncan Young letting us know that health care is guaranteed to all by the UN. Well, that settles it! If that bastion of liberty defines something as a “right” then a right it must be!
“
Let me bottom-line this, although I’m sure Chris will find someway to miss the point, or pretend to. (On the other hand, Trent Waddington and Damon Young’s lack of comprehension will be 100% sincere.)
Let’s say a time machine transported you, Chris Gerrib, back in the days of the Early Republic when the government was run along more Lockean lines and the idea that health care was a “right” that the taxpayers had to provide would have been considered the ravings of the village idiot. You don’t like this; you want to force people to pay for other people’s health care, but you know if you go Robin Hood on them you’ll probably end up on the end of a rope. * So you want to elect hired guns–i.e., politicians–to do the looting for you. Now . . . how do you make a case to the electorate that the government has a right to tax them to provide for other people’s health care.
Remember–in this scenario, you can’t make your usual might-is-right case by saying, “Well, the electorate voted for politicians and the politicians enacted it.” (Because, you know, that makes everything right!) That hasn’t happened yet. It’s still a time in the country’s history when the government was severely limited as to what it could do. So prove to me, Farmer Bilwick, that you or your elected goons have a right to hold a blunderbuss to my head?
Let the shifting-sands and straw men arguments commence!
(*Or “Jerked to Jesus,” as they used to say–in which case Jesus will probably greet you with, “You putz–why on Earth did you think my parable of the Good Samaritan meant you had a right to force people to be charitable? Didn’t MY Father give you a brain when he created you???”)
Bilwick1 – I have explicitly stated that I do not think health care is a right. Considering the extremely limited medical knowledge of 1780, back when they bled people to cure fevers, I’m not sure I could make the case that taxpayer money should be spent on health care.
Regarding the blunderbuss, I do have the right to tax you. See, for example, the Whiskey Rebellion, when one G. Washington took an army to Pensylvania to collect an unpopular tax on whiskey. Said tax was assessed specifically to repay people who had loaned money to support the Revolution.
Congratufulations, Chris! I thought I had set up as pretty air-tight scenario with no weasel room, but you found it! (Like the state of health care circa 1810 is of any relevance to the question.) You keep saying “health care is not a right,” yet you are willing to force people to provide it. Not that I expect logical consistency from you, but I don’t think “not a right” means what you think it means.
Re the Whiskey Rebellion . . . has it occurred to you that in that situation, like his slaveholding, one G. Washington might have been wrong? And what is your point, anyway? That whatever the State does, or has done, must be right?
I don’t want Chris to hijack the narrative into a discussion of the Whiskey Rebellion (I’d rather he use that energy to try to prove why he has the right to force A to pay for B’s health care, and so far the Whiskey Rebellion, invocations of Jesus, and appeals to the Divine Right of Majorities are the best he can come up with), but for those interested in a pro-freedom look at the Whiskey Rebellion, here’s something of interest:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard1.html
Bilwick1 – is fire protection a right? No, but we force people to pay taxes so we can provide it.
Now, if you want to argue that governments shouldn’t exist, or shouldn’t be allowed to pay for themselves or enforce their own law, which seems to be the thrust of the Rockwell link, so be it. Feel free to go live in some anarchistic garden spot – I hear Somalia is lovely this time of year.
Chris, Somalia isn’t an anarchy. Just because the rulers are thugs and warlords doesn’t mean that there are no rulers (which is what an-archy literally means). If you want to see what anarchy really looks like, check out 600 years of Iceland’s history. Or the American frontier ca. 1800.
While you’re doing your research, perhaps you can find the clause in the US Constitution that allows congress to force people to buy a commercial product. None of us can find it. I suspect that is because there is no such power granted to Congress. It makes as much sense as Congress seeking to meet Kyoto targets by mandating a reduction in the boiling point of water.
is fire protection a right? No, but we force people to pay taxes so we can provide it.
No. “we” don’t. “We the people” do not force people to pay for fire protection. Local muncipalities, a corporation of local people, decide to collaborate to pay for fire protection. Why does the moron keep trying to use a local issue to suggest the federal government has the authority to do something it never has done?
Leland – I use fire protection as an example of a service we pay for that is not a right. Social Security is not a right, but we pay for it. The services of the FBI are not a right, but we pay for it.
Congress has the authority to reform health care under the Commerce and General Welfare clauses. There is no clause that says Congress can’t reform health care.
General Welfare clauses
Trying to invalidate the United States vs Butler? I guess you are just like the 1930’s Progressives who didn’t like the Supreme Court decision, and now want to stack the court.
I called it long ago, Gerrib isn’t interested in individual freedoms. This is just more evidence of it.
I called it long ago, Gerrib isn’t interested in individual freedoms.
While this is patently absurd, he’d be in pretty good company with the majority of the population of the liberal democracies.
To quote the great Terry Pratchett’s marvellous Havelock Vetinari when confronted by a business leader who was “big” on freedom being the natural state of humans…
“… it is also natural for humans to live in trees to hide from the wild animals…”
We’ve got LOTS of examples of the maximization of individual freedom and it’s really not all that pretty.
And, seriously, would you rather live somewhere where there was limited government and maximum personal liberty?
Oh and by the way. That piece? Geez. What a piece of circular reasoning twaddle dressed up as comment.
Reminds me of the piece I read today on how women had more rights in the 19th century with a side order of how blacks should be grateful to slavery for getting them out of Africa.
People can justify the most amazing things if they put their mind to it.
There is no clause that says Congress can’t reform health care.
10. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And, seriously, would you rather live somewhere where there was limited government and maximum personal liberty?
I want to live where doctors and nurses are not expected to treat people for free, simply because the doctors and nurses choose a profession that required a lot of time and effort to learn and some fascist thinks it immoral not to provide healthcare to everybody on demand.
Leland – welcome to America – here we don’t expect doctors and nurses to work for free.
here we don’t expect doctors and nurses to work for free.
Really? Some of your fellow Progressives disagree, yet you argue with me.
First, doctors and nurses take an oath that they will treat the sick regardless of whether or not they can pay, grocers don’t. But, more importantly, force used to induce a doctor or a nurse to treat a patient without their consent is necessarily direct.
As if said many times, Gerrib, you seem not to have reading comprehension skills, and therefore don’t seem to know what you are supporting. Read the bill, read what your fellow progressives are supporting. Because you are working to take away freedoms. And yes, you are a progressive, because the concept of liberty can not be used to describe the stance you are taking.
“And, seriously, would you rather live somewhere where there was limited government and maximum personal liberty?”
Except for sadomasochistic, self-loathing State-fellators, who wouldn’t? Especially since such a society would be more prosperous than any run along the principles taught at the Chris Gerrib/Bozo the Clown School of Economics.
We used to have such a society. It was called “the United State of America.”
Daveon writes:
“People can justify the most amazing things if they put their mind to it.”
Yeah, like statism.
“As if said many times, Gerrib, you seem not to have reading comprehension skills. . . ”
I wonder, Leland. Many times I suspect it’s just his way of avoiding any point that would require a logical response.
Here are some interesting comments from some “reasonable men” on the issues discussed here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2010/04/13/reasonable-men/
Of course, these guys were slave-owners so everything they said or wrote is by definition untrue. Oh, wait–the Adamses, Hamilton and Franklin weren’t; in fact they were anti-slavery. And if they said or did anything inconsistent with their essential classical-liberal beliefs, then of course that meant they were proto-socialists.
Bilwick1 & Leland – from Trent’s post As interesting as this is to think about, its totally irrelevant to the matter of health care.
In other words, Trent is not arguing to force doctors to provide free care. He’s arguing (and I explicitly disagree with) that health care should be a right and (what I DO agree with) that we ought to make sure all Americans can afford it.
Reading comprehension – I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.
Sure Chris, let’s make sure all Americans can afford it by adding multiple layers of bureaucracy and removing the downward pressures on price provided by the free market. Yeah, that’ll work – it’s never worked before in the history of the world, but now we have Obama.
“In other words, Trent is not arguing to force doctors to provide free care. . . .”
I don’t thiink I said that Trent was arguing that; although with his “immoral morality,” he seemed to implying it would be okay to do so, if we couldn’t apply the force elsewhere, indirectly. “Nice practice you have here, Dr. Galt. Maybe you should thinkl twice about not supporting ObamaCare. It’d be a shame if some government thugs had to force you to work for free. Now, I’m not saying they SHOULD do that . . . I think we can work out an agreement so that things are handled more pleasantly for both of us, if you catch my drift.”
If that isn’t his implication, he needs to work on his writing skills the way you need to work on reading comprehension, logic, economics and American history, They say “clear writing comes from clear thinking,” and clear thinking is obvious not his forte.
(what I DO agree with) that we ought to make sure all Americans can afford it.
Neither of you are making that argument. If you were making that argument, you’d be talking about how to employ more people such that they can earn an income to afford healthcare.
You’re argument is that others should be forced to pay to subsidize healthcare (that’s what universal healthcare is), so that some don’t have to pay. Further, if a person could afford both to subsidize others and their own healthcare but don’t want to pay for healthcare, they should be forced to pay for it anyway. And in Trent’s case, anything otherwise is immoral.