Let's debunk one of liberals' belief — healthcare should be a fundamental right

So, if you have more than enough food, and another person has none, does giving them the portion you don't need violate your rights? Have you ever given to charity? Isn't this a matter of principle rather than an argument about 'rights'?

 

Losing your property through force of government is not charity, it is theft.

 

Of course it doesn't.

However, if I take your belongings in order to give them to a hungry person, then I have most definitely violated your rights.

 

But if everyone contributes to feed a hungry person, is this also a violation of rights?

 

As I just said, choosing to contribute toward feeding someone is a voluntary choice. A person doesn't violate his own rights by choosing to give gifts.

 

We're talking about taxation, not "losing your property through force of government."

 

How are they different?

 

We may have to agree to disagree on this point, as I do not see taxation as theft, but rather a necessary part of living in a society. Nobody is being forced to stick around and pay taxes. At any time, you can get up and leave the country, find some taxation-less island or nation (Somalia, maybe?) and live there without having to concern yourself with having your money "forcibly stolen" from you to pay for the roads and bridges you drive on, the schools you send your kids to, the protection of your rights.

Anyone who chooses to remain here knowing that to do so means paying taxes has agreed to the basics of the social contract: you live here, you pay to run here.

No force, no theft. You choose to live here, you pay taxes. You don't want to pay taxes, nobody is stopping you from moving somewhere where you won't have to pay taxes.

 

I bet that's the same speech that Luigi gives the shopkeepers in the neighborhood when he makes the rounds to collect his protection money.

 

People pay taxes for the military, no difference. The taxation is theft argument is only valid if it applies 100% of the time - meaning no military. What makes single payer healthcare so different than any other taxpayer funded enterprise?

 

Are you forced to live in America?

 

I would argue that a "human right" (entitlement) granted by government cannot violate an inalienable Right which supersedes the authority of government.

 

No I'm not.

Listen, I'm not complaining about my situation. I am explaining why I will not support inflicting taxes on others. I am not going to force people to make the choice between having their belongings taken or being run off their land. That why I will not throw my support behind laws that take the property of others.

 

There is no difference. They are the same in that they are funded by property forcibly taken by the government.

 

So you support privatizing the military then? No one's tax dollars go to fund other people's defense - people have to hire their own private military contractors if they want to defend themselves against terror - great plan.

 

Okay then, my point is solid

I understand and respect that. My point is simply that nobody is forced to live in a nation that levies taxes on its citizenry, they are free to move to a nation that does not tax its citizens, so living in a country that levies taxes is a choice and an unspoken allowance for the government to tax you.

Thus, no force, no theft.

 

Yes, people are free to leave, if they have the means to do so.

However, there's no way that I am going to be the one who says, "Either give me your property or leave." I would feel like the wife beater who claims what he's doing is fine because if his wife really didn't like it she would leave him.

My ethics don't allow me to further my own agenda by violating the rights of others, even if they could arrange to avoid my attacks by fleeing beyond my reach.

 

So are you saying that you feel you have the right to take the possessions of others to pay for your defense? I would not, nor would I advocate for such theft.

 

In my opinion, Due Process, is a fundamental right. Denying and disparaging our individual liberty through public policy schemes should never be tolerated in any free State. The point I am trying to make is that the rule of law should not be held hostage to misguided morals by persons of only alleged morals. The concept and legal doctrine of employment at will is an example.

We should be solving poverty in our republic and better ensuring full employment of resources in the market for labor, such that we also solve for official poverty in our money based system of markets and political economy.

What excuse could any civil person have in our republic have for not taking better care of themselves, if they are not in official poverty?

 

When it comes to the problem of unaffordable healthcare, the fact that you attack the poor instead of the privileged speaks volumes about your political alignment. You would apparently rather watch children die in the street, than speak one ill word against the privileges which make healthcare completely unaffordable to so many hard working and productive people.

Suppose that some day the ‘American Medical Association’ decides that it will only issue medical licenses to individuals who complete 45 years of college training. Suppose this new “improved” regulation creates so much scarcity of medical service providers that the average doctor “earns” $75 million a year. Suppose that at this level of scarcity, that even you cannot afford to hire a doctor. Are you going to just sit back and watch your children die because you cannot afford to pay a doctor $340,000 for an office call, in order to obtain his permission to buy $6 worth of penicillin?

While the scenario above is an exaggeration of the current regulatory privileges enjoyed by the medical profession and the governing body it employs, it is none the less an exact description of how these privileges are making healthcare unaffordable to consumers. The fact that you are lashing out at the poor, while making no mention of the privileges employed by the healthcare monopolists, is proof positive that you care not one shred about the ideals of freedom and liberty. Until the day that you redirect the focus of your argument, such that it include criticism against privilege, I will hold you and your argument as nothing more than an attempt to rationalize murder.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with your criticism of such government coercion. I advocate that people should be able to purchase medical care from whomever they wish. It's none of government's business, nor is it legitimate for government to grant special privileges in order to drive up prices.

 

We do as it is. Who do you think pays for the military? You think they protect you for "free"?

Even if someone pays no taxes, the military defends their freedoms in the event of invasion just as equally as those who pay the highest income tax rates. So people who pay taxes are "coerced" into using their own money to pay for the defense of those who pay no taxes.

So if your argument against single payer care is that "it's taxation/theft/coersion/etc" that's a failed argument, unless you believe in no taxation or taxpayer-funded ventures whatsoever (military included).

Make a case for why single-payer care is so much more an unjust form of taxation than the military is.

 

Ah, the usual strawman fallacy argument. Statists seeks moral contempt and accuse others of wanting people to die because they believe in freedom and not tyranny.

 

It is only a failed argument for those that have contempt for natural rights. Government is supposed to be an extension of the people so to try to equate a natural right, the right of self defense, to a granted right, the right to other peoples property is the failed argument. We band together to do those things we can do for ourselves but not on the same scale, such as self defense or building roads but not to break the same laws that we would break if we did the same thing, taking from others to give to those we deem more worthy.

 

The other people's property is tax dollars. The tax dollars of the wealthy are used to fund the self-defense of those who pay no taxes, it's the same thing.

By the same standard, the military is a "socialist" institution. People should have to hire private military contractors to defend themselves in warfare, rather than receive defense with other people's money.

This is more of the same - the entire natural rights dogma doesn't seem to have problem with obvious exceptions, so it's a poor argument against single payer care.

The hardline natural rights dogmatist position is going to die off and be relegated to a fringe movement within the near future, because it's a "one argument fits all" situation (minus the blatant exceptions such as military funding) that ignores reality and common sense, in favor of an absurd slippery slope fallacy. If we'd grown up with single payer healthcare as an institution, we'd have no problem with it and not think of it as "socialism" or "coercion" any more than we do the military, the post office, public highways, etc - it's pure emotion and religious dogmatism over reason.