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| In reply to an email invitation from my buddy, I said this: ***************** [buddy], Thanks for the invite, but I'm against nationalized or universal health care for philosophical reasons. Let me give you a brief introduction to them, so that you might understand why I would be uninterested -- as a matter of principle -- in arguments for a "public option." If humans had a right to health care, then they'd have a right to 'part of' the life of others (the doctors and nurses, etc). That'd mean that they'd have a right to 'partial-slavery.' If patients ever greatly outnumbered doctors (say 1000-to-1 or more), then the doctors would actually 'be' slaves -- each with over a thousand patients taking up all of their otherwise-free time. The public option argument is about getting everyone covered as if they had a right to the time and energy of others (of those working in health care). It is contradictory to say that someone has the right to make slaves of others. Ed ****************** And here is my reply to his reply to this reply (of mine). In the spirit of knowing what you stand for and knowing the arguments of potential value-enemies, it may provide you with insight or inspiration: ******************** [buddy], I respectfully disagree. You say: You're way out there on this one. This should be about creating a system for actions that are already being taken. Right now uninsured residents (even nonresidents) of the US walk into hospitals and we (the tax payers) pay for their expense. My retort to this is that uninsured residents and nonresidents shouldn't be getting "free" care in the first place. By what right do they have claim to the time and energy of others? Your argument is like the "two wrongs make a right" fallacy, only you don't seem to totally come out and say that it's wrong for folks to keep us on the hook like that for their health care costs. I do. I say that it's wrong for us to help them for free (unconditionally), but that doesn't make it right for us to help them for free, bot only to do so more efficiently (by spreading the sacrifice more evenly across the nation). If helping folks unconditionally isn't morally right in the first place, then doing it "more efficiently" isn't an improvement. Think about something morally wrong, like a barbarian killing hordes of people. Now think about having a talk with this barbarian, but not for him to actually change his ways and give up on killing folks, but rather simply for him to kill them "more compassionately." You seem to accept the wrong act instead of standing against it, but merely try to minimize the pain of it. You said prevention is cheaper than treatment and I agree, but -- unless "national health care" becomes NAZI-like and forces folks to exercise et al. as Hitler did (rent the movie "1984", based on George Orwell's novel, to see "Big Brother" forcing folks to do this) -- then that is merely a distracting side-issue. If can be shown to be good then it should be, rather than forcing it down anyone's throat. Over 100 million people were killed last century in the "experiment" with communism, because communism wasn't sold to people -- it was forced on them. You say: From a business standpoint. it would make sense to have a system in place for all of this unpaid health care. My retort is that from a moral standpoint, there shouldn't be unpaid health care. Going back to the barbarian analogy: From a PR standpoint, it would make sense for a barbarian to advertise that he kills compassionately. But it doesn't make it any more right to kill them. This is like the argument that everyone has a right to a house (a product of someone else's time and labor). It's the same line of thinking that allowed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ultimately (read: indirectly) underwrite $600 Billion in over-investments in housing. If you over-invest $600 Billion into anything, then you will get a recession/depression (like we have now). Fannie and Freddie were basically "a system in place for all of these high-risk house loans." It didn't help because it couldn't help -- because you can't sustainably give something for nothing, etc. Folks who give or take unconditionally end up broke and powerless. Besides parenting, human relationships should be conditional (based on a "give and take" of values). Not only should they be like that, but they have to be like that -- in order for there to be progess. This is a basic philosophy about the nature of man and existence. If you don't understand that, then you'll continue to believe that I'm "way out there." ... *********************** | ||||
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