“It isn’t acceptable for government to exercise its monopoly on the legitimate use of force in order to make you or me dress wounds or empty bedpans.”

Also unacceptable is using that same monopoly to force me to give up my hard-earned money to the state so that politicians can buy the votes of one special interest group or another.

Mr. Hinkle makes a succinct formulation of the issue.  The concept of “rights” is obliterated when mixed with force.  The two concepts are incompatible. 

One man has no “right” to violate the rights of another.

Thanks for the quote, Bart!

I see your point, and you are wholly correct (and a well thought out point, may I add).

And the original quote shouldn’t have said what he said in the way he said it.  And I can’t jump into his mind to infer his intentions (talk about rights violations).

Regardless, the conversation is there to be had that it is sad and pathetic that we proclaim to be a true “Super Power”, that we are the moral compass for the planet, and we cannot - more importantly we choose not- to feed all of our 5 year olds 3 square meals a day and teach them to read and enjoy education.

It’s not a “right”.  You are wholly correct. It is a moral obligation if we are going to be the country we currently pretend to be.

The problem with referring to everything as a “right” is that there is a certain mindset, as Monsieur Hinkle has explained, that takes that to mean that the government has to provide something.  The right to free speech does not mean that the government has to provide you with a street corner on which to plant your soapbox, or with a newspaper through which to disseminate your views.  The right to be secure in your home, papers and belongings does not mean that the government has to provide same to you.  Etc. 

Sure, everyone has the “right” to be healthy and have a decent life - but the government does not have to provide that decent life and health for you - it cannot prevent you from pursuing it (well, not without due process, anyhow), but it is not government’s purpose to make sure everyone is comfy.

“...that you have a right to (for instance) housing implies that, if you lack a house, I have an obligation to build one for you, and that if I do not, then I should be made to.”

I focus on, “should be made to.”

By supplanting the above with “should be encouraged to,” a mutually beneficial use of incentives comes to mind. The author (B.H., I assume) used a phrase which implies a sinister force and it seems to have the intended effect. I saw the above responses. Hook, line and sinker!

I like to keep things simple. The person needing immediate care could be my mother or my brother. Certainly it is somebody’s kin. So yeah, I’d say people should be absolutely guaranteed the best of help, 24/7—whether its called a right or not.

Jamie-
A “moral obligation”?  By what standard of morality?  Altruism?  Communism?  How about a moral standard based on the individual rights of man to pursue his own happiness free from force?  I have no moral obligation to feed or educate your 5-year-old - I choose to feed and educate my 5-year-old instead.

You are right that we should be a moral compass - we should show the world that we respect individual rights and the right to pursue happiness free from force.

Bob,

You are correct.  I shouldn’t have said it was a moral obligation.  Forgive me for misspeaking. 

More close to what I truly believe is that a country with the strength, knowledge, and raw ability that the US currently has should not be satisfied with itself until the least among its peoples are the standard for the rest of the world.

Executive Order 12333

2.11 PROHIBITION ON ASSASSINATION

  No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States
  Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in,
  assassination.

“I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.”
—Former President Bill Clinton, Sept. 24, 2006

The Dems supported and assassin and lawbreaker.

You have greater matters to be concerned about than the rights of terrorists…..your appointed time with God.

“1,006,400 American children have been tortured and killed this year by Americans.

http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/audiovideo.html

Vote Republican and help stop the torture of innocent humans”

DEL-

Are you a little off topic, or just a little off your rocker?

“A compassionate society will see to it that people’s basic needs are met.”

  Willing to bet your life or the life of your children on your neighbors compassion should you ever find yourself in a helpless situation, without health insurance and facing a lethal illness? I’d rather know that I have a legal right to survival, mandated by congress and upheld by fellow Americans, willingly, bacause its right.

Margie,

I think that if you start mandating rights like that (and that was the whole purpose of the original post) that you get into some really ugly things because the government is regulating thought and action of private citizens.

It’s not a good place to be, and it’s not a good place to go.

The alternative is educating people, feeding people, and trusting in the basic goodness of people to do the right thing until it is such a habit in our country that it is second-hand.

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO trust in my neighbors. And I want my neighbors to be able to trust in me when they need help.  We’ll be stunted as a society until that can take place, I believe.

Jamie

I concede that I,too, deplore governmental intrusion into citizens personal business or unnecessary control over me and my family. Nevertheless, the government does control, with laws on every level, much of what we do or can’t do. We have no choice in supporting many things with our tax dollars that we don’t like. The utopia you describe would be an ideal solution to inequities in health care, costing lives daily, but don’t hold your breath till it comes to pass. In the meantime, I do believe I can stand just a little more governmental interference in the interests of class equity and preserving innocent lives. Still, I wistfully wish I had your optimism and faith in the ultimate goodness of my fellow man. Reality prohibits that. Ivory towers are comfortable, but not very practical.

There is no law governing my thought, or yours.  Instituting what I would love to see happen by laws would do exactly that (and we both agree that my best case scenario would be a good place hang out on a Saturday night).

My home is also a far cry from any Ivory Tower. I see, live in, and deal with the “reality” that you deplore just like you do.  I live in the city, mere blocks from both the Baskervilles and the Harveys.  Reality and I are well known to one another.

The government should not and cannot enforce these ideals as rights.  They can only help pave the road for us to go down on our own as a society.

Things like:

-making teachers the highest paid proffessionals in the country

-truly ensuring that higher education is availble to everyone who wants it

-writing the tax code to be fair to all people, not just the ones with good accountants

-offering affordable healthcare to everyone

Are we going to get there in my lifetime? The odds are slim.  But in the meantime I’m not going to hold my breath as you suggest.  I’m going to do my best to help bring our society further along this path.  I just hope you’re doing the same.  If so, that’s 2 down…

Honesty compels me to confess that I have a personal stake in this debate. Medicare and then Medicaid kept my husband of 43 years alive for ll and a half of them after a devastating stroke. I quit work and spent those years, until his death in May, trying to insure an acceptable quality of life for him. I don’t regret that, but I now find myself, at age 62, unemployable, no longer physically able to perform waitress work, the only thing I know how to do, surviving on way less than poverty level Social Security, not eligible for either Medicare or Medicaid, and just as lucky as I can be to be living near MCV. They would not turn me away in case of a catastropic illness. If all government resorces were denied me, I would just have to die otherwise, or would you get out your wallet?

To take this discussion to its logical end, in the malevolent universe in which you feel that you live in America (where endemic poverty, disease, and starving children appear to be the norm), if you agree that we have a moral obligation to insure that all people achieve their moral right to live a healthy life, would you also agree that this obligation crosses borders?  Wouldn’t we be morally obligated to open our “free” health system to the citizens of all nations, since Americans shouldn’t be privileged over the Chinese, or the Sudanese, or the Mullahs in Iran?  The British system is broken, so they couldn’t afford to help, so shouldn’t we take up the slack?

And let’s not forget to think through the details of this new “compassionate” system (we wouldn’t want to be impractical, afterall):  Who will run the local draft boards that round up teenagers when they turn 18 and ship them to the district that is currently in need of bedpan changers?  And will the welfare rolls be opened to those who can no longer afford to feed their own children since most of their paychecks are going to feed and medicate their neighbors’ children?  Or will just the “rich” be taxed or conscripted into service, since rights obviously should be inversely proportional to wealth?

Just trying to be practical.

Jamie,

While I respect your veiw and your compassion, this is getting just a little far-fetched! It is not a logical conclusion that American tax dollars should be used to alleviate the world’s suffering,( nice thought, tho not practical) only Americas. We’re doing well to be responsible for our own backyard. Mingling the rediculous- bedpans, indeed!- with a practical application- there’s that word again- of legal responsibility by the government for the health of its citizens is not a convincing argument.

Sorry, Jamie, should have addressed this to Bob

Signing Off. Thanks for the conversation. It was interesting.

Bob,

Here’s hoping that your cynical take on the world we living in is the wrong one. I think that when American develops and matures to the point that we CAN treat our sick and feed our hungry and educate our ignorant (fingers crossed!) that moving that treatment and basic human respect out to the rest of the world will be something we WANT to do.  Is the system hopelessly broken at this point, of course.  Am I describing a world that could very well never come to pass? Of course.  But is your cynical me-first “realistic” attitude doing anything to make the situation better? Not a bit.  Could you make a difference if you decided to try to raise awareness and the level of public discourse in general? Who knows. Give it a try.

Margie.  Yes, I would open my wallet, and my home.  No questions asked. No debate needed.  If someone needs help and I can help them without my own family going hungry, I do.  If a hungry person shows up at my door, I feed them. I’m not gullable, and I don’t expect special treatment.  I think that is the type of person an adult should be. It’s simple in my mind.

I’m glad that we agree universal health care is both far-fetched and impractical. 

Though I’m not sure what “legal responsibility” of the US government that your are referring to.  Theoretically, the government could pass any law…that doesn’t make it correct according to a proper moral code that respects individual right, which is what we are discussing here.

Each individual absolutely has the right to open their doors and their wallets to whomever they choose whenever they choose.  A free society protects that right.  However, the government has no right to force them to - that leads to resentment in the best case and violence in the worst.  The only cynical view is the one that says that people will not help others (in contrast to overwhelming evidence on the contrary - such as the huge charitable outpouring to Hurricane Katrina or September 11). 

Government has demonstrated time and again that it performs “charity” poorly (such as the misuse and waste of resources by FEMA or the deplorable state of public housing).

And what I’m saying is that hopefully one day we will mature into a society that doesn’t need a disaster like Katrina or the Tusunami in the Pacific to be a generous people.  Government or no government.

That should be the goal of any civilized people.

Charity happens daily without disasters being the cause.  Blood drives, fund-raisers, Salvation Army drop-off points, Big Brother/Big Sister programs, etc.  The basic principle is that a truly civilized nation leaves people free to make choices.

Do you disagree with my post on the ultimate result of government-mandated servitude to others?  What else could be the end-result of a system that must discourage selfish behavior (like an 18-year-old who would rather go to college than work in a soup kitchen or a 30-year-old who would rather have a family than pay for his neighbor’s ulcer treatment)? 

Reality shows that people are capable of both providing for their own interests and voluntarily helping others at the same time.

“Reality shows that people are capable of both providing for their own interests and voluntarily helping others at the same time.”

I disagree.

I see the typical American as unengaged and selfish. But I also see us moving away from that.

I have never said that the government should enforce charity or anything of the sort.  I’m saying that (I’m hoping) that our society is moving into a direction where there would be no need for soup kitchens.  And a society where people who have ulcers can go to the doctor before they are to the point of needing massive, expensive medical intervention.

You seem to be defining charity above as something you do with old clothes and spare change.  I see charity as a way of leading one’s life.  And if everybody has it, then not nearly as many people will need it.  And the government won’t have to intervene, it will be by choice - it will be our free will to be this kind of society. Most of society’s ills will (again, my Utopian ideal) be cured in the course of this maturation. 

Again, here’s hoping.

Jamie,

You are a wonderful human being, and hopelessly impractical! While you are investing your life in this marvelous vision of what humankind could one day become, people are dying out there and the government stumbles along with half-measures.Say, I have a great idea!Let’s disband Medicare and Medicaid, (this one’s for you, Bob), create a new branch of public health care for everyone, mandate that it must show a profit, returned to the people in educational benefits,(for you, Jamie)and put Bill Gates in charge. I don’t see any difference between mandating health care and police, fire, or any other service provided for the common good. Educate me.

“The only cynical veiw is that people will not help others”

The compassion and willingness of Americans to help people in trouble is just awesome, overwhelmingly so. But they are neither capable or willing to maintain a sustained effort for people whose trouble doesn’t soon correct itself, through their own or others efforts. Ask again tommorrow for contributions for New Orleans, and see what you get. A sustainable program is needed, a durable, affordable, program that works. And you are right. It would take a very good civilian CEO to manage it. The government would mess it up.