Your rights and my rights

I'm becoming more libertarian as I get older, although I doubt I can ever be fully libertarian: the individual is no more the arbiter of rights than the state. Our rights come from a higher power than ourselves, Lansing or Washington or the European Union or anybody. Further, our true rights are absolute against outside forces: I have the right to life until natural death unless I myself abrogate it of my own volition. If I'm trying to kill you you thus have a right to kill me, if that's what it takes to stop me. 

Rights also imply duties. If you're going to argue, oh, um, say, that people have a right to health care the proper first question is, who has the responsibility to deliver it? If you answer society or government, what you're really saying is me. At that point I have the right to ask why am I responsible for your health care? I'm not responsible for getting your food, clothes, or housing. What makes your health care (and I could add many other things to this question, such as education) my job?

Further questions include, what is health care? Is abortion or a sex change procedure health care? Should people who don't believe in the propriety of such things be made to pay for them? Morally, absolutely not.

A very interesting article on these and other issues related to the supposed health care right can be found here: Is Health Care a Right?

The article does allow that true health care, health care truly necessary for people to live rightly, is important, because of course it is. I will even argue that we do indeed as individuals have a moral obligation to help those in any kind of real need to obtain proper health care (among other things). As such, I believe that demanding society or government fund certain admitted needs amounts to passing the buck and neglecting your own duty towards others. God, if you care to be seriously religious about it, tells you to help your fellow man, not make someone else see to it. Any way you slice it, once you start saying that such and such admitted need is a right, you are in a quagmire with no easy escape outside of violating the true rights of others.

You may fairly ask, Marty, who is responsible for health care then? Well, the same person primarily responsible for your food, housing, clothing, education, and myriad other things.

You.

The Ignorant Electorate

The Republican controlled House of Representatives have passed a bill which would allow anyone who wanted to to keep their current insurance. 39 Democrats joined in to make the vote much more significant. Meanwhile, the President has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

With so many Americans against Obamacare it is very difficult to understand why so many folks don't better appreciate what the GOP in the House is trying to do. With a majority of citizens against the health care law, the GOP was stormed with criticism for 'shutting down the government' (which in fact it did not; the President did) in an attempt to stop the ACA entirely; why? We often hear cries for a more principled leadership from our elected officials. Yet when those leaders try to do something about what we don't like, they are frowned upon.

Now we have a reasonably bipartisan effort to do little more than tweak the law, and a President who vows to stop the effort. There haven't been all that many clear cut issues in our history, but this one draws sides quite precisely. Can we expect the American people to sit up. take notice, and support the guys and gals trying to do right by the voter here?

Probably not. The American voter is one of the worst low information voters in the world. It does make us wonder whether democracy really is all that. If we call for principled leadership yet decry it when it comes, we wonder whether the right to vote has any real use.

Big Brother in Washington

Why do people hate the GOP right now? The Republicans were only trying to undermine Obamacare with their recent escapades, something a majority of Americans agree with them about, yet the approval rating of Congress is lower than the President's (which itself is pretty low right now; low enough that if it were Bush Jr the media would be crowing about it but are strangely silent, things as they are). But it ultimately means little. 'People' may not like Republicans yet like their local representative. Wither consistency?

Ah, consistency. It is a trait sadly missing in this world. Don't bother about it being the 'hobgoblin' of small minds. As with so many other phrases, that is a misquote the same as another famous misquote, the one about money. Money isn't root of all evil: the love of it is. Likewise, not consistency as such but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Are sports worth the effort? Are they worth the emotional investment? Sure, they're fun to watch, and more fun to play. But intellectually, what do we really get out of them? Our old grandpappy used to say, 'So drop the ball; what does it matter anyway?', and he was right to say so. Athletics are distinctly overrated.

If we had our way with the world, and that is a thought which troubles us too, there would be a decided de-emphasis on sports. Sports are a useful sideline so far as recreation goes, and recreation is a good thing. Yet we can't get around our grandpappy's point; if an athlete drops a fly ball or a forward pass, yea even if he catches it, what real value is added to the world? None that we can see; nor is any value lost. Either way, it is high time we re-evaluated our attitude towards what are really only games.

On Obamacare again, why is it that our government believes that it has solved a great problem by merely ordering folks around? The logic behind it is asinine: many Americans don't have health insurance, so we'll order them to get it, and this is seen as 'problem solved'. Yet all it really means is that those who didn't have health insurance before because they couldn't afford it will still not be able to afford it and will now be taxed by the government for not having it. Does anyone else think this is profoundly stupid?

Ah, well. Life goes on...