[quote=sdduuuude][quote=pertinazzio]anything that costs money can’t be a right.[/quote]
I would add to this “anything that costs money or takes someone’s time can’t be a right.”
For example – I don’t have the right to a daily massage, which costs the masseuse no money.
People just don’t seem to understand this basic concept – that as soon as you say “everyone has a right to x” that you are actually taking away inalienable rights from the whole of society. Providing health care to all is, in effect, unconstitutional, as I see it.
Providing health care to all is a lovely thought, and surely done with good intent, but also done out of ignorance and at the expense of freedom.
People misunderstand free markets for this exact reason. Free markets are not unregulated markets where everyone is free to do whatever they want.
Free markets are markets where you are free from others infringing on your property rights and personal freedom.
Those personal freedoms have to take precedence.[/quote]
On the one hand, I agree with you here. And then there’s the reality, which is that we have a large and growing population of folks in this country who feel disenfranchised – the poor and (truly) middle class who also tend to be under-insured where health care is concerned.
Now, you may argue that these folks STILL have it better off than 90% of the rest of the world (in terms of population) where their standard of living is concerned and I’ll agree with you. But, you see, they don’t live in the “rest of the world,” they live here. Among us. And therein lies the rub.
Taxes, income redistribution, universal health care, etc. etc. etc. are NOT principally about making folks’ lives better (although it’s nice when it happens). These things are about keeping the masses from revolting and watching this country devolve into anarchy – it’s the price we pay for relative social and economic stability. While a Libertarian world is a nice fantasy, it’s just that – a fantasy. The have-nots would ultimately revolt in a Libertarian world and we’d be left in shambles. Galt’s Gulch was a nice literary device, but it doesn’t work that way in the real world.
If I have to pay some ransom in the form of higher taxes, etc. in order to keep the masses at bay, then that’s the cost of doing business. I’d rather do that then live in the Libertarian Fantasyland where I have to worry about getting shot every time I walk out the door… if I even have a door to walk out of.
