On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Charles Bennett <[email protected]> wrote:
> The very idea that we can talk of health care as a right is unique to > countries that can actually afford the luxury > of social services. > > I usually argue that it is not actually a right, but a decision by > society to provide a service. > > The difference, in my definition of a right, is that actual rights > incur only negative obligations. > > (These rights exists inside the social contract only. A lion will > not recognize your right to life, nor many of the two legged predators. > They give up the protections of the contract in order to live outside > the contract. That's why we can hunt them down and kill them if > needed. Without violating the right to life..) > > > right to life.. All I have to do is to not kill you. > liberty. I just don't enslave you. > right to free speech. I just leave you alone. > right to free use of property. I just stay on my side of the fence. > > All of them require that I merely do nothing against you. > > Health Care? How does that work exactly. You make a claim on my > production to give you something that you personally can't afford? > By what "right" do you make this claim? > > If I have a right to housing, the I want to live at the Kennedy > compound. > > If I have a right to health care then I want the level of care that > Teddy is getting. > If we followed Dashel's book, Teddy would be declare too old to > deserve any experimental treatments since the "cost benefit" would not > be there. > > But I guess some are more equal than others, eh comrades? > > We can choose, as a society, to provide that service, for now, and for > as long as we can afford it, but I argue that it is not a right in > any real sense > > You (society) cannot actually FORCE me to produce anything. > > These, so called, rights depend on the willing participation of the > producer. > > If I refuse to work, you simply cannot obtain whatever it is that you > would declare to be a right without enslaving me. > > Therefore, it is not actually a right. That is all perfectly correct, but none of it addresses the question of whether, let alone *how* a civilized society should best provide healthcare to its citizens. _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
