On rights

[unixronin]

Keeping it short:  hugh_mannity on health care, starting with why health care is not a right.  (The capsule summary of which first point is that you do not have a right to anything that somebody else has to work to provide for you.)

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Comments

[yndy.livejournal.com]

Thank you.
Reading that made my day on so many levels.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing it. So very much there that I agree with.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Well, it's done. Time now for the legal challenges, and in November we have to sweep the Halls of Congress clean.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think we need Hercules for that task, like the Augean stables.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

The Augean stables should have housed bulls, not horses. Then what was being swept out would be an appropriate corollary to the Halls of Congress.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

corollary: the govt doesn't have a right to subsume rights that already exist...

like the right to self-defense...

the police are NOT there to defend us, and in fact, claim such; but the govt is of the opinion that they will do that for us, thus, we do not need guns...

#

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's their rationale. Their actual reasoning, I believe, is much more that they don't want us able to protect and defend ourselves from them. They want us defenseless and dependent.

I call shenanigans.

[milktree.livejournal.com]

not have a right to anything that somebody else has to work to provide for you.

I call shenanigans.

How does the right to vote fit into that philosophy? How 'bout clean air and water?

That's certainly a factor, but it's a vast oversimplification to suggest it's either a limiting or solitary criteria of a right.

Re: I call shenanigans.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The right to vote and the right to clean air and water are two very different things.

Ultimately, we have a "right" to vote because we have collectively agreed that our government will be chosen by elections in which we have collectively agreed that we are entitled to vote, provided we are over a certain age. However, until we attain that age, we cannot vote. But does any "right" suddenly spring into existence overnight, POOF!, just because the calendar turned over to a particular day? Honestly, the suggestion is absurd. Or suppose that your next door neighbor moved to the United States from Austria 25 years ago, and has lived in the US ever since, did all the INS paperwork, has been a legal permanent resident of the US for the last 18 years, but has never actually become a US citizen. You can vote; he can't. If you have a right to vote, why doesn't he? Prior to February 26, 1869, blacks and former slaves could not vote; after that day, POOF!, suddenly they could. Prior to June 4, 1919, women could not vote; after that day, POOF!, suddenly they could. Neither the blacks, nor the former slaves (often but not always the same thing), nor the women changed overnight.

It's really a misnomer to call the franchise a right; it is more of a privilege which we have agreed — at this time — to universally grant to anyone who is over a certain age, a citizen of the United States, and not a convicted felon. In future, we may change that age, or we many extend it to additional classes. Machine intelligences, perhaps. But it will continue to be, IMHO, a privilege.

Now, on the other hand, consider the right to clean air and water. Consider the aspect docstrange pointed out last night, that rights define what government is forbidden to do to you, not what anyone is compelled to do for you. This need not be restricted to government; we can restate it as saying that rights are defined by what another person may not do to you. "My right to swing my fist ends right before it meets your nose." I have a right to free speech, because no-one else has a right to prevent me from speaking my opinion. I have a right to freedom of religion, because — in this time and country, at least — no-one, government or otherwise, has a right to mandate that I must adopt a specific religious belief, or to prohibit me from adopting one of my choice. (And they are at least in theory barred from discriminating against me on the basis of that choice ... up to a point, at any rate.) I have these rights regardless of my age or sex, whether I am a US citizen or even a US resident, or whether I am a felon. And likewise, I have a right to clean air and water, because just as my neighbor has no right to harm me by swinging his fist, he has no right to harm me by poisoning my air or water. His right to pollute the air he breathes and the water he drinks ends at the point where they become the air I have to breathe, and the water I have to drink.

Now, if my neighbor pollutes the air and water and does not clean it up, and I have to use that polluted air and water, he does me harm. But there would be no need for him to clean it up, had he not polluted it in the first place. He is obligated to cleanup after himself, if not cleaning up after himself harms his neighbors. This is a simple consequence of him not having a right to do me harm. He is not providing anything for me that he did not take away or damage in the first place.

But now consider firewood. When the weather turns cold, if I wish to keep my house warm, I need wood for my fire. Is my neighbor obligated to provide me with firewood? Of course not. Procuring firewood is my responsibility. I do not have a right to his firewood. I do not have a right to his labors to cut, split and stack firewood for me, even if without firewood, I will freeze this winter.

Now, if he has excess firewood, and he is willing to sell it to me, and I am willing to buy it from him, then that is another matter. Now, he is providing a service to me, providing me with firewood, and I am paying him to provide me that service. But I still don't have a right to his firewood.

[hit the *(%&*(#&%*#% comment limit. to be continued.]

Re: I call shenanigans.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

[continued]

Likewise, suppose that my neighbor across the street is a doctor. I do not have a right to have him treat me should I become sick. He and I are, however, entirely free to come to an agreement wherein I pay him to treat me should I become sick. This is a service for pay, not a right.

Now, I have a right to ACCESS to health care. My neighbor from whom I buy firewood may not stand in the street and prevent me from going to see my neighbor the doctor. But, my neighbor the doctor is not obligated to treat me. If he does not, I am free to seek another doctor. But none of the doctors I may find is obligated to work without reward to treat me. If I wish them to treat me, it is expected that I will pay for the service.

Now, my neighbor across the street may very well handwave it and tell me, "Eh, don't worry about it." Perhaps because I helped fix the hole in his roof last winter. Perhaps because he likes me — or my daughter. Or perhaps what I needed really didn't take anything from him but a little of his time and a hot compress, and he's really not that bothered about it. But I still don't have a right to get that treatment from him for free. If he chooses not to charge me, that's his call. Anything else is still an exchange of services for pay, and that is not a right.

If every doctor in town refuses to treat me, because of, say, the color of my skin, now that's a problem. Because now I'm not just being denied treatment, I'm being denied ACCESS TO treatment. I'm not being given the opportunity to make that exchange of services for pay.


Now where things really start getting difficult is if no-one will treat me because every doctor in town knows I have no money to pay for my treatment, and my treatment is such that it's going to be expensive. It would be a good and charitable thing, particularly if my destitute state is no fault of my own, were some public-spirited individual, or perhaps some body appointed and funded by the town or by donations from the townspeople, to cover the cost of my treatment when I cannot. In the event that they do, it would certainly behoove me to repay the deed once I'm back on my feet again. And, in the spirit both of compassion and of enlightened self-interest, it would behoove me to donate a little extra into that fund when I can, so that it is there should I or my neighbor need expensive medical care and be unable to pay. But I still do not possess a RIGHT that dictates they must do so.


How's this working for you?


I didn't suggest by any means that it's the solitary criterion of a right; rather, it's a guideline for weeding out those things that are probably not rights. As a limiting criterion, I don't claim that it is exhaustive; but I believe it to be a very good rule of thumb that if someone else's labor is required to provide something that you want or need, then you do not have an inherent right to it. You are entirely free to arrange terms to receive it in return for money, goods, or another service, you may have a right not to be prevented or prohibited from making such an arrangement to obtain any such legal service, and you arguably have a right not to be charged an unfairly high price for that service while another person is charged much less (an injustice which the health-care bill passed last night does not redress), but that does not constitute a right to the service itself in the first place.

Make sense?

[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

Correct. Health care is not a right.

But then again, neither are schools, good roads, police/fire protection, or clean water.

(On that last, the UN has just released a study showing that unpotable water supplies kill more people per year than all acts of violence combine - war included).

We as a society, however, have determined that certain infrastructure pays back more than it costs. Just as public schooling helps (no, I'm not claiming it guarantees) the overall public provide more productive citizens, so unuversal health care will help everyone.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

(On that last, the UN has just released a study showing that unpotable water supplies kill more people per year than all acts of violence combine - war included).

Can't say that particularly surprises me.

We as a society, however, have determined that certain infrastructure pays back more than it costs. Just as public schooling helps (no, I'm not claiming it guarantees) the overall public provide more productive citizens, so unuversal health care will help everyone.

And you won't catch me disagreeing with that.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I firmly agree that the health care system in the US badly needs reform. The system as it now exists is horribly broken, to the extent that, de facto, those who do not have or cannot afford medical insurance subsidize those who have and can ... which is wrong beyond words. I agree that a well designed, not-for-profit, coordinated health care infrastructure has the capability to improve the overall standard and availability of care.

I believe, however, that the Federal government is the wrong body to do so, partly because of its massive inefficiencies of scale, partly because of its general bumbling incompetence, and partly because its decisions and policies are too heavily influenced by partisan politicking. This health care bill has some good aspects, but overall I believe it's a disaster, because it's a bad "solution" that will prevent a good solution. It's not just that it's a horse designed by a committee; one of the committee members agreed to vote to approve the horse only on the condition that it have pink ears, another member on the condition that she not be required to pay for any of its feed, a third on the condition that the tires¹ be designed and constructed in his district, and a fourth on the condition that the chairman of the committee agree to walk next door and kick the member's neighbor in the shins with steel-toed boots. And on top of all this, there's considerable doubt that the horse will actually solve the problem of crossing the river in the first place, because there's no clear evidence that the horse can swim.


It's not that I don't agree that the problem needs fixing. I'm just afraid that this will turn out to be a horribly bad fix, possibly worse than the original problem.


[1] "Wait a minute. Horses don't have tires!"
"Never mind that. We'll let your district build the wings."
"Oh ... that's all right, then."