By Adam Murdock, MD
All the problems related to medical care can be traced to a revised and perverse new definition of human rights. No slogan or idea has been used with greater detriment and influence than implying that there is a right to 'free' healthcare. The problem with this slogan is that it takes advantage of the general public's naïve understanding and sympathy for human rights and combines it with an emotional subject such as healthcare.
Using this slogan as a backdrop, political opportunists seeking to impose their version of universal healthcare, trot out tragic examples of individuals, who 'deprived' of their right to healthcare, will be left to suffer and die. They use these rare examples to argue that if only government provided care for everyone then these people would be provided the care they need.
Over the last century, social engineers have also trotted out images of the homeless in the streets to justify total wealth transfer through taxation and the creation of government social programs. Likewise, the Marxist revolution in the Soviet Union and elsewhere appealed to the 'oppressed' with promises of bread and prosperity for the masses. However, in practice the Marxist ideal quickly devolved into endless lines ups for, not bread, but crumbs and not prosperity, but poverty. The promise and practice of universalism in all its forms, including healthcare, proved to be untenable and a gigantic failure.
Likewise, a modern government movement to impose universal healthcare will only provide figurative 'crumbs' of care rationed out to a long line of poverty stricken conditioned citizens. Indeed, the utopia envisioned by healthcare engineers will quickly transform into a Soviet-style failure.
In order to derail this program before it takes effect, it is critical to understand the fallacy of the slogan that implies a right to free healthcare. The definition of "rights," as proposed by the Founders, are not random claims that individuals demand. Rational "natural rights" are not based on wants or even perceived needs. I cannot simply say that since my neighbor owns a luxury car, that I should have a 'right' to the same car. Most people can easily see that this proposition and use of the word 'right' is ludicrous.
What then is a true definition of a 'right'?
Rights are principles that sanction freedom of the individual to serve his/her own life. Rational rights do not provide the slovenly things they don't deserve and never worked work, but rather protect the opportunity to obtain what one has worked for or is willing to pay for. Natural rights exist so that the freedom of the individual to do as they please can be protected against the tyranny of the majority, coercion of government, or any other group that would seek to initiate physical force against him. Rational rights prevent the actions of others that would prevent people from taking actions necessary to sustain their lives. Therefore, rights act as a prohibition to the society and government. These rights in effect serve to say that nobody shall interfere where people seek to serve their own lives. In addition, it is self-evident that the individual who is serving his own life shall not infringe upon the rights of others. No individual shall initiate physical force to curtail the rights of another. Therefore, it follows that actions enlisted of others must be obtained voluntarily because no individual has the right to create a right that would involve the loss of a right or impose physical coercion of another individual. There is no such thing as a right to violate other's rights.
If you want to know what life in the Third World is like, just ask Lisa Pack, an administrative assistant who works in the roads and transportation department in Jefferson County, Alabama. Pack got rudely introduced to life in post-crisis America last August, when word came down that she and 1,000 of her fellow public employees would have to take a little unpaid vacation for a while. The county, it turned out, was more than $5 billion in debt — meaning that courthouses, jails and sheriff's precincts had to be closed so that Wall Street banks could be paid.
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Up yours, scientists.
It is possible in this day and age to fly south in December and three hours later land in a city where you can sit comfortably in your T-shirt and linen jacket and eat your dinner at a cafe under palm trees and still enjoy the protections of the U.S. Constitution, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Paradise, in fact.
