The other problem with this is when people claim health care is “essential” why stop there? We all have to eat to live right? So let’s socialize… food production. We all need shelter so we don’t freeze/melt outside, so let’s socialize real estate!
Umm… that’s kind of the point.
Ah, well excuse my redundancy then 
You are right that most social democrats and american leftists only want to nationalize healthcare.
Sex is a right. Who is with me?
Indeed!!
Watch how quickly people start discriminating. =]
It’s a great argument, because then you’re not on the defensive in response to the “health is a right” argument. You just respond “sex is a right”, then they have to explain how something being a right doesn’t imply that we are entitled to receive it from other people. I think the side that has to explain stuff with, you know, reason and logic is often at a disadvantage compared to the side that can just shout emotional phrases that don’t require concentration.
~Murray Rothbard quoting Judith Thompson
This seems fairly easy to understand. Anyone who still believes in a “right” to health care now bears the burden of drawing tedious, subjective lines and defending them. For me it is easy. Nobody has any right against anyone that anyone else should provide for them all the health care they demand to sustain life and health.
Health care is a good/service produced by the labor of others. Rights are not goods/services produced by the labor of others. It’s really that simple.
On the contrary, rights are always goods/services produced by the labor of others. The problem with ‘healthcare as a right’ is that it is meaningless to talk of a collective right, unless each and every individual member of that collective is party to a contract that specifies the provision of that good or service. If a man has private health insurance it is perfectly coherent to say that due to that contract he has a right to healthcare.
rights are always goods/services produced by the labor of others
What? No, they aren’t. Natural rights are called natural for a reason. Rights may be protected by the goods/services and labor of others, but they do not originate from them. Rights are not owned. Rights are not possessions. If the above were true, what goods/services produced by the labor of others created my individual right to self-ownership–the fundamental right from which all other enumerated rights are derived?
Natural rights only exist if they can be enforced, i.e. they have to be produced by labor. A natural right that you can’t enforce is as useless as a theoretical right to health care.
Natural rights only exist if they can be enforced, i.e. they have to be produced by labor. A natural right that you can’t enforce is as useless as a theoretical right to health care.
‘Natural rights’ is an abuse of language. Something like natural law exists, no ‘right’ is natural since no one has any duty to anyone else. There is no such thing as a ‘negative’ right, a ‘negative’ right is a positive binding on another person. Natural rights are nonsense.
hope that worked…
I like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qQ24eAJoWQ
I hate conspiracy BS.
i’m pretty sure natural selection teaches us that sex is, most definitely, NOT a right.
but on the other hand, it shows that a lot more things are not a right.
the overall health of the population is still affected by the health of the weakest individuals, so what should society do about them?
this is where I draw a line. i don’t believe in letting people die for the sake of the future. there will ALWAYS be strong and weak, so there’s no reason why we can’t help those individuals who are at a weak point in their lives.
and there’s always a point in everyone’s life where you feel weak. most often, it’s on an operating table.
“Society” is an abstract concept. It would be better to ask: What should individuals do about it, and what is the most efficient way to improve their well being?
Eat them. Make “people burgers”.
There is a reason. I might have a different value structure than you do.
The evolutionary issue is a red herring, since we’ll be genomically modifying ourselves before too long. However, I have no interest in ‘helping’ anyone who isn’t a friend or paying me. I don’t wax judgmental upon people who make bad decisions, but there are a lot of people who are just losers and don’t deserve anyone’s help or empathy.
Like Herbert Spencer said, “Looking with a lenient eye upon the irregularities of those whose lives are hard, by no means involves tolerance of good-for-nothings.”