I’ve been arguing with my cousin and that’s his best excuse.
I argued that people have no right to demand other people’s property without paying or earning it.
He countered that because the Constitution guarantees a right to an attorney for suspects who cannot afford one, people have a right to health care.
I’m having a hard time countering this argument.
Do people have a right to an attorney only when the government imposes a certain situation upon us?
If the above statement is the case, then how do I counter the argument that because government is imposing its will upon us as taxpayers thus we have a right to health care?
How do I counter the argument that government can provide us with things if they can provide us with police, roads, welfare, bridges, etc.?
Having a right to an attorney is saying that our ability to hire or be provided in some way with an attorney should not be hampered (if an attorney is willing). When people claim a right to healthcare they are actually claiming they have a right to the labor and property involved regardless of the consent of the people involved.
The government enforces a monopoly over the judiciary. How are else are people expected to receive relief in the “system” in absentia of the imposer of the monopoly? Even if I choose not to be represented by a lawyer, the whole machination of the system is still funded by taxpayers due to this monopoly.
If government socialized every single aspect of healthcare provision then, naturally, people would have to have a “right” to healthcare in order to receive it from the monopolizing force, government.
Thus, the assertion is putting the cart before the horse, if you will…
That doesn’t make any sense. Health care doesn’t follow from attorney. You could argue for just about anything.
“The Constitution guarantees a right to an attorney for suspects who cannot afford one, people have a right to health care a home.”
“The Constitution guarantees a right to an attorney for suspects who cannot afford one, people have a right to health care a puppy.”
“The Constitution guarantees a right to an attorney for suspects who cannot afford one, people have a right to health care a wife.”
I suppose you could counter his assertion by pointing out the fundamental differences between court and a hospital as the government literally makes you go to court.
If you want to go the way of the constitution then point out the tenth amendment and how its been raped for about a century now. Then talk about NAP and how in a court somone is attempting to prove that agression is justified against you, while with healthcare there is no such thing.
"If the above statement is the case, then how do I counter the argument that because government is imposing its will upon us as taxpayers thus we have a right to health care? "
If the government is IMPOSING ITS will on you then you don’t have a right to anything, you only have a right to whatever scraps of meat the state throws over the fence for you to eat. Indeed admitting that it is violently imposed should pretty much end the argument becaus the state violates all those rights which it is supposedly there to prevent.
Counter that the Constitution is just a piece of paper. Because that is all it is. And if you need the intellectual backup for that, read Lysander Spooner’s “The Constitution of No Authority” essay.
The poster who noted that the same pattern of reasoning your cousin used could be used equally well to justify rights to literally anything is quite correct, and I would certainly point that out to your cousin. That, however, only tells us that the argument contains a problem; it doesn’t tell us anything about where the problem lies. In order to provide a more complete response, then, I might follow up with something like this:
"Your argument depends upon an analogy. Argument by analogy can be a perfectly legitimate mode of reasoning provided it’s done correctly. One necessary precondition for an argument by analogy to succeed is that the two things under discussion (in this case the right to a free attorney and the purported right to free health care) must be similar in relevant respects such that they are both merely different instances of the same general principle. Your argument fails to meet that key condition in at least two respects.
First, the right to a free attorney applies only to the indigent and only in criminal cases. One typically does not have the right to a free attorney in civil proceedings or even in criminal proceedings if one has the means to pay for an attorney oneself. Thus, the right you’re pointing to is actually quite limited in its scope. It therefore cannot serve as justification by analogy for a right to free health care that is not similarly limited.
Second, we must consider the reason why the right to a free attorney exists, even in those limited circumstances. Specifically, and as you yourself noted, an indigent criminal defendant’s right to a free attorney is a constitutional right as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court. As such, the right to a free attorney depends upon the constitution as its sole foundation. No such foundation exists for a purported right to free health care. No such right is stated in the constitutional text, and the Supreme Court has never found such a right in the constitution. Therefore, the two things under discussion are not relevantly similar. Your analogy therefore fails, and your conclusion does not follow."