America is now poised to enjoy the fruits of what has been a demand from the left for over a quarter century: Government mandated socialized medicine.
There have always been three main arguments behind that drive:
1) Everyone has a right to free healthcare.
2) Fairness
3) We’re paying for it anyway.
As usual, the liberals miss the mark on all three fronts.
On the first they are wrong about what a right is. Our Constitution explicitly defines a number of rights… Speech, Religious liberty, Assembly etc. Most of the rights enumerated in the Constitution limit the government from impeding on a citizen’s free exercise of those rights. Other than the 6th and 7th Amendments’ right to a jury trial, nothing in these rights impose duties on others to provide anything. Rights are things you could take with you if you decided to move to a desert island somewhere where there was no one else there to provide them.
Healthcare is simply not a right. It is not free. It is not an infinite resource that can be redistributed endlessly. No, healthcare is a service that must be provided by individuals who willingly exchange their time and energy for whatever value someone else places on it. They do that so that they can in turn exchange that money with others for things like garbage services, car loans, dental floss, chocolate, gasoline, video games and a wide variety of goods and services for which they are either not interested in or not capable of providing for themselves. That alone distinguishes healthcare from a right.
The right to free healthcare is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Indeed, none other than the patron saint of progressives, community activist Barack Obama recognized as much: “…the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…” Too bad President Barack Obama forgot as much.
The left also has it wrong on the notion of fairness. Fairness is a value judgment, not a logical basis upon which to distribute a finite resource. Fairness is relative to the person making the judgment. History, both ancient and near, is full of stories of people fighting over land and property they feel is rightfully, fairly, theirs. Fair depends on perspective.
What’s more, life is simply not “fair”. Some people are tall, while others are short. Some are kind while others make the Grinch look like Ghandi. Some are skinny, others are fat while a few look like Adonis or Aphrodite. More importantly, some work hard while others seek to live off of the efforts of others. Those differences have existed throughout history and will continue to do so as long as we remain human. As such, there is simply no way to ensure “fairness” because everyone has a different understanding of the word. We see this demonstrated every day. Liberals think it’s fair to take half or more of what someone earns to give to others while those whose sweat or intelligence generate wealth think they should be able to keep it.
Finally, those demanding universal healthcare are hypocrites as well. Not sure? Ask them about the following. They claim that the government should provide healthcare to everyone because we’re paying for it anyway when people who can’t pay go to emergency rooms and the rest of America has to pay extra to cover them. If that logic works, how about extending it to unwed mothers and deadbeat fathers? Unwed mothers are a disproportionately large segment of those living in poverty and receiving welfare. We’re paying for that. Americans have spent trillions of dollars on poverty programs over the last half century; indeed the acronym AFDC stands for Aid For Dependent Children… for which a family was ineligible if a father was present. As such, is it appropriate to forcibly tie the tubes of women who have children they cannot support until such time as they get married or can support the children on their own rather than making the rest of society pay for them?
Similarly we all pay for the police who capture criminals as well as the courts that try them and the prisons to lock them up. Does the progressive logic hold then that since men who grow up without fathers present are disproportionately represented amongst the criminal element, that we should forcibly give men who refuse to raise or support their progeny vasectomies? While someone who cannot afford hypertension medicine or the cost of an ankle cast may be poignant, is it more calamitous than a parent suffering the loss of a son or daughter murdered by a criminal who grew up without a father? If government can seek to ameliorate the former by edict, why not apply that logic to eliminate the second?
At the end of the day, President Obama and his liberal cabal have it wrong on healthcare, as they usually do on virtually every other issue they harness to redistribute wealth and turn the country into a statist Nirvana. From misunderstanding fundamental concepts in the Constitution to ignoring the basic nature of mankind to crafting irrational, self serving arguments, they seek any route available to impose their fatuous, untenable programs on an uninformed public, knowing that once in place they will live on forever.
President Obama is certainly on his way to achieving his goal of “fundamentally transforming America”. One can only wonder as the true nature of Obamacare plays itself out over the next five years and its mandates begin to crush the vitality out of the American spirit, whether citizens might look to something other than the Constitution to save freedom. There is another American document to which they might want to turn. Its first line reads as follows: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. The catastrophe of Obamacare just might be at the top of the list.
See author page
Bravo, Vince.
Liberal/progressives have issued proclamations of the “rights” they desire, while ignoring that the “rights” they wish society to recognize infringe on the actual rights of that society. If they want it, “it” becomes a “right” to fight for, and impose upon others in society.
And after gaining a foothold for these “rights”, they then move to argue in favor of them by telling you that it’s not going to hurt as much as you think it will. Some here do quite well with this on the Obamacare front, completely disregarding that it’s the “right” itself that people object to, not the amount of pain we have to endure in giving people that “right”, by claiming that by us paying for others to have “free” healthcare, that our premiums won’t go up by that much. Still others address the arguments by attempts at shaming, by claiming that it’s our “duty” to provide for others, whether or not those others could, or should, provide for themselves.
And once the “right” has been entrenched in society for a period of time, the liberal/progressives attempt to make the “right” part of our daily lives, by insisting that in denying government funding, that we are denying that “right” to people.
And on the flip side, the actual rights we citizens should be enjoying, are diminished and attacked as less than what is claimed. “Congress shall not make a law” is qualified by the liberal/progressives by “unless”, although that wording is not found in the Bill of Rights. Free speech is shouted down, if it is the wrong speech according to liberal/progressives. Freedom of religion is ok, as long as it is done in privacy. The right to own and bear arms is fine, as long as the arms you own are on a liberal/progressive approved list, and as long as you bear them in your home, or in the field hunting. The right of people to be secure in their possessions is ok, except when the government wants them. The powers not delegated to the federal government, are the state’s, or the people’s, unless some liberal/progressive decides the federal government should have that power.
And the majority of Americans are letting this happen, ofttimes without even a whimper of protest.
shame on the one exercising those rules, there are no good excuses for it,
but negatives entrenchments in freedom of the society so tolerant to the point of ridicule,
for those to allow it to become law too easy by only expressing outrage which because it is abusing the PEOPLE OF AMERICA, THE RIDICULE OUTRAGE BECOME A SHAMEFULL TACTIC TO FIGHT,
ONLY ON A SHOUTING, BUT WITHOUT REAL ACTION TO DEFEND AMERICANS
BEING LIED TO AND OFFEND, AND TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF UNJUSTLY,
IT SOUND MORE THAN OUTRAGE, IT SOUND LIKE TREASON TO THE SMART BUT TOLERANT PEOPLE,
again should WE THINK THAT the despair we notice in
AMERICA, is a reaction to that abusive implementation
coming directly from the GOVERNMENT?
WELL IT IS GETTING VISIBLY APPARENT.
again 4 dead in a murder suicide in COLORADO,
DOES THE LEADERS SHOULD INSTEAD WORK HARDER ON FREEING THAT YOUNG MARINE IN MEXICO
TIED IN TO HIS BED WITH CHAINS,
ANYONE LISTENING IN THERE, INSTEAD OF LOOKING FOR WAYS TO EXTRACT MONEY FROM THE RICH
WHICH WILL TAKE IT OUT FROM THE POOR AT THE END OF THE LINE,
WHAT ABOUT LEADER OBAMA DO YOUR HOME WORK WHICH YOU ARE ELECTED FOR,
THIS ONCE TO SAVE A BRAVE MARINE WHO SERVED,
WHAT THE HELL MEXICO NEW PRESIDENT, ARE YOU DOING TO AMERICAN BRAVE WHO SERVED,
HOW DARE YOU KEEP HIM IN THAT INFECT PRISON,
GET HIM OUT NOW, WE ARE WATCHING YOU HERE AND EXPECTING SOME ACTION, FROM BOTH OF YOU NOW.
AND FURTHER MORE WHAT ARE THE SPANISH IN AMERICA ARE DOING TO HELP THE MARINE? WHAT?
THIS MARINE FOUGHT FOR YOU ALSO BEING IN AMERICA YOU ALL HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY ON TO SAVING HIM,
GET WORKING NOW TO BRING THE MARINE BACK TO HIS LOVING AND HURTING FAMILY, NOW.
WE ALL NEED TO PRESSURE THE NEW PRESIDENT TO DO HIS PART AS SOON . HELL WE TAKE BETTER CARE OF THE ILLEGALS CRIMINALS COMING FROM THE BORDERS ALONG THE OTHER DESPERATE MEXICANS, SO MR PRESIDENT OF MEXICO
THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO CONTINUE
Back in 2011 the known death toll from guns Obama/Holder allowed/encouraged to walk to Mexican gangs was 200.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2011/09/20/attorney_general_in_mexico_200_murders_result_of_operation_fast_and_furious
By the time Obama sat for an interview with reporters from Univision it was already in the thousands.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304835/remember-fast-and-furious-s-mexican-victims-deroy-murdock?pg=2
Obama/Holder are as responsible for the 16 young people gunned down while attending a party in a residential area of Ciudad Juárez as the Conn. shooters’ mom.
Univision reporter Jorge Ramos asked President Obama last week why he hadn’t fired Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama responded by saying he had full faith in confidence in his attorney general even after Fast and Furious.
Obama was also caught lying about the program in an effort to distract away from its lethal consequences and effect on the Hispanic community.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/09/21/president_obama_lies_to_univision_about_operation_fast_and_furious
What a hypocrite Obama is about guns and gun violence!
Well Vince, there is nothing mysterious about the goals of president Obama. And, he is not confused, nor did he forget about rights, the Constitution or anything else. Obama knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s called total government control and most Americans support him. In fact, most republican presidents and congressman have been and continue to support the broadly based movement towards total government control for several generations. For convenience sake, I will identify the tipping point at FDR’s regime. I do that because previous executives and the congress mostly relinquished the extreme wartime powers after the war or time of crisis. After world war two, most of those powers remained in place or were even enhanced. Subsequently, it was just a matter of time. Nothing mysterious about it. People want the government to take care of them and once they get used to the idea, they even forget they are slaves (protected). Heck, there are many who claim to be “Independents” or “Republicans” or “Tea Party” and claim to oppose total government. But, most of them don’t really and most of them think their opinion matters. But their opinions don’t matter, and they are weak, uninformed and lazy. They will never march to give up any of their goodies and they will never march to give up their protected minority or disabled or veteran status with whatever perks those labels endow them with. And, none of them will march or vote to end government subsidies, some of them total, of every major industry and institution in the nation. So, unless or until I see the badly mislabeled “Conservative Women’s Caucus” or equivalent organization out in the streets protesting and marching and demanding an end to their protected minority status, total government is certain. Not gonna happen, I know. Not even the much ballyhooed tea party posers can muster a gathering of more than 20 souls. Nope, there’s nothing confusing or mysterious about any of it, I assure you.
W. C. Taqiyya
hi,
I think that there are benefits for VETERAN, that are earned more than given as largesse,
and therefor would continue as owed instead of a kind of welfare donation ,
for the time they served,I think it is in the MILITARY CONTRACT, and should not change if the socialist would not be in power, they would even rise to make the veteran better able to live in the COUNTRY
they fought under and for the protection of the civilian’s freedom
not in the other label like the welfare recipients
given free without any demands in return, given just because they have no other revenues, but they don’t work for it or pay tax on it, and if so, they haven’t earn the right to vote, so they should not be voting.
and further more I strongly think that the welfare recipients who now receive more
than a family with one worker should be paying tax, it make them prouder to participate in the sharing specially in theses times of recession which has never been experience before as no jobs is concern.
bye
Well done Vince. Entitlement seems to spread too readily. As Napoleon once wrote, “A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.” How right he was. He also said, “Men take only their needs into consideration, never their abilities.” As long as someone else pays, bring it on.
Hey Bees!! @#7
You say..
“they fought under and for the protection of the civilian’s freedom not in the other label like the welfare recipients given free without any demands in return, given just because they have no other revenues, but they don’t work for it or pay tax on it, and if so, they haven’t earn the right to vote, so they should not be voting.”
Great point of many great points! And I agree… But, to my dismay, and probably many others, it’s not going to happen…especially IF they want illegals, and other nefarious people to exercise ‘their right’?? to vote…not for the right, healthy things for a Nation, but for all the ‘wrong’ greedy/selfish things that make for a very unhealthy, cancerious Nation…
Our Constitution has been trampled on…and continues to be…Many of our States have prostituted themselves to the Government…this is their downfall.
Some serious words of great Wisdom from very, very, very intelligent people:
“It is freedom itself that still hangs in the balance, and freedom is never more than one generation from extinction.” – Ronald Reagan
(Be aware of what our government run school system is teaching.)
__________________________
“I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you’ve earned,
but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.” – Thomas Sowell
___________________________________
“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) –> (That’s a warning about unlimited entitlements.
[Only now it is “other people’s money” they are being bribed with, not their own especially if it is redistributed] – How did we get here???
|___________________________________________
“What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” – Adolf Hitler
This is serious WARNING! The purpose of our Constitution is to limit the powers of our government, and it’s the sworn duty of our elected officials to abide by it, and to preserve the Constitution.
________________________________________________
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover
that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship” – Alexander Tytler 1787
__________
The warnings are all there Bees… have been for years and years – But, Like Adolf said “people do not think” and America, sadly is filled with people who “do not think”…or their “thinking” has been “warped” by indoctrination by Liberals and Progressives bound and determined to end our Great Republic – the United States of America… I sincerely weep for her…
FAITH7
I love your comment, it’s full of love for AMERICA,
full of protective advices for AMERICA,
I know you have vote for AMERICA,
THE HALF OF AMERICA VOTED FOR THEMSELVES,
IS THAT BEING AN AMERICAN,NO WAY,and this is the danger,
they lost it, they voted for the man, they voted for OBAMA TO PUT GAS IN THEIR CAR,
HOW UNAMERICAN CAN IT BE MORE THAN THAT,
THEY WHERE TOLD TO VOTE FOR THE BEST THING THEY HAVE, NAMING AMERICA,
THEY DOUBLE-CROSS THE OTHER HALF WHO WANT JOBS FOR ALL WHO NEED IT,
THAT HALF WHO WHERE NOT SELF CENTER, WHO LOVED THEIR COUNTRY ENOUGH
SO TO BLEED FOR IT, SO TO DIE FOR IT, THEY TOLD THEM TO VOTE FOR AMERICA, NOT FOR THEIR OWN SELF PROFIT. THEY TOLD THEM AND IT WAS NOT DONE, THE NEW IMMIGRANTS THE ILLEGAL WHO MANAGE TO VOTE BECAUSE THE PROMISES OF OBAMA, VOTED FOR THEIR OWN PROFITS NOT AMERICA THEY VOTES FOR THE ILLEGALS TO GET IN THE IMMIGRATION SYSTEM, HOW SELFISH IS THAT FOR NEW AMERICANS,
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT THEM NOW,
THEY DON’T GIVE A HOOF ABOUT AMERICA, THERE MUST BE A TERM LIMIT FOR SOMEONE TO DESERVE TO VOTE, OTHERWISE WE’RE OUT TO THE GLOBAL UNION OF COMMUNIST SOCIALIST GIMMY GOVERNMENT FROM NOT AMERICA, BUT THE FOREIGNER COUNTRIES WHO HATE AMERICA AND WANT TO CHANGE HER INTO A 4RH CLASS SOCIETY OF SLAVES,
WHEN I read something like your comment, i get to the high level of patriotism for THIS BEAUTIFUL GOD COUNTRY,
I in protective mode like you are, like the one who are away longing for the AMERICA, LIKE THE LOVERS OF AMERICA,
SPREAD ALL AROUND HER SO SMART AND FULL OF ADVICES AND WARNING,
THEY WHO ARE SELFISH DON’T LISTEN, THEY HAD A CHANCE, THEY MISERABLY MISS THE CHANCE TO CORRECT THE WRONG. THEY WILL PAY FOR IT TOO, THEY DESERVE TO PAY FOR THEIR SELFISHNESS,
THE OTHER HALF DO NOT DESERVE TO BE DRAG IN THE CLIFF BECAUSE OF THE OTHER SELFISH HALF.
Did you right-wingers ever think that maybe the Constitution doesn’t delineate all of a person’s rights? Or can you understand that there are some factors such as common decency which require a society to care for all its citizenry—that’s a benefit of belonging to a particular society. That’s why we don’t turn people away from medical emergency room for non-emergency situations—otherwise we would have the lame and the dead littering the streets. If we could take that money that we spend on non-emergency emergency service, and help buy health insurance for those who couldn’t afford it, wouldn’t that seem like good plan? Or, would you prefer to simply deny non-emergency emergency services everyone—and have our streets look like early 20th century India?
Well, that’s the Affordable Care Act does on a much larger scale. It brings our health care into line with the rest of the western industrialize world—and hopefully raises us from the 38th in the world (between Costa Rica and Slovenia). Sure, it’s going to cost us all something. But that’s what a modern society does—takes of its people, as suggested in the parable of the ‘sheep and the goats’ (Mathew 25:40 NT). It’s funny how the right-wing—as in an earlier essay—can criticize Obama’s hypocrisy regarding the most recent mass killings in Connecticut, in light of policy regarding drone strikes, but at the same time these good Christian folk can condone the death and destruction of their own people caused by previously inadequate health insurance, primarily based on money.
As far as ‘fairness’ goes, this is a term which I hear used more by right-wing than the left. According to Merriam Webster, there are at least eleven definitions for the word ‘fair’—making it guilty of extreme vagueness and ambiguity—so I’m not sure what the right-wing means when they use the word. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fairness
The closest I can come to what is meant by its use in this article is to guess that maybe some of the last definitions might be appropriate: “… sufficient but not ample; or, moderately numerous; or being such to the utmost….” But since the word is just part of the right-wing pejorative lexicon on this subject, a well as others—without defined meaning—it evades further comment.
Ignoring your comment about deadbeat dads—which, unlike poverty, is a crime (and not justified by the argument)—and aid to unwed mothers and their children are still being paid for, so it’s not clear what you are trying to prove with this line of argument (unless you are simply making a statement that they should not be receiving assistance). Why don’t you come up with an idea that would not create more human litter on the streets of America, but would serve as an improvement. For example, in some European countries, the government allows people who have lost incomes the option to join with other people in the same position to form a private enterprise, and receive their entitlement in one lump for seed money (start-up business costs). Of course, like with all their workers, those governments also provides free child care services.
Just one more thing about the integrity and the applicability of the Constitution. It was written by the most educated and intellectual members of society—in collaboration with the same caliber of people in Europe. These people were well read and knowledgeable about nature of human-kind and their freedoms and rights, as they were considered valid near the close of the 18 Century. The Constitution and founding of this country were not a products of a vacuum and simple American exceptionalism by a group of non-literate rabble-rousers.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Actually, the U.S. Constitution assumes that free men have the right to do what they choose, and the U.S. Constitution simply stipulates what the government cannot do to them. It also addresses the fact that anything not enumerated in that document, like the responsibility of the federal government to provide for defense and to make international treaties are, is the perview of the states, and the people themselves.
Like all liberals, you are under the misguided conception that the Constitution guarantees rights. It doesn’t, as all rights are already assumed to be possessed by the citizens. It is an affirmation of those rights, made clear by the Bill of Rights which addressed those things considered the most oppressive; like disarming the citizens.
You cannot legislate common decency. If that were the case, then legislation prohibiting murder, rape, theft, child abuse, and all other violent crimes, would have put an end to those crimes. And the Constitution, in no clause, addresses the benefit of belonging to a particular society. As a matter of fact, the U.S. Constitution does not address society, only the individual, and not the collective.
No, the reason that we don’t turn people away from medical emergency rooms for non-emergency situations has nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution and everything to do with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said that anyone who presents themselves to a medical emergency room must be treated.
Really? Then perhaps you would like to give us all an example, or two, of the lame and the dead littering the streets of America before the SCOTUS ruling? I am sure you can find one somewhere, because you would certainly never make a claim that you can’t back up, right?. And if you are dead, you no longer need medical emergency room services, now do you?
As certainly supported by none other than Benjamin Franklin. That is why he started the first hospital, built and run on nothing by charity from those who could afford it. No where did Franklin support the stealing of one person’s wealth, through taxation, to take care of another person. Where Franklin left off, the churches picked up the cause of helping those who could not afford to pay for their medical care. The Catholic Church, the Methodists, the Lutherns, the Baptists, the Jews. All started charity hospitals that served their communities quite well. Americans donated to those hospitals through their local churches, who in turn, used that money to support the charity hospitals. It was a good system that the Democrats thought could be improved on by involving the federal government. They (the Democrats) were wrong. And now, under your beloved Obama, those very churches are under attack.
As to our streets looking like the 20th century, I noticed you used India as an example, not this nation. I understnad that you thought that was a good example, because to use 20th century America would not fit your agenda.
Your understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and its purpose, is pathetic. The Constitution, and subsequent Bill of Rights, was never meant to address society as the collective, but the individual. It was never designed to be a method for the federal government to confiscate your earnings, and your wealth, to serve the collective. It was designed to allow for you to reach your own personal potential without interference from the federal government. If you want health care, which is nothing more than getting the services of others (doctors, hospital workers, nurses, lab technicians, et al) the U.S. Constitution guarantees that you have the right to attempt to aquire the means to pay for the services of others. If the authors of the Constitution felt that medical care was a right to be guaranteed to all citizens, including those here illegally, they would have put it in the Bill of Rights. The fact that they didn’t, in spite of the fact that there were the poor and the sick already with us when the Constitution was written, should tell you all you need to know. But it doesn’t because you see something you want to read into the Constitution that is not there.
How did you manage to get as old as you are and still have such a lack of understanding on our Constitution?
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Oh, that’s rich! Obama ran for a second term on the idea of “fairness”, Lib1, and uttered it every time he gave a stump speech, or attended a debate. Biden uttered the word numerous times during his debate with Ryan. Every liberal/progressive talking head discusses “fairness” or “fair share” as if it is some meaningful point on the economic scale.
And you claim you hear it more from the right than the left. You cannot even be honest about the usage of a word, or term, between the two ideological spectrums, yet you wish us to believe that the rest of your tripe is full of truth and fact. Right.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity): =Did you right-wingers ever think that maybe the Constitution doesn’t delineate all of a person’s rights?
It’s typical and irritating to start off your post using derrogatory and exaggerated terms (you “right-wingers”), especially because when liberals don’t have an argument they use name-calling (rascists, “tea-baggers,” “wingnuts”). Others here have posted excellent rebuttals to your comments. Your ridiculous examples, i.e. “the dead and the lame littering the streets” do nothing to prove that conservatives want this (that, in fact, this never happened before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that hospitals must treat everyone); in fact, statistics have borne out that Republicans give far more to charity than Democrats; that those of us who believe in the U.S. Constitution know that health care is not a right.
Others have pointed out that Benjamin Franklin and the churches have for hundreds of years provided charity hospitals. My husband and I were both born in a Catholic hospital. The more government controls something, the more waste, lack of accountability and inefficiency results. Individual and local control is much more efficient and accountable.
A doctor told me that at his medical school graduation ceremony in 1950 in Madison, Wisconsin, the main speaker (who helped write social security and wrote a tentative medicare plan) told the graduates that “We will own you.” This is what Obamacare is, forcing doctors and other medical professionals to follow their rules to the letter, even if it runs against the patients’ needs, to accept a lower salary and penalizes them with large fines if they depart from guidelines. This is making doctors slaves, doctors who rack up hundreds of thousands in debt, spend many years studying and training. Why shouldn’t highly skilled surgeons and other specialists earn much more than an average doctor? Even to get into med school they only accept about 1% of those who apply (and all who apply are in the top of their undergraduate class).
Some bureaucrat in Washington makes all the decisions. And, yes, there are death panels (but Democrats try not to refer them as such). Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist and a progressive, referred to these panels as “Death Panels” (Google to find this video). FDR knew a right to health care was unconstitutional so he tried to pass a “Second Bill of Rights” that would guarantee free medical care, right to a job with a living wage, housing, etc. (like the Soviet Communist Constitutiton), but he could not get the support of congress–so it went nowhere. But progressives have been trying to push it through ever since.
And to top it off, there aren’t enough doctors and dentists for Obamacare and many are leaving because of it. Why would highly intelligent and motivated people go into medicine, the many years of study and high expense, to be a tool of the government bureaucrats, to give care they don’t agree is for the good of the patient and not be well compensated? This will lead to a shortage of doctors, less qualified doctors and long waits, rationing and denied care–like in the UK, Russia, European countries and other socialized countries. Democrats in congress claimed there would be no rationing which was not true (they didn’t even read the bill before they voted for it). My post is objective. Unlike your moniker.
They claim that the government should provide healthcare to everyone because we’re paying for it anyway when people who can’t pay go to emergency rooms and the rest of America has to pay extra to cover them.
I have heard this before from liberals, especially those from Britain who are used to the government providing so called free socialized medicine. However, this all flows from a false premise, first in 2008 when ObamaCare was proposed as the health care for the uninsured. The uninsured primarily constituted illegal aliens, people here without our express permission. Competing for jobs with native born unskilled labor is counter to our national interest. Giving these people free tax payer subsidized healthcare costs money that never should have been taken without our express permission. Sure, they stuck us with the bill when they stiffed the medical care providers, but does that entitle them to a tax payer subsidizes forever? Is that the answer or is encouraging these people back to their respective countries by disincentivizing their stay here which means we cease to pay for their healthcare.
Now in 2012 millions more people are uninsured because of Obama’s failed policies and millions more will lose their health insurance in 2013 due to ObamaCare. So what’s the answer, repeal Obama’s failed policies and put people back to work so they can afford their own healthcare on their own dime and not mine. Under the Constitution you have the right to exercise your Natural Rights (9th Amendment), one of those is to fend for yourself, the next is the right to the product of your own labor and consequently the right defend yourself, your family and your property. Being entitled to free stuff, aka, the product of other peoples labor, is called stealing and inimical to freedom and the opposite of Natural Law.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity): I think better minds than yours have delved into this question and Edmund Burke said it quite nicely when he said:
@retire05 #12 -Oh, so excellent!! Sadly there are too many like Lib1O in America who have absolutely no concept of what our Great Constitution and the Bill of Rights is all about… Your points so very good and dead on too!!!
It gives me hope for Lib1O (and others Liberals who come here) – that one day, he/they may see the light…and the true intent of a New Nation, a New Constitutional Republic that is America…
Thanks Vince!
Bees-johngalt-NanG-Trish enjoyed reading everyone’s comments – so good!!
FAITH7
hope you don’t miss our CHRISTMAS EVE special.
I’m counting on you,
CHRISTMAS EVE IN THE CYBER SPACE,
ONCE UPON A STAR, WE DECIDED TO CELEBRATE TOGETHER,
AND……….UR TURN ON CHRISTMAS EVE, SEE YU ALL THERE
bye
@johngalt: Wrong. My point was that until ‘fairness’ was given an adequate definition, I was unable to comment on it further. You’re the one that went off the deep end about the President and the Vice-President using the term so often. But I didn’t say that progressives never used the term—I said I heard it coming from the Right more than than the Left. Maybe that’s because I read more right-wing blogs than those of the left. But, if you’re going to prove the left says it more than the right, you would have to list all the instances of n (people saying=g the word fair , after it’s defined, and categorized as to those instances according to liberal and conservative usages; and finally show that instances of the former outnumber the latter—if you want to prove logically that liberals have used the term ‘fair’ more than conservatives. Otherwise you’re just stating your perception of its usage, which is no better than mine.
@liberal1(objectivity):
Yes, I know, and I was responding to what you said. The term was introduced by the left, when talking about taxation policies, Lib1. Typically, when the Right is using the term it’s in response to someone from the left using it.
Let’s try this: Do you agree that it is entirely stupid to address tax policies based on such an ambiguous term as “fair”?
@retire05:
Lib1 Original Quote: Do you right-wingers ever think that maybe the Constitution doesn’t delineate all of a person’s rights?
Lib1 Response: Perhaps you should look up the word ‘delineate’; it does not mean ‘guarantee’—but then, that is the right-wing style of argument, not to be too specific (so they always have a way out of the argument). The first ten amendments—which I assume you consider part of the Constitution—are called the Bill of Rights, and they outline specific rights (if they don’t, or if they are not part of the Constitution, then you ought to tell your brothers to stop referring to their rights to bear arms as constitutional). That the government is not entitled to curtail these rights is the same as protecting them. You may have heard the term, “protected under the Constitution”—is that wrong?
Lib1 Original Quote: Or can you understand that there are some factors such as common decency which requires a society to care for all its citizenry – that’s a benefit to belonging to a particular society.
Lib1 Response: You do legislate decency every time a law is passed that makes some things a crime. You many not eliminate them, you do legislate against them. Or, maybe you not know the difference between ‘elimination’ and ‘reduction’. I don’t believe I ever said any thing about the Constitution addressing society—perhaps you should learn to read, or at least listen to what others are saying.
Lib1 Original Quote: That’s why we don’t turn people away from medical emergency rooms for non-emergency situations
Lib1 Response: Again, I don’t believe I said anything about the Constitution with regard to emergency room admission.
Lib1 Original Quote: …otherwise we would have the lame and the dead littering the streets.
Lib1 Response: There are no examples because—so far—the lame and the dead in America have been able to live and die, for the most part, inside instead of outside. But if the ultra-conservatives had there way, they wouldn’t have places inside any more because they would spend all there money on staying alive—we already have the largest homeless population in the western world.
Lib1 Original Quote: But that’s what a modern society does – takes care of its people.
Lib1 Response: Churches are too busy spending their money these day on spreading the Message to Third World Countries to have enough money to spend of adequate health care. Hence government agencies—like the VA have had to take up the slack. That’s the general problem with the conservative position: It doesn’t adequately keep pace with the changing world.
Lib 1 Original Quote: … our streets (would) look… like the 20th century (India)….
Lib1 Response: I was not making a comparison to 20th century America.
Lib1 Response: I started this sequence of comments with the statement that, “…the Constitution doesn’t delineate all of a person’s rights….” It is a document originally based on an 18th Century view of the world and human’s place in it, as regards to government. This is the 21st Century, the authors could not have imagined their document—in its unamended state for four centuries.
Lib1 Final Response: And how did you manage to get as old as you and only be able to understand things in terms of the Constitution—and a limited understanding of that. My experience with you suggests that you look at everything through the prism of religion and the Constitution—even the things under examination may have nothing to do with either. I see this habit as a very narrow-minded view, and the reason why extreme conservatism will eventually for the way of other previous extreme right-wing groups—like the John Birch Society—and will be pulled out in the future, and looked at as a possible solution, then again discarded.
@johngalt: You better go back a re-read what I said. That’s the problem with arguing with conservatives—they hear and see thing through their conservative bubbles.
Any question worded like have worded this one—especially one containing the obvious epithet ‘stupid’—doesn’t deserve an intelligent answer.
@FAITH7: A New Nation—like one promoted by the John Birchers and McCarthyites.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Not like you’d ever be able to offer that anyways, Lib1.
I’ve read what you posted. Numerous times. You assume that because you hear someone on the right talking about “fairness” that it was initially brought up by that person, when it was likely in response to a leftist talking about “fair share”.
My question stands, Lib1, even if I replaced it with “preposterous”, or “asinine”, or “disingenuous”, or “bone-headed”, or any other number of descriptive terms one could come up with.
@anticsrocks: I think that’s good advice, although I would probably modify it as such: …the aid of a farmer and a doctor, in so far as the growing of food and the remediation of illness, in combination with science….
I think too much is made of wisdom of the ages.
@dscott: Natural Rights and Natural Laws (as far as the social order are concerned) are vestiges of 18th Century philosophy, and have no place in the modern world.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Are you really that clueless, or just that much of an asshat?
The Constitution was designed to put limits on the power of the federal government. The Bill of Rights was put in to allay the fears of those who were worried that the base document did not do ENOUGH to protect the citizen from the type of abuses of power for which the colonists had just fought a difficult revolution. It was the SECOND charter for our nation, because the Articles of Confederation were not strong enough for a cohesive national government.
It is not, nor has it ever been, the job of the federal government to “take care of people”, no matter how much you pseudointellectual leftists want to fool yourselves into believing as a pathetic salve to your own internal feelings of guilt.
The US is ranked 38th in health care rankings precisely because the design of the rating system weighs heavily in favor of socialist health care scams and use of falsified or skewed data reporting. If you ranked the nations by 5 year cancer survival rates, took out the effect of drug abusing mothers on infant mortality and had all nations honestly report their infant/prematurity statistics (instead of allowing all the socialist health systems to call 24-25 week infants that don’t survive 30 days as “stillbirths”) then the US would be #1 in health care. People come from all over the world to not only get medical care here, but to ATTEND MEDICAL SCHOOL in order to learn the most advanced techniques and medical practices in the world.
If you think health care is a “right” then get off your lazy backside, earn a degree that allows you to get into medical school, get through medical school, (averaging $250-500,000 in loans to complete) then complete 3-8 years of residency /subspecialty training – all while missing time with your family so you can try to save someone else’s family members from death – then when you FINALLY are in a position to start earning a decent living see how well you like having some jackass tell you that you have to be a slave to the government so a bunch of apparatachiks can tell stupid people they have “FREE HEALTH CARE”.
You demonstrate how much more of an ass you are by trying to misapply Christian ethics. It is amazing to me to listen to leftists demean Christian principles virtually nonstop – going overboard trying to remove every Christian symbol from anything that is even remotely associated with government…then try to (laughably) shame Christians who do not buy into the heartless collectivist method of controlling healthcare by claiming “This is what Jesus would want.” Christ would not support a government imposed health care system that murders the unborn or forces people to pay for things that violate their individual consciences.
Imposing collectivist health systems onto our nation will do NOTHING to improve access nor quality of care. The ONLY thing obamacare does is thrust government bureaucrats with absolutely NO medical training into decision making authority positions that prevent doctors from doing what we are supposed to do, which is treat our patients. Your misplaced, assinine, twisted logic prevents you from dealing with the cold reality that you cannot simply make unpleasant things get better by wishing for them to be so.
Using the (il)logic of leftists like yourself, food is a human right. You need to eat more than you need to see the doctor. So why shouldn’t the government just take over all farms, all food processing and distribution? After all, we have an epidemic of obesity in this country, so people are clearly not smart enough to make their own eating decisions…so we need a government bureaucracy set up to tell us how much to eat, what we can eat, and when we can eat it. We need a new board, Independent Eating Advisory Board (IEAB) that puts out clear rules based on Body Mass Index, age, sex, sexual preference, and of course utility to society. We can’t have people wasting precious food resources by eating too many cheeseburgers and ignoring their arugela now, can we?
This is the idiocy of leftists like you, Liberal. Whatever deepseated emotional problem that you have that makes you believe that people need to be controlled by government bureaucracies is a reflection of YOUR issues, not mine. If YOU want to have government punks making every decision for you in life, then feel free to go somewhere like Cuba, China, or any other socialist hellhole. Just because YOU want others to control you and put you in political chains does not mean that I want to be enslaved.
MR OBAMA play the wrong game, by refusing the cuts on spending,
he should not have any access to one more penny of the PEOPLE’S MONEY,
FOR HIS SPENDING MONEY, HE PROVE TO BE NOT FIT TO KNOW HOW TO BUDGET A COUNTRY THE SIZE OF AMERICA,, HE SHOWED IT IN THE LAST 4 YEARS,
DON’T GIVE HIM THE PURSE, ANY MORE, DON’T PRINT MONEY, DON’T LET HIM SELL AMERICA TO THE UN, DON’T LET HIM BOROUGH A DOLLAR MORE FROM CHINA, HE CAN CAMPAIGN ALL HE WANT.
HALF OF THE VOTERS HE HAD WON”T GIVE HIM ANY MONEY THEY DON’T GOT.
@Trish Peloquin: I’m sorry you considered it derogatory to be called a ‘right winger’; I don’t consider it derogatory to be called a ‘left-winger’. But before you talk about how the Left demeans the Right with their language, scroll down to Pete’s comments in response to me.
No one has ‘rebutted’ my position—unless you consider off-topic rambling a rebuttal. Here’s what a rebuttal is: If I say X is true, and you say my statement (in the exact same language as I used it) is false, and can offer empirical evidence to prove it, then you’ve rebutted my statement. No one has done this.
As far as what Paul Krugman said about ‘death panels’, I only looked at one site, on which the text about what the video said differed from what the video actually said—in the video Paul Krugman was explaining what the right-wingers were claiming, not what he believed (http://politicaloutcast.com/2012/11/obamacare-is-the-death-panel/). I don’t know whether you just took what the writer said as gospel and didn’t listen to the video, or whether you were mesmerize by the power of suggestion, but it didn’t seem like an objective account to me, so I figure nothing else you said was credible either. Probably you read to many right wing sources—not too objective either. But, perhaps that indictment is a little too severe—maybe you should just document your sources, so people would read the correct one.
@johngalt: Before I sign off on this thread, I’m going to ask you if you know what ’emotive terms’ are, and what their relation is to reasoned argument? Try ask in a question that can be empirically verified—do you know what that is? You seem to like banter back and forth, with never a resolution—I used to like that too when I was young and ignorant.
@Pete: Do you feel better now that you have gotten all that off your chest?
Liberal1
ah , so you’re an old scrooge lefty wing, your time is almost up.
CHRISTMAS IS COMING SOON, TO REPLACE YOU.
@dscott:
dscott,
In CA, way back a few decades, we voted overwhelmingly for a proposition to force the federal government to pay for our private hospitals’ illegal alien ER bills.
Within a day or so of the vote, however, a liberal judge overturned the will of the people of California.
Hundreds of privately owned and many charitable hospitals went out of business as a result.
Illegals continued to ignore getting insurance and kept swamping our hospital ERs.
Now that ObamaCare is law the federal government is being forced to pay (we taxpayers) for the costs of uninsured injured and sick people.
One quote I read was that, if you are under 30, your yearly cost of insurance will be more than double what it was before ObamaCare, just because of all these uninsured people.
Obama’s intent is to shove off the costs of his constituents’ health care to non-constituents, like the wealthy, business people, the frugal, the healthy.
It is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth covered over as medical insurance.
Nan G
IS IN HE SUPPOSE TO GET THE MARINE OUT OF MEXICO,
INSTEAD OF NURTURING THE GRINGOS HERE, LET HIM RETURN THOSE ILLEGALS AT ONCE AND BRING BACK THE MARINE HOME TO HIS PARENTS,
HE IS NOT A CRIMINAL, BOYCOT MEXICO, CLOSE THE BORDER,IF THEY DON’T MOVE,AND THAT WILL BE JUST TO START, YOU HEAR MR MEXICAN PRESIDENT, AND OBAMA MOVE YOUR BUTT AND DO YOUR JOB, ARE YOU THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF? AND LET A MARINE KEPT IN PRISON FOR NOTHING WRONG,
GET MOVING BEFORE CHRISTMAS, THOSE PARENTS WANT THEIR MARINE FOR CHRISTMAS,
HARRY READ HAS REACH HIS RETIREMENT TIME,
HE CONSTANTLY BLOCK EVERY GOOD BILLS SENT BY THE CONSERVATIVES,
HE IS THE TROUBLE MAKER IN THE GOVERNMENT, GET HIM OUT OF THERE.
THE DEMOCRATS DON’T HAVE GUTS TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT, THEY ARE THE VILLAINS
WHO ARE DESTROYING THE COUNTRY.TAKING THE PEOPLE IN THE CLIFF WITH HIM.
AND THEY ARE COWARD ENOUGH TO BLAME THE REPUBLICANS,
OBAMA DID IT AGAIN, ONE JUST SAID HE IS WRECKING THE COUNTRY AND THEY VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN,
Nan G
I JUST HEARD ON FOX;
MARINE COMING HOME
WOW I’M SO GLAD
Nan G
as they explain, it’s not done yet but a judge is going to do a review of his case,
and they are not sure if he will come for CHRISTMAS, THE MAN SAID MAYBE FOR NEW YEAR,
IT’S NOT AS NICE AS THEY PUT IT AT THE START OF THE SENTENCE,
BYE
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
If you were going for the condescending insult, Lib1, it didn’t work.
Maybe you could answer the question, instead of doing everything but that, Lib1.
I realize that it wasn’t addressed to me, Lib1, but could you have possibly made it any clearer to the readers here that you believe in a progressive, tyrannical society? I doubt it.
Our Constitution was based on Natural Rights and Natural Law, Lib1. If you don’t like it, you are more than welcome to advocate for changing the Constitution, instead of ignoring it completely.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
Thank you for your honest admission in rejecting Natural Law. Few liberals dare openly express that position for fear their true aspirations for control of humanity by the elite instead of the individual. Liberalism has always been about the control of others under the guise of Meritocracy and it always leads to dictatorship.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity): You said:
Please explain to me where our rights come from? How do you define a right?
@Liberal1 (Objectivity):
I must apologize for not challenging a false assertion. Natural Law is not a modern creation of the 18th Century.
The unwritten body of universal moral principles that underlie the ethical and legal norms by which human conduct is sometimes evaluated and governed. Natural law is often contrasted with positive law, which consists of the written rules and regulations enacted by government. The term natural law is derived from the Roman term jus naturale. Adherents to natural law philosophy are known as naturalists. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Historical+Natural+Law
It seems you are just slightly off by around 2000 years if not more if we just consider the Roman reference. So much for the time line. And since your time line is completely wrong, it also follows the unspoken premise of the 18 Century philosophy is also wrong as it is based on thousands of years of human tradition, not some Johnny come lately trendy ideology like say…Progressive liberalism.
I WISH ALL THE BEST TO YOU ALL ON THE NEW YEAR COMING FOR SOME,
OR ALREADY HERE FOR OTHER
I HAVE 11 AND 10MINUTES HERE BURRIED UNDER MANY FEET OF SNOW,