01-24-2017, 07:19 PM
(01-24-2017, 04:28 PM)Mikebert Wrote:(01-24-2017, 04:11 PM)Galen Wrote:(01-24-2017, 01:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Health care is a right. The trickle-downer libertarians want to continue to deny this; it's just reactionary ideology dominating the minds of half the American people.
No its not. You do not have the right to the product of another person labor which is why libertarians generally reject the notion of positive rights because they are a violation of the non-aggression principle. On the other hand individuals and groups of people may chose to set up charities to provide health care and no libertarian would have a problem with it, indeed they would probably help. It is the use of force by government that is objected to.
This quote by Murray Rothbard describes the mentality of the left perfectly: It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
These libertarian precepts are no more legitimate than the divine right of kings.
Yes, what dogmatic libertarians like Galen don't realize is that law is necessary unless people are perfect, which they are not yet and probably will not be for a while. Unless we all become like Jesus, laws will be necessary. When laws are not obeyed, then they must be enforced. There is discretion in this; the law must be enforced fairly and with mercy. If they are decided by consensus, which is the Green ideal, then they have a large majority supporting them who won't need to suffer enforcement.
I understand the libertarian objection to positive rights. They have the right to their opinion. I just disagree, so I am "obtuse." Health care is a right, but it must be paid for, so it's not as positive as Galen claims. He just objects because some poor people might get health care that the rich might have to pay for. But as liberals like me see it, it all averages out. Maybe I'll be poor, or maybe I'll be rich, so I will probably pay for others when I'm richer even if I get free healthcare for myself when I'm poor. It's the concept of social insurance that libertarians just don't seem to get. They tend to have contempt for poor people, and think poverty is all the individual's fault.
Their worldview is that we are each autonomous individuals. But the idea that such individuals can both be idiots (in the original meaning of cut off from others) to a degree, and innately perfectly behaved so that most laws are not needed, is quite contradictory. Only if we see that we are connected to others and the world around us, do we behave as if that were so.