SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2009
Give Me Life, Liberty and Healthcare
In a recent email exchange about the “Right to Healthcare”, the following view was offered about the Rights defined in the Declaration of Independence.
“All men, said Jefferson, have, among other unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Who does not know that? Who does not know that those words are the heart of American life—the most important thing in our Declaration of Independence? Everybody knows that.
Well, if everybody does know that, everybody happens to be wrong. The most important thing about the Declaration of Independence is not what it says about man's unalienable rights, but the order in which those rights are listed. What is that order? First came life: this means food in the stomach; the first of all things first. If you find this hard to believe, go back to the order that early Christians understood much better than today's Christians do—an order clear in the Lord's Prayer…”
My response was that the Declaration was and is an inspiring document for all humanity. It also was not represented as the source of the ideas it espoused – those ideas and concepts were the result of two thousand years of thought and development. They were ideas which had been fought for and developed most elegantly in England beginning in the 1100s.
Therefore to say that the most important aspect of the Declaration is the ordering of the listed Rights seems to distort the concept of Rights. The colonists most often used the terms Life, Liberty, and Property in discussions of their Rights. And these terms were a broad umbrella for Rights which were considered too innumerable to list. I would most strongly object to the concept that Life means: food in the stomach; the first of all things first. The meaning of Life meant something far more important. It meant that the Individual had total control and responsibility for his or her own being. It meant that no one else could hold authority over the individual. No kings, no gods, no other person had the ability to claim control or power over an Individual.
That is why things like military drafts or mandated social programs violate the Rights of the Individual. Above all Life is a Property right. You, as an individual, are the only one who has the Right to manage or direct your Life. The tragedy of the modern State is that it does not recognize the Individual as having any Rights. Your Rights are only what the State says they are. Your Liberties are only what the State determines them to be. Your Property is only what the State does not confiscate. Your Happiness, well that too is what the State feels it needs to be – and nothing more.
The concepts and applications of Individual Liberty reached their peak in the early 1800s. The divine power of the Kings has been replaced by the political power of divinely directed Government and the omnipotent State. Whereas Individuals rely upon cooperation to achieve their goals the distinguishing trait of Kings and modern Governments is they always use force and coercion to achieve their goals.
As for health care it is not a Right. It may be something everyone needs in their lives just as they need food and water, but it is not a Right. Why is it that we can provide affordable food and water in this country but not health care? The answer is Government restrictions and regulations upon health care. There is no free market in health care. There are severe restrictions upon who can provide care, how it may be provided, what is allowed to be provided and to whom it must be provided. When providing food and water are regulated in this manner, as in central planning, there are always the critical shortfalls and extreme costs.
Healthcare will only become affordable and efficient when the State removes its heavy hand from it. Given that the State loves Power and Power relies upon control, I do not expect healthcare will recover any time soon.