Right to Healtcare and RKBA

[Vonz90]

The RKBA is a negative right. It is essentially saying that the government does not have the authority to prevent you from buying your own arms to defend yourself with as long as the activities you are involved in are themselves legal.

Health care is usually considered a positive right. That is, it involves giving you something that must be taken from someone else => i.e. via mandates or taxes or whatever. Of course since the theoretical limit to how much health care activity that is needed is semi-infinite (as the costs of health care can go up exponentially for some conditions/situations) and the resources available will always be less than the theoretical demand; what you get is not actually a right to access to healthcare, but a right to access to a system where some government official/system is rationing the healthcare base on some semi-arbitrary system rather than the market making the decision (which is to say you deciding what you will/will-not pay for).

Access to healthcare can be considered a negative right in the sense that free people should be able to form contracts to have healthcare provided to them via the market process without interference from the government (again assuming the activity in question is itself legal). Usually making healthcare a positive right usually results in the normal healthcare as a negative right go away as the government tries to eliminate the private market for healthcare in order to increase the available supply for their own rationing system.

Short answer: Negative rights are good. Positive rights are bad. (Positive rights are a pretty way to package theft.)

[Combat Controller]

If the government is famous for $300 hammers and $1000 toilet seats, how is this supposed to be affordable, especially since it covers 300 million people. Britain can't cope with what, 26 million?

[Scott Free]

A right -- a political right -- is a freedom of action that does not require the permission of anyone (or anything, i.e., the government) to exercise.

That's it.

Don't make it more difficult than it has to be.

Yes, the only proper "right" is what has been dubbed here a "negative" right. All of the enumerated rights in the Constitution are freedoms of action. But what's the purpose of having freedoms of action? Simply, it is to live -- to take the actions necessary to support and enjoy your life. Free speech, RKBA, freedom of religion, etc. are all a freedom of action. Your right to free speech is your right to take the actions that constitute free speech -- to talk with others, to print your words, to broadcast them on radio and television, etc. -- and your right to make arrangements with others to hear your speech. You can pull up a soapbox at the end of your driveway and speak away. You can sell your manuscript to book publishers, magazines, or web sites. You can purchase time to broadcast what you can afford on radio and television.

But with the exception of speaking on your soapbox on your own property, your freedom of action takes a bit of a different form. That is, you have to deal with others -- say, for example, radio station owners -- in order to broadcast what you want. The owner may agree with your particular stance on something and (in a perfect, non-"Fairness Doctrine" world) allow (or even pay) you to speak as you like. Otherwise, you're going to have to find an owner(s) who're willing to sell you time on their station(s) to broadcast what you want. No one has the legal obligation to provide you with a soapbox, a television station, or a blog and no one, sure as hell, has an obligation to listen to you.

Most of all, no one has an obligation to provide you with the end result that you desire; you only have the freedom to act and to try to get what you want through persuasion. That is, it has to be consensual through an exchange of values. If no one wants to sell you air time to broadcast your firm belief that little green men crash landed in Roswell and ate the president's brain or pay you for your ability to prove that Barack Obama is a socialist of the worst stripe, then no one's rights have been violated.

An individual's freedom of action mandates the fact that no one may stop him from doing what he wants within the context of that right. Individuals have the right to contract with each other regarding the exercise of their rights and no one -- most of all, the government -- is allowed to impede these relationships. Thus, with the RKBA, no one -- including the government -- is allowed to prevent you from purchasing and owning firearms. Within this sphere, an individual's right to own firearms is absolute and inviolate. (Now, if you think that there may be a problem with construing the 2nd Amendment to mean that owning "firearms" also means that an individual can own, say, a 155mm howitzer, fine. That's why The Boys made the constitutional amendment process. Just be specific, please.)

And what is the quick and easy way for people to know what rights, in fact, are recognized by their fellow citizens and the government (which was created to protect those rights)? The Constitution. It's clear, it's objective, it's concrete. Look, there they are in black and white -- any questions? And if a "right" is not enumerated in the Constitution, it doesn't mean that the right in question doesn't exist, it simply means that it hasn't been legally addressed and recognized through the constitutional process -- and, in our case, it should be left up to the States (and not the Supreme Court) to decide whether to recognize it as a right within the borders of that state. Until that "right" is in the text of the Constitution, it cannot be considered a federal right, legal in all 50 states.


Health care clearly is not a right (certainly not a negative right) and it should be quite obvious why: in order to provide healthcare for those who cannot afford it, wealth must be taken from someone to pay for it. This violates the individual's freedom of action to support one's own life. I think everyone here mostly gets it.

However, Ag, you've got me kind of worried. You apparently think that the answer to the health care crisis is to use the power of government (via the Sherman Antitrust Act) to break up the "monopoly" of the "medical industry" (i.e., the doctors and the hospitals.)

And at the same time, you state that you "don't believe in socializing anything, certainly not health care".

Well, if using the power of the government to regulate, incentivize, coerce, reward, curtail, intimidate, or subsidize -- that is, to force -- the economy to some end that the government maintains is desirable, then what do you think "socializing" is?

This is an example of an error that most folks in general and many conservatives in particular exhibit -- especially in their politics: the inability to reason back through a chain of events to the ultimate cause of a given effect. In this case, the effect that you appear to abhor is the "obscene" profits of the doctors and the hospitals and -- because you cite the Sherman Antitrust Act as a solution -- I must presume that you think that there is a "monopoly" within the health care industry that is the cause this "unjust" effect.

Son, you must try to look at the entire context at issue in order to determine cause and effect. In this case, you must ask a variety of questions and the answers must not contradict each other:

Why are the (evil and greedy) doctors and (evil and greedy) hospitals making "obscene" profits? They didn't appear to make "obscene" profits in the past -- say, 40 years ago -- yet they do now, so what has changed in the interim? How are they making such "obscene" profits? That is, what are the mechanisms that enable them to do this? Again, were they there 40-50 years ago?

The answers will lead you to one last question: are the (evil and greedy) doctors and (equally evil and greedy) hospitals the only villains here? Why do you think that they're the cause and not the effect? Certainly they must be because look at all of those "obscene" profits they're making, eh? And everybody wants to make an obscene amount of money, right? Well, that's like blaming Franklin Raines for the demise of Fannie Mae, the collapse of the mortgage industry and passing of the bailout bill all while pocketing a $50 million dollar salary. Oh, his policies were entirely politically motivated, he stepped all over the Constitution and he squandered titanic sums of cash, to be sure.

But he didn't cause the problem.

The problem came from a) the Community Reinvestment Act, b) corrupt politicians and c) the fact that we're on a fiat money standard that enables the Congress to deficit spend ad infinitum. That is the cause of the problem. Raines is an effect -- just like the "greedy" doctors and the "greedy" hospitals that "gouge" their patients. They are simply behaving in the way that government policies permit and verily encourage them to do.

If the government will actually pay $28 for an Advil tablet or $600 for a toilet seat, then what did you expect a person or a company in business to make a profit to do? Stand on principle? Which principle? The principle of what's "right" -- that is, what's moral? Indeed. Tell me, what will happen when you, as CEO, explain to your shareholders that you and your competition had the same amount and type of business last year but they made $8 million dollars more than you because they charged what the government would pay them and you stood on principle and charged less? Do you think that any shareholders may leave and invest in the competition? How much longer do you think that you'll have your job, btw? Such profit is bound to attract even more competition. How much longer will your company even be in business if you -- but not they -- stand on principle?

So look at what the government's interference in the marketplace (in this case, health care) has given you as a moral choice: either stay in business by being corrupt (and I submit that charging $28 for an Advil as they did my Father is corrupt) or go out of business. Some choice. Yet these are the principles that the government -- advertently or inadvertently -- fosters. Look at what it has happened to the education marketplace; same thing.

Btw, do yourself a favor take an hour out to actually read the Sherman Antitrust Act. It is one of the most hideous laws ever devised and it has damaged our economy in ways that you cannot count -- all under the guise of "fairness".

Yeesh.

[Aglifter]

Obscene profits is not a violation of any law. Systematically charging different customers vastly different amounts, because of their inability to negotiate is. I don't care what the hospitals and doctors charge, provided every customer actually had to pay that amount. If it's too high, the market can readily correct that.

But, claiming to bill an amount, and forcing small customers to pay it, and then letting those in the industry pay a fraction of the billed amount, on a systematic basis, is illegal in every other industry. By doing so, it forces people to buy health insurance, who would otherwise be perfectly fine in paying the same rate the insurance companies do.

The anti-trust acts aren't perfect, I mentioned the Sherman one because it was the first, and it was meant to deal w. a very similar situation. (Corps. could ship on a railroad for a fraction of the price charged to farmers -- which was intended for force the farmers to take a much lower price, and sell to the corps.)

For the Free Market to succeed, it must remain honest, and open to new competition.

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but calling someone "Son," whom you don't know can be considered offensive. (As it became a more polite way of calling someone "Boy"... again, only offensive in certain cultures, and certain uses.)

[Jered]

The government can't even run an animal shelter without messing it up

Do you want to put people like that in charge of our health care when they can't even keep animals healthy.

[Aglifter]

? Guys, I think some wires got crossed, I don't think anyone is advocating Gov't management of healthcare.

[MarkD]

Sigh.

I withdraw the question, since apparently a few people didn't read more than the subject line.

[Combat Controller]

The government can't even run a whorehouse and make money....

[The Quiet Man]

Government is much like King Midas' evil twin brother...everything it touches turns to shit. EVERYTHING! Not to be confused with "everything but..." EVERYTHING! The sooner people figure out that very simple maxim the sooner folks won't let government touch anything ever again.

[Scott Free]

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but calling someone "Son," whom you don't know can be considered offensive. (As it became a more polite way of calling someone "Boy"... again, only offensive in certain cultures, and certain uses

Well, Heavens to Murgatroyd, let's get this outta the way: please accept my humble apology if I've offended you by addressing you as "son".

You're still in error, though...

Obscene profits is not a violation of any law. Systematically charging different customers vastly different amounts, because of their inability to negotiate is. I don't care what the hospitals and doctors charge, provided every customer actually had to pay that amount. If it's too high, the market can readily correct that. (Emphasis mine.)

Pardon me for doing such a poor job of explaining it, Ag, but this is the point that I've tried to make above: when the government is regulating the health care industry within an inch of its life, there is no free market to "readily" correct prices that are out of whack. Dragging out the craven, immoral and dispicable Sherman Antitrust Act to beat the government-created HMOs about the head and shoulders is not the answer needed to "readily correct" the consumer's "ability to negotiate"; a free market is.

Again, please note that fifty years ago no one bought health insurance; it practically didn't exist. Question: So why didn't it? Answer: the government wasn't involved in providing any kind of health insurance to anyone, so it didn't flood the market with ever-increasing sums of money which inevitably changed the dynamics of the market and, thus, didn't create a market imbalance within the market for health care. Consequently, health care costs were reasonable and affordable to all but the poorest of individuals -- who would then either have to do without or -- *gasp!* -- rely on charity. The result: we did not have piles of corpses of the "poor" heaped in the streets. Instead, we had the highest standard of health care in the world.

Having the government "regulate" a problem that it created is absurd. And thinking that it is a right is equally absurd.

For the Free Market to succeed, it must remain honest, and open to new competition.

Riiiiiight. So in order to maintain a Free Market, we have to regulate it? (And, I'm sure that you would agree, that regulate is exactly what the Sherman Antitrust Act does.) Now think for a minute -- regulate the market in order to ensure that it's free. To my ears, that proposition would be a contradiction. How 'bout to you?

A free market can and will succeed -- provided that the government stays out of the market; that's how you know it's free. A market is free or it isn't. Period. Regulating the market is not staying out of the market; it is controlling the market.

Sigh.
I withdraw the question, since apparently a few people didn't read more than the subject line.

Sorry if you think the thread was hijacked, Mark, but it wasn't. It was you who attempted to make a definition of what a "right" is or isn't. I simply added my two cents that -- in case you hadn't noticed -- supported your point that the RKBA is a legitimate right whereas the "right" to health care is a fraud. I apologize if my clarifying the issue turned the course of the conversation away from where you wanted it to go.

And where was that?