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The right to life (NOT an abortion screed)
13 years ago
I was involved, albeit superficially and briefly, with a conversation dealing with socialism and its effects on society, specifically with respect to socialized medicine.
As an avowed capitalist with VERY few exceptions made for the social contract, I despise hearing about how good an idea socialized medicine is. When I ask, I most often hear something that boils down to something that as far as I can tell the vast majority of Europeans take for granted as immutable truth and at least 45% of Americans believe as well which is this: "I have the RIGHT to healthcare."
....
Noo... you absofuckinglootly do not.
You have a RIGHT to LIFE. Little considered but indisputable corollary to the whole life thing: You have an obligation to DIE.
If you dispute this, find me someone who is on his way to living forever. Medical science can't tell us everything yet, but it DOES tell us that we are programmed to self-destruct, and this process is called, colloquially, aging. As we age, shit breaks down more easily and often, and the shit becomes harder to fix and more important as things progress. Finally, you kick it, or rather, cease to have the ability to kick anything anymore. At that point we who remain usually either burn what's left or bury it, and move on about our own flimsy lives.
So tell me my fine socialist friends, if you have the RIGHT to life, but the OBLIGATION to die... how do you reconcile these two? Well obviously you've got some explaining to do don't you. Since the obligation to die is pretty much beyond dispute, the only wiggle room available here is in the right to life. Okay, so let's focus on that shall we? Yes lets.
What can the right to life reasonably entail? Well I think we'd all agree that people who are born should have a shot at living. Fair enough? I think so, considering that's how we as a species still exist. Beyond that though, the ground gets a little shaky.
You either call upon religious principles to say that G-d Himself demands we do all we can to aid our fellow man (He doesn't say that incidentally... what He says is that a man who DOES do this is blessed.) or you trump up some bullshit humanist crap that enslaves one man to another, or even worse, to all other men. (Man being in this case a general term; person takes longer to type and quite frankly I love offending feminists who insist upon its use, so if you're one such, piss off.)
I saw some ears perk up in the crowd... right over... there! Yes Sir! Question? Slavery? Ooooh! Yes, Sir. I shall explain don't you worry! Here's where the socialism kicks in!
There is a certain amount of healthcare that's built into what philosophers like to call the Social Contract. The origin of the term is most often ascribed to John Locke, though it is referenced in virtually every credible political theory, politics being in essence how one man gets along with another without somebody getting murdered in his sleep. The aforementioned shaky ground is just how much healthcare is called for before one gives in to the inevitable obligation around which no living thing may work.
Well, in essence, that depends on the capabilities of the society. Obviously an agrarian society whose medical capabilities max out at hygiene and sutures will not be curing many cancer patients. But medical capabilities are not the only ones in play, and that's where the socialists usually fall down on their faces, because they all assume that if it is possible it must be obligatory. If a life can be saved it MUST be saved.
Bullshit. Here's why:
We live in a world of limited resources. Limited water, limited air, limited land, limited intellect, there isn't in fact a single resource that the human species can draw on, with the possible exception of will, that is infinite.
When a resource is limited it must be allocated. If it were limitless, its allocation would not only not be in contention, its abuse wouldn't even occur to the user and in fact would not be possible, because a limitless resource cannot be abused.
Since we can count the number of doctors they are a limited resource, thus it is logical that their expertise must be allocated, and CAN be abused. Because the knowledge these doctors possess is difficult and laborious to obtain, their numbers are more severely limited than say... ditch diggers or WAN Security Engineers. The premium paid by society to make use of their services is thus higher. Those of you with a few sparks of intellect to rub together will see where this argument is going and I could no doubt close the book and walk off stage and you'd GET it without further prompting. For those of you who haven't bothered to think about what I've said yet nevertheless have a twisted desire to be abused, comment below and I shall lay down part two of this explanation completing, in absolutely torturous detail, why you cannot socialize medicine and that in fact, the more medical capability is enhanced, the less feasible socialization becomes.
For all the rest of you.... Pretty pictures.
Addendum: Bison are not always team players.
As an avowed capitalist with VERY few exceptions made for the social contract, I despise hearing about how good an idea socialized medicine is. When I ask, I most often hear something that boils down to something that as far as I can tell the vast majority of Europeans take for granted as immutable truth and at least 45% of Americans believe as well which is this: "I have the RIGHT to healthcare."
....
Noo... you absofuckinglootly do not.
You have a RIGHT to LIFE. Little considered but indisputable corollary to the whole life thing: You have an obligation to DIE.
If you dispute this, find me someone who is on his way to living forever. Medical science can't tell us everything yet, but it DOES tell us that we are programmed to self-destruct, and this process is called, colloquially, aging. As we age, shit breaks down more easily and often, and the shit becomes harder to fix and more important as things progress. Finally, you kick it, or rather, cease to have the ability to kick anything anymore. At that point we who remain usually either burn what's left or bury it, and move on about our own flimsy lives.
So tell me my fine socialist friends, if you have the RIGHT to life, but the OBLIGATION to die... how do you reconcile these two? Well obviously you've got some explaining to do don't you. Since the obligation to die is pretty much beyond dispute, the only wiggle room available here is in the right to life. Okay, so let's focus on that shall we? Yes lets.
What can the right to life reasonably entail? Well I think we'd all agree that people who are born should have a shot at living. Fair enough? I think so, considering that's how we as a species still exist. Beyond that though, the ground gets a little shaky.
You either call upon religious principles to say that G-d Himself demands we do all we can to aid our fellow man (He doesn't say that incidentally... what He says is that a man who DOES do this is blessed.) or you trump up some bullshit humanist crap that enslaves one man to another, or even worse, to all other men. (Man being in this case a general term; person takes longer to type and quite frankly I love offending feminists who insist upon its use, so if you're one such, piss off.)
I saw some ears perk up in the crowd... right over... there! Yes Sir! Question? Slavery? Ooooh! Yes, Sir. I shall explain don't you worry! Here's where the socialism kicks in!
There is a certain amount of healthcare that's built into what philosophers like to call the Social Contract. The origin of the term is most often ascribed to John Locke, though it is referenced in virtually every credible political theory, politics being in essence how one man gets along with another without somebody getting murdered in his sleep. The aforementioned shaky ground is just how much healthcare is called for before one gives in to the inevitable obligation around which no living thing may work.
Well, in essence, that depends on the capabilities of the society. Obviously an agrarian society whose medical capabilities max out at hygiene and sutures will not be curing many cancer patients. But medical capabilities are not the only ones in play, and that's where the socialists usually fall down on their faces, because they all assume that if it is possible it must be obligatory. If a life can be saved it MUST be saved.
Bullshit. Here's why:
We live in a world of limited resources. Limited water, limited air, limited land, limited intellect, there isn't in fact a single resource that the human species can draw on, with the possible exception of will, that is infinite.
When a resource is limited it must be allocated. If it were limitless, its allocation would not only not be in contention, its abuse wouldn't even occur to the user and in fact would not be possible, because a limitless resource cannot be abused.
Since we can count the number of doctors they are a limited resource, thus it is logical that their expertise must be allocated, and CAN be abused. Because the knowledge these doctors possess is difficult and laborious to obtain, their numbers are more severely limited than say... ditch diggers or WAN Security Engineers. The premium paid by society to make use of their services is thus higher. Those of you with a few sparks of intellect to rub together will see where this argument is going and I could no doubt close the book and walk off stage and you'd GET it without further prompting. For those of you who haven't bothered to think about what I've said yet nevertheless have a twisted desire to be abused, comment below and I shall lay down part two of this explanation completing, in absolutely torturous detail, why you cannot socialize medicine and that in fact, the more medical capability is enhanced, the less feasible socialization becomes.
For all the rest of you.... Pretty pictures.
Addendum: Bison are not always team players.
The rest of the industry surrounding medicine is...far more complicated than is easy to fix methinks. And too big to make a short pithy comment about, so good day! :)
Oooo, what could happen next...? :- )
First off, a scornful snort and sharp claw-slash at the idea that language and logic of rights has any useful
role to play here. Except to bollix up people into magical thinking. I believe I have a right, ergo the
whole damn universe must do backflips for me because *I'm* thpecial. I've got this right, dontcha know.
Bollocks (different word). Right to life? Right to healthcare? Could rattle off a whole laundry list of precious and
inviolable and inalienable 'rights.' Some of them are even good ones, and more people should believe in them.
In theory it'll lead to fewer people being murdered in their beds (ave Locke). Maybe a society that works a
little better?
Save for what people [both socialist and capitalist] tend to lose sight of (I notice you didn't): Rights come
with obligations and duties. Fail to uphold 'em and you could lose those rights. Blow away a cop in
Texas and see how fast your right to life vaporizes, hmmm? Although the appeals process could drag
on a bit... :- /
We tread in totalitarian territory when we wpeak of rights. Who defines those obligations and duties? And
who punishes and revokes rights when they are breached or not upheld? In times past it might be
your neighbours, who knew damn well the threat you represented (if you really screwed up).
Nowadays we prefer to leave it up to the state. Much more convenient, but not really a good idea. The more
rights we have, the less free, IMHO. At the same time, the fewer rights, the less safe (esp. re. property
rights). Square that circle.
Note also how rights are often used to coerce. I have a right to yadda-yadda, what you're doing (or not
doing) is infringing on my right, so now I get to club you with something. Where'd I put my
elephant...? <Insert trumpet sound FX here>.
Alternately, in my judgment your non-belief in this right constitutes an infringement, so if you don't
believe in this right and fly, er, right I'll break out the rhinocerous <What the hell does a rhino FX
sound like?>. This line of thinking has gotten any number of abortion doctors shot. Religious
beliefs have been known to have the same effect. Hmmm...
A right to healthcare is a *political* right, and is by no means an absolute or even that special. How's
it different from the city water supply? You're a citizen of a state, you pay taxes, you don't break
laws (much). Great: Here's your healthcare card. When you break yourself, the state will fix you.
A deal's a deal.
Get kicked out of the state, OTOH, and you stay broke. Or you certainly will be after you pay the
hospital bill.
*This* is supposed to stand on the same level as a putative right to life? And/or derives from it?
Insert sound FX of kitty giggling himself to death and nearly stabbing himself by accident. I join
you in hearty bwahahas at the socialists et al who posit healthcare as a human right. A deal.
No more.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: Now taken as a unit, that qualifies. Healthcare does not.
At the end of the day, there's only one rational argument for universal healthcare (God knows
there's plenty of irrational ones). Hold onto your horns: It happens to be a capitalist argument.
And it doesn't get spoken of very much, either; leaves a bad taste in the leftie's mouths, and
makes the righties just spit.
Then both will turn to the tap in the kitchen, draw a glass of clean water, then go back to
arguing about healthcare over the dinner table until the food turns to mold.
Hey, wait a sec: Tap water? What's so special about tap water? (Notice that the right to clean
water is on a lot of lists too).
Point-blank, you and I probably wouldn't be here without universal tap water. Whether the municpal
water supply is under state control or as government-granted monopoly; it's all the same.
You don't have a choice about the treated and chlorinated (and sometimes fluoridated) water
that's piped into your house or apartment or business.
It's coming from the water company, period, full stop. Don't pay the bill, you're cut off. Some
right, huh?
Why wouldn't we be here? Because bad water kills people. And I mean it just
slaughters 'em, in countless ghastly ways. All the wars in human history don't even rank.
There should be five horsemen, not four.
Up until a few centuries ago, most people lived agrarian. Water shortages were deadly, but
really toxic H2O was somewhat rare simply due to low concentration of people. And when
the animals started keeling over that was a signal. Switch water supplies (if you could).
But when people began living in urban settings in large numbers, oh now we got
trouble. You took your life in your paws when you filled a bucket from the pump in the
square. The Romans knew all about this. Their greatest civic engineering projects?
Water supply. Dead Romans don't wear plaid, and they can't conquer Carthage either.
Our grandparents and great-grandparents would have almost certainly snuffed it without
what happened in the late 1700s-early 1800s. That is to say, the birth of capitalism and
the industrial revolution. The cities became packed with people (workers) immigrating
in from the country.
And the water supply was killing 'em off almost as fast they could arrive, or making them
so sick they were useless as workers. Not a problem for the capitalists of the day (and not
one they could do anything about anyway). Raise prices, hire the healthy workers--who
cost more--and make do with the rest. Productivity's low? Whaddya gonna do?
It took cholera and some science to tip the balance. People began figuring out why city
water was so lethal. Only one thing to do: State action, and on a pretty huge scale too.
Providing clean water to everybody (mostly) became a government monopoly. Tax-funded,
regulated, science-based, fee-based to a degree, but above all else *not* a free market.
Because if water supply was left up to the free market, some people would get good
water, but far more people would be drinking poison. Did this mean there was no more
profit to be made in the water business? More or less, nope. The shareholders weep.
The *costs* of bad water to society as a whole (and business) were just too intolerable.
It had to change, or the cites would become cemetaries.
It changed. And the economic benefit to all--government, capitalists, workers/citizens--
was just enormous. Municipal water systems were a *direct* input to the massive economic
growth that occured in the later 1800s, in all countries, and continuing into the
1900s. State-supplied clean water meant money in the form of huge increases
in productivity. Also more consumers.
A lot fewer workers dropping dead on the assembly line, too. And a lot more babies
growing up to be more workers/consumers. Quite the story behind that glass of tap water.
This is the only argument for univeral healthcare that counts: More money for
everybody, in the form of greater economic productivity. This has got nothing
to do with the money that might be saved. It has everything to do with the
money people can make, *IF* they can get reaonably adequate
healthcare.
Good healthcare, like good water, is an economic multiplier. The overall cost
of labour goes down because there are more healthy workers around (this is what
the left hates).
OTOH, bad healthcare, like bad water, is a *reverse* economic multiplier. If people
die off faster or are generally more disabled, Christ, does it ever cost us all. Since the
present whompingly profitable free market in healthcare [in the US] isn't getting the
job done, it's got to change, somehow. Now all the right-wingers are screaming.
Ya just can't win with some people. :- )
Rights? What rights? We 'don need no steenkin' rights. We either talk economics or we
shut up and go home. Shall we haggle about the equitable distribution of scarce
healthcare resources? Hell yes we'd better, in both Canada and the US.
Won't be without pain. To get to that glass of clean tap water, a huge hodge-podge of
private water systems had to be totally revamped and rebuilt and expanded.
Mucho $$$.
Likewise, the past 100 years worth of more-or-less free market medicine has succeeded
at some things, failed abysmally at others, but can't fix itself. The change has to
come from outside. Could there be a scarcity of healthcare resources *because*
of how the US medical market has operated? Don't know if a case can be made for
that or not.
How much money can we all make if everybody can get reasonable healthcare? And
screw rights. Let's see your socialist friends swallow that pill. :- )
FB
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The FA Writers Directory v1.0
Water is one substance, and purifying it involves one of a number of set processes which work no matter where on the planet the water is treated. Once the methods were discovered and refined, their application became cheaper than the costs paid by government and/or the markets to sustain the supply.
This is most certainly NOT the case with healthcare. Expenditures in research and development, education, application and transport far exceed the benefits provided by the people being saved, making healthcare at that level a drain, not a benefit.
Do recall I said that healthcare TO A POINT is a good idea from a social viewpoint. BEYOND the point at which expenditures exceed benefits, the capitalist ideal takes precedence, and socialists who insist on fixing everything for 'free' wind up living in Greece, or its analog. At that point you can kiss your rights, and just about every other benefit you might otherwise have worked hard to pay for yourself rather than expecting its provision by the state, goodbye.