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Posted on 08/08/2009 5:47:37 PM PDT by Mack E. O-Velly
Let us suppose ... that some prince were desirous to force his subjects to ... preserve the health and strength of their bodies. ..."
The above hypothetical was posited not in yesterday's debate but in 1685, in "A Letter Concerning Toleration," John Locke's momentous essay on religious liberty. To expose the folly of 17th-century religious intolerance, Locke brings it to a logical and ridiculous extreme: government-run health care.
Self-evident to his contemporaries was the truth that . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
An interesting history lesson on a current debate.
Great find.
Government, stay out of my hospital room!
Government, stay out of my medicine cabinet!
Leave my body alone!!!
>> In both, the potentate justifies repressing people by a stated desire to save them.
Not to quibble with Locke, but it seems to me that the contemporary “potentate” justifies repressing people by the creeping socialism whereby he compels taxpayers to become their brothers’ keepers, then claims that each owes it to every other to pay their “fair share.”
In this video filmed a few weeks ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsIO028ZPw
a citizen asks a senator why he, as an independent adult, may not decide for himself if he wants to risk having no health insurance. The senator replies, if you get sick and go to the ER, with no insurance, you’re shifting the cost to some other taxpayer.
However, it is not the citizen, but the legislator who would shift the cost, without regard for the wishes of either party. It is the senator who makes the law compelling the hospital to treat a patient and bill the taxpayers if need be, yet he tries to place the responsibility for this on the citizen. Enough financial interdependence and we are all tied together, and “fairness” to others requires whatever sacrifice is demanded of you.
I don’t notice any tarring and feathering, so I guess this is bearable to the sheeple. We get the govt we deserve, the govt we support with our tax dollars.
I never knew that John Locke made a connection between freedom of religion and freedom to take care of your own body. . . .
400 years ago!
I like this line from the article: “Indeed, we need no longer ‘suppose’ Locke’s farcical prince of health. One matching that description occupies the White House.”
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