Posted on 04/18/2016 2:45:09 PM PDT by jazusamo
Here is what presidential aspirant Sen. Bernie Sanders said: "I believe that health care is a right of all people." President Barack Obama declared that health care "should be a right for every American." The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: "Every person has a right to adequate health care." President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his January 1944 message to Congress, called for "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." And it is not just a health care right that people claim. There are rights to decent housing, good food and a decent job, and for senior citizens, there's a right to prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let's look at it.
In the standard historical usage of the term, a "right" is something that exists simultaneously among people. As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.
Contrast those rights to free speech and travel with the supposed rights to medical care and decent housing. Those supposed rights do impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy. If one does not have money to pay for a medical service or decent housing and the government provides it, where do you think the government gets the money?
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
Wish he was our candidate.
I do too other than his age, he’s now 80 and probably wouldn’t even think of it.
bkmk
Lately we have had demands for a lot of rights I’ve never heard of. LGBT “rights”. Breast feeding in public “rights”. It seems that anything we want is a “right”.
“he’s now 80 and probably wouldn’t even think of it.”
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Not if he’s smart-—and he is. (I’m 83.)
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Hadn’t thought of it in that context.
Walter Williams, extraordinaire.
Used to enjoy his subbing for Rush.
Agreed, anyone with a hairbrained wish seems to come up with the line “it’s a right” but Walter Williams does a great job of dispelling that.
Walter Williams. On the right and 99.9% right. All of the time.
What Walter is saying isn’t what the “perambulating vegetables” of which we have too many in our country already want to hear. Here’s my deal, only provide government assistance to those who will submit to sterilization. Otherwise, the rest of us are going to be shoveling $hit against the tide for all of our natural lives.
Much to be said for that but can you imagine the outrage of the entitled class and the Rats, I know I repeated myself.
The one phrase Williams once used which did not quite appear in this piece is the phrase "In order for one person to get a thing without paying for it, another person must pay for that thing without getting it". He paraphrased it, but didn't use that exact phrase.
Thus, in order for one person to exercise their "right" to health care, another person must either pay for health care without getting it, or another person must labor for free to provide it.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution codified legally the concept that one person has no right to force another to labor for free.
Well said! It’s a damn shame our elected representatives and appointed judges don’t realize that or at least follow the law if they actually do.
>The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution codified legally the concept that one person has no right to force another to labor for free
The 5th does (did) nearly the same:
No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
That’s when we were a Constitutional Republic...so many moons ago.
BRAVO Walter Williams.. one of my most favorite people!!
I guess the concept or principle of “personal responsibility” is aniquated and “unfair”.
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