There are three rights given to us humans that can not and shall not be taken away from us.
The first right is life. This means the government or anyone else for that matter cannot take my life away. Murder is illegal. This even goes for the government. The government can never kill me. I think we can all agree on this one. However, this right to life does not mean the right to a "fair life" or a "healthy life". This should be left to the individual. In all honesty life isn't fair. We all want a beautiful house on the beach, but there is only a limited amount of space for that. If you find yourself in a large group and you need to find a place to eat, try finding a place where everyone can be happy and feel like the place was fair. (I understand everyone loves Taco Bell and would love to go there, but you get the point) I've found myself in just a group of 5 and have a tough time finding a place to eat for everyone. Especially if you throw in a vegetarian or someone like that in the mix. In addition we should not expect to be giving a healthly life. Since the beginning of humans the poor usually die earlier than the rich. It's just not fair, but its reality. It's a very said story to see a person without health insurance get hit by a car and not be able to pay for the medicine. It's very sad. But the issue is if that person has a natural Right to that medicine. And for that I must say no. Others may disagree. And I welcome the comments, but I can't see a healthy life as a natural right.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
uh...see comment on first post.
ReplyDeleteisn't the right to a healthy life implied in the idea of the right to life? Otherwise the government could enact all kinds of policies that would put you in a position where you cannot live a healthy life and, in this hypothetical, they would not be infringing upon your rights as a citizen.
I don't see healthy life as a natural right. We have a right to live, but how we live it is based upon us and our situation.
ReplyDeleteIf someone decides to smoke, they have that right. However, they are endangering their life with their actions. Same as drinking or doing extreme sports, or playing sports period. Is it the governments job to protect our health? If the government is to protect our health, then should we not outlaw; smoking, drinking, bad foods, desserts, walking near cars, and so on. The risk with beleiving that we are entitled to a healthly life is that we may find ourselves in a protective bubble.
I find the right to life, means the right that the government or anyone else cannot take our life away.
But in saying that we only have a right yo life, that implies that anything the government does that does not take our life is not infringing upon our rights, that torture or poisoning or something that infringed upon our health would not be in violation of our right to life because it doesn't take our life away completely.
ReplyDeleteI agree that someone has the right to smoke (or do anything unhealthy) just the same as someone has the right to post everything the do at all times of the day on the internet (facebook and blogs). That doesn't mean that because they choose to forego their right to privacy that they no longer have the right. Think Miranda rights: you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney...blah blah blah and then somewhere further down it is mentioned that they have the right to waive those rights. Just like with smoking or, take it a step further, suicide. We agree that people have a right to life. Killing themselves does not change this right, they are just waiving it.
There are of course limits. The government can only do so much...i'm trying to remember where i was going with this...the government can only do so much...ummm....ok so i think this is where i was going. With any of our rights, the governments responsibility is to do all that is in its power to ensure that your rights are not violated and support the proliferation of those rights. This is, i think, where a more wide ranging healthcare system comes into play. It is not that they are forcing people to live healthier lives but providing them the opportunity to live healthier lives.
The flip side if this is health-related laws. Drugs are illegal, seatbelts are mandatory, alcohol is regulated. Most of the time i feel like seatbelt laws are excessive. If someone doesn't want to wear a seatbelt and then dies in a car crash, so there genes don't get passed on. Thats a good thing. But then when i was in Hawaii and i saw how many people rode motorcycles without helmets since there isn't a mandatory law there, i was shocked. People are just idiot children who need to be faced with a milder consequence for an action to avoid a much greater consequence for that action. Again, i'm never completely sure how to feel about this one. It seems like it was the framers plan to have an elite group of individuals making laws and governing because the less educated and less capable couldn't be trusted to make the right decision. Seatbelt, helmet and health related laws are in the same vein.
I'm loving these conversations. Peace!
Very Rousseau of you.
ReplyDeleteI find people do seem to be more on the stupid side than on the common-sense side. (which begs the question if it's really 'common-sense') Seinfeld does a bit on people wearing helmets and how the law is there to only protect stupid people. He does a better job at making it funny. This idea of faith in the people I think is the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. The French elites began to see the choas of their system and lost faith in the "people" so they set up a more dictator system in the name of protecting the people. "The Committee for Public Safety", was the name of it. The American style was less choatic therefore our government is designed with more faith in the people. The inherent problem with giving the elites (educated) people the power is that the first generation of leaders seem to be very good and they help the society. But it is who follows them that things get messed up. The elites consolidate power around their friends and fmaily (this is just natural) and therefore the educated elites turn really into dumb weak foolish leaders of a the society. The old, son-trying-to-live-up-to-his-glorious-leader-father's-legacy-and-falling-incredibly-short-at-the-expense-of-thousands-of-people syndrome. (it also could be daughter and mother, but that really hasn't happen in history yet so that might break the mold)
The best defense against stupid populations is a slow weak form of government. If the government is slow, the masses can't have the government swing to one-side or the other depending on the political fads and ideas. The government stays more consistant and therefore more dependable. The government turns into a more reasonalbe critical-thinking machine than an irrational emotional human being. If the government is weak, it keeps the masses from have dominate control over everything. Its like this. If the government is weak it creates a small target not worth shooting at, therefore protecting the stability of the society. But if the government is large and centralized it creates a huge target for the masses to attack, creating instablity. I know this is a little of the subject of health-care, so let me try to bring it back to that.
Health-care is messed up. (trying to keep the language clean here). So the masses pass judgement on many areas of health-care. Examples, "It's the insurance companies that make it so expensive and force the doctors to do this or that test. They are the ones that don't care about the little guy." or "It's the drug companies and their lobby in DC that make drugs expensive and have drugs for cheaper but they want to milk the people for all their worth." or "It's the government's fault for having so much reglutation on health-care that it ties the hands of the doctors." or "there is a shortage of nurses in America and we need more but because of this and that we can't." and so on and so forth. The idea is many people blame many different things for the problem of health-care. Because there is so much blame to go around this infact protects the stabilty of health-care in America. On the other hand, if health-care was run solely by the government from the creation of drugs to tests and all that, then there is only one group to blame if all fails for whatever reason. the stabilty of health-care then is at risk, because if the government controls health-care and some big problem arrises in health-care the masses put blame on the government and demand extreme change to the system. Therefore creating instablity. I maybe able to back this up with history. Take grain supplies in the late Roman Republic. There was a grain shortage in Rome one year and to saolve it a rich elite bought grain and gave it to the people and he became a hero (forgot his name) Then after this there was another grain shortage and the people turned to the government to feed them and demanded food. This destablized the government and creating oppurtunity for amibtious men to rise to power. (I just summed up about 147 years of Roman history into two sentences) But you get the idea.
Interesting point about government not taking life. you may have found a loop-hole in my theory. Let me think about it.
Great conversation indeed.
Good post.
ReplyDeleteI think a problem with our current system is it is not large or small. It is this annoying, ineffective in between. It is too large to act like a small government as some would prefer and too small to act like a large government as other would prefer. So we're stuck in a type of governmental adolescence.
Good points about healthcare. You are always better at looking at the long term than me. One thing i think is that you don't have to put every healthcare provider under the control of the government. One of the major concerns i hear about when i talk with people about this issue is that there will be huge lines and waiting periods to get medical treatment just like in other countries with gov't healthcare. But it doesn't have to be all gov't or all private. The gov't can offer various plans and then there can be competing plans for the wealthier people (or anyone) who are afraid of getting shitty healthcare. A problem with that though is most likely the gov't would be able to offer more comprehensive coverage at a much lower price (one reason i think that only the wealthy would go for the other companies) and so that would be a major drawback.
The wealthy will always live longer and healther than the poor. Your idea makes some good sense. But instead of the government giving health-care for free (although they do still tax the people) what if the government made it law for you to get insured, like we do with autos? To have a car you need insurance. The government maybe gives the poorer citizens a discount or something but each person still every month has to pay for insurance.
ReplyDeleteAnother fear of mine, for having the government be the health-care provider is that it creates a middleman. It just adds another step, another loop, another area for problems to arise that we just don't need in our health-care. But the idea of giving cheaper plans to low-income families is a compromise I think I can handle.
So it solves the issue of giving the health-care for free, creating this nanny-state. It solves the issue of the government trying to make us healthy people through laws and regulations. It solves the issue of poor people not being able to afford health coverage.