I have never understood the liberal argument that a person has a right to your goods or services. I thought the Constitution only gave you the right to be left alone and stipulated that everyone should be treated the same under the law. (I realize that I am overly simplifying this, but you get the point.) But now we have literally entered the realm of the "morality of need." That is the concept that if you have a need, "you are entitled to have it fulfilled at others' expense."
In an excellent editorial published on 29 December in Investor's Business Daily (one of my favorite op-ed pages), Yaron Brook and Don Watkins, of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, point out the problem with ObamaCare. Actually, their point is really aimed at the problem, the error, that those opposed to socialized medicine make: They only oppose it on the grounds that it's too expensive or won't work. Those against it should be opposing it on a more philosophical, ideological basis. And, that is, you are not your brother's keeper.
The current administration's message is clear, they write: Need entitles one to the wealth and effort of others. "The only way to effectively oppose socialized health care is to reject the morality of need in favor of a genuinely American alternative. According to the American ideal, men are not their brother's keeper--we are independent individuals with inalienable rights to support our own lives and happiness by our own efforts.
"That means taking responsibility for your own medical needs, just as you take responsibility for your grocery shopping and car payments. It means no one can claim that his need entitles him to your time, effort or wealth." Amen.
And where will the definition of need stop? It seems to be ever expanding. The Swiss government has ruled recently that health care is a human right. It now has a government run health care system whose cost keeps rising. But how can health care be a right if it means confiscating a doctor's services? How is it a right to take anything from anyone? I have a need for food, to exercise, for housing . . . why not just collect all of the nation's private wealth and redistribute it for all? That's where we are headed, becoming serfs to the state.