Right to healthcare?

[cubical]

Of course people don't have the right to something that infringes on the rights of someone else. So forcing someone to pay for your healthcare does not make it a right. Question is, how do you defend the police/fire fighters? Forcing someone to pay for your protection seems to be in the same ball park(assuming you are on of the ones paying little/no taxes). What say you guys?

[Kylie]

My firefighters are volunteer.

And we pay them in beer and bbq. Our cops are county, so we don't see them unless we need them.


I like it this way.

[cubical]

My firefighters are volunteer.

And we pay them in beer and bbq. Our cops are county, so we don't see them unless we need them.


I like it this way.

But you could be paying for them without using them or using their service without paying for them. How can you justify having police, but not having "free" healthcare for all.

[BrendenR]

Rights are positive.

You have the right to life. If someone tries to take away your life, the governments job is to intervene.
You have the right to property. If someone tries to take away your property, the governments job is to intervene.

For the same reason the government does not have the right to make you pay to maintain my car(property), the government does not have a right to make you pay to maintain my health(life).

[bwlibertyman]

I agree. We should stop paying cops and firefights. I mean we should stop allocating our tax dollars for those services.

[Tom in NYC]

At the local level, we can have taxes for firefighters and cops. That is not incompatible with Dr. Paul's positions, nor libertarianism or the Constitution. The whole point is that we could have towns with privatized everything and towns with public cops/firemen/whatever else. The real point is to de-centralize from this federalism so that people could leave/join the towns with/without those services being taxed. The name of the game is voluntarism.

[Tarzan]

This is where we conflate the role of different levels of government. According to the law (the constitution) the federal government has no role in any of these areas as the role was not granted them. However, this role (firefighters, police, etc.) is quite legal should a state decide to do so... or, a region (county) or locale (town or city) make such an allowance so long as it does not counter the state or national constitution or laws. The federal government has no such role granted it. The states do... and therefore the locales in those states.

The federal government was designed to have a limited and somewhat specific role... which they have greatly exceeded through a tortured interpretation of the so called "general welfare" and "commerce" clause. Neither of which actually exist and these so called "clauses" are merely word fragments with no real meaning other than to distort their actual meaning.

Our constitution envisioned government to be as local as possible. This is one of the reasons the 17th amendment is bad and misguided. An original reason for having US Senators elected by the state representatives was so that the state would be accurately represented... but, to oblige us to pay very close attention to the representatives we sent to the state level. How many of us actually know who our state representatives are?

So, police and fire fighters are a state and local issue. You can exercise choice at the polls by allowing them or not. If they are paid in your area and you do not like it... move to an area with like minded individuals. There are also very sound reasons for a local or state government deciding such services are required. For example, if your house catches on fire and burns to the ground it is your business. If your house catches on fire and spreads to my house, it is my business. Therefore a certain amount of your personal rights (paying for public protection) is rightly subjugated for the good of the community and MY personal rights. But, limits ARE necessary and can be dictated by voting. There is a cost for living in a society... but we have to decide where to draw the line.

The federal government has no business in health care... and a number of areas as well. These are state and local matters.

[pcosmar]

Police Should Not Exist in a free society.
http://www.constitution.org/lrev/roots/cops.htm

The Framers contemplated law enforcement as the duty of mostly private citizens, along with a few constables and sheriffs who could be called upon when necessary.

The Constitution contains no explicit provisions for criminal law enforcement. Nor did the constitutions of any of the several states contain such provisions at the time of the Founding. Early constitutions enunciated the intention that law enforcement was a universal duty that each person owed to the community, rather than a power of the government. Founding-era constitutions addressed law enforcement from the standpoint of individual liberties and placed explicit barriers upon the state.

I would expect Firefighting could be the same, as is the duty of militia. Voluntary and cooperative defense of the community. As it once was.

[mport1]

Of course people don't have the right to something that infringes on the rights of someone else. So forcing someone to pay for your healthcare does not make it a right. Question is, how do you defend the police/fire fighters? Forcing someone to pay for your protection seems to be in the same ball park(assuming you are on of the ones paying little/no taxes). What say you guys?

Bingo. Police and fire fighters are funded by the initiation of force (or if they are private, they are a coercively defended monopoly). Taxation is immoral.

[pcosmar]

You have the right to life. If someone tries to take away your life, the governments job is to intervene.
You have the right to property. If someone tries to take away your property, the governments job is to intervene.



Not exactly. It is your responsibility for your own security and to secure your property.

It is the purpose of the second Amendment .
The others in the Bill of Rights are to protect FROM the government.

[mport1]

You have the right to property. If someone tries to take away your property, the governments job is to intervene.

Doesn't the government always take away your property? You do have a right to your property, so why is it alright for the government to steal it? Who protects you from the government's infringement on your rights?

[RCA]

If and when you become an ancap, these types of questions will fade into the distance.

[Philhelm]

One has the right to seek healthcare, but not to get it from the labor of another.

[oyarde]

no

[ChaosControl]

I don't necessarily have anything against a local community that wants to have health care for all their citizens. What I oppose is a national/central plan. It just becomes bloated with bureaucracy and corruption.

Police/Firefighters, also fine at a local level if that community wants it, shouldn't be related in any way to a central/national control.

[Acala]

It is fine for a local community to have a fire department/police department, etc. paid for by fees SO LONG AS anyone can opt out if they want. They don't have to pay the fee but they don't get the protection.

Society should be based on each individual's free choice to be part of the community because they see it as in their interests. Forcing people to participate in society is only needed when the society is more burden than benefit.

[nicoleeann]

i always get asked something like this: "you dont believe in free healthcare, but isn't social security and public schools etc. the same thing?" I'm like hello i don't believe in those things either. a lot of people don't actually.

[Wesker1982]

This applies to every supposed "right" that socialists claim exist. Police, education, healthcare, welfare etc. Very good imo:



A vital point: if we are trying to set up an ethic for man (in our case, the subset of ethics dealing with violence), then to be a valid ethic the theory must hold true for all men, whatever their location in time or place. This is one of the notable attributes of natural law—its applicability to all men, regardless of time or place. Thus, ethical natural law takes its place alongside physical or “scientific” natural laws. But the society of liberty is the only society that can apply the same basic rule to every man, regardless of time or place.

Here is one of the ways in which reason can select one theory of natural law over a rival theory—just as reason can choose between many economic or other competing theories. Thus, if someone claims that the Hohenzollern or Bourbon families have the “natural right” to rule everyone else, this kind of doctrine is easily refutable by simply pointing to the fact that there is here no uniform ethic for every person: one’s rank in the ethical order being dependent on the accident of being, or not being, a Hohenzollern. Similarly, if someone says that every man has a “natural right” to three square meals a day, it is glaringly obvious that this is a fallacious natural law or natural rights theory; for there are innumerable times and places where it is physically impossible to provide three square meals for all, or even for the majority, of the population. Hence this cannot be set forth as some kind of “natural right.”

On the other hand, consider the universal status of the ethic of liberty, and of the natural right of person and property that obtains under such an ethic. For every person, at any time or place, can be covered by the basic rules: ownership of one’s own self, ownership of the previously unused resources which one has occupied and transformed; and ownership of all titles derived from that basic ownership—either through voluntary exchanges or voluntary gifts. These rules—which we might call the “rules of natural ownership”—can clearly be applied, and such ownership defended, regardless of the time or place, and regardless of the economic attainments of the society. It is impossible for any other social system to qualify as universal natural law; for if there is any coercive rule by one person or group over another (and all rule partakes of such hegemony), then it is impossible to apply the same rule for all; only a rulerless, purely libertarian world can fulfill the qualifications of natural rights and natural law, or, more important, can fulfill the conditions of a universal ethic for all mankind. - Murray N. Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty


Also, his points made in response to the "economic power" argument equally apply to a right to healthcare, etc.


Now, it should become evident that the “middle-of-the-road” statist, who concedes the evil of violence but adds that the violence of government is sometimes necessary to counteract the “private coercion of economic power,” is caught in an impossible contradiction. A refuses to make an exchange with B. What are we to say, or what is the government to do, if B brandishes a gun and orders A to make the exchange? This is the crucial question. There are only two positions we may take on the matter: either that B is committing violence and should be stopped at once, or that B is perfectly justified in taking this step because he is simply “counteracting the subtle coercion” of economic power wielded by A. Either the defense agency must rush to the defense of A, or it deliberately refuses to do so, perhaps aiding B (or doing B’s work for him). There is no middle ground!

B is committing violence; there is no question about that. In the terms of both doctrines, this violence is either invasive and therefore unjust, or defensive and therefore just. If we adopt the “economic-power” argument, we must choose the latter position; if we reject it, we must adopt the former. If we choose the “economic-power” concept, we must employ violence to combat any refusal of exchange; if we reject it, we employ violence to prevent any violent imposition of exchange. There is no way to escape this either-or choice. The “middle-of-the-road” statist cannot logically say that there are “many forms” of unjustified coercion. He must choose one or the other and take his stand accordingly. Either he must say that there is only one form of illegal coercion—overt physical violence—or he must say that there is only one form of illegal coercion—refusal to exchange. - Murray N. Rothbard, Power and Market: Chapter 6 (http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap18a.asp)

[Teaser Rate]

I don't necessarily have anything against a local community that wants to have health care for all their citizens. What I oppose is a national/central plan. It just becomes bloated with bureaucracy and corruption.

Police/Firefighters, also fine at a local level if that community wants it, shouldn't be related in any way to a central/national control.

If your opposition to national healthcare is utilitarian and not pragmatic, then what would you think of the idea that we should try to emulate a European style universal healthcare system which gets better results than our semi-private system with lower costs?