David

Karki

Read Davids bio and previous columns here

November 26, 2007

If You Have a ‘Right’ to Goods and Services, then Hillary Can Make Me a Slave

We often hear liberals refer to a “right” to housing, or health care, or education. Of course, they always make you pay for these “rights” rather than break out their own checkbooks.

The truth is, there is no such thing as a right to any material good or service. If there were, then someone else must provide that good or service whether they want to or not. After all, to refuse is to deny someone their right. And if someone must be forced into that provision, they are at best being stolen from and at worst made into the recipient's slave.

Insofar as items like housing, health care and education go, they are certainly important – probably more so than other commodities. But that doesn't make them any less of a commodity and they should not be treated any differently than any other more frivolous ones. Nor does it justify using force to obtain them for yourself.

The only things to which we have rights are intangible and non-material: Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, speech, religion, and so forth. And as the Declaration of Independence states, the purpose of government's existence is the securing of these rights and blessings for its citizens.

It is not the purpose of government to be seizing goods and/or services from one person and giving them to another that they feel is somehow more deserving. It's akin to a referee trying to rig the outcome of the game in one team's favor rather than merely assuring the playing field is fair and balanced for both teams, with the rules applied correctly and evenly, and then letting them determine the outcome by their own performances. 

To do such a thing and then cloak this in the language of rights is truly disingenuous. Should the Chicago Cubs just be given a World Series title simply because they haven't won one in the longest time? Do they have a right to have their games fixed so they win one simply because they've gone the most time without and thus are presumed to be the most deserving? Or to take it a step further, should the Cubs get to take one of the Yankees' 26 championships away from them? The answer is obviously not.

But that is precisely what liberals do – they think that government exists to guarantee outcomes. They don't like the way income, property and so forth are distributed and thus try to make everyone be identical, claiming that such inequalities are prima facie evidence of an unfair screw job they must correct. But in so doing, they adopt a “two wrongs make a right” approach, similar to that of stealing from the Yankees to give to the Cubs.

Furthermore, they create perverse incentives in the process. Why should the Yankees work so hard to win a title if the Cubs are only going to snatch it away in the end? The logical response is to not work, at least not any more so than is absolutely necessary. And why should the Cubs work when they can just steal from the Yankees, who have become, for all intents and purposes, their indentured servants? Will they even value a title they obtained for free, with no investment made on their own part?

In a vain attempt to share the wealth, this redistribution has actually ensured that none will be created in the first place. The same principle holds for housing, health care and so on. The best example is Medicare. Fewer doctors are accepting it anymore, as its reimbursal rate is so low. They are rightly objecting to working and not getting paid for it (at least not enough to justify the time and materials involved). But look at what government-run Hillarycare would do – doctors would be forced to accept Medicare patients at its low pay scales, and face criminal sanctions if they arranged any other fee-for-service work with patients on the side.

Or, to put it more bluntly, government would force doctors to work, not pay them, and then punish them if they bucked the system. If this isn't an accurate description of slavery, I don't know what is. But this is the inevitable logical end of a “right” to health care: If it's my “right,” then some doctor must provide it no matter the injury done to him in the process. (Not to mention the people who will die with untreated conditions because government rationed the doctor's services elsewhere. Folks in Canada and England are already coming to the United States for procedures they cannot obtain at home. Just like the baseball example above, those nations' attempt to share health has resulted in none.)

Suffice it to say, I have no right to make someone else my indentured servant. Not for a house, or health care, or any other material good or service. If liberals really want everyone to have those things, there is one way to give that the best chance of happening: Cut taxes, shrink government and let a job pay for as many of them as possible. That, and learn what is and is not truly a “right.”

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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