When I was a teenager, I jumped into a pool to save a drowning child, who had fallen in by accident and didn't know how to swim. I wasn't employed as the pool's lifeguard, and the kid's mom didn't slip me a sawbuck so that I'd drag her boy out of the water. I just jumped in and swam because my conscience told me that it'd be wrong to stand by and let a helpless kid drown, when with a small effort I could save him. In that sense, the kid had a "right" to my labor, even though he neither provided nor promised compensation for my efforts.

Why do you hate freedom?

Ahhhh... so some principles must be founded on data, while others can stand alone on mere principle?


If you use data as the basis for your opinion, then yes, you have to actually provide the data.

But if you believe that someone providing your health care in an inherent right, then data that supports whether or not it is a financially beneficial idea is irrelevant to your position. But if your position is that it's a financially good idea rather than an inherent right, then data that supports whether or not is a financially good idea.

I'm confused, because it appears to be offered as a defense of Nieporent. But saying that actual facts are "irrelevant" to his position seems pretty damning to me.

If you're confused, that's pretty damning on your part. I support the right to free expression, freedom to practice religion, freedom to freely engage in a variety of acts with other freely consenting adults in a wide variety of acts, from sexual to financial. I support these rights, as a matter of first principles, regardless of whether or not there is data proving that these rights are beneficial to society based on some financial bottom line.

Whether the right to free speech increases or decreases GDP is absolutely irrelevant to me. Whether allowing gay people to contract with each other to pool their financial resources is beneficial to the moral fabric of society is absolutely irrelevant to me. Whether allowing people to worship some cracker transmogrifying semi-diety that probably lived in the middle east 2,000 years ago is beneficial to humanity as a whole is absolutely irrelevant to me.

What about the pool's right to drown that child?

Edit: hadn't refreshed.

Edit #2: I think attacking #1 of #221 without addressing #2 of #221 is taking the easy way out, Dan and David.

When I was a teenager, I jumped into a pool to save a drowning child, who had fallen in by accident and didn't know how to swim.

...and that child grew up to be Hitler. Thanks a lot, jerk.

I wasn't employed as the pool's lifeguard, and the kid's mom didn't slip me a sawbuck so that I'd drag her boy out of the water. I just jumped in and swam because my conscience told me that it'd be wrong to stand by and let a helpless kid drown, when with a small effort I could save him. In that sense, the kid had a "right" to my labor, even though he neither provided nor promised compensation for my efforts.

Now you're misusing the term "right." That is not a "sense" in which the kid had any "right" to anything. You voluntarily did it because you wanted to. That's perfectly fine, and anyone from libertarian to Randian to conservative to socialist would applaud you for it.

Healthcare is no more a human right than yacht ownership or dating a supermodel. Governments may choose to provide it until the money runs out, but it's a category error to confuse government entitlements with human rights.

Please describe some of these human rights, especially those the government does not have to spend any money on to help provide.

Actually, it's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of law. Period. Period. Period to infinity.

I can say this about a lot of things that liberals don't like, too. Period. Period. Period. Period. Period. (Don't want to waste all my Periods. in one specific argument).

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The text is perfectly clear: we have an inalienable right to life, and therefore healthcare.

Can you offer your opinion why you think it's not as opposed to fed-up snark?


I'm simply speaking in the lingua franca of this awful thread, both liberal and libertarian.

Please describe some of these human rights, especially those the government does not have to spend any money on to help provide.

Is it your contention that all services provided by a government are human rights?

Reposting a very late edit:

I think attacking #1 of #221 without addressing #2 of #221 is taking the easy way out, Dan and David.


I'm simply speaking in the lingua franca of this awful thread, both liberal and libertarian.

Edited that, hadn't refresed, sorry.

If you're confused, that's pretty damning on your part. I support the right to free expression, freedom to practice religion, freedom to freely engage in a variety of acts with other freely consenting adults in a wide variety of acts, from sexual to financial. I support these rights, as a matter of first principles, regardless of whether or not there is data proving that these rights are beneficial to society based on some financial bottom line.

All fine, except Nieporent argues endlessly as to whether various "liberal" policies are in fact beneficial or not. He's argues against their usefulness as well as his "principled" objections.

I just jumped in and swam because my conscience told me that it'd be wrong to stand by and let a helpless kid drown, when with a small effort I could save him. In that sense, the kid had a "right" to my labor, even though he neither provided nor promised compensation for my efforts.

OK, so the "right" to your labor, derived from the individual conscience of you, the person who provided the labor. The people who have a "right" to health care derived from the good conscience of fellow individual citizens can likewise help themselves to health care from those particular citizens.

If you use data as the basis for your opinion, then yes, you have to actually provide the data.

But if you believe that someone providing your health care in an inherent right, then data that supports whether or not it is a financially beneficial idea is irrelevant to your position. But if your position is that it's a financially good idea rather than an inherent right, then data that supports whether or not is a financially good idea.

OK, fair enough... I believe its a right and I really don't care whether we want to term it a 'human right granted by god' (as I think Paul Ryan is now insisting is the definition of a 'right') or a right granted by the government.

So where does that leave us? Seems like, in a nation like ours, it's just a matter of going to the ballot box and the chips falling where they may.

The text is perfectly clear: we have an inalienable right to life, and therefore healthcare.


Then why would we pay anybody at all for it? Let's just have Carousel pick 5% of the population to be medical provider-slaves, and another 5% of the people to be manufacturing-slaves to collect the raw materials necessary to provide the medicines and devices the medical provider-slaves require to provide this inalienable right?

OK, so the "right" to your labor, derived from the individual conscience of you, the person who provided the labor. The people who have a "right" to health care derived from the good conscience of fellow individual citizens can likewise help themselves to health care from those particular citizens.

Is there a right to practice or otherwise right to insure at an unspecified profitable rate health care? We have all sorts of 'professions' that one is NOT allowed to practice, including the obvious 'world's oldest'.

You included this part in your quote, but maybe you didn't read it?

this is the best way (for now)

OK, point taken. I just don't think a discussion of health care as a "right" makes any sense in a discussion of a system with private insurers and providers.

So where does that leave us? Seems like, in a nation like ours, it's just a matter of going to the ballot box and the chips falling where they may.

I'm a pragmatist, so it's the most practical solution we have. But if someone's going to argue that their personal views are superior to mine because Period, I'm going to get pretty hostile. And if someone's going to whip out the compassion card against me, I'd be happy to whip out my tax returns for some good ol' fashioned charitable dick-measuring.

A couple of people wanted this responded to:

(2) Libertarian arguments are very rarely called to task for the "what now?" aspect that they completely ignore. Assume for a moment that we can somehow configure a society where opting out of, say, fire control, only puts your specific property at risk. (Put aside the inanity of that assumption.) A family makes the choice to opt out and pocket the savings. Their house, with all their worldly possessions, burns to the ground. *What Now?* The libertarian response might be "tough." But is that the society we want to create and inhabit?

Yes.

(See why I didn't think it was necessary to respond to this? It was a rhetorical question.)

And, what about the collateral damage -- the children of that family didn't have the agency necessary to participate in the decision to opt out, and yet, they will be harshly penalized. *What Now?* A very similar argument can be made for healthcare. The Hobbesian fantasyland where there are these isolated choices that don't affect others simply doesn't exist. We live in a society, where your choices affect me. Deal with it.

Unless you propose taking people's children away from them and raising them in state homes, children will always face the consequences of their parents' decisions, good or bad. The government can't equalize all of that.

You voluntarily did it because you wanted to.

No, I didn't want to do it. I got soaking wet and I ruined my cell phone. I did it because my inner moral sense told me it was the right thing to do, in spite of the fact that I didn't want to do it.

Is it your contention that all services provided by a government are human rights?

You stated Health Care was not a right. Then you brought up Gov spending money. I am curious as to what these human rights are.

What is the difference between spending money to protect my right to not be robbed or killed (assuming this is one of your rights) as oppossed to spending money to provide my right to health care? Or spending money to protect my right to a yacht (again if such is considered a right)?

I don't think discussion of human rights has much to do with spending money, but you brought it up, so I am curious as to what are rights (if health care is not one) and what is the connection to spending money in your mind?

The libertarian response might be "tough." But is that the society we want to create and inhabit?

Yes.

At least until your house is burning down, and you run outside to beg the fire department to save it.

Unless you propose taking people's children away from them and raising them in state homes, children will always face the consequences of their parents' decisions, good or bad. The government can't equalize all of that.

Maybe not "all" of it, but the question is, how much can we equalize, and what is our obligation to do so? I think we all agree, for example, that the government has an obligation to intervene on behalf of children who are victims of extreme abuse/negligence at the hands of their parents.

But if someone's going to argue that their personal views are superior to mine because Period, I'm going to get pretty hostile. And if someone's going to whip out the compassion card against me, I'd be happy to whip out my tax returns for some good ol' fashioned charitable dick-measuring.

And what if I want to talk about how my awesome my public school teacher parents were at their jobs? ;-D

I don't think discussion of human rights has much to do with spending money, but you brought it up, so I am curious as to what are rights (if health care is not one) and what is the connection to spending money in your mind?

All of your examples center around government action/expediture. Do you believe that humans have any rights that do not stem from the government?

so they created standing armies, and federal governments, and taxation, and all sorts of things they, too, were skeptical of at the outset of the grand experiment.

and replaced the Articles of Confederation (which did not WORK) with the Constitution (which did and does)

here is my favorite part of the Articles:

XI.
Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.

of course Canada never "acceded" to the US, and so we had to invade them in 1812-1814...

OK, fair enough... I believe its a right and I really don't care whether we want to term it a 'human right granted by god' (as I think Paul Ryan is now insisting is the definition of a 'right') or a right granted by the government.


Do you believe that health care is a right, if it turned out that providing health care to those that can't afford it reduced the health care of those that could by a greater degree? Not saying it does, but if it did, would you still think it was a right? If you did, then clearly, your belief about that right is derived from your first principles, not the data, so the data itself would be irrelevant to whether you think it's a right or not.

As I said, if someone proved that free speech reduced the GDP of the country by 1% of the year, I would be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech increased the rate of heart attacks by 15%, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech increased crime by 25%, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech doubled the rate of depression, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech doubled the odds that humanity will destroy itself in the year 3000, I'd be in favor of free speech.

So, if my belief in free speech as an inherent right is not predicated on the notion that it has a positive effect on GDP or heart attacks or crime or depression or oblivion or anything one can measure, why would it be necessary for me to justify that it does? If a right is truly inalienable, it means we allow it whether or not the overall effect on some slice of society is positive or negative, so the data is truly irrelevant, unless we're conflating "good idea" with "right."

I think helping others is a great idea - I've never made 100K in a year and never donated less than 5K in a year. I think organizations that provide medical care are great (my fees for ZiPS in last year's ESPN Magazine preview went to Doctors Without Borders). I think donating your time to your community is a great idea. But I do not think that good ideas become rights and bad ideas nullify rights. I abhor someone who uses their wealth to, say, fill up a swimming pool with dollar bills and lounge on them. I would think the person in question is a horrible, stain on mankind. But I do not believe that I have any inherent right to prevent that person from doing otherwise.

Then why would we pay anybody at all for it? Let's just have Carousel pick 5% of the population to be medical provider-slaves, and another 5% of the people to be manufacturing-slaves to collect the raw materials necessary to provide the medicines and devices the medical provider-slaves require to provide this inalienable right?

was that a Logan's Run reference in there?

I'm a pragmatist, so it's the most practical solution we have. But if someone's going to argue that their personal views are superior to mine because Period, I'm going to get pretty hostile. And if someone's going to whip out the compassion card against me, I'd be happy to whip out my tax returns for some good ol' fashioned charitable dick-measuring.

OK - but I do think it's a fundamental misread of the liberal mindset to imagine that our 'principles' are founded on feelings of personal compassion or superiority of such an attitude. I suppose there are certainly liberals who do lean heavily on their principles as some sort of crutch to prove to others or themselves their inherent moral superiority -- but I have no doubt that there are also libertarians who would be able to stand in for the liberal strawmen of them without too much costume needed.

Speaking solely for myself, I consider my liberalism more than anything else a pragmatic approach to guiding the health and growth of a society. In many cases, I suppose that I'd actually say my liberalism is born out of a certain amount of selfishness... I mean, I read disclosures, I comparison shop, but let's say for something like banking -- if a bank, with an enormous amount of inhouse resources, consultants, and attorneys at its beck and call wanted to essentially screw me and steal my money -- absent government oversight and regulation, they probably would be able to do so. It matters not all to me that they'd eventually go out of business because people would stop going to the bank that essentially takes your deposits and then says "what deposit?" - I'd still have lost my money.

Ditto healthcare -- I have an employee-sponsored plan.... but I have absolutely no idea how good the plan is because (knock on wood), I've never had to experience a major health care event under it. I do know that if I got cancer and became too sick to work, my company would find a way to cut me off the rolls, I'd eventually lose my insurance, and once my savings were gone -- I have no idea how I'd pay for say, chemotherapy, etc.

I do think that a lot of the arguments against libertarianism are lost in the details vs. the overall inherent philosophical problems all the details come from.

It does make those on our side ("our side" being "libertarianism - not really so great for a society trying to move forward") seem a lot pettier than they need to be in the discussion, I'll freely grant that.

And, as usual, I find Szym to be the most compelling spokesperson for libertarianism I've probably ever heard, despite all the troubles I have with the philosophy.

You're not standing up and proudly proclaiming for all to hear that, yes, this is wealth redistribution because most Americans don't like the idea of wealth redistribution.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/six-in-10-support-policies-addressing-income-inequality/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/two-thirds-americans-wealth-distribution_n_1032400.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/08/opinion/la-oe-norton-wealth-inequality-20101108

Freedom in its purest form does in fact mean the freedom to make horrible tragic mistakes and live with them. Obviously the idea of a safety net is to limit the downside of the risks, which does cost money. Since money comes from somewhere, acquiring this money does in some sense detract from the freedom of the collective since they are missing money they "should have" and are now deprived the full consequences of their actions.

From an economic standpoint there is a strong reason to have that safety net though. Some amount of risk taking is important for a society’s progress (this is why capitalism works, btw). A reasonable safety net encourages some risk taking, which results in some failures 9and cost) and hopefully enough successes so that society is better off having the safety net and paying the cost. This is (at least partly) a reason for (among other things) bankruptcy laws.

Obviously this does not influence the first principles crowd (on either side) but for pragmatists it matters. The key is what is the right level and implementation of that safety net, where do the tradeoffs come in. Since pretty much every industrial nation in the world is to the left even of where the US is post-ACA I for one feel pretty comfortable ACA is a step in the right direction.

As an aside I am amused that many love markets and marketplaces, and love the states being free to try things out and let the best ideas win. But they never look to see what ideas are winning in the marketplace of nations. American exceptionalism I guess, but I think the world has stuff we can learn from and we have things to teach the world.

Actually, it's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of law. Period. Period. Period to infinity.

I can say this about a lot of things that liberals don't like, too. Period. Period. Period. Period. Period. (Don't want to waste all my Periods. in one specific argument).

Of course you can. Doesn't make your initial statement any more correct though.

However, what you cannot do is out-period a period to infinity.

I'm a pragmatist

That's incompatible with being a libertarian.

That's incompatible with being a libertarian.

Or at least someone who proceeds to loudly proclaim that he doesn't care about the real-world outcome of his policy preferences.

But they never look to see what ideas are winning in the marketplace of nations.

Free speech is losing in the marketplace of nations. I couldn't care less vis-á-vis an inherent right to free speech.

All of your examples center around government action/expediture. Do you believe that humans have any rights that do not stem from the government?

History would say unequivocally no... The Vatican can claim otherwise with various myths and I'm sure other religions have theirs, too -- but since the dawn of time, only governments have been able to guarantee them.

Do you believe that health care is a right, if it turned out that providing health care to those that can't afford it reduced the health care of those that could by a greater degree? Not saying it does, but if it did, would you still think it was a right? If you did, then clearly, your belief about that right is derived from your first principles, not the data, so the data itself would be irrelevant to whether you think it's a right or not.

As I said, if someone proved that free speech reduced the GDP of the country by 1% of the year, I would be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech increased the rate of heart attacks by 15%, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech increased crime by 25%, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech doubled the rate of depression, I'd be in favor of free speech. If someone proved that free speech doubled the odds that humanity will destroy itself in the year 3000, I'd be in favor of free speech.

So, if my belief in free speech as an inherent right is not predicated on the notion that it has a positive effect on GDP or heart attacks or crime or depression or oblivion or anything one can measure, why would it be necessary for me to justify that it does? If a right is truly inalienable, it means we allow it whether or not the overall effect on some slice of society is positive or negative, so the data is truly irrelevant, unless we're conflating "good idea" with "right."

I think helping others is a great idea - I've never made 100K in a year and never donated less than 5K in a year. I think organizations that provide medical care are great (my fees for ZiPS in last year's ESPN Magazine preview went to Doctors Without Borders). I think donating your time to your community is a great idea. But I do not think that good ideas become rights and bad ideas nullify rights. I abhor someone who uses their wealth to, say, fill up a swimming pool with dollar bills and lounge on them. I would think the person in question is a horrible, stain on mankind. But I do not believe that I have any inherent right to prevent that person from doing otherwise.

I think that's a hard question to answer -- but I guess that I'd say even under your health care scenario, yes, I still think it's a right.

A better parallel might be the 'right to bear arms' -- beyond 2nd Amendment/legalese -- do you accept that as a basic right? Personally, I suppose I don't 'in theory' -- but I accept it in practice as a right that our nation has granted. No, I don't have any numbers -- but I highly suspect that the prevalence of guns in our society does more harm than good. However, since it's a 'right' - I accept that we can't just get rid of all guns. We accept some downside -- and enforce some reasonable limitations, just as we do with 'free speech' -- with something we consider a right.

So yeah -- I would accept the possibility that there might be some manner of care less available to me in exchange for broader health care coverage. Again - as with the 2nd amendment/RTBKA - I think it's a scale that we as a society can employ.

All of your examples center around government action/expediture. Do you believe that humans have any rights that do not stem from the government?

Because we are talking about government and health care, and you brought up expenditures. I am interested in what human rights you were refering to. What differentiates them from health care as a right? How is it a category error?

I never said anything "stem from the government", I have only asked you about your thoughts on these rights, of which health care is not one.

Or at least someone who proceeds to loudly proclaim that he doesn't care about the real-world outcome of his preferred views.

Complete non-sequitur. Everyone has beliefs that aren't derived from data proving their specific effect on an arbitrary measure of society. If you spend an hour talking about politics on a baseball site rather than, say, working at a soup kitchen, by definition, you've chosen to believe something (that arguing politics on a baseball site is a better use of your time than spending the same time helping the less fortunate) that also shows a lack of care about real-world outcomes.

So where does that leave us? Seems like, in a nation like ours, it's just a matter of going to the ballot box and the chips falling where they may.

I'm a pragmatist, so it's the most practical solution we have.

I'm with you on this one. I enjoy reading these discussions — I often learn quite a bit from them — but they're ultimately completely academic. Don't like the ACA, think it's wrong? November's coming up. Knock yourselves out.

But if someone's going to argue that their personal views are superior to mine because Period, I'm going to get pretty hostile.

I think that's a pretty universal trait. I think I speak for the pro-ACA side of the argument that Ray and David's insinuation that we hate freedom is more than a little insulting, so hostility ensued because hostility always ensues when differing philosophies clash.

I too agree with BurlyBuehrle in #221. It's interesting to me, though, that so much public response to Obamacare still seems to center on the phrase "socialized medicine." Opponents of the ACA slap that label on it with aggressive energy. I was having a conversation last weekend with an otherwise non-insane conservative friend of mine who had the strange opinion (her health insurance currently being paid for by her employer, the state of Tennessee) that Obamacare would somehow result in some kind of weird system of rationing services where you would have to stand in line for ten days to get antihistamines, or something. The irony is that my friend turned 66 today, and if she weren't still working for the state she'd be covered by Medicare, a far more "socialized" program than anything Obama has ever proposed. This, to me, is weird; but then, as I've noted, all rhetoric is weird. It is not about logic or correctness.

Healthcare is no more a human right than yacht ownership or dating a supermodel.

Not if you elect me President. A yacht and a supermodel for all. Beats 40 acres and a mule.

No, I didn't want to do it. I got soaking wet and I ruined my cell phone. I did it because my inner moral sense told me it was the right thing to do, in spite of the fact that I didn't want to do it.

Unless you suffer from multiple personality disorder, your "inner moral sense" is you. You wanted to do it, notwithstanding any ambivalence.

The libertarian response might be "tough." But is that the society we want to create and inhabit?

Yes.

At least until your house is burning down, and you run outside to beg the fire department to save it.

Since I'm responsible, I pay for things like fire protection. So of course they should save it.

NM- doublepost

Since I'm responsible and I can afford it, I pay for things like fire protection. So of course they should save it.

FTFY.

Complete non-sequitur. Everyone has beliefs that aren't derived from data proving their specific effect on an arbitrary measure of society. If you spend an hour talking about politics on a baseball site rather than, say, working at a soup kitchen, by definition, you've chosen to believe something (that arguing politics on a baseball site is a better use of your time than spending the same time helping the less fortunate) that also shows a lack of care about real-world outcomes.

If someone proved that arguing politics on a baseball site reduced the GDP of the country by 1% of the year, I would be in favor of arguing politics on a baseball site. If someone proved that arguing politics on a baseball site increased the rate of heart attacks by 15%, I'd be in favor of arguing politics on a baseball site. If someone proved that arguing politics on a baseball site increased crime by 25%, I'd be in favor of arguing politics on a baseball site. If someone proved that arguing politics on a baseball site doubled the rate of depression, I'd be in favor of arguing politics on a baseball site. If someone proved that arguing politics on a baseball site doubled the odds that humanity will destroy itself in the year 3000, I'd be in favor of arguing politics on a baseball site.

You see, I'm a pragmatist.

You see, I'm a pragmatist.

Most of the laws we're talking about don't involve right vs. non-right, but watered-down right vs. slightly different version of watered-down right.

And I should note that your right to talk politics on a baseball site, by being able to seek other consenting parties to offer you a computer, internet service, and a baseball site on which to talk politics is inherent. But the baseball site owners also have the right to not allow politics on their baseball site - there's no inherent right to speak politics *on BTF's property* and that the privilege has been granted is a result of the partner who is willing to allow it having a greater voting share than the partner who is not willing to allow it.

Since I'm responsible and I can inherently afford it, given my ownership of the house, I pay for things like fire protection. So of course they should save it.

FTFLAEHoA.

Seriously, wasn't the quote given earlier in the thread $75/year? Any homeowner, or anyone with enough possessions to be worrying about fire protection in the first place, can afford that.

Any homeowner, or anyone with enough possessions to be worrying about fire protection in the first place, can afford that.

Unless, of course, something unexpected happens - like the loss of a job or an unexpected illness.

Most of the laws we're talking about don't involve right vs. non-right, but watered-down right vs. slightly different version of watered-down right.

I think this probably why RTKBA probably makes a bit more sense to discuss in the context of health care as a right than does free speech... Both right and left are pretty loud about supporting free speech (and both love to accuse the other attempting to squelch it). We also have a number of limitations upon free speech, some universally agreed with (fire in crowded theater), some not (I suppose certain harassment or perhaps incendiary speech laws).

I agree with almost everything in 221, but I thought this comment was funny. Wouldn't a "Hobbesian fantasyland" be a place with a powerful central authority that enables us to live in peace with our neighbors and promotes the collective good?

More correctly, Libertarians live in a Lockeian fantasyland. Hobbes was far, far more correct than Locke on the merits. It all comes down to Locke's incorrect conception of the state of nature.