| In the harsh public discourse over the costs of federally-managed healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and all the other programs by which the federal government gives away cash and gets people accustomed to receiving it, the Big Government progressives in both the Democratic and the Republican parties have been trying to trick us. These folks, who really want the government to care for us from cradle to grave, have been promoting the idea that healthcare, and entitlements like it, is a right. In promoting that false premise, they have succeeded in moving the debate from WHETHER the feds should micro-manage health care, pay for Medicare, compel the states to pay for Medicaid, and fund Social Security, to HOW the feds should do so. This is a false premise, and we should reject it. Payments from the government do not constitute rights; they are goods, like food, shelter, and clothing. What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas to Thomas Jefferson, from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity. We own our bodies, thus we own the gifts that emanate from our bodies. So, our right to life, our right to develop our personalities, our right to think as we wish, to say what we think, to publish what we say, our right to worship or not worship, our right to travel, to defend ourselves, to use our own property as we see fit ... |
