I was driving along, minding my own business this morning, when Glenn Beck played this quote from Democratic Senator Tom Harkin:
“What this bill does is we finally take that step. As our leader said earlier, we take that step from healthcare as a privilege to healthcare as an inalienable right of every single American citizen. And as I said before, this bill is not complete. I’ve used the analogy of a starter home in which we can add additions and enhancements as we go into the future but like every right that we’ve ever passed the American people, we revisit it later to enhance and build on those rights, and we will do that here surely.”
Now, I know that my friends like Rutherford, whose love for Obama and the talking heads at MessNBC knows no bounds see absolutely nothing wrong with this quote.
Glenn, of course, in his own style correctly makes light of all the salient points. I’d like to revisit them.
1. A U.S. Senator is talking about government giving us rights. It would be difficult to point out people who should better understand that rights don’t come from government, they can only be restricted by government, and yet his meaning is crystal clear.
2. He recognizes that healthcare is not a right, but illustrates that it is a party priority to make it so. Therein all serious legislative discussion would end…in a sane world.
3. He recognizes the “foot in the door” concept. He talks about a “starter home”, and the promise of more “additions” and “enhancements” to come. He also interchanges the concept of “rights” and “entitlements”, although I think most Democrats have a fundamental problem differentiating between the two. Just to again clear that up, the former are granted by God, the latter are created by government, at the expense of its taxpayers.
4. In glorifying the government’s beneficence toward the American people, he attempts to cloak it in the authority of the only sovereign recognized by the Founders. I’m starting to think that they just can’t help themselves. Few people excel in euphemisms like politicians, and any more, fewer people seem to be able to discern when they are being presented with an ersatz copy of anything being passed off as an original. But what I find disturbing is the appearance that he believes it. And the whole “our leader” thing is more than a little creepy.
I don’t know how much more of Congress’s good intentions we can take.
Priority in 2010 – make sure my (older) kids read the 5,000 year Leap. and Glen Beck’s Arguing with idiots. We’ve got to ARM our kids to combat the stupid out there.
I’m about halfway through it right now, Car in. I got sidetracked by ‘The Truth War’, and I spent some time perusing Professor Skousen’s line-by-line analysis of the Constitution in “The Making of America”.
I want that image on t-shirt. I’d wear it to the gym. It’s be soo cool.
I’ll mention that to Jaybear…maybe he can open a cafe press shop or something. 😉
OK. I”ll try not to start a poo flinging incident this time.
It seems to me, being an amateur in this field, that if you have something that can be claimed as a right you have unencumbered ability to exercise that claim.
What happens when the government denies you treatment
because you’re not deemed cost efficient or you have the wrong ideas or for that matter if the sky isn’t blue that day.
When I say “Hey, it’s my right! it’s inalienable.”
They say “it’s not in the budget ” That’s not a right that’s a favor.
The public option or the “death panels” aren’t any particular subsection of this monstrosity it’s the whole thing. Like Mr Beck pointed out above with the quotation from that arrogant, ill-tempered twat Harkin, they needed to pass anything. Once it’s passed all we will be talking about is healtcare and how to fund it and who gets it.
Even if the pseudo-conservative Republican party can take congress back, for practical matters the legislation is with us in perpetuity. They probably won’t have a filibuster proof majority in the senate and if there is a Democrat president they won’t be able to override his veto(2/3 majority required).
Right now according to Ramesh Ponnuru(National Review), we are hoping that the house so screws the pooch with add-ons and give aways that it awakens whatevers left of the conscience of one of the 60 profligate reprobates who voted for this economic vassalitude and they will deny cloture on the final product. That’s a very thin reed to try and grasp.
In the spirit of intellectual integrity most of this has been my re-iteration of various right wing pundits, primarily Mark Steyn(pp5&6)
The key insight here, as you’ve noted, is the source of rights: are they natural, descending from our natures as men and from the unyielding laws of the universe, or are they a grant from the State? But along with that, people would do well to ponder the criteria for considering something to be a matter of right:
— Is it something all persons can enjoy simultaneously, without causing conflict?
— Can you obtain it without others’ cooperation or contribution?
— In obtaining it, can you avoid violating anyone else’s rights?
If even one of those questions demands a “No” answer, then the proposed thing cannot be a right. The Founders understood that; how many of our contemporaries do?
I was driving along, minding my own business this morning, …
I’ve finally busted you. No getting around this time, buster.
http://www.google.com/search?q=I+was+driving+along%2C+minding+my+own+business&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Now back to the real thoughts.
I still have that rope in my truck.
You got me, Dick. I’m a regular at the Dummie Underground, and I comment under the handle “Givemehealthcareorgivemedeath”.
fxpcpa, my comment on the last post was not in reference to you. Sorry if it seemed that way.
At this point, if they’re talking about healthcare as a right, there is no hope of ever repealing this bill. Maybe they’ll change the Bill of Rights of the Constitution to include healthcare as well? Well, unless as fxpcpa said, you’re too expensive to take care of. Then your right becomes nonexistent.
Good points of analysis but I was thrown to the floor by the opening:
As our leader said earlier, …
That’s spooky!
My Dear Watson,
No worries, I didn’t take it that way. It was a poke at myself for dropping to that level of discourse. It’s all good!