Yes, this is not technically a "breaking" story, but I think it is of such importance that it may as well be. My goal here is not to show the pragmatic and compassion of universal health care; no, nyceve has done that so beautifully and unfortunately heartbreakingly well for so long that I couldn’t do it justice. I hope one day I can meet nyceve just to say thanks. Also, Darksyde has an excellent FP piece again on completely incorrect practical view conservaties have on universal health care.
This diary is as meta as non-dkos meta gets. What is missing in the debate of health care in this country is the fact that philosophically the conservative view on health care is utterly bankrupt and that is because it is based on a secondary premise, and illogically denies the more fundamental premise, which by itself proves their argument illogical itself.
Over the fold if you will, please.
Truthfully, I could lay out a simple syllogism and have done with the argument, but I want to make sure the point is not taken lightly and is understood to prove the right-wing ideologues who claim the piety of being fundamentally correct, as being exactly the opposite.
In a free and democratic society we hold forth that there are Rights that each individual is endowed with, to borrow a phrase, and that these Rights are consecrated in law and cannot be abrogated without due process of the community of peers. That is the entire premise for our system of jurisprudence; to make sure the individual is as free of and can act without hindrance of others. With this ideal then we have a set of laws protecting us from bodily harm; property theft and damage; freedom of thought and action as such that they do not act as the hindrance to others aforementioned.
Here is where the key philosophical issue comes in to play: conservatives, deeply rooted in the Libertarian idea of society, claim they have a right to their own life and that health care is nothing more than another commodity that is at the mercy of the market place; that they have no responsibility for another in life. However, we have already proven that a free and democratic society does place responsibility for behavior on individuals and requires the enactment of laws and a court system to constrict those behaviors. Still, what makes health care different, the pious conservative asks, begging the argument to reach this fundamental showdown which they believe stops at the premise of being free of obligation outside oneself and the systemic law? The answer may sound simple, but it must be completely understood and fervently argued, as it is the proof that the right –wing are completely wrong.
For there to be "rights" and any system of "laws and justice" to safeguard those "rights" there is a more base premise that is relied on: that one is alive in order to claim rights! Sounds silly, right? It isn’t, and it shines a xenon powered light on the philosophically unsound argument against universal health care. In order to have Rights, one must be alive, and in order to be living one must have health, and therefore since health comes before the ability to claim and defend those Rights, health care must be a guaranteed Right by the same community which provides laws and a justice system.
Even more simply put: if the premise of our free society, which provides individuals with Rights, is based on an even more fundamental premise, then that premise must be a Right also ; otherwise the logic of the argument is corrupt. That more fundamental Right is a healthy human being.
So, not only is health care a Right but also sustenance and shelter, as an individual cannot live without these either and to not provide the simplest of each would make the entire logic of a free and democratic society null and void.
The logic is sound and as such it is the obligation of a Democratic government to provide these for every one of its members. Not unlimited, but the required amount to maintain life in order that the Rights so feverishly claimed by the right-wing are philosophically correct. To do otherwise is to not have a free and democratic society.