The Right to You

“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” - Frederic Bastiat


With the passage of Obama’s long awaited, and forever disputed, Health-Care bill, we now have entered into a public discourse which has been delayed far past it’s time. While many complain about specific passages and detailed minutia within the bill itself, such as the Federal Government’s mandate to purchase health insurance, very few debate it’s purpose. That is, to provide health-care to every American citizen.

This is not an old idea, nor is it an old program. Medicare and Medicaid were met with the same hostility by then-Conservatives who were opposed to the further socialization of medical care (a process began by none other than the chief-National Socialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt). Of course, now-Conservatives tend to see Medicare and Medicaid as a given. While some may admit them to be bankrupt institutions and in need for “reform”, hardly a single right-wing voice can be heard raising up against either of these program’s very existence.

Indeed, both parties and both “wings” have accepted the tired doctrine of a “right to health-care”. The majority of Americans even support this concept. Not only a right to health-care, but a right to education, a right to postage, a right to clean water, a right to housing, a right to food, a right to clothing, a right to roads and transportation, and myriad other products and services which are no doubt necessary to society. But, does necessity imply a right?

Let’s step back for a moment and define what exactly a “right” is. Put very simply, a “right” is an exclusive privilege to have complete discretion over a certain thing. Now this logically would apply to our basic rights: The right to our lives, liberty, and property. We have an exclusive privilege to have complete discretion over our lives, our choices, and the fruit of our labor.

Necessity, on the other hand, is something entirely different. We may need our life, our body, our freedom to choose for ourselves, and the property we achieve in a peaceful manner… but we may also be in need of other things. We are in need of food, we are in need of drink, we are in need of shelter, we are in need of dress, and we are in need of numerous other objects and abilities. Some are necessities of life, other are mere necessities of desire for a better livelihood.

The way we attain property in this world can be done one of two ways. The first way is the way of peace. That is, the way of original appropriation. To find unclaimed property and to claim it as your own, to mix your labor with that land, or object, and to make it yours. Or to then trade what is yours with others, in exchange for what is theirs. Even to give what is yours to someone else out of charity and good-will, or vice-versa. These are legitimate and non-violent methods of gaining what is needed to survive and lead a happy life.

The second way is the way of violence. That is, the way of theft. To take what others have earned peacefully, by the labor of their hands, through honest trade or charity. To initiate aggression against a person and their property to gain what is desired or needed is plunder, robbery, and illegitimate. Every victim of theft has the right to defend himself/herself against the violence initiated.

Now that we have a basic understanding of this we can better answer the question at hand: Does necessity imply a right?

No it does not.

To present a scenario, imagine a man who’s liver is in failure. He has spent his whole life drinking alcohol and ignored the consequences until it was too late. He is a good person, a father of three children who have not yet graduated high school. Two are successful, one is constantly getting herself into trouble. She is in need of a father more than ever. He has a loving wife who has put up with his addiction for over twenty years. The man has a great sense of humor, always bringing joy and laughter to those around him. He is loved by so many friends and family members.

Then there is another man, who’s liver is perfectly healthy. He too, a good man. He has no children or wife, as he is a local priest of a Catholic Church. He has spent his whole life giving of himself to the community. He is around the same age as the man with the dying liver, and has plans to travel the world before his time is up.

Now, let me ask you. Does the first man have a need of the second man’s liver? It should be an obvious ‘yes’. But, does he have a right to it?

Does he have the ‘exclusive’ privilege to have ‘full discretion’ over the second man’s organ?

The answer, no matter where you fall emotionally in your loyalties, must be a resounding ‘no’. He does not have that right. Only the healthy man has a right to his liver. If he decides to give of himself to save the first man’s life, then that is his decision, and his decision alone, to make.

Let me make the story more complicated.

Imagine now the first man has a failing kidney, after losing his first kidney to the same disease. Imagine also that the second man, in the same scenario, has two perfectly healthy kidneys.

Again, the first man has a need, a necessity, to receive a healthy kidney. But does he have a right?

No, he does not.

Even though the second man will likely live through the surgery, and certainly be fine with one kidney… it is his decision alone to make over his organs. Perhaps one day he will find himself in a situation similar to the first man. Perhaps he will, in the future, need both kidneys to survive. Maybe he is afraid to have the surgery, or maybe it is against his religion to be cut by a surgeon’s knife at all.

It is still his right, his exclusive privilege to have full discretion. Not the first man, no matter how dire his situation.

How does this apply to health-care? Allow me to connect the dots.

If we are to hold our bodies as our property, and we hold all the fruits of our labor to be our property, than both are equally rights. No right is more important than another. Though defense may be unequal, the right itself is without measurement of value. It is completely equal in all aspects. For example, my right to be free is no less a right than my right to speak my mind. Nor is my right to keep my paycheck any more a right than is my right to make a contract. All rights are rights, and all rights allow for defense against aggression.

So, this being the case, imagine now the first man is in need of money to pay for the surgery. The second man has plenty to spare. Does the first man need the money? Of course. Does he have a right to it? Of course not.

He has a right to his money, and only his money. To claim right over the second man’s money is to negate the second man’s rights. Is the first man’s rights more important than the second man’s? Does not the second man have a right to defend what is rightfully his?

To revisit the issue of “Obamacare”, and all forms of socialized health-care (or socialized anything), it’s easy to understand the illegitimacy of what the Government is doing. To take from some, to give to others. This is called a redistribution of wealth. While many so-called Conservatives oppose the new bill for this reason, they fail to take the argument to it’s logical conclusion.

All Government is socialism. All Government is a redistribution of wealth. All Government is legalized theft.

The act of taxation, at the threat of force, is the process of robbery and extortion. It is aggression against the property of others. The property which they have, by nature, the exclusive right to own, to decide over. The excuse of need is given. That someone needs this money more than them is the reason for theft. The ends justifying the means on a grand scale.

Someone needs health-care. It will be provided by the Government stealing from others though taxation. Someone needs education. The same will occur. Someone needs postage, roads, transportation, food, shelter, clothes, drink, electricity, internet, cable, etc. The Government will deliver whatever good, whatever service is needed by the populace. Or if you need judicial arbitration, or defense, or enforcement of the law. The Government has monopolized this area of our lives as well, and it must take from some in order to pay for these services to others. They do this through theft. They steal by taxation, they indebt you to foreign governments, they devalue your currency until you can no longer purchase anything you have worked to enjoy.

You no longer have a right to your property. You only have the luxury to keep what the Government allows you to. Rights themselves, as they should be according to nature, are no longer protected by the law. The law only exists to serve the special interests and politically well-connected. The very definition of “rights” has been misconstrued to where the very exercise of “rights” comes at the cost of infringing on the natural rights of others.

The truth of the matter is that you don’t have a right to health-care. Why, because to have a right to health-care means you have a right to someone else’s property, to someone else’s services, to someone else’s products. But, you don’t have a right to someone else… you only have the right to you. To have a right to someone else, that is slavery. To have the exclusive privilege over anothers life, or actions, or the fruits of their labor. Such is enslavement, such is the negation of liberty. This is not freedom. It is antithetical to freedom.

So, as we enter into an America where you are forced to purchase health-insurance, remember… this was not the first tyrannical move by the Government in this country. It has been happening for quite some time already. In order to change the tide towards socialism, towards fascism, we must not only rebuff the recent infringements on our liberties, but those from the past that still remain to haunt us as well. Not only should we reject “Obamacare”, but Medicare and Medicaid also. We should speak out against “public” education, against government roads and transportation, against the failed monopoly that is the U.S. Postal Service, against ALL Government. Against the President, the Congress, the Bureaucracy, the Government Courts, and every program under the sun.

Not only do we need to do this… it is our right to do so.


- Justin Buell