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Local News Roundup, Thurs., Dec. 6, 2007
December 6, 2007 5:06 PM
Arrest in Soldier's Shooting Death
Workplace Deaths Rise Again
19 Illegal Immigrants Arrested on I-70
Frontier Cutting Staff
Dems Hire "Greening" Director for '08 Convention
[LISTEN]
Posted by Eric Whitney on December 6, 2007 5:06 PM | Permalink
Comments
Dear KRCC new staff:
9 December, 2007
Re: Your local news program which aired this morning (5 a.m.-ish)
It was appalling--in fact, downright creepy--to wake up to Ms. ___ (Sorry; I couldn’t remember her name in my sleepy fog!) calmly telling me how “exciting” it was for her to be in a position to be seriously proposing to legally force me to buy health insurance.
I’m one of those recalcitrant people on whom Ms. ___, and others like her, apparently blame their real or perceived problems with the so-called “health care system.” According to her--but not according to me--it is my fault, as a non-player in her statistical and economic games, that she isn’t getting the statistics she would like to see, and that the over-bureaucratized business of “health care” is hemorrhaging money.
I am a non-player by choice. Not only can I not afford health insurance (I most assuredly cannot), but, more importantly, I wouldn’t want to purchase any even if I easily could. Note, first off, that this obviates the saccharin assuagement that proponents of forced health insurance usually rush to offer to poor people: that they (the proponents) will somehow subsidize this forced purchase to make it “affordable.” As an aside, note that this simply dodges the question of why something taken to be somehow necessary to everyone can also be unaffordable, nor does it do anything at all to remedy this situation; it just papers it over. But, I digress. Back to the real subject: the willingness of social planners like Ms. ___ to violate my rights as an individual in the pursuit of her statistical goals.
Quite apart from the excessive cost, and my right as an individual to decide what to spend my limited money on, I want no part in the current “health care” business. The rules of this game, again regardless of the costs or prices, are simply not acceptable to me. They are not acceptable on the basis of privacy. They are not acceptable on the basis of gross non-respect for my autonomy in dealing with the bureaucrats and bureaucracies. They are not acceptable on the basis of non-respect for my basic physical rights by arrogant medical personnel.
When I find the rules of the game unfair, dishonest, or for any other reason totally unacceptable, I have one, consistent, and eminently peaceful solution: I do not play. I will not give implicit (or explicit) approval to a dishonest system by participating in it in any way whatsoever. This is one (more) example of what political theoreticians generically refer to as “voting with one’s feet.” Unfortunately, it is something that a decent, intelligent, but non-violent person finds him- or herself compelled to do with increasing frequency in post-democratic and post-republican America, where (apparently) well-meaning, but ignorant, social engineers find the unprovoked abrogation of various people’s fundamental rights to be the “solution” to one “problem” after another.
I note with pained cynicism the brief treatment given, near the end of your segment, to the “philosophical” question of the rights of awful people like me. The host is, I suppose, to be commended for at least raising the issue, but the non-answer given by guest ___ (Sorry; couldn’t catch this name, either!)should not have been allowed to pass unchallenged. Indeed, this should really have been the focus of the entire segment, but I ended up with the feeling that the question was raised mainly to supply an opportunity for Mr. ___ to denounce it as unimportant.
To wit: I actually am in factual agreement with Mr. ___ that “the way to think of it” is to focus on how medical costs are socialized, and how hard this is on “my fellow citizens.” What Mr. ___ doesn’t want me, or anyone else, to focus on, of course, is that this deleterious socialization of costs is not the fault or responsibility of non-players like me, but rather of the existing “health care” system itself, a system already heavily socialized by proposals that are philosophically and politically in exactly the same vein as this push to force the unwilling to do business with companies whose products/services they do not want.
At least, that is “the way to think of it” if you want to generate a plausible excuse for this execrable proposal. However, if you care about protecting (what’s left of) your rights, and the rights of others, instead of greasing the rails for the advance of the nanny state, then the “way to think of it” is to reject non-answers like this, and reiterate that the question is not about the convenience (economic or otherwise) of others, but about the fundamental rights of the individual. I, as an individual, do not have any inherent obligation to make the “health care” system--which, remember, I find inherently unacceptable--appear to be workable, nor do I have any similar obligation to make sure that “my fellow citizens” find it acceptable, or that it “works” for them. If your system doesn’t work, Mr. ___ and Ms.___, then welcome to reality and fix it yourself. But you will make this fix without me. I say that your system isn’t working because it is inherently--and irretrievably--unworkable. Not to mention unfair, dishonest, and abusive.
That’s why I’m not participating. That’s why I refuse to participate. That’s why I resent your cavalier talking about simply wiping out my right to make my own decision through legislation, no matter what assuagement you might offer me as to the cost.
Oh, one final note about the (relatively unimportant) matter of affordability and offered subsidies. One more reason I am not in the least persuaded to change my position by your offer of subsidies to make health insurance “affordable” to poor people is that, as an American, I also refuse--that’s refuse--to try to prove that I am “poor enough” in order to get an exemption to your onerous requirement.
This is a line-in-the-sand issue for me. If I have to refuse to pay taxes and risk being jailed to keep from participating in this corrupt scheme, I will. But it will definitely not be “all right.” I will know who to blame. But, being, as noted earlier, a basically peaceful person (in addition to having a life to live apart from squabbling with control freaks), I am guardedly hopeful that the usual inertia and disorganization of the legislative process (not, I’m afraid, any lingering dedication to the traditional western respect for the rights of the individual) will keep this offensive proposal from actually being enacted. If not, look out: We’re going to come to blows.
Posted by: Patrick L. Lilly | December 9, 2007 10:51 AM
