Instead, I believe it is more critical to explore the morality of Government Health Care as morality precedes politics in the conceptual and philosophic hierarchy. Let's explore the topic by analogy.
Let's say you are employed as the CFO of a company. You are kidnapped and the kidnappers demand, under threat to your life or the lives of your loved ones, that you embezzle money from your employer and that you place those funds in their Swiss back account.
In the question of morality, did you act immorally or morally? Did the kidnappers act morally or immorally?
Let's change the scenario slightly.
Again, you are the CFO of a company that is kidnapped. The kidnappers demand, under threat to your life or the lives of your loved ones, that you embezzle money from your employer. This time, the kidnappers demand that you transfer the funds to the bank account of the American Red Cross as they believe everyone should support this fine charity. Now consider the same questions asked previously. Did you act immorally or morally? Did the kidnappers act morally or immorally?
Let's take the easier situation first. In both cases, the answer to the question: Did you act immorally or morally? Is the same. As you were under coercion and given no choice in how you could act, your actions were amoral. They were neither moral or immoral. You were deprived of the ability to pursue a course of action that was consistent with your belief of what is right or wrong.
Now, let's explore the question of the morality of the actions of the kidnappers. Is there a difference between the two scenarios? In both cases, embezzlement is a crime. The only other difference between the scenarios is who benefits from the embezzled money. In the first case, the kidnappers benefit. In the second case, a well known and respected charity benefits. Virtually everyone would agree that in the first case, the actions of the kidnappers is immoral. They deprived someone of their freedom and forced them to perform acts that are illegal so that they would benefit from those actions.
Now, does the fact that a charity benefits in the 2nd scenario make the actions of the kidnappers moral? Do the ends justify the means? Is it moral to force people to do what someone else believes is the right thing to do? That is, can you force others to be moral? The answer is no. As we established previously, the question of morality applies only when a person is free to choose their actions. When that freedom is eliminated, the person's coerced actions are amoral. Therefore, the CFO's actions remain amoral. However, the kidnappers actions remain the same -- they deprived a person of their liberty and forced them to commit a crime. The beneficiary is irrelevant. The kidnappers acts are clearly immoral.
Now, we tie the analogy back to politics. Substitute the U.S. Federal Government for the kidnappers, any tax-paying citizen of the U.S. as the CFO and ObamaCare (U.S. dictated health care) as the beneficiary. Is there anything that is fundamentally different? If the U.S. Federal Government forces you to pay for someone's health care, is that really any different from a kidnapper coercing you to embezzle money to support the American Red Cross? No. The only actor that is immoral in this scenario is the U.S. Federal Government and the supporters of socialized health care who believe in mob rule (unbridled democracy) or autocracy.
The sooner we see clearly how immoral the U.S. Federal Government has become and the orders of magnitude of immorality it is attempting to shove down everyone's throats with socialized health care and nationalized businesses, the sooner we can stall their grab of absolute power and throw the leaders of tyrannical government out of power.
Perhaps a rabid statist will now report me to President Obama for exercising my rights to freedom of speech as the White House has established an email address for reporting dissenters. Our President's Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, has also incited violence against those protesting ObamaCare “If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard." (His choice of words are not accidental.)
These are not good omens. They suggest the statists are coming close to using force to take the absolute control they thought they had gained peacefully as the silent majority has awakened and are demanding that their freedoms and the constitution be restored.
(For Republicans and Conservatives, this is why another George W. Bush or John McCain can never be allowed to win nomination again. Only Jefferson, Madison and George Washington admiring and constitution loving candidates deserve nomination.)
2 comments:
An extension of your thesis here is that all taxes are immoral since the taxpayer is coerced into paying the tax (and thus derived of the choice not to pay taxes).
How would you organize a society such that it functions? Are there any cases, in your mind, that justify taxation? If so, what are those justifications?
One has to remember that absolute freedom is absolutely impossible without constraints so there are always limits applied. If you answer "no" to the question: "do you mind if I kill your wife" then you have applied a constraint to my freedom. Ah, you might say, it would be immoral for you to kill my wife. If morality applies here, it applies everywhere by virtue of all the freedom-limiting constraints.
As an engineer, surely you understand that engineering is about finding a compromise which works well enough? Yet your arguments here seem to refute that reality - something I find intriguing.
Paul.
There is a fundamental principle that I hold in my politics and my human interactions: Non-initiation of the use of force.
Are there justifications for any taxes? As long as they are involuntary, no. Are there valid functions of government? Yes, governments have the delegated authority of the retaliatory use of force. We all retain the right to defend ourselves. However, once the immediate danger is past, it is the responsibility of government to provide police and courts to find and punish those who violate the fundamental principle and initiate the use of force against others. The government is given this responsibility as it is necessary to have an impartial administration of justice. It is objective and not subjective.
It is a red herring to say that answering no to the question "do you mind if I kill your wife" is an infringement of the prospective murderer's freedom. Murder violates the principle of non-initiation of the use of force. Your freedom, my freedom, does not create an obligation on someone else to act on someone else's behalf (including agreeing to be a victim of murder). Freedom and rights prevent someone from acting in a way which violates the rights of another. There is never a conflict or contradiction between one person's rights and another's. If you think there is a situation in which there is, then there has been a mis-identification of what is a right.
On the subject of compromise: I never compromise fundamental principles or values that I hold. Compromise is only possible when both parties gain from the transaction. Assuming you are a free person, who wins if you compromise your freedom? Any compromise between freedom and slavery, slavery wins. Any compromise between good and evil, evil wins. Any compromise between me selling my widget to you for $5 instead of the $7 I asked for (and the $3 it cost to make) results in me making a sale that provides me a profit which I find acceptable and gains you my widget at a price you believe fair. However, if you were to offer me $2, then I will lose $1 on the deal. I would never agree to such a compromise in trade. If you pull a gun or knife on me and force me to sell it at your $2 price, then I have lost and you have gained. That is not compromise!
In the engineering example you gave, the compromise is not between individuals on the product development team. It is a compromise with the market. Will the market pay an appropriate price for a product that is not perfect? It depends on the flaws which detract from the ideal. At some point, the scale is tipped and there is sufficient value in the product -- even with known flaws -- to ship it for revenue.
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