Common Folk Using Common Sense

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Your “Right” To Healthcare?

April 14th, 2008 · 3 Comments

By Neal Boortz via Townhall.com:

Among the rights guaranteed (not “given” as Bill Clinton believes) to you in our Constitution are:

  • Freedom of religion
  • Freedom of speech
  • The right to peaceably assemble.
  • The right to petition the government
  • The right to keep and bear arms
  • The right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures
  • Protection from double jeopardy
  • Due process
  • A speedy and public trial by jury
  • The right to legal counsel when charged with a crime

With one exception, the right to representation in court and a trial by jury, these rights require nothing of any other citizen but that they recognize your rights and not interfere with them.

Your “right to health care” would require some other person to give up a portion of their life or their property to either treat you or to provide you with drugs or medical implements. The Constitution does not provide for another individual to be indentured to you in this manner.

Therefore, you have no “right” to health care.

Deal with it.

Tags: Election · Government · Health · The Left · The US

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Sailorcurt // Apr 14, 2008 at 8:49 am

    With one exception, the right to representation in court and a trial by jury, these rights require nothing of any other citizen but that they recognize your rights and not interfere with them.

    As a non-scholar and layman, I believe that we misconstrue the “right to representation in court”.

    I believe that the amendment only guarantees that the government cannot deny you the opportunity to provide for legal counsel. In other words, they can’t refuse you the ability to hire a lawyer.

    I do NOT believe that the right entails government taking the money from someone else to hire a lawyer for you, or compelling a lawyer to accept your case pro-bono, should you not be able to afford to hire one.

    The Second Amendment does not entail the government providing arms for anyone, nor compel arms manufacturers to provide them free of charge to those who cannot afford to purchase them. It only provides that the government cannot prevent us from purchasing and owning arms.

    I see the 6th Amendment in the same light.

    You could consider the act of being required to serve on a jury as requiring something of other citizens, but I see jury duty as a civic duty that is not an infringement, but a protection of rights. By serving on juries, we ensure the availability of the jury system for ourselves should we ever be tried for a crime. It’s not an infringement to be required to serve on a jury…we have the RIGHT of trial by jury, therefore, we have the RESPONSIBILITY to serve on juries when called.

    All rights come with attendant responsibilities.

    Therefore, under my interpretation, there are NO rights that require anything from other citizens. Which is the basis for my belief in what constitutes a fundamental right.

    A fundamental right is ANYTHING that does not violate the rights of another. This is supported by the arguments at the founding against including the bill of rights in the Constitution and which prompted the inclusion of the ninth amendment: the possibility that the enumeration of some rights would imply that those are the only rights and any others are null and void. Patently not true as is spelled out by the 9th amendment.

    The Bill of rights is not a list of what the People MAY do. It is a list of what the Government MAY NOT do. Many at the time of the founding considered it dangerous to include it for the very reason that we have so much trouble today.

    Too many people view the bill of rights as a list of permissions granted by the government. That’s not what it is at all. We’re not supposed to need the permission of government to act…the government is supposed to need the permission of the PEOPLE to act. Our society has it exactly bass-ackwards from the way the founders envisioned our form of government.

    They constructed a Unique In the History of The World form of government, and we, through apathy, ignorance and laziness, have devolved it into any other run of the mill human endeavor where the elites rule the lives of the serfs.

    I think most humans just enjoy slavery. It’s so much easier to have someone else run every aspect of your life and make all your decisions for you than it is to make the effort, take the risks, suffer the consequences, and enjoy the fruits, of liberty.

    Sorry for the rant. Sore spot. You rubbed it.

  • 2 Micheal // Apr 14, 2008 at 9:28 am

    You are absolutly right, the government does not have the responsiblity to provide or subisidize with tax payers money, to those how cannot afford it.

  • 3 Shamalama // Apr 14, 2008 at 9:49 am

    All of this points out a basic philosophical difference between Conservatives and Liberals: Conservatives tend to believe that we should have laws to RESTRICT the government from interference in the lives of its citizens, whereas Liberals tend to believe that government exists TO DIRECTLY INTERFERE, be it for good or bad, in the lives of its citizens.

    - Does the Bill Of Rights hold back the government from impacting on your inherent rights, or does it extend previously nonexistent rights to the citizens?

    - Does the Second Amendment protect you and your gun from the government, or does it graciously give you a limited right to own a gun?