GDT wrote:
You have reinforced my point – by completely missing it. In your post you take the position that socialized medicine is morally wrong (I agree by the way). Liberals take the position that it is a moral imperative. Both sides believe their positions strongly. Neither will budge. This debate is simple contention. (Yes it is! No it’s not!). There is no way to win.
The point is not to “win” in the sense of convincing liberals that socialized medicine is wrong. I fully agree that THAT is impossible — you will never change their minds. The point is to put them on the defensive by morally knocking the props out from under them — and to strengthen the case against socialized medicine by invoking a basic moral principle that most Americans understand and agree with.
You see, in the first place, the debate you describe above — the “Yes it is moral! No it’s not moral!” — is NOT at all the debate that has been going on. There isn’t a conservative politician on earth right now with the stones to challenge the morality of socialized medicine.
The debate that has been going on is this: the Democrats assert, “Providing healthcare to all is a moral imperative! — to which conservatives reply: “But we can’t afford it!” or “But it doesn’t work!” — to which the Democrats reply, “Every other civilized nation on earth has made it work, so we can too.” Whereupon the Democrats are left standing as the moral crusaders trying to do good while the conservatives are left trying to prove a negative — trying to prove that it can not work here in America.
Consider how different the debate would be if Republicans offered a moral argument against socialized medicine. When the Democrats assert, “Providing healthcare to all is a moral imperative!”, Republicans should respond, “Nonsense. Freedom is a moral imperative. A man’s doctor bills are his own responsibility. Forcing one man to pay another man’s doctor bills is every bit as immoral as forcing one man to pick another man’s cotton. There is no ’moral imperative’ that makes it right for one man to satisfy his ’need’ for healthcare by stealing from his neighbors. Theft is always immoral — no matter how badly the thief needs the proceeds and no matter who does the stealing. And by the way, Obama, in America man is not his brother‘s keeper — because in America, all men are created equal — not divided into ‘keepers’ and those entitled to be ‘kept’”.
That won’t “end” the debate — and it won’t convince the Democrats to give up — but I can guarantee you that it would put them on the defensive. And it would communicate to the American people — the majority of which oppose socialized medicine — that there are very good moral arguments against it.
That is not the end of what I have to say on this matter. But it’s all I can go into at the moment.
