Is healthcare a right? Anyone is welcome here.

[Father Heathen]

Ra ra nationalism aside, care to address my actual question?

I was agreeing with your point, but if you actually equate not taking ones rights and freedoms for granted with "ra ra nationalism", then enjoy licking **** out of boot treads, I guess?

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I was agreeing with your point, but if you actually equate not taking ones rights and freedoms for granted with "ra ra nationalism", then enjoy licking **** out of boot treads, I guess?

The way Americans talk about rights, and "Freedom", and "liberty", does seem like mindless boosterist nationalism, at times. Even cultish in some cases. I appreciate this may be hard to appreciate from within the culture, in a "fish have no word for water" type way.

The rest of us appreciate liberties and rights and so on just fine. We tend not to put them on a pedestal to venerate the way American culture does.

 

[Father Heathen]

The way Americans talk about rights, and "Freedom", and "liberty", does seem like mindless boosterist nationalism, at times. Even cultish in some cases. I appreciate this may be hard to appreciate from within the culture, in a "fish have no word for water" type way.

The rest of us appreciate liberties and rights and so on just fine. We tend not to put them on a pedestal to venerate the way American culture does.

How patronizing, but I believe you're mistaken about who isn't "seeing the forest for the trees".

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

How patronizing, but I believe you're mistaken about who isn't "seeing the forest for the trees".

Believe what you like. I'm sorry you find my opinion patronising, but it is based on my years of experience in these types of conversations. No offence is intended. Nor even criticism, necessarily.

I will observe, however, that it also seems to be a bit of a recurring phenomenon that Americans get baffled by non Americans' attitudes toward them, then handwave any attempted explanation as, for example, "patronising".

 

[Father Heathen]

Believe what you like. I'm sorry you find my opinion patronising, but it is based on my years of experience in these types of conversations. No offence is intended. Nor even criticism, necessarily.

I will observe, however, that it also seems to be a bit of a recurring phenomenon that Americans get baffled by non Americans' attitudes toward them, then handwave any attempted explanation as, for example, "patronising".

Well there *is* a lot about American culture that is nonsensical, toxic, and totally deserving of criticism and contempt, but I don't think that should include our affinity for rights, liberty, equality, justice, etc. especially considering that these values serve as the very premise of this country.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Well there *is* a lot about American culture that is nonsensical, toxic, and totally deserving of criticism and contempt, but I don't think that should include our affinity for rights, liberty, equality, justice, etc. especially considering that these values serve as the very premise of this country.

The problem, IMHO, of worrying so much about "rights", is the tendency to turn discussions about morals and ethics into legalistic ones. Case in point, "SHOULD we provide people with healthcare" becomes " donpeople have a RIGHT to healthcare", and if the answer is "no, people don't have an enumerated RIGHT to something", that, in turn, becomes a defacto argument AGAINST the thing,

 

[LuisDantas]

A "right" can only exist if there is some means of implementing it.

Therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, asking whether healthcare is a right amounts to exactly the same thing as asking whether there should be the means to offer healthcare for everyone.

That could be attained by sufficient civilian iniative, but in practice it is a function of what is perceived as the duty of government towards the citizens - and how it is codified into laws.

Whether access to free or affordable healthcare should be implemented as a (legal) right is a considerably separate matter. And a a far more interesting one, IMO.

 

[Nous]

I say yes. People need healthcare to live, and as a prolifer, I believe people have the right to live. Some background: I am a moderate, not a liberal. I just happen to believe healthcare is a right.

In case no one has mentioned it here, the UN Declaration of Human Rights asserts that health care is a right. I agree, as I attempted to argue in an OP a while back.

 

[wellwisher]

A "right" can only exist if there is some means of implementing it.

Therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, asking whether healthcare is a right amounts to exactly the same thing as asking whether there should be the means to offer healthcare for everyone.

That could be attained by sufficient civilian iniative, but in practice it is a function of what is perceived as the duty of government towards the citizens - and how it is codified into laws.

Whether access to free or affordable healthcare should be implemented as a (legal) right is a considerably separate matter. And a a far more interesting one, IMO.

We already have the right to health care, since access to health care is not denied to any citizen, based on the law.

Consider the second amendment which is the right to bear arms or own guns. The individual has the right to own guns, but the government does not provide free guns to everyone who wants one. The right only gives one the option to possess at a gun or seek health care, but a right is not a freebie program. A freebie program is called an entitlement. One is not entitled to have a gun, but one has the right to own one, but they need to jump hoops and find a way to provide for themselves. A right assumes an adult is in the room.

Progressives tend to confuse rights with entitlements. An entitlement was something that the King and Queen had, while rights is something the peasants eventually got. Rights restricted the entitlements of the King and Queen, so the peasants had more options. However, the peasants had to provide for themselves, since the King and Queen were entitled to everything else. The King and Queen owned the army which was needed for self defense. The peasants got the right to bear arms so they could defend themselves if the King and Queen needed the army for other things.

The government is entitled to health care since they have your tax dollars, make the laws. and run the police and justice departments. However, they cannot take all the best doctors in the country for themselves, since the peasants have the right to health care. But they need to figure a way to pay for it; private sector.