And it will be a foreign notion, as it calls out one of our most American ideals – "who owns me"? While it sounds like an idiotic question to ask as I believe the most of us believe that each of us owns ourselves (and that parents "own" and have responsibility over their children until they reach the age of majority).
The problem is that much of our legislation, especially that of the Socialists via Cap N’ Tax and Universal Healthcare ignore that fundamental truth. It also begs another foundational question for you see, if I own me, why are you responsible for me?
William Anderson writes to the notion that we need to review, not the nuts and bolts of any legislation, but the foundational underpinnings of that legislation to see if it concurs with the vision of the Founding Fathers – in this case, Obamacare (emphasis mine):
We are berated, ad nauseam, with imprecations that America is the only advanced nation that fails to have universal health care. This statement is often followed by the rueful remark that the debate over government controlled health care has been going on without progress for 60 years and, ipso facto, it is time to settle it.
All right, let’s do that. Let’s look a little deeper. Why is there no settlement of the issue, and why is America unique in its obstinate reluctance to follow the example of our older cultural brothers in Europe?
Well, there was a reason why the Pilgrims and others left Europe in the first place – they just plain didn’t want to live under the culture of Europe (which still has a legacy in Europe’s current culture) with its class structure remnants of Feudalism (where the nobility, (specifically where the Monarch owned society). If one leaves a culture as a sub-optimal one, why would one wish to bring over something that is in the process of failing (they are all having to rethink their socialized medical systems) from that sub-optimal culture?
When a debate continues for decades without resolution, it is prudent to consider the deeper underlying assumptions. Principles which underpin the arguments are likely being ignored and marginalized rather than addressed in a forthright manner.
America is the only advanced country whose founding assumption is popular sovereignty. This is a proposition that stands with hardly a seconding voice throughout the contemporary international community. Yet it is the taproot of American exceptionalism.
It brings up the primary question: who should have the preeminence: society, or the individuals within that society? The "collective good" or the single person? What should laws have a fundamental basis and bias? While individuals must live in society, does the needs of one have precedence over the other? The Left believes that the Collective does; the Right believes that the Individual does.
Add this: what I hear often is "we are so rich as a nation or society, we ought to do this!" – and that is a wrongheaded notion. While we are a society, it is not "society" that owns the wealth – it is the people, the individuals, who by dint of their hard work and smart decisions, that own that wealth.
Individuals own that wealth, not society as a whole. What philosophical system, other than Socialism or Communism, allows me to lay claim to another’s Private Property?
Do I have the Right to DEMAND that you pay for my healthcare needs?
Even here, however, the principle of government subordination to the people is by no means universally accepted. It has never been firmly ratified by our political class, those spiritual descendants of Europe’s nobility. Our soi-disant elite appear to view with dismay their countrymen’s continuing preference for self-rule.
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one’s body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government.
And thus the tension – those that wish Government to have precedence over the Individual vs those that want Individuals to be in the forefront and Government in the background.
Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies. It necessarily follows that government must have the power to approve or withhold care. This concept collides destructively with the founding principles of individual responsibility and autonomy upon which popular sovereignty depends.
The anger that has been seen lately stems much from this; the Left’s legislative end-run around popular sovereignty – that "I" own me and not my Government. WE should make the decisions (and yes, own the responsibility for those decisions).
This is the reason that the debate never ends. It is also the reason that any resolution of the question will necessarily either confirm or deny the original intent of the Founders.
It is clear that the Left will never confirm the original intent. Obama’s stated goal is to force Government to do things for (and to) you rather than restricting its reach.
So let’s make up our minds. Does the government, in the last analysis, own your body, or do you? If your answer is the former, be aware that you have opted for veterinary medicine, for you are now accepting the moral status of a domestic animal. If your answer is the latter, you must accept responsibility to make mortal decisions for yourself, and pay for the care that you want with money that you have reason to see as your own…
…The wisdom expressed in the Federalist Papers began with the insight that men are not angels. The system that the authors designed placed liberty at the head of other considerations. The Founders were determined that concentrations of power should be confounded.
The system now congealing in Congress for health care is not informed by such principles. Access to the most intimate personal information, direct interaction with bank accounts, and mandated Procrustean protocols remain features of the various schemes under consideration. Such programs would be managed by impenetrable, impersonal, and unaccountable bureaucracies. Do we wish to place such profound coercive powers in the hands of anyone, much less those who now stand expectant and eager to receive them?
The view of human nature recognized by the Founders is now in grave peril. Whither goes America? Was liberty merely an 18th-century fad, or is there still something exceptional about our country?
It also begs the question – are we still a people that consents to be governed (and therefore, can withhold that consent), or have we become a people whose elected have become our sovereigns.
(H/T: Weekly Standard)
