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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By Walter E. Williams
December 6, 2011
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column
titled "Free to Die" (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late
fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the nation's shift
to the political right in his famous 10-part TV series, "Free To Choose."
Nowadays, Krugman says, "'free to choose' has become 'free to die.'"
He was referring to a GOP presidential debate in which Rep. Ron Paul was
asked what should be done if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase
health insurance found himself in need of six months of intensive care.
Paul correctly, but politically incorrectly, replied, "That's what freedom
is all about — taking your own risks." CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer pressed
his question further, asking whether "society should just let him die." The
crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of "Yeah!", which led Krugman to
conclude that "American politics is fundamentally about different moral
visions." Professor Krugman is absolutely right; our nation is faced with a
conflict of moral visions. Let's look at it.
If a person without health insurance finds himself in need of costly medical
care, let's investigate just how that care might be provided. There are not
too many of us who'd suggest that we get the money from the tooth fairy or
Santa Claus. That being the case, if a medically indigent person receives
medical treatment, it must be provided by people.
There are several possible methods to deliver the services. One way is for
people to make voluntary contributions or for medical practitioners to
simply treat medically indigent patients at no charge. I find both methods
praiseworthy, laudable and, above all, moral.
Another way to provide those services is for Congress to use its power to
forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another. That is, under the
pain of punishment, Congress could mandate that medical practitioners treat
medically indigent patients at no charge.
I'd personally find such a method of providing medical services offensive
and immoral, simply because I find the forcible use of one person to serve
the purposes of another, what amounts to slavery, in violation of all that
is decent.
I am proud to say that I think most of my fellow Americans would be repulsed
at the suggestion of forcibly using medical practitioners to serve the
purposes of people in need of hospital care. But I'm afraid that most
Americans are not against the principle of the forcible use of one person to
serve the purposes of another under the pain of punishment. They just don't
have much stomach to witness it. You say, "Williams, explain yourself."
Say that citizen John pays his share of the constitutionally mandated
functions of the federal government. He recognizes that nothing in our
Constitution gives Congress the authority to forcibly use one person to
serve the purposes of another or take the earnings of one American and give
them to another American, whether it be for medical services, business
bailouts, handouts to farmers or handouts in the form of foreign aid.
Suppose John refuses to allow what he earns to be taken and given to another
. My guess is that Krugman and, sadly, most other Americans would sanction
government punishment, imprisonment or initiation of violence against John.
They share Professor Krugman's moral vision that one person has a right to
live at the expense of another, but they just don't have the gall to call it
that.
I share James Madison's vision, articulated when Congress appropriated $15,
000 to assist some French refugees in 1794. Madison stood on the floor of
the House to object, saying, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that
article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending,
on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents," adding later
that "charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
This vision of morality, I'm afraid, is repulsive to most Americans. |
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