Sunday, May 24, 2015

Obliged obedience or oppression?...


More interesting stuff: Samizdata blog in yesterday's quote of the day quoted Rand Paul:
"With regard to the idea of whether or not you have a right to healthcare, you have to realize what that implies….I'm a physician, that means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me, it means you believe in slavery. It means you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the assistants, the nurses…There’s an implied threat of force, do you have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away, and force me to take care of you? That’s is ultimately what the right to free healthcare would be."
Now that may sound a bit harsh, silly even ("slavery"?) but he has a point. On Samizdata two concepts of liberty (negative and positive: Isaiah Berlin) is mentioned whereas also IMHO, the distinction between negative and positive rights (not the same) comes into play: witness almost the exact thing Rand Paul mentions, "In the field of Medicine, positive rights of patients often conflict with negative rights of physicians" [Wiki]. Going further: the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (IEP) provides reams in a 'philosophical analysis of the concept of human rights': Moral vs. Legal Rights [IEP]; Claim Rights & Liberty Rights [IEP] ...we can see how easy it was for politicians to make a dog's breakfast of all this.

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