Ah, this is surely the one being referred to … and it is signed by (among a number of others) 25 members of the ND faculty.Here is the other Notre Dame letter:
becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Garvey-Glendon-George-Snead-Levin-stmt-Feb-11-2012.pdf
How can something that every living person on the planet needs be a luxury? To me, it’s in the same class as food and shelter. You would just let people who need more care than you just die in the street because they can’t afford the “luxury” of health care?I also offer this to back up my opinion that there is no “right” to free health care. That’s a luxury, not a necessity. My tour of duty in the USMC earned me the benefit (not a right, but a benefit) of VA medical care. All these imaginary rights are going to destroy America like they destroyed Europe’s moral core.
God loves you,
Don
The problem is one of paradox. There cannot be an inherent right to something that requires the labor, materials and ingenuity of others. Such a position would render health care providers slaves to the rest of us.How can something that every living person on the planet needs be a luxury? To me, it’s in the same class as food and shelter. You would just let people who need more care than you just die in the street because they can’t afford the “luxury” of health care?
You make it sound like it’s a swimming pool or sailboat or something.
Duty, which his the flip side of right, suffers many of the same moral defects. Charity does not because it, alone, allows a place for the conscience and for prudential judgement.The problem is one of paradox. There cannot be an inherent right to something that requires the labor, materials and ingenuity of others. Such a position would render health care providers slaves to the rest of us.
Same goes for food and shelter. If these things are a right that I am due, then why should I work for them? I’d sure like to just pursue hobbies all the time…
I believe we must change our point of view and instead of using the rhetoric of “rights” to describe these things, we must go back to the idea of a ‘duty of charity.’ The poor don’t have a ‘right’ be be handed these things, the rest of us have a duty to help them help themselves. That’s inherently different in character.
Excellent analogy.That’s a red herring argument. This isn’t about taxes. If you want a Quaker or Mennonite example, this would be akin to requiring a Quaker college to fund and support an ROTC program and hold military exercises on campus.