Socialism and the Right to Life and Property …

frd writes:
“A colonoscopy is a proven way to prevent colon cancer, a significant threat to life. Colon cancer presents no symptoms until it becomes almost impossible to cure. To get regular colonoscopies is an effective way tp preserve life. Life is an inalienable right and it is the proper role of government to protect that right. Should the government pay for colonoscopies for peole who are not able to pay for them themselves? [...]  Some people who don’t get them will indeed have their lives shortened by colon cancer. Isn’t it the proper role of government, as you have stated, to preserve their inalienable right to life? Or, is your inalienable right to your property, i.e. taxes, more important than someone’s else’s right to life?”

Defending or protecting your right to something, is not the same thing as providing that something.Nor is government “the solution” to defending and securing rights. That is simply it’s only purpose.

It is one vehicle by which individuals may collectively act to defend their common rights.  But like any tool, it (government) can be mis-used, and instead become part of the problem.

 A pen can be used to draw great visions of beauty, that can be shared with others. It can also be used to poke your eye out.

To the specifics of your example, a colonoscopy is not in itself a “proven way to prevent colon cancer”.

A colonoscopy is a method and a tool, by which cancer and it’s precursors can be detected early, thus leading to early treatment or removal of the precursors (polyps). Nor does it’s use guarantee that you will not subsequently develop colon cancer, in spite of the early detection efforts.

You have the “right” to go out and have a colonoscopy procedure done on yourself, if you desire, if you can find someone willing (and preferably qualified) to perform it.

A doctor has the “right” to perform the colonoscopy on you, if he or she is willing, and if you are willing to have it performed. That is a voluntary arrangement and transaction between you and the doctor.

The doctor also has the right to be compensated for his efforts on your behalf.  You do not have the “right” to demand that the doctor perform the colonoscopy gratis, without compensation. 

Nor does anyone else have the right to demand it, on your behalf. The doctor has no “right” to insist that you submit to the colonoscopy against your desires, even though the procedure might enable the prolonging of your life.

If you cannot afford to pay the doctor at a rate that is mutually agreeable to both of you, then you have the “right” to go out and to make voluntary arrangements with other willing people to lend or to give you the money to pay for the procedure.

You do NOT have the right to demand, insist, or require that anyone else give money to you (or to the doctor) for the procedure, even if it is certain that the procedure will enable the prolonging of your life.

They may do so if they are willing and have agreed, but they are not obligated to do so.

You attempt to draw a distinction between an individual’s property (wealth) which is confiscated and acquired by government in the form of “taxes”, and their life, and ask whether the individual’s “right to their own life” is somehow more or less important in priority to the individual’s “right to own property”.

The individual’s right to own property IS an extension of their right to their own life.

If you “own” something, you are able to rightfully do as you please with that something.  You may make all ultimate decisions concerning that something, without any obligation or requirement to consult with anyone else, including in fact the utter destruction of the something in question.

Nor does anyone else have the right to dictate to you what actions or decisions you are to make regarding that property, or the distribution or disposal of that property.

These are the tests of ownership. If these conditions do not exist, either you are not the rightful owner of the something, or your rights of ownership are being interferred with and infringed upon.

Each individual “owns” themselves. They are sovereign over their own life.  No other person has rightful claim to that life. 

Such a claim, legally enforced or not, constitutes slavery.

Man is entirely dependent upon property.  Each of us is dependent upon it because we must be able to control it to our advantage, or we will fail to survive.

Individuals MUST have property in order to live. If life can be justified, then the individual ownership and control of property is justified.

The primary, fundamental property with which we all begin is the property of the person, ourself.

Each individual owns him or her self. He owns his own energy, his own physical body, his own thoughts and ideas, and his own time as he experiences it.

All other properties owned by the individual are nothing more than extensions of the person beyond him or her self (ie extensions of his own life), over which exists the same kind of ownership control as himself and his individual faculties.

We acquire property in one of two ways – by either claiming a previously unowned item that exists in nature, or by trading our services or other property we own with other persons who already own a property, in order to acquire that property, in a voluntary and mutually beneficial transaction.

Someone who owns nothing has only his efforts to offer in acquiring property, either by exchanging it for property, or by acquiring the property from nature.

Thus the acquisition of property requires the expenditure of one’s time and energy (one’s “life”), and is an essential product and extension of that life.

So when you confiscate someone’s property through taxes (which are involuntarily paid under threat of force), you have confiscated (claimed ownership) on a piece of his life. This is in fact slavery.

Thus, your “inalienable right to your property” is no more and no less important than your inalenable right to your own life. Someone else’s “right to life” does not include a “right” to YOUR life, or to your property.

You may give of either your own life or your own property if you willingly and voluntarily so desire and agree, but you cannot be required to, or obligated to by anyone other than yourself.

The government has no money, no wealth, and no financial resources that it has not taken under threat of force from those individual who created and earned it.

The government cannot therefore pay for colonoscopies for people “who are not able to pay for them themselves”, without first having infringed upon the property rights of other people, who were not themselves voluntary participants to the agreement.

This is fundamentally different from a private insurance association, whereby people voluntarily and deliberately join together to manage their individual risk of loss or cost, by paying “premiums” to a fund that will reimburse them, or pay previously-agreed costs, in the event that the contingency insured against takes place.

It is also different than an act of true charity, where individuals (whether alone or as a group) voluntarily and willingly give of their property, resources, and efforts to the benefit of another individual.

The primary distinction between socialist systems and non-socialist systems relates to the question of ownership (and/or control) of property.

Under socialism, property and the means (and/or the results of) production and labor as well as the (re)distribution of wealth and resources are subject to centralized ownership (or simply control) by government and its bureaucracies.

If that’s what you really want however, I’m sure that you’ll find a way of twisting the logic (and semantics) to justify it.

Far too many people today still believe that socialism (or universal healthcare) is the only truly “compassionate” social model – even though history and experience have consistently proven otherwise.