As a spiritual matter, the problem of Tyranny is the problem of conscience. A virtuous and Godly life requires freedom of choice. The freedom to choose between a red car and a green car is not an issue. The “Liberty” in “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” refers to liberty of conscience, not the liberty of choosing between car paint.
The Founders understood that the fight for liberty was the fight for conscience. God does not want conscripts, they understood. God wants volunteers. There is no virtue in committing a good act because a gun is pointed at your head. An act can only be virtuous when it is done voluntarily.
Tyrants try to force everyone to act “virtuously” by pointing a gun at the people’s heads. People who don’t behave get shot. Tyrants kill virtue. The only way to be virtuous when a Tyrant holds a gun to at your head is to try to kill the Tyrant before the Tyrant kills virtue.
With the socialized medicine bill that is being worked out in Congress virtue is being robbed from the people. A person chooses to live in one state because the state doesn’t fund abortions. Under the proposed socialist plan, that choice will be taken away. Under the socialist plan, all people will be required to buy health insurance. If we are forced at gunpoint to buy health insurance because doing so is “virtuous,” virtue is actually being violated. The only way to be virtuous under that circumstance is to try to kill the Tyrant, to overthrow the law.
However, the current health care bills add an option regarding the purchase of medical insurance. They say that in the case of religious object the insurance need not be purchased. I would look at these laws to determine of they give a generic allowance for religious objection, or if they specify religious objection to the purchase of insurance. If they give a generic allowance, insurance should not be purchased, not because it is insurance and insurance is evil, but because government has become tyrannical and is imposing it at gunpoint.
There is a problem with the government interfering in people’s religion. I’m not sure that the government has the right to ask you what your religious faith is. If you declare that buying health insurance is against your religious faith, but don’t voluntarily tell them what your religion is, how would they know if you are telling the truth or not? At this point the whole thing breaks down. The personal requirement to purchase insurance is as absurd as it is immoral.
Stumble it!
1 user commented in " Socialized medicine: Tyranny vs Conscience "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAnother great piece — couldn’t have said it better myself!
The reference to the fact that gov’t order equates to gov’t control via it’s monopolization of the initiation of force — and the reminder that, ultimately, that force is backed by the full power of a gun — is a good one to make; upon considering some new law or regulation, almost no one ever considers the fact that they are asking the gov’t to point a gun at their neighbors’ heads and order them to do something.
In fact, if every single law — no matter how minor — required that for a police officer to enforce it they must draw their gun and place it at the individual’s head (in *every* case)… I think most people would understand more clearly the sort of power and force they are asking for when they vote on some “harmless” new regulation — and a whole lot less “feel good” regulation would be passed into law.
In the case of mandatory health insurance, I doubt the average American would be comfortable with the long-arm of the law leveling a gun to the temple of their friends and family and ordering to comply.
I believe Ayn Rand said it best when she said: “At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.”
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