Resolved: Health Care Is a Right

columbus said:

It is if you interpret a few verses the way that the people who edited and redacted the Bible want you to. If not, it isn't.
But it is better supported than Trinitarianism. You won't find that spelled out very clearly either.
Tom

Click to expand...

Depends which copy of the bible you read, the editors of my bible, the 1607 Geneva bible would probably not have written in the margin notes "The pope is the antichrist and ambassador of Satan" if they intended for the reader to believe the pope was the head of Christs church on earth.

Nous said:

Anyone is welcomed to argue either for or against the resolution.

Click to expand...

The United Nations? We got to get rid of them folks...



But sure, I'd support health care as a right.

I don't think it's a God given right or a natural right. It's something you have to fight for and enforce. It's morally right I suppose because of it's fundamental importance to the group.

The idea that something can be legislated as a "right," especially by as useless of an organization as the United Nations, is absurd. The UN are the same dip****s who think vacation time is a human right.

There's no real precedent, no logic behind a person being entitled to medical treatment just on the basis of their existence.

Since a person cannot merely "healthcare" whenever they feel like it, and, instead, it takes the presence of professionally trained individuals, or chemists with heavily intellectual backgrounds to have concocted medications, I don't know if I can agree that healthcare ought to be considered a "right." Isn't it more a privilege to find yourself with access to said professionals?

Someone mentioned "eating" analogously - but it is different. At any given moment, you are free to eat whatever you want. You could eat tree-bark, insects, grass, road-kill, etc. So, you can "eat" whenever you feel like it, and you don't necessarily have to source what you eat by the grace of others. You don't, however, have a "right" to raid your neighbors farm field to get a hold of some of his choice crops because you are tired of eating bark/insects/grass/road-kill.

Applying that analogy, all you really have a fundamental "right" to is to try and patch yourself up. Otherwise, you are at the mercy of others. The law can attempt to force them to help you... but that takes it out of the realm of "fundamental." In other words, you have to take from others to receive comprehensive "healthcare," to demand that without providing compensation is basically akin to sneaking onto your neighbor's farm for those crops.

Kemosloby said:

Depends which copy of the bible you read,

Click to expand...

That's kinda the problem with Holy Writ. It depends on which version and how you interpret it and what your goals are.
Nothing to do with God.
Tom
PS ~ I don't really want to derail this thread. So let's leave this discussion. If you want to start it again, make a new thread. ~

columbus said:

That's kinda the problem with Holy Writ. It depends on which version and how you interpret it and what your goals are.
Nothing to do with God.
Tom
PS ~ I don't really want to derail this thread. So let's leave this discussion. If you want to start it again, make a new thread. ~

Click to expand...

Nope, that threads been done. It's odd how many non believers like the pope, but not surprising since he's not Jesus' man on earth or anything. As the Geneva bible says, The popes kingdom if of the Earth and leads men to perdition...It seems so obviously true.

There's no such thing as rights.

Nowhere Man said:

There's no such thing as rights.

Click to expand...

except there are...

Kemosloby said:

It's odd how many non believers like the pope,

Click to expand...

Well, since you insist on a derail..
I can't help but notice that Catholics are not just the largest group in Christianity, it's the majority. More Christians are, at least nominally, Catholic than all other Christian sects put together.
Maybe the Holy Spirit is telling us something that you just refuse to see?
Tom

Confucian Mormon Buddhist said:

The idea that something can be legislated as a "right," especially by as useless of an organization as the United Nations, is absurd. The UN are the same dip****s who think vacation time is a human right.

There's no real precedent, no logic behind a person being entitled to medical treatment just on the basis of their existence.

Click to expand...

The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies that medical care is a human right, and the United States is bound by agreement to observe that provision.

A Vestigial Mote said:

Since a person cannot merely "healthcare" whenever they feel like it, and, instead, it takes the presence of professionally trained individuals, or chemists with heavily intellectual backgrounds to have concocted medications, I don't know if I can agree that healthcare ought to be considered a "right."

Click to expand...

Article 17

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

In order for a person to be able to enjoy this right, there must be property available to own, and a person must be able to purchase or be given such property. Do those conditions mean that there cannot be a right to own property?

Nakosis said:

It's morally right I suppose because of it's fundamental importance to the group.

Click to expand...

Actually I'd say the right of health care is even more important to the individual who might suffer and die without it.

Nowhere Man said:

There's no such thing as rights.

Click to expand...

The Constitution proves you wrong.

Nous said:

Article 17

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.​

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf

In order for a person to be able to enjoy this right, there must be property available to own, and a person must be able to purchase or be given such property. Do those conditions mean that there cannot be a right to own property?

Click to expand...

Considering that I don't really believe that anyone on Earth truly OWNS anything (except, perhaps, their own thoughts) I don't really see there being a fundamental right to anything that isn't abstract. "Abstract" being things like the right to "eat", or the right to "heal oneself".

Sure we can write up these rules for ourselves and one another that state we have "the right" to call plots of land our own, and, in a sense, we do have the fundamental right to "be somewhere", and if that somewhere is a place we're willing to work to protect our investment in, or that a collective authority helps us to protect, then it becomes "ours" after a fashion. But no one else on Earth, nor any creature on land or sea is truly required to recognize that "right."

I guess I think of "rights" as something that would have to be taken away in order not to be intrinsic/automatic in the efforts of living. Such as the right to liberty. You are a free being until someone takes your freedom away. And as I mentioned before "being somewhere" is fundamental to existing. So you have a "right" to "be somewhere." That exists no matter what, and the only way it can be taken from you is to end your life. "Healthcare" wouldn't fall into this category. Like I said, "healing yourself" would - because someone would also have to end your life in order to take away your capacity to heal, or restrain you to stop attempts to repair yourself. But "healthcare" isn't something that is simply available to you, without invoking the help of others, and therefore requiring something from them that doesn't have to be given freely. Again, we can write laws to try and force it to be given freely, but as soon as our source of authority collapses, or changes their minds, or we change our minds, that "right" goes away.

columbus said:

Well, since you insist on a derail..
I can't help but notice that Catholics are not just the largest group in Christianity, it's the majority. More Christians are, at least nominally, Catholic than all other Christian sects put together.
Maybe the Holy Spirit is telling us something that you just refuse to see?
Tom

Click to expand...

More and more deceived people.

BSM1 said:

Would you say eating is a right? If so, shouldn't the grocery stores throw open their doors?

Click to expand...

Are you being sassy again?

Nous said:

The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies that medical care is a human right, and the United States is bound by agreement to observe that provision.

Click to expand...

No the United States is not bound by UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
See: Human Rights and the United States

Although international human rights law provides an important framework for guaranteeing the rights of all people in all countries, human rights standards generally do not become enforceable in the United States unless and until they are implemented through local, state, and/or federal law. International treaties define rights very generally, and international courts and monitoring bodies typically lack the ability to directly enforce their decisions in the United States.

Click to expand...

Nous said:

The Constitution proves you wrong.

Click to expand...

Actually, no it doesn't.
Which is why I have avoided making a substantial post in this thread.
The Constitution is only some words on paper. It certainly didn't give "rights" to women or black people, when it was written.

I don't think that using the word "rights" really helps in this situation. I do believe that the human situation would be vastly improved if basic healthcare (like housing and nutrition and education and transportation) were reliably available to all. But that's not the same as a right, exactly.
Tom

Kemosloby said:

More and more deceived people.

Click to expand...

What makes you so confident that you aren't one of the decieved?
Looks like hubris to me.
Tom

columbus said:

What makes you so confident that you aren't one of the decieved?
Looks like hubris to me.
Tom

Click to expand...

The bible has nothing to gain by deceiving me.