Those who oppose Socialized Medicine, or Universal Health Care, or let's just call it Common Sense are wont to appeal to basic Puritanism with the notion that people should be responsible for their own lives. Freedom, they will say, means that individuals are allowed to take risks and are obliged to deal with the consequences of those risks. Ron Paul, bless his tiny heart, has been steadfast in this regard and others on the Right, while not always quite so eloquent in their support of this Cotton Mather Health Plan are no less adamant in their ardor.
But to my knowledge no conservative candidate or pundit has suggested, much less advocated, that the Police and Fire departments of cities, counties, states, of jurisdictions large and small, far and wide should be disbanded and that individuals should be, well, responsible for their own property.
So that's it, really. Private property is a public responsibility. I'm responsible for helping to ensure, that is, to pay for, your house's integrity, your store's defense against the inevitable stampede of entropy, your community's bulwark against riff-raff like, well, me. But private health is a private responsibility, at least as far as what has become the political center is concerned. But why is that? Why is property a collective good but health, even with it's obvious public ramifications (think epidemics), is strictly a personal choice? Let's be clear. If your house catches fire because you didn't plan on overloaded and frayed electrical wires failing to perform at more than their specified tolerance, I share in the remediation even if my own house is in no danger. Socialized fire department. But if you contract diphtheria because you happened to walk down the same street as someone else that's your own problem alone, even if you're going to bring it into the same bank where I'm making a deposit. Private responsibility.
I could go on but I'm just repeating the obvious. It is obvious isn't it?
