Saturday, August 01, 2009

Must Read Mark Steyn on the Health Care Debate

It's the argument I've been making. It's also the argument Canadian Mark Steyn (who surely deserves American Citizenship as he is one of our strongest advocates) is making. RTWT.

Only as I've said many times before, Mark is a more talented writer than I.

Here are two quotes from the article that encapsulate the point that ultimately, the utilitarian argument is the wrong one. It's the Liberty argument that is the right one, and the one we should be using.
How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?
[..]
Freedom is messy. In free societies, people will fall through the cracks — drink too much, eat too much, buy unaffordable homes, fail to make prudent provision for health care, and much else. But the price of being relieved of all those tiresome choices by a benign paternal government is far too high.

Government health care would be wrong even if it “controlled costs.” It’s a liberty issue. I’d rather be free to choose, even if I make the wrong choices.

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