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RIP Walter Becker: The Edgy, Impish Half of Steely Dan

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Is U.S. Congress Declaring War on WikiLeaks?

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The Creed Of Secular Religion

By Rod Dreher • June 9, 2017, 11:41 PM
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Posted in Religion, A Sense of Place, Culture.

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142 Responses to The Creed Of Secular Religion

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  1. LC says:
    June 11, 2017 at 5:53 pm

    What Erin Manning said.

  2. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 11, 2017 at 6:31 pm

    amusing is as wrong as anyone who put up those signs… but somewhere among those displaying them are no doubt some individuals who each adhere to one or more of the interpretations amusing provides, although, not all the same ones. That’s another thing that makes these signs stupid.

    Actually, I’m just eager to figure out which laws that “do not help my family” I can ignore without consequences. I would like to suggest ‘paying taxes’. I would be much better off without that!

    Not when ALL tax-funded services are cut off you won’t. There are many ways to waste tax revenue, but the human population would be about 90 percent smaller without some essential government services — even slums filled with shacks have to have pipes here and there to collect water and drag it home. Your life expectancy would also be half as long without certain other services. There is a bill coming due on our aging infrastructure, built at a time when the upper tax bracket paid 90 percent (after pocketing several million they got to keep). You don’t want to live too long if this bill is not paid in full.

    Reminds me of:
    “Workers of the world unite.”

    That’s because you don’t know the difference between a working class and a self-righteous fraction of the upper middle class. Neither to they.

    Not sure I believe those of you on the Left that don’t understand the objection to the sign.

    I’m going to go classical Marxist on the rhetoric here, just tongue in cheek you understand:

    The petit bourgeois radicals displaying this sign have their noses too deep in their own navels to understand the objections. That’s why their candidate, and she was theirs to a ‘t’, lost the recent election.

    The progressive gods and goddesses do not tolerate blasphemy.

    We, the secular iconoclasts of the world, to not tolerate progressive gods or goddesses.

    Insisting on “In God We Trust” on our money, inserting “under God” into our pledge of allegiance, and tyrannically demanding monuments of the Ten Commandments on government property is far worse than any virtue signalling you see above.

    Although I have offered fairly sound legal defenses of Ten Commandments rocks, as long as they are not near the front door of civic buildings (see the distinction made in ACLU v. Allegheny County, I fully agree with James Madison that putting the sacred name of God on state issued materials is showing disrespect for the sacred. I also believe it was beyond the authority of congress to codify an official wording for a second rate poem about a flag, much less subject the name of God to insertion into said verse.

    In conclusion, IF I were going to put such a sign in my yard, it would read:

    Health care is sufficiently complex and its funding even more complex that I believe our nation should make reasonable arrangements to put a floor under the basics everyone can obtain, with share of cost based on ability to pay. (You could say that makes me pro-life).

    Lives matter: there is a history in our nation and elsewhere of devaluing lives of people with darker skin for various reasons, and we need to work persistently to correct the residual manifestations of that history. But black is an imposed identity, and should be thrown away as rapidly as circumstances permit. Likewise, ain’t nobody white except lepers and albinos.

    Women are human beings with full citizenship rights and agency.

    Science is a reliable method for determining highly likely explanations for observable phenomena, and when not misused for ulterior purposes and manipulated, is a reliable guide to industrial development, environmental stewarship (which prolongs human life and comfort) and improved health care.

    (The tedious length of the above samples, and the two I’ve left out because I DON’T subscribe to either statement as given, as in any way meaningful, should amply explain why nobody who gave the matter any thought would post this sign).

  3. First Deacon says:
    June 11, 2017 at 6:52 pm

    “That’s fine, but isn’t a John 3:16 sign, by the same token, equally apt to be virtue signalling?”

    Since none of us are mind readers, we can’t really know the intent of those who display signs and bumper stickers, but the verse referred to is
    “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”.

    Note that these words do not directly refer to the owner of the sign.

    I always took this as a form of evangelism boiled down to twitter proportions – the sign holder is just inviting others to also believe. If these claims are true — and I get that many, many of Rods followers don’t think so — that’s a pretty nice offer.

    I don’t offhand get the same warm feeling, Orthodox Christian that I am, from the “In this house” sign, but I’ll refrain from trying to read minds – most people are really just copy-catting something they saw elsewhere and thought was kind of cool/interesting, and have a herd instinct and like to reassure others that they are part of the team. So of course these signs are going to be common in progressive areas, once they’ve gone viral, which it sounds like they are.

    “Virtue signalling” means that the subject beliefs are false– the signaller is just performing in order to demonstrate membership in a peer group, and is devoid of conviction and sincerity”

    The membership part is right, but I always understood “virtue signaling” to mean rather, “look at me, I’m a good moral person because of these opinions I hold”. I doubt the signaler necessarily thinks the beliefs are false (although I doubt many have reflected deeply on them). Maybe the owner sincerely believes all of it, but the point is to let others in the tribe see/know. Kind of like the kind of Christian who makes a show about going to church, tithing, etc.

  4. Perichoresis says:
    June 11, 2017 at 7:00 pm

    muad dib: “It may be the least efficient way of getting healthcare and the most expensive, but until you repeal that law (Signed into law by Saint Reagan of all people), healthcare is a right…”

    You’re not getting the point. All of those hospitals could choose to shut down. I have no natural right to force them to re-open to serve me. If I control the police or the armed forces, I could force them to do so, but that would be forced labor, the equivalent of slavery. I would not be vindicating a “right to healthcare by doing so.” Indeed, I would be violating a true natural right, the right not to be enslaved.

  5. Chuck says:
    June 11, 2017 at 7:32 pm

    Others have said much of what I would say about this, but what fascinates me about this poster is that it purposely uses the vaguest language possible to convey its “beliefs”.

    The old Creeds of the Church were sometimes very wordy in an attempt to properly explain every nuance of the theology: “light from light, very God from very God, begotten not made.”

    These statements are all virtually devoid of content, but carry very obvious “translated” messages. A more honest version of the sign would read:

    In this house:
    We support Obamacare and/or Universal Healthcare
    We believe in critical race theory, diversity, and are very sorry for our white privilege (I’m betting about 90% of those with these signs are white)
    We support planned parenthood, abortion, and free contraceptives
    We support open-borders and/or amnesty
    We believe in climate change
    We support whatever version of LGBT rights is fashionable today

    The above is what those statements actually mean, and everyone who puts up one of these signs means something like it. Honestly, it would be simpler to just make a sign that says “I supported Obama, would never vote for a Republican, and get my news from John Oliver.”

  6. dominic1955 says:
    June 11, 2017 at 7:50 pm

    “What this say to me is: OWNER IS NOT ARMED”

    Yep, that was my first thought.

  7. lily says:
    June 12, 2017 at 8:27 am

    Siarlys Jenkins says: Not when ALL tax-funded services are cut off you won’t. There are many ways to waste tax revenue, but the human population …….

    I think you’ve missed my larger point. People naturally get angry and resentful when they’re asked to follow laws, see that others are exempted from following laws. The people (both the groups btw) will become contemptuous of the law and government and will give themselves permission to break laws. Taxes are a common place to start. In some countries tax cheating is a national pastime.

    Does this breakdown societal order? Yes it does. Do the politicians and activists think about the long term implications of ideas like allowing some people to break the laws? Apparently not.

  8. Franklin Evans says:
    June 12, 2017 at 9:46 am

    Actually, it seems to me that the simplest and easiest rebuttal to this sign — and my previous posts are silent on this, something I regret missing before — is that it is designed to evoke emotional reactions which will inspire the reader to agree with implied meanings that are not specifically defined in each statement.

    That is implied in my first post above, though not clearly. The explicit rebuttal is that we need clear expressions, rational debate over their construction, logical basis and intended conclusions, and a rejection of knee-jerk reactions that bear no resemblance to either rationale or logic.

  9. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 12, 2017 at 12:00 pm

    All of those hospitals could choose to shut down. I have no natural right to force them to re-open to serve me. If I control the police or the armed forces, I could force them to do so, but that would be forced labor, the equivalent of slavery.

    True. But then all the doctors would be out of work. A dystopian variation on the old Broom-Hilda cartoon about what the world would be like if there were no disease: A very dangerous place. We’d be terrorized by roving bands of starving doctors.

    I agree, from the far left, that its ridiculous to endlessly enumerate more and more things as “rights,” just as its ridiculous to enumerate more and more conditions as “protected classes.” A more nuanced, accurate, and sustainable proposition would go something like this:

    In most human cultures, those who had medical skills and training have generally had some limited duty to provide care to people who plainly needed it even though they did not have the ability to pay going rate. As our health care has gotten more complex, technological, expensive, and the means of paying for it more complex, it begins to approach something in the nature of a public utility. Therefore, we need an equitable publicly established means to insure a reasonable level of care to all, while leaving as much individual choice beyond that floor as possible. And we need to balance the budget while doing so.

    Do the politicians and activists think about the long term implications of ideas like allowing some people to break the laws? Apparently not.

    Lily, that is a totally different proposition. Instead of saying “it would be good for my family if I stopped paying taxes,” you are not saying “it is morally and logistically corrosive to society when some people pay taxes and others are allowed to get away with evading them.” Leona Helmsley, for instance, with her “Only little people pay taxes.”

  10. kgasmart says:
    June 12, 2017 at 1:05 pm

    Health care is a human right – What other right that we assert requires someone else to render a service to you, and taxpayers to foot the bill?

    Black Lives Matter – They do, and I’ve no quarrel with the notion cops can be too trigger-happy, and the victims all too often tend to be black. But we have to ask, what’s the upshot to this? As police pull back in minority neighborhoods, end “stop and frisk” policies and others determined to be biased, what will the long-term effect on crime trends be? <a href="http://time.com/4651122/homicides-increase-cities-2016/"Violent crime in U.S. cities is up; and this is one of those cases where we will indeed see if relaxed enforcement and low crime rates can co-exist over the long term.

    Women’s right are human rights – Agreed. But that is to pretend that the issue of abortion is settled, and that the woman’s right in this case trumps the right of the unborn child, or to say the unborn child has no right.

    No human is illegal – But neither are they entitled to taxpayer-funded aid (often delivered via the non-profits who get much of their own funding from governments). Immigration laws exist; for those who assert the “right” of anyone to break those laws, I’d ask – which laws am I, then, permitted to break? Perhaps I’ll come to your house and take some of your stuff, since we can pick and choose which laws we’ll obey.

    Science is real – Until we get to questions like this: ” Recent findings suggest that an increasing number of parents using IVF are choosing embryos according to sex, and it’s possible to imagine them one day choosing embryos based on other nonmedical traits, such as hair color, height, or IQ.”

    Indeed, as the cost of sequencing the human genome continues to shrink, and we’re able to tie specific genes to human intelligence, what of those who don’t stand to inherit those genes?

    The coming liberal science “denialism” will dwarf anything seen thus far.

    Love is love – Pedophilia? Polyamory? If “love is love,” what are the limits – or are there no limits?

    All of this is yet another reason I left liberalism; it’s incapable of fully examining its oh-so-supposedly-moral assumptions, of fully gaming out what happens if you take these assumptions to their logical end.

  11. JonF says:
    June 12, 2017 at 1:29 pm

    Re: You’re not getting the point. All of those hospitals could choose to shut down. I have no natural right to force them to re-open to serve me.

    While I am not wholly comfortable with phrasing everything these days as a right, we should always remember the societies exist for the benefit of their members, and a society that fails to do so has sacrificed any claim to moral legitimacy. Recognizing such a natural (yes, natural) obligation is not tantamount to slavery (a hyperbolic, and indeed hyperventilating claim) any more than acknowledging the pull of gravity means we are slaves of the Earth.

  12. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 12, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    The explicit rebuttal is that we need clear expressions, rational debate over their construction, logical basis and intended conclusions, and a rejection of knee-jerk reactions that bear no resemblance to either rationale or logic.

    Now that is a sign I might put out in my front garden.

  13. Captain P says:
    June 12, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    Rod’s not being “snarky” when he calls this a secular creed. It literally is a creed – a statement of various beliefs.

  14. Peter says:
    June 12, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    Economic and social conservatism have had a dysfunctional marriage for some time now, but outsourcing and automation are really starting to make the absolutist view of property rights look silly. Most people could support themselves if they had the right to use the land, but by the time they were born it was all claimed, on grounds that trace back to someone simply appropriating it by force. So why not take it by force a second time? Beats working for McDonald’s. I suggest to my fellow social conservatives that you avoid political alliances with economic conservatives and generally have nothing to do with them. They’re a bad lot and will always sell you out in the end. This is a preamble to saying that I support a right to basic health care (as well as a right to own a gun and deny sacred truths.) There is no need physically to force hospitals or doctors to do anything. Financial incentives will work just fine.

  15. Lily says:
    June 12, 2017 at 4:59 pm

    Lily, that is a totally different proposition. Instead of saying “it would be good for my family if I stopped paying taxes,”

    The reason I used that verbiage is that this is one of the arguments that has been used to support lax immigration and amnesty – arguing that the people who’ve come here illegally are only doing so to benefit their families, and, they ask, wouldn’t I have done the same? You surely are not unaware that this argument is being made.

    What I AM saying that when the average person sees others being exempted from laws while they’re being held to the letter of the law(s), they will naturally be angry and resentful, contempt for the law and for authority will increase in this group. Human nature being what it is, I also expect contempt for the law to grow in the ‘amnestied’ group.

    By applying the laws unevenly, and by ironing major laws in a public way, it is THEY (the government) who are damaging future adherence to laws. They are breaking down their own authority.

    Just wait and watch.

  16. Lily says:
    June 12, 2017 at 5:09 pm

    Ironing = ignoring.

  17. collin says:
    June 12, 2017 at 5:52 pm

    In terms of what a church provides, Shleter From The Storm. (As Bob Dylan put it.) I know churches are bickering on this small potato, but what the heck is TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DOING here?

    US Prepares to Deport Hundreds of Iraqi Christians

    http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/june/us-prepares-deport-iraq-chaldean-christians-ice-shaou.html

  18. grumpy realist says:
    June 12, 2017 at 6:04 pm

    Lily–which is why a lot of us are extremely annoyed at Trump and his family grifting up down and sideways and hearing nothing but excuses from the Republicans.

    Ditto for Trump’s lying and his sleazy handling of the “little people” who worked for him and who he refused to pay. Again, nothing but excuses for him from people who claim to be more moral and righteous than those horrible people on the left.

    Unless those on the right police their own, FIRMLY, all the complaints and whining are coming off as nothing more than excuses to avoid living up to one’s own stated creed.

  19. Perichoresis says:
    June 12, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    JonF: “While I am not wholly comfortable with phrasing everything these days as a right, we should always remember the societies exist for the benefit of their members, and a society that fails to do so has sacrificed any claim to moral legitimacy”

    Well, a society that would use force to require doctors to provide health care if they all chose to quit and pursue other jobs would not be a society with moral legitimacy. Actually it would be well on the way to totalitarianism.

  20. Lily says:
    June 12, 2017 at 7:00 pm

    grumpy realist says:
    Lily–which is why a lot of us are extremely annoyed at Trump and his family grifting up down and sideways and hearing nothing but excuses from the Republicans.

    Can I also assume you’re ‘extremely annoyed” at Hillary’s mishandling of classified documents, or their conflict of interest receiving cash from foreign governments and companies who also had business before her State Department? Or does your outrage extend only to people of the Republican Variety?

    Comey said Hillary had ‘no intent’ when she put classified information at risk. However, intent is not required by that law – for a reason. Extra-ordinary care of the information is required. She got away with breaking the law. And she lied shamelessly about it btw.

    Some college students of my acquaintance were joking later about saying they ‘had no intent’ if they were ever pulled over by the traffic police.
    They were laughing, but it was obvious they were quite aware that Hillary was not be held accountable – that she’d escaped justice. What do you think this does to their view of law and governmental authority? Its not good.

    The people on the left should FIRMLY police their own as well, don’t ya think?

  21. CMPT says:
    June 12, 2017 at 8:25 pm

    Elizabeth Anne: “Using the phrase “virtue signalling” is itself virtue signalling. It’s a fairly meaningless term that means “they’re only pretending and pretending to show that they’re good people, unlike the Real Good People on Our Side. I will demonstrate that I am one of the Real Good People by pointing and yelling at the false good people over there.””

    and,

    First Deacon: “The membership part is right, but I always understood “virtue signaling” to mean rather, “look at me, I’m a good moral person because of these opinions I hold”. I doubt the signaler necessarily thinks the beliefs are false (although I doubt many have reflected deeply on them). Maybe the owner sincerely believes all of it, but the point is to let others in the tribe see/know. Kind of like the kind of Christian who makes a show about going to church, tithing, etc.”

    Exactly.

    The people who are criticizing “virtue-signaling” also lament the so-called “Post-Christian America” we have today. They acknowledge that America, with its history of genocide, slavery, racial discrimination, domestic violence and war-mongering, was no less sinful in the past than it is today, but they mourn the loss of a society that at least claimed, albeit falsely, to conform to the tenets of Christianity.

    These people crave a country of virtue-signalers; they just want the virtues that are being signaled to be their own.

  22. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 12, 2017 at 10:11 pm

    Can I also assume you’re ‘extremely annoyed” at Hillary’s mishandling of classified documents, or their conflict of interest receiving cash from foreign governments and companies who also had business before her State Department?

    The “left” position, as I recall, was:

    “Hell no, DNC
    We won’t vote for Hillary.”

    And while many who did vote for Hillary blame this as the chant of the self-centered idiots who made it possible for Donald Trump to be president, I don’t share that sentiment. America doesn’t deserve Donald Trump, but the DNC does.

    arguing that the people who’ve come here illegally are only doing so to benefit their families, and, they ask, wouldn’t I have done the same?

    I am generally aware of the argument someone lays on the table, openly and honestly, not the argument they reserve in the back of their mind, perhaps not dishonestly, but not very coherently either.

    To respond to the whole subject of immigration, I would have to write several pages, or I’d be falling short of an honest appraisal.

  23. PaoloP says:
    June 13, 2017 at 7:37 am

    Ok, I have another version.

    I this house, we believe
    Life is the basic right
    All lives matter
    Rights are human rights, when they are rights
    Do not pretend other people’s stuff
    Science seeks truth
    Love is not my wish

  24. PaoloP says:
    June 13, 2017 at 8:33 am

    Peter, I’m coming to take the land that YOU are certainly occupying as a result of injustice. Why not?

  25. Perichoresis says:
    June 13, 2017 at 10:42 am

    CMPT: “These people crave a country of virtue-signalers; they just want the virtues that are being signaled to be their own.”

    Certainly there are some Christians who want to advertise their virtuousness, but in doing so they are going against the very message of Christianity, which is that we are all sinners saved by grace. The message of “John 3:16”, often seen on signs, is not a list of someone’s virtues, but an offer of rescue. Secular progressivism doesn’t seem to have that sort of internal restraint against overweening self-righteousness.

  26. JonF says:
    June 13, 2017 at 12:23 pm

    Re: Well, a society that would use force to require doctors to provide health care if they all chose to quit and pursue other jobs would not be a society with moral legitimacy.

    One might as speculate about what would happen if the sun rose in the west.
    Why create phantom alarms from fears that have vanishingly small likelihood of happening?
    Meanwhile I noticed you did not engage my claim at all.

  27. Franklin Evans says:
    June 13, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    A brief history of my immigrant parents. My father’s family is not in this because they were either imprisoned, killed in battle or executed by Tito’s partisans.

    Immigration quotas were the reality of the time, set by national origin as evidenced by existing documents. My grandfather, grandmother and uncle came to the US because my grandfather had a Bulgarian birth certificate. My parents (my eldest sibling a toddler) had no such documentary proof other than refugee ids and an Italian marriage certificate. With the Italy quota waiting list months long, they went to Chile first, spent months obtaining resident status, then came to the US via Miami under the Chilean quota.

    Any debate about immigration should recognize that whole generations of first-generation Americans know exactly how it used to work.

  28. WMWA says:
    June 13, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    Man… We live in different universes.

    I think these are terrific and accurate creeds for Americans in the 21st century, but I realize the sign is supposed to speak for itself to convey the very opposite to your ilk.

    Perhaps you could give us a point-by-point of why people have no right to healthcare in a wealthy 21st century democracy?

    Is the opposite:

    1. Health care is something you get by being employed by the correct type of employer and having the right number (read: zero) of pre-existing conditions

    2. Black lives don’t matter

    3. Women’s rights are negotiable and subject to voters’ opinions

    4. Humans are illegal when they don’t have paperwork

    5. Science is a hoax

    6. Love is God

    I’ll give you the last one, and I think Jesus would too. Really not sure about the others…

  29. missh says:
    June 13, 2017 at 5:08 pm

    [NFR: You know, maybe you should learn to laugh at yourself. It might help. — RD]

    You weren’t laughing; you were sneering and expressing contempt.

  30. Perichoresis says:
    June 13, 2017 at 5:37 pm

    JonF: “Why create phantom alarms from fears that have vanishingly small likelihood of happening?”

    It’s called a thought experiment. It’s designed to clarify issues so principles can be clearly defined. It’s very common in philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/

    “Meanwhile I noticed you did not engage my claim at all.”

    Please clarify your claim and I will be glad to engage with it.

  31. Perichoresis says:
    June 13, 2017 at 5:46 pm

    WMWA: “Perhaps you could give us a point-by-point of why people have no right to healthcare in a wealthy 21st century democracy?”

    Because you don’t have a “right” to require health care professionals to treat you if they all decided to quit tomorrow. And the objective ontological status of a right does not fluctuate depending on what century it is.

    “6. Love is God”

    Actually you’ve got it backwards. The Christian doctrine, per 1 John 4:8, is that “God is Love.” But the way you have put it is more of the progressive view in today’s society–in that case with “love” not being agape, but what C.S. Lewis called “Venus”: http://lewisandreflections.blogspot.com/2010/01/four-loves-eros.html

  32. lily says:
    June 13, 2017 at 10:09 pm

    “Perhaps you could give us a point-by-point of why people have no right to healthcare in a wealthy 21st century democracy?”

    Right to healthcare = Right to demand strangers pay for their healthcare.

    Since when does anyone have a right to that? Bastiat rightly calls this ‘plunder’.

  33. muad'dib says:
    June 14, 2017 at 7:32 am

    Well, a society that would use force to require doctors to provide health care if they all chose to quit and pursue other jobs would not be a society with moral legitimacy. Actually it would be well on the way to totalitarianism.

    Well, a society that would let people suffer, live miserable lives and die prematurely if individuals could not afford to pay for medical care would not be a society with moral legitimacy. Actually it would be well on the way to barbarism.

  34. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 14, 2017 at 11:07 am

    Right to healthcare = Right to demand strangers pay for their healthcare.

    Since when does anyone have a right to that? Bastiat rightly calls this ‘plunder’.

    Bastiat was a classic liberal, who I respect as much as I respect Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Stipulating that the rhetoric about “rights” is misleading and fuzzy…

    Certain functions are deemed sufficient in the general public interest, or essential to functioning in our present state of society, that the general community takes steps to make sure these are available.

    As a side note, at a time when I had no phone, I nearly lost a couple of short-term job opportunities because it was considered shockingly suspicious that I had no phone… like implicitly it is EVERYONE’s OBLIGATION to have a phone. Or, is the phone company merely a vendor selling a product which willing customers may choose to purchase, or choose not to purchase?

    Likewise, I recall trying to open a savings account and being told I had to show not only photo ID, but a credit card. Meaning, you have to show you have gone into debt in order to start saving. Recently, I stayed in a hotel that had fine print requiring photo ID and a credit care to be admitted — regardless of how you pay. So this “freedom” thing can be quite seriously infringed by the “private policies” of people selling in a “free market.”

    But, back to health care. Our nation, by and large, some states sooner than others, decided that education was a public good and would be available to all, indeed mandatory for all (while allowing for private alternatives that met minimum standards) at public expense. At this stage, health care is not much different.

    Certain aspects of health care and sanitation are so clearly matters of public interest that, e.g., connection to a sewer system is mandatory in all but the most thinly populated areas. Ditto for the vaccination programs that wiped out smallpox and polio. At this point, insuring that everyone has basic primary care, and some sort of coverage for emergencies that land one in the hospital, is similarly necessary.

    Its not so much a matter of right as it is of sound public policy. But within sound public policy, individuals do retain autonomy and agency. As for who pays, if even the lowest paid worker had sufficient income to afford comprehensive health insurance, that would be the best solution.

    If we are going to have obscene inequalities of wealth, I have no problem taxing those with the largest concentrations. They get that wealth by creating imbalances and benefiting from them. Karl Marx rightly calls this ‘plunder.’ I don’t mind that they keep a few million a year, especially if they did something original and arduous to get there. But beyond that — as Eugene Debs remarked, wealth is “the savings of many in the hands of one.” We all contributed to building those fortunes… and many were built on considerable subsidies from the public purse.

  35. JonF says:
    June 14, 2017 at 12:11 pm

    Re: Right to healthcare = Right to demand strangers pay for their healthcare.
    Since when does anyone have a right to that?

    Well, we apparently have a “right to demand strangers pay for police and national defense and courts and…”

    It basically comes with belonging to a society rather than being a lone wolf. And we humans are inherently social animals despite the occasional sociopath who dislikes that reality.
    To be sure, as I have said elsewhere I dislike phrasing everything as rights, so I will turn this around and say that a 21st century society has a moral imperative, a duty if you will, to provide for its members’ healthcare.

  36. JonF says:
    June 14, 2017 at 12:16 pm

    Re: It’s called a thought experiment. It’s designed to clarify issues so principles can be clearly defined. It’s very common in philosophy:

    But it’s absurdly open to abuse and misunderstanding.
    Here’s a simple example of a thought experiment gone bad: I can easily imagine being hit by a semi truck on my drive home from work today and killed. There’s certainly no reason that could not happen. So should I conclude from that I should not drive anywhere?
    How does that ludicrous conclusion differ from the wildly improbable “predictions” you are making?

  37. Brendan from Oz says:
    June 14, 2017 at 7:25 pm

    Hippocratic Oath, 1964 version. The basis of Western medicine and health care:

    I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:…

    I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

    I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

    I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

    I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

    I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God.

    I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

    I will prevent disease whenever I can but I will always look for a path to a cure for all diseases.

    I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

    If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

  38. Perichoresis says:
    June 15, 2017 at 1:41 pm

    JonF: “But it’s absurdly open to abuse and misunderstanding.
    Here’s a simple example of a thought experiment gone bad: I can easily imagine being hit by a semi truck on my drive home from work today and killed. There’s certainly no reason that could not happen. So should I conclude from that I should not drive anywhere?
    How does that ludicrous conclusion differ from the wildly improbable “predictions” you are making?”

    A thought experiment has nothing to do with making predictions. The most famous example is philosopher Phillipa Foot’s “trolley problem,” designed to clarify issues in ethics: http://people.howstuffworks.com/trolley-problem.htm

    The trolley problem has nothing to do with predicting the likelihood that people will be hit by trolleys–it is helpful in clarifying our ethical principles. It does require critical thinking, not rhetoric, so to that extent it is subject to misunderstanding. That is no reason not to make use of it.

  39. Perichoresis says:
    June 15, 2017 at 1:51 pm

    Maud’ dib’: “Well, a society that would let people suffer, live miserable lives and die prematurely if individuals could not afford to pay for medical care would not be a society with moral legitimacy. Actually it would be well on the way to barbarism.”

    I agree, a society in which no one agreed to be trained to provide health care–assuming that did so because they were uncaring–would be a society with an immoral culture. Just as a society where people routinely spout hateful political rhetoric is an immoral culture. But that has nothing with whether there is an objective “right” to use force to get those people to provide health care to other people, or to use force to prevent the spouters of hateful political rhetoric from speaking.

  40. Perichoresis says:
    June 15, 2017 at 1:54 pm

    Brendan from Oz: “Hippocratic Oath, 1964 version. The basis of Western medicine and health care”

    Yes, an oath and set of obligations voluntarily undertaken. No one is forced to become a doctor. All the doctors could quit and become computer programmers and would not be violating their oaths.

  41. Perichoresis says:
    June 15, 2017 at 1:58 pm

    JonF: “Well, we apparently have a “right to demand strangers pay for police and national defense and courts and…”

    I don’t think that is apparent at all. Do I have a right to demand that someone in Europe pay for my police and national defense and courts?

  42. Siarlys Jenkins says:
    June 16, 2017 at 10:44 am

    Yes, an oath and set of obligations voluntarily undertaken. No one is forced to become a doctor. All the doctors could quit and become computer programmers and would not be violating their oaths.

    Well, if you are into John Bircher style “free market” freedoms, bordering on Ayn Rand, I suppose that makes sense.

    If you believe in restrained constitutional government that is open to the diversity of choices individuals will make about their own lives and what they might do for their fellow creatures, there is no good cause for coercive intervention to prevent someone who could be very good at basic preventive pediatrics having a license to practice medicine merely because they are revulsed by the very idea of participating in an abortion.

    One of the benefits of diversity and pluralism is that there will always be another doctor who has a different set of preferences, aptitudes and principles.

    Do I have a right to demand that someone in Europe pay for my police and national defense and courts?

    Only if they travel to the United States, where they may well help pay for all of those, which benefit them while they are here, in the form of sales taxes, property taxes (included in the rent by the landlord for short term stays), hotel taxes, car rental taxes, and even income taxes if they work remuneratively while here.

    Taxing jurisdictions tend to coincide with jurisdictions in which money is expended, and when they become too disconnected, it tends to inspire declarations of independence and that sort of thing.

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