The Power of Charity
Jun 24th, 2009 by Micah Tillman | 6 Comments |
I was listening (on CSPAN Radio) to a congressional committee discussing the new health care bill everybody’s all worked up about.
A Republican committee member was talking, and said something about how Congress should be concerned about obesity.
I wanted to say, “Lead by example, fatty.” But that would have been a slur. Or, wait, scientists say fatties cause global warming, so it’s okay to slur them.
Anyway.
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So I started thinking about why Congress should have anything to say about your eating habits. They can’t say anything about where you go to church, but they can about where you go to eat?
Separation of church and state, yes. Separation of state and food services, no.
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Then I realized. If the government is paying for your health care, then it should have the right to tell you how to live.
After all, your lifestyle choices can cost them money. So it is their business what your BMI is, where you went for lunch today, and whether you’re making time in your morning schedule to go running.
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That’s how charity works, you see. The government offers to make sure everybody gets some good or service or other, and then gets to use their generosity to force people to not waste their (the government’s) money.
They’ve found a way to turn even giving into a power-grab. That’s real brilliance. And real nauseating.
Good job, government. Good job. You just keep that up, now, y’hear?
I can’t condone charity to people who refuse to put in some of the effort. I don’t want to Give; I want to Help. I don’t want to fund Cancer research for people who refuse to stop smoking. I don’t want to fund Transients who refuse to utilize provided resources. I don’t want to fund Diabetics on McDonald’s diets.
I don’t want to; but I probably do.
I struggle with this question some.
For now, I’ve come to terms with my powerlessness over others. I know that God expects me to do the right thing. I know he expects others to do the right thing. I’m not sure if that part is my business, though.
I feel frustrated that I fund Diabetecs on a McDonald’s diet, because there is a limited amount of funding for Diabetics in general, and those diabetics who eat regularly in an unhealthy way, they are effectively squanering, even stealing resources…
I think I’m supposed to content myself, though, with the idea that these people will be held accountable for there decisions, just as I’ll be held accountable for mine.
Thanks both!
One does attempt to not waste one’s money, even when one is giving it away. But one can’t guarantee that one isn’t wasting one’s money — unless one control’s the police force :-)
Perhaps the question will become whether the government will frame its lifestyle regulations as something that everyone must follow since everyone will be getting government-funded medical care, or as something you must follow if you want government-funded medical care.
I struggle with that one as well:
Because the thing is, I don’t know that a person really has the right to say “That’s o.k. I’ll waive my right to get health care if I get in an accident.” Put differently, I’m not sure if the moral thing to do, to allow a person to waive their right to health care if they get an accident.
I get it that this is not particularly logical and that it’s a bit fascist… But if I take seriously the fact that I’m my brother’s keeper, I don’t see a way out of it, either.
Locke said that there were two things a person does not have the right to do to himself (or herself, but they spoke exclusively in the generic masculine back then, so I would assume he would have said “himself”):
(1) Kill himself
(2) Sell himself into slavery
You can’t do the former because you’re God’s property, and you don’t have the right to destroy someone else’s property without just cause.
You can’t do the latter because to engage in such a transaction would be to have your future master treat you as a rational economic partner (i.e., as an equal), which would show that you are not lower than your future master, and therefore that your future master cannot actually be your master.
So, even Locke, that great hero of classical liberalism, individual freedom, and libertarianism argued that there were some things you don’t have the right to do to yourself.
I’ll write something on reluctant fascism later. :-)
[...] bravely admitted in a comment below that his desire to fulfill his duty to be his brother’s keeper made him think it may be [...]