Cure This - freedom of speech

Is Healthcare a Right...Yet?

cameronpage — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:08:34 GMT

A recent CNBC segment posed the question of whether healthcare is a right. They brought on commentators to argue in favor and against, one from the Cato Institute and one from the National Physicians Alliance. (The segment is posted on this page below...thanks Anjali!)

The host started by posing the question to the conservative commentator, Michael Cannon. "I think it should be a right," he replied. "And therefore I think physicians should work for nothing." Sarcasm notwithstanding, his point was clear: healthcare cannot be a right because it involves payment. The exchange of goods and services for money equals capitalism, which puts healthcare squarely in the category of commodity.

Mr. Cannon backed up his point by contrasting healthcare with other things we commonly think of as human rights, like freedom of speech and religion. No one has to be paid in order to let us speak freely and worship freely, he implied, which is why they are rights and healthcare is not.

This argument is persuasive. We like to think that a human right is something you are born with, not something that has to be given. The very phrase 'freedom of speech' suggests its simplicity: just let people speak! It's not that hard! Healthcare, on the other hand, is not accomplished by standing aside and letting citizens exercise their freedoms. For healthcare to be your human right, something has to actively be done to you.

But is it true that freedom of speech requires no involvement by the government? Let's imagine taking a trip to place where there is very little government, for example Somalia. You might have the basic human right to freedom of speech there, but it's not worth much. If you stand on a milk crate (assuming you can find one) and give a speech that others find disagreeable, those people may choose to gag you, stuff you in the trunk of a car, drive you 20 miles out of town, and perhaps kill you. The government has done nothing to take away your freedom of speech, but they haven't done anything to protect it either.

We often ignore the role of infrastructure, such as our police force and civil and criminal court system, in allowing rights like freedom of speech and religion to flourish. The U.S. legal system is a highly complex bureaucracy, and it plays an important role in keeping the right to free speech alive.

The same principles apply in healthcare. We have a complex bureaucracy in place --- doctors, nurses, hospitals --- to protect our right to health. There's no difference, in principle, between free speech and healthcare, so why is one an unquestioned human right while the other is relegated to a commodity?

In fact, no matter what human right you can name, there is an infrastructure in place to protect and defend it. And the professionals who manage that infrastructure need to get paid. So it's foolish logic to argue that since doctors are paid a salary, healthcare cannot be a right.
Now, an opponent of the idea that healthcare is a right could argue that sure, the legal system keeps freedom of speech alive. But it also does other things. We would need cops and judges around to deal with violent crime, even if society had no right to free speech. So the added cost to society from having freedom of speech is pretty minimal.

But the same argument could be made for healthcare. The medical industry has to exist regardless of whether healthcare is a right or not. Once again we can see that healthcare and freedom of speech are identical.

Still, let's be generous. Let's say we do accept the distinction that Mr. Cannon was trying to make when he drew a bright line between healthcare and freedom of speech. I think what he was trying to get at was that there are two types of rights. And actually, he's correct. Philosophers and ethicists commonly refer to them as "positive" rights and "negative" rights.

In the U.S., we are very comfortable with the latter category. Negative rights are when a person has the right not to have something done to him. For example, the right not to be tortured, not be persecuted for your religion, and not to be thrown in jail for disagreeing with the government.

Healthcare falls into the category of positive rights, for obvious reasons. (i realize, by the way, that i'm not using the strict philosophical definition of these terms. If you really care, check this out.) We Americans, when polled on this subject, have always been uncomfortable with positive rights. Positive rights seem to imply whininess, laziness, petulantly asking others for help.

But positive rights are actually a strong part of our tradition. Universal public education was introduced in the U.S. in the late 1800s, and today it is as American as apple pie. Ask any fourth-grader if she has a right to go to high school, and you'll get a quizzical look because the answer is so obvious. We still fight about ways to improve education in the U.S., but no one has seriously proposed abolishing the public school system. Why? Because we understand what an incredible boon to our country it has been to have a well-educated workforce.

So we've established that healthcare, from the standpoint of principles, is no different than other accepted human rights. And from a practical standpoint, we see that Americans already support rights that are very similar to healthcare, like education.

So it seems to me that healthcare is a right. Other people, of course, can disagree. What they can't do is pretend that there are objective, empiric differences between healthcare and other accepted human rights.

RNC has turned Twin Cities into Police State; Office of Pre-Crime in full swing

los anjalis — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:56:18 GMT

As the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and Republican National Convention (RNC) created "Free Speech Zones" far from the actual conventions, and as police are now pulling out tasers, concussion grenades, and tear gas at peaceful protesters at the RNC in Twin Cities Minnesota, and as police horses are stampeding protesters, and as cameras and cellphones are being seized without reason, and as police in the twin cities in Minnesota are jailing some without reason and threatening others, and as a friend of mine is involved in the Northstar Collective (a group of medics and others who have been preparing for months to provide medical and psychological support for victims of the police during the RNC), and as I'm hearing about victims of tear gas streaming into the Northstar makeshift clinics, I don't know what to think. Some videos:

Amy Goodman, world-reknown and widely respected journalist broadcaster of the show Democracy Now!, being arrested for ASKING the police why they were doing what they were doing.

Yes, a woman peacefully holding a flower, getting pepper sprayed. (thanks to BFP for the video)

(there's more after the jump...)
Just two examples of the violent protesters being nicely moved away by our police state. If this doesn't infuriate you then I don't know how you can believe in a free America.

- - - - -

Protests SHOULD matter, but increasingly they don't, and people are criminalized and made out to be america-hating anarchists for it. Folks around America should be enraged, but it's a bit hard to when the media isn't covering it (and the media who IS is being arrested for it) and when the convergence of Palin/McCain and RNC media and Hurricane Gustav are all occurring at the same time.

In any case, I'm really proud of the folks who are tirelessly covering it.

The ColdSnapLegal collective is live-twittering (short live-blog posts) about up to date arrests and civil rights violations occurring at the RNC protests. Check out their messages here. And check out their website here. Thank you so much ColdSnapLegal.

Here are some of their latest twitter posts:

Cops threatening to arrest everybody @ river walk - 300+ ppl inc. medics, legal observers, journalists, concertgoers, kids. Tear gas used.
Mass arrests on Jackson & 9th, including Democracy Now! journalists Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddou, Nicole Salazar.
Ramsey Cty jail on lockdown - no lawyers allowed inside. St. Joseph hospital also on lockdown, denying people water.
Steady stream of folks with pepper spray injuries at the Northstar clinic; medic headed to jail with supplies soon.
2 medics arrested at 6th & Wall
7th & Jackson arrests at 30-40. Democracy Now! journalists among those arrested at Temperance. Lots of police brutality among these arrests.
Anti-capitalist bloc being tear gassed on Jackson by river.
Pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades being used in more locations than we can write in one tweet right now.
Person tackled by 5 SPPD in riot gear for refusing a search. Media was present for this.
~300 people being stampeded by police horses on 2nd & Kellogg
Cops are getting ready to gas funk the war blockade at kellogg and wabasha. Legal observers needed there now.

Others reporting on this (because the mainstream media is late to it):

Firedoglake (with videos and up to date reports)

The Uptake

Amazing to see so many folks using YouTube, Qik video (upload from phone), Twitter, and other social networking means for the dissemination of this much-needed information.

Last I checked, I thought we were living in the free world, not Beijing...