Before government can guarantee provision of a specific good or service to any one individual, thus creating a so-called “positive right,” it must first take by force the means of producing that very good or service from someone else.

Health care is no different. Whether by forcibly appropriating and redistributing the money to purchase care for those who lack it, or by arbitrarily devaluing the time and effort of those who provide it, once a government mandate supplants voluntary exchange, coercion must be used to exercise that “right” to health care.

But how can taking what belongs to another person (their money, time, or effort) through legislative force be a right?

Is that not the very essence of slavery?

The truth is that the only rights actually guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution are those that protect freedom of action.

They are “negative rights,” which do exactly the opposite of their positive counterparts. Rather than initiate and rely on the use of force to produce a specific reward or outcome, negative rights allow individuals to act or not act in the absence of coercion, so long as they do not hinder the freedom of others to do the same.

For instance, it is the right of people in this country to vocalize unpopular opinions, associate with unpopular people, practice unpopular religions, and even carry unpopular weapons. Thanks to our negative rights the government cannot, without due process, take the life, liberty, or property of any American.

But nowhere in the Constitution does it say that, in order to exercise their rights, each citizen must at birth be given a microphone, a bible, or a gun.

That was no accident. For more than two hundred years, the freedom and responsibility to determine one’s own future has been the foundation of America’s unparalleled success. But the critical role played by our negative rights has become less and less clearly understood over time.

Many of this country’s most celebrated leaders have manipulated that ignorance, redefining rights as unearned rewards for politically favored groups; payoffs thinly veiled in the pious rhetoric of social justice.

FDR himself was among the worst. The abject failure of the New Deal notwithstanding, FDR proposed to codify his authoritarian progressive agenda in a constitutional amendment, known as the “Economic Bill of Rights.”

It reads like a list that could just as easily have flowed from the pen of Karl Marx:

The right to a useful and remunerative job…

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition…

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care…

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Besides being, as any citizen of the former Soviet Union can attest, economically disastrous and utterly impossible to define or achieve, the biggest problem with FDR’s list was that it sought to make America into a nation of serfs.

The logic is inescapable. Once something has been deemed a right by those in government, the ability of every person who produces or consumes that good or service to engage in voluntary transactions with the fruit of their own labor is stolen. Their labor is then owned and administered by agents of the collective.

Again, I ask: Is that not the very essence of slavery?

There is no doubt that freedom entails risk, and America has not always lived up to the promise of her founding. But when certain people or groups pervert the notion of rights, harnessing the power of government to take by force what they desire but have not earned, then negative freedom becomes a positive tyranny.

Let us hope that more Americans, before it is too late, learn how to tell the difference.

Josh is a proud “tenther”, freelance writer, and activist originally from the Washington, D.C. area.

NPR Reports:

When asked whether they would support a broad proposal that would require everyone to get coverage, 59 percent said they would support it. Such a proposal would require employers to provide coverage or pay into a pool. The government would help low-income people get coverage, and insurance companies would be required to take anyone who applies. People who don’t get coverage through one of these channels or purchase it themselves would pay a fine.

I can understand the desire to help get everyone covered.  It seems to be a good goal (although I generally disagree with the methods proposed), but this is going way to far – and pretty quickly too.

Now we’re seeing a shift.  It’s no longer – “let’s help everyone get health insurance” Instead it’s become – “Get health insurance, even if you don’t want to, or we’ll fine you.”

And guess what happens if you don’t pay your fines?

Right.  Jailtime.

I don’t have health insurance, and at this point, I don’t want any.  I choose to self diagnose and care, and do pretty well with that too.

Ask yourself this:

Should I go to jail for making this choice?

Should I go to prison, because I don’t want to hand my money over to some corporation that “provides”me something that I don’t want?

What next?

Should I be forced to buy a certain car, or some other product or service that the politicians have determined that this disobedient subject must have?  Seems to me like that’s nothing more than good old fashioned cronyism – forcing us to give even more of our hard-earned incomes to the corporations that the politicians prefer.

Give it time. I’m sure more such tyranny is coming – all with the cloak of legitimacy that “broad support” gives it.

By the way – where, exactly, in the Constitution, is the federal government given the power to do any of this?