[ExI] Yet another health care debate.

Fred C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com
Tue Sep 23 05:34:42 UTC 2008


On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 16:56 +0100, BillK wrote:
> 4) Extreme libertarians do, from time to time, bring up the suggestion
> of letting all the poor, mentally disabled, physically disabled, etc.
> fall by the wayside (evolution in action), but we are trying to
> civilize them. Perhaps they could be permanently accompanied by a
> social worker who every so often, wags a finger at them and says,
> 'Now, now, that's not very nice, is it? Try to play nice with other
> people'.

The implication that there is a logical connection between
libertarianism and the opinion that all of the poor, mentally disabled,
physically disabled, etc should fall by the wayside is just wrong.  The
two ideas are orthogonal to each other.  A person can hold that the poor
and disabled should fall by the wayside while claiming to hold any one
of a wide variety of political views.  Even a cursory glance at history
would show that.  On the other hand a person can hold that every human
has a moral duty to help their fellow humans while claiming to hold any
one of a wide variety of political views.  This is so obvious I am
surprised I even have to mention it.

Fred




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