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Quote to Consider: House Democrats reauthorize SCHIP
By sage of monticello | August 5, 2007
Taken from Left in Alambama and said in regards to a House bill, destined for veto, which reauthorizes SCHIP with $35 billion in additional funding.
Democrats tend to believe that providing health care for children is a moral obligation said Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham.
Moral obligation? Is government a moral authority? Why is government a moral authority? Should government be a moral authority? Is it moral to redistribute funds - taking from one to give to another?
Our government is moral in a constrained sense in that it is limited in power and scope and was (largely) intended protect rights that had already been bestowed upon us, such as freedom speech, freedom of religion, a right to justice, etc. Never was government intended to provide rights - let alone “opportunity” in the form of cheap health care for kids.
Bottom line is conservative philosophers and the founding fathers thought freedom was the ultimate moral principle. And that any statutue should be first analyzed under a philosophical microscope, and if found to conflict with freedom the statute should not be enacted. To the founding fathers stealing from the rich to give to the poor still meant you were stealing (and not moral).
So, sure, it is a moral obligation to provide health care to children but I don’t see how that conclusion functions as a premise for expanding government beyond the intentions of the founding fathers. Where is the argument that the socialist expansion of welfare programs is the kind of morality that our government should engage in?
Its not that, as Republicans, we are against helping the poor, we are not. But we are against using government to do it, for philosophical reasons as well as those of utility.
Topics: socialism, democrats, federal legislation, House |
