Second, the Fourth Amendment expressly enumerates your rights of privacy as against the government. The government cannot come into your home and rifle through your belongings without due process. You cannot go through my home, because the government will protect my property rights, which include the common law right against trespass, and is empowered to take away your liberty and even your life if you do. Depending on the state, I can probably use self-help, and if I catch you invading my home, I can kill you myself. These are basic rights that the state cannot take away, not because they are enumerated in the Constitution or anywhere else, but because they existed prior to the Constitution and the Constitution did not grant the government the right to infringe on them.

As for assistance of counsel, it is not necessarily true that taxes pay for assigned counsel. A lawyer can, and many do, act for defendants pro bono. The difference between a right to counsel and the so called “right” to healthcare is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. In a criminal trial, the nearly omnipotent state is compelling the defendent’s presence, can summon witnesses from within its expansive legal grasp, has an army of lawyers, police, detectives, clerks, jailors and even pays the judges’ salary. The Constitution and our society have (rightly) determined that this overwhelming force cannot be brought to bear against defenseless citizens without the effective assistance of counsel. Analogizing this to healthcare, the government didn’t give you syphilis, so they don’t need to pay for your penicillin.

“You cannot, for example, walk freely through your neighbors bedroom at night. That would violate their right to privacy.”

Since you are so exact about what rights we have and do not have, please tell me where in the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights a “right of privacy” is stipulated. I’ll give you a hint: It’s not.

“From the perspective of the government, a right is something that can be ensured to one citizen without taxing (in the broadest sense) another citizen.”

Is this true?

Sixth Amendment:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”

So what happens to your right to “have the Assistance of Counsel” for you defense if you can’t afford legal counsel? Do you lose your right to have legal counsel? No.

Miranda v. Arizona
“[T]he person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him.”

Who pays for the lawyer? Taxes.

There would be 5 sets of regulations, all created by different senate committes or organizations in order to help their organization or state gain more funding and power. This is not to say that the individual hasn’t already lost control of nearly all the things that affect him. He has. And it’s not to say that the doctor hasn’t already lost control of treatment; she has.

Thanks for writing this article. We are waging war on four main fronts against statism in health care: Moral, Constitutional, Economic, and Pragmatic. The argument against the “right” to health care is at the heart of the health care debate. Thanks for the ammo. I have posted a link to this article on my blog, Doctors on Strike, at the website for Doctors on Strike for Freedom in Medicine.

Dr. Gregory Garamoni
Doctors on Strike for Freedom in Medicine
http://www.doctorsonstrike.com

P.S. We invite you to visit our website (doctorsonstrikedotcome), which provides factual, political, and intellectual ammunition to win the war against statism in medicine. Please consider signing our Petition to Protect Doctor-Patient Rights.

Since the left considers health care to be a right that the government should be obligated to pay for, I wonder when I’ll get my government provided handgun? What makes this “right” any different than the “right” of healthcare?