I have no need to climb on a soapbox and preach to anyone. You all are making interesting if not valid points.
I would like to say though that one of the thoughts that keeps returning to me is the term right or rights, in the plural.
I've always heard veterans state that you have to fight for freedom and activists state that you need to fight for rights.
I think that in the case of fighting for freedom to me at least that is a valid statement. I remember a statement the the former World Heavyweight Boxing champion, Joe Lewis, was credited with saying. "There are problems in this country that need fixing, but you can rest assured that Mr.Hitler has no intentions of fixing them for us".
As far as rights go, many of us here in the US take for granted that we have certain "unalienable rights" and don't think much more about how we got them or what they even are? Mr.Jefferson certainly had a way with words and really knew how to turn a phrase. There really has never been another like him.
It occurs to me here that what is really being debated, is whether or not a citizen of the US should have an unalienable right to health care and a medication that could treat an existing or future medical condition, whether or not they can afford to pay for it.
Obviously there are vested interests in this country, and I suspect in any other country as well, that will say yes, and will say no. As in all cases because how it effects them personally.
In the US, we have a population of 330 million, all probably with their own story.
Theoretically we live in a very sophisticated democracy where sometimes the masses permit a very few to become wealthy under the thought that it benefits us all with a trickle down effect. I can't remember seeing much of that within any recent times.
I wonder if that argument even holds any water any more?
But I digress. Remember. When the Declaration of Independence was written, there were no such rights existing as delineated in that document. It was totally fictitious and also extremely treasonable as far as King George was concerned.
What entailed after it's delivery was a little bit of a situation which we now fondly refer to here as the US War of Independence. You can now google that and read up on it a little...just in case you need too?
Then there was this little disagreement amongst the states that basically was over whether one human being had the right to own another. A lot of people refer to it as the US Civil War. I think you can Google that or maybe follow up on the history channel a little?
Now my wife also likes to point out to me that when that letter that Mr.Jefferson wrote to the King of England stated that "all men are created equal", he really did mean men, and of course women weren't men, so they weren't equal.
Well, for as long as I can remember following US history, this thing about women's suffrage kept popping up. You know? They can be such pests? They had to be given the right to vote, just to shut them up?
Now it would seem that there are those Americans who would deny other Americans the"right" to some decent health care simply because it was never stated that anyone had a right to have it in the Declaration of Independence or fought for in any war.
You know? We as Americans like to parade around and state uncatagorically that we are the best place on earth, we are the best people on earth and I suppose by process of elimination are the smartest and most humanitarian? Then in seemingly the next sentence turn around and start quoting Ebeneezer
Scrooge and say "die and decrease the surplus population"? Amazing.
What I have learned in all of this about myself and my fellow Americans is really eye opening.
I know that I now feel that all Americans should have a right, an unalienable right to decent health care regardless of where it comes from, and if that makes me a radical, then so be it.
I'm in good company with these other arrogant, leftist
Americans like Jefferson, Lincoln and maybe even FDR and it makes me feel good about myself. I understand that it isn't easy being a leader like Jefferson and that it is difficult to separate some concepts from pre existing conditions like slavery without a little discomfort, and that those that you are attempting to persuade to see your point are also your fellow Americans, and you stood shoulder to shoulder with in the foxhole, but sometimes they actually have to take their heads out of their asses.
Few. I'm glad I took the short version here and didn't start preaching!
Good day now gentlemen.