{"id":123,"date":"2007-09-27T00:05:59","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T08:05:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/?p=123"},"modified":"2007-09-27T00:05:59","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T08:05:59","slug":"morality-by-coercion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/morality-by-coercion\/","title":{"rendered":"Morality by coercion"},"content":{"rendered":"

It sounds like a joke<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and a Baptist minister joined Senate Democrats in making a moral argument for the legislation.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The legislation in question is SCHIP, the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program.<\/p>\n

While most people who aren’t Democrats or Republicans would say the two parties are barely distinguishable, I would say that when it comes to spending, nearly all Democrats are focused on the worthiness of the end, while many Republicans are concerned about the process.<\/p>\n

Typical Democrat take:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn St. Luke\u2019s Gospel, we are told that Jesus instructed his disciples to \u2018let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them,\u2019\u201d said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. \u201cWe urge Congress and the president to support our bipartisan legislation and let little children have health care.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This looks like generosity, but it’s generosity with other people’s money. (It’s also a lie, since most of the recipients of this new bill already have health care. Isn’t lying immoral?) Typical Republican take:<\/p>\n

Senator John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the campaign committee for Senate Republicans, denounced the bill as \u201ca step toward the Democrats\u2019 ultimate goal of a single-payer, government-run health care system.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This looks like a concern about process, but it’s easy to interpret as lack of compassion. So there is always a Republican who will play to the Democrats’ gallery: <\/p>\n

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, responded [to Ensign]: \u201cThat\u2019s a nice, sweet, cute little argument, but it does not solve the problem of how you help these kids. I am not about to allow these children to go without health care.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

which is where the Republicrat charge arises. Helping the children is great populism, but it’s nearly always tied to a disingenuous policy when you get into the details.<\/p>\n

The easiest way to get enough people to agree to pay for a disingenuous policy is to promise enough people that the money won’t be spent too far from home:<\/p>\n

The bill would increase the federal money available to every state next year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, a rabbi, a priest, and a minister agree that forcible redistribution of money for a dubious purpose in what will no doubt be the least efficient way possible<\/a> is the moral thing to do. What a joke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It sounds like a joke: A rabbi, a Roman Catholic priest and a Baptist minister joined Senate Democrats in making a moral argument for the legislation. The legislation in question is SCHIP, the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program. While most people who aren’t Democrats or Republicans would say the two parties are barely distinguishable, I would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectivist-instinct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hodakvalue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}