I ask this question out of morbid curiosity: if the Pope made an Ex Cathedra statement about UHC being an inalienable right and the duty of every good Christian to support, would you be singing a different tune on these boards about it, or would you just change religions?
Not quite. Traditional Western legal philosophy takes the view that there are certain rights which we possess by virtue of being human. (Well, in truth traditional legal philosophy views these rights as being granted by god, but saying they are granted by nature works just as well and removes concerns some might have in our more secular, modern 21st century world.)
Governments should primarily be concerned with protecting these rights. Governments do not grant inalienable rights. This is very fundamental and actually if you take it in the wider context of history it makes perfect sense. The whole “point” that guys like Jefferson made were that if a government failed in its duty to protect natural rights, or even started to assail those rights itself, that government was no longer to be viewed valid–and that in fact the individual citizens would be totally correct to revolt against said government.
If you view government as the “grantor” of rights, it essentially means you’re saying that on a philosophical level the government is the sole arbiter of what rights you have or what rights you don’t have–and that your only recourse to abusive government is through advocating legal change. The major political revolution of the 18th and early 19th century instead argues that since there are inalienable rights, you can go beyond the confines of the state and its legal framework to protect them yourself. These are the justifications American colonists used to justify breaking away from King George and Parliament, and the justifications the French used in deposing the Bourbon monarchy.
Your other point, that you only “have the rights that you can defend” does not sync up with the traditional legal philosophy of natural rights. Under said philosophy if I kill you I haven’t taken away your right to life, I have violated your right to life. Taking it away would mean I had some power to alter the “natural order of things”, that I had to power to deem you “not entitled to life.” Natural law as a philosophy doesn’t really have that view of things.
For that reason it is highly suspect to call something that has to be created, funded, regulated and supported by government an “inalienable” right. Inalienable rights are better seen as the rights we’re born with.
Natural law philosophy doesn’t say much about rights like a “right to healthcare”, meaning it’s not a bad or good thing to establish such rights.
Of course, I don’t support this view and have never supported this view, namely I don’t really believe in natural law or natural rights. The only law of mankind is the law of chaos and strength. However, flowery things like the Pope’s statement, various things politicians from Patrick Henry to FDR have said, and things like U.N. declarations are all based on the concepts of natural rights and natural law. So we should probably remain internally consistent, since the whole presumption is that “inalienable” rights are rights that no government can deny–and that government must protect to remain valid, it doesn’t make sense to argue that a right that can only exist inside of a governmental system is inalienable.
I would also add that rights that some governments technically cannot provide whatsoever are hard for me to accept as a valid “inalienable right” under the concepts of “natural rights.” Many, many countries in the world simply cannot provide universal health care, or if they do it will be in the form of a few clinics which most of the country cannot access because of distance and which is poorly staffed due to lack of funding. Compared to those countries the United States has far better healthcare even if it is not “universal.” (Let’s net even get into the specifics of how vague the U.N Declaration is–the fact that you can get emergency medical care no matter what in the United States could be seen as fulfilling the “duty” imposed by the declaration.)
As a Catholic I’d just say he was wrong. Catholics have disagreed with Popes before. Catholics have actually waged war against Popes in the past.
You know that those words aren’t magic, right? That’s why I used the right to life. That it is a right we all should have I agree. But it is provided by the government. Otherwise anyone who wanted to could take it.
Some poor woman in Somalia has only the rights she can make for herself.
Obviously to honor Dom DeLuise in Johnny Dangerously.
Your position seems utterly bizarre to me. If you can’t get the whole loaf of bread, you may as well go hungry? 
You could say the same thing about educators (the example I had in my post.) Nonetheless, in the US, everyone is guaranteed a basic education (up to the high school level), regardless of income level. In the same way, everyone should have the right to health care. The only argument is, what is the minimum level of health care that a government (like the US) should guarantee its citizens?
What if the government itself decides you no longer have a right to that life?
The idea of inalienable rights are ones that NO government should be able to revoke.
Plenty of (American) Catholics don’t follow Rome’s guidance on birth control, yet they still consider themselves Catholic.
I’m not talking about Traditional Western legal philosophy. I’m talking about reality. Saying that we have innate rights is silly.
I agree, that’s why the U.N. Declaration is meaningless. That’s why the Pope’s comment is meaningless. However, in the context of inalienable rights (which conjures up natural law and Western legal tradition, unavoidably) it still doesn’t make sense to say health care is an “inalienable” right.
But the government could. Not ours hopefully, but if you’re a woman under the Taliban you can talk about rights all you want.
The fact is the reason we establish governments that are answerable to the people is so that we can protect the rights we all agree we want to have.
It’s protected by yourself, not by government. Government can kill you just as easily as a brigand.
The only real thing you’re entitled to in this world is that which you can defend yourself. Buying into the concept that government is capable of omnipotent protective services, or that it is benevolent, is probably one of the more dangerous thoughts one can have.
Probably harmless in most first world countries, but deadly for most of the human population.
One small aside: I’ve always thought that you can tell much more about a person, not by what religion they claim to be, but by which portions of their religion they think are important, and which ones they think it is acceptable to ignore.
Then it’s stupid to bring up the Pope or the U.N. Declaration, no one living today established the Papacy, no one voted the U.N into power. They are both essentially just prominent NGOs, only vaguely accountable to anyone.
If your argument is that government protects the rights we all agree we want to have, then it’s basically an inescapable conclusion of that logic that the only countries that should have universal healthcare are the countries that want it.
Which Republicans would these be? Southern Baptists?
Anyway, this is nothing new. See: death penalty.
At any rate, an inalenable right is something like free speech. We posses by virtue of our being human, and no one has to lift a finger to give it to us. Not so with health care or diamonds.
I’ll let **Bricker **explain the difference involved here wrt RC doctrine. He knows it a lot better than I do.
I agree that in a practical sense, the power ratio of individual versus an entire government is a bit skewed, so it definately appears as if the government is necessary for rights to exist.
Us outsiders consider the Taliban government “bad” because it does not afford (protect?) various rights of it’s female citizens, even though those rights are not even codified in some type of Consitution or legal code. (In fact, the Taliban’s laws state some of the opposite.)
Think about that. We call them wrong/bad for not doing something they don’t have codified. Why? Because we assume certain rights as fundamental to a free human even without (or in spite of contrary) codification.
Well, my argument would be that there are some rights that all governments should respect (and / or provide) to the best of their ability, and health care is one of those rights. Different regions of the world, at different wealth levels, may not have the same level, but the right should still exist. Same as, for example, education (already mentioned), right to vote, freedom of religion, etc.
Health care should be a matter of public policy just as police protection and fire protection is. We pay taxes for that. No one says “I paid taxes for 50 years and never once had to call out the fire dept to put out a fire. I want my money back.”
I think this is what the pope is getting at.
As for doctors working for a wage? Well so do fire fighters and policemen and the President of the USA. You think Mr Obama couldn’t make more as a private citizen?
Nope. We, as a society, decided through the legislative process to provide public education up thru HS. It’s not in the BoR or any other part of the constitution. Same with health care. We can decide, thru the legislative process to provide everyone with some amount of health care, but we can decide not to as well. Nothing in the constitution guarantees the “right” to public education or health care.