“That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks” — (Ya feel lucky, punk?)
by digby
Blitzer asked what Paul would prefer to having government deal with the sick man.
“What he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself,” Paul said. ”My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not before —”
“But he doesn’t have that,” Blitzer said. “He doesn’t have it and he’s — and he needs — he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?”
“That’s what freedom is all about: taking your own risks.,” Paul said, repeating the standard libertarian view as some in the audience cheered.
“But congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die,” Blitzer asked.
“Yeah,” came the shout from the audience. That affirmative was repeated at least three times.
Here’s Lance Mannion, talking about what these people really have. (It’s not freedom.)
[A]t their wake some Republican friend looks down into their coffin and says, “Your own fault, pal.”
“You should have planned better. You should have made smarter decisions. You should have managed your money more wisely. You should have taken better care of yourself, and don’t give me any crap about genetics. You should have lived your life the way I lived mine. You should have arranged things so that you were as lucky as I’ve been.”
Well, no they don’t.
At least not that very last bit.
You’d never hear one say, “I’ve been lucky.”
They haven’t been lucky.
They’ve been deserving.
They’ve deserved everything they have because they’ve earned it.
They earned having the parents they had. They earned being born in the richest, freest country in the world. They earned having no genetic predispositions to high blood pressure, arthritis, depression, schizophrenia, cancer. They earned not being hit by a bus when they were in grade school. They earned having a roommate in college who was able to explain general relativity or Hamlet to them the night before that midterm. They earned not having the plus sign turn blue. They earned that the company they went to work for didn’t go belly up when the market crashed or let them go in the round of mass layoffs that followed. They earned having children who didn’t get deathly sick or have disabilities or develop emotional problems or drug habits that required them to take their focus off their jobs, take time off work, and cause their bosses to say, “We feel your pain, but we can’t afford to carry you anymore if you’re not here to pull your weight. Here’s your hat, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Make sure you give your cell phone to security. And, no, we don’t have any idea what you’re going to do about insurance now and we don’t care and we don’t have to care and anyway you should have planned better. You should have saved more. You should have worked harder. You should have been luck…You should have deserved not to have what’s happened to you happen to you.”
They deserve it. They earned it. You? You didn’t. If you had, you’d have it. QED. And what you didn’t earn and don’t deserve, you don’t get. Simple as that. You suff.
That’s right. “Freedom” means being able to take your own risks lucky.
I think from now on when anyone asks me why I support universal health care, I’m just going to say (in my best Clint Eastwood,) “Bad things can happen to anyone, even a hard working, all-American success story like you. Ya feel lucky, punk?”
Mannion’s piece is worth reading in its entirety. O’ Lucky us.
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