Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
The image (meme) to the left cracked me up when I saw it on Facebook. First of all, if you are going to challenge the left with a meme, at least get the spelling right.
What in the heck is "WITHE"?
But, let's focus on the leftist meme that inspired the misspelled response with Grumpy Cat in the background.
The leftist's meme reads: "If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America."
I suppose the sentence about human rights would be a reasonable thing to say if you believe the erroneous premises that form the basis from which the conclusion was met.
One of the things liberalism/leftism/statism/progressives do is create segments. They sectionalize every group, concept and issue. Their line of thinking is categorical. They have a need to create division in everything. But, they view the world through only one lens, while trying to convince everyone they are tolerant, giving, and accommodating to all, and willing to cater to every group, concept and issue, in reality their way is a one way street. Their way or the highway.
The term "human right" in the meme is a category. A type of right. To the liberal left our rights are not simply rights. They have identity. And they use identifiers to make a God-given right sound less God-given, and more politically inspired. Human rights seem more personal. More basic. Civil rights are rights you have as a citizen. Fundamental rights are the most basic rights of all. In reality, what we have are Natural Rights. God-given. Self-evident. Unalienable. Endowed to us by our Creator. All rights, no matter the distinction given by the liberal left may be, are God-given Natural Rights.
A separation of rights creates a division of rights, which in turn creates division in the masses.
The liberal left can't win in the arena of ideas. They have always had a tough time selling their agenda because the idea of tossing aside individualism for government control of the economy, healthcare, education and everything else that is important to individuals is a tough sell. Therefore, they spend a lot of money on strategies, tactics and the manipulation of language to win elections while never actually voicing their true intentions.
The uninformed buy into their promises. It's hard for those who are used to being paid to stay poor to not buy into free government programs, while supporting tax rates that go after the rich (because they've been taught to hate the rich, and the "greed for profit" that the rich allegedly have, since they were children in public schools). As far as the leftists and their sheep are concerned, wealth is finite. If someone gets rich at the top, they are told, then someone at the bottom is losing out. You know. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. It doesn't matter if it is not true. The sheep believe it, and that is all that is important. Even the sheep, however, if the liberal left shows too much of their hand, runs away from big government politics. Deep down, even the sheep appreciate at least a little bit of their individualism.
It seems incredible that anyone would do such a thing - what the liberal left does, I mean. You have to remember, the leftists believe they are the superior intellect. They know what's right, and therefore they believe the ends will always justify the means. Ethics and morality are absurd constructs of religious-right wackos.
So, they divide our rights the same way they divide the population. When it came to the meme, "rights" was not a strong enough word. The divisive nature of leftism required the writer to write "human rights."
"If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America."
Assault weapons? The last time I checked, "assault weapons" as most people identify them are illegal. But, let's explore those definitions, anyway. What are "assault weapons"? The definition of the term has altered with time. But, if you want to get technical, I can assault you with my fist, so my fist can be considered an assault weapon.
So are hammers, knives, and pitchforks.
From the military point of view, an assault weapon is a rifle that can be switched from single shot to fully automatic with the flip of a switch. The liberal left labels any gun that looks scary as an assault weapon. If the military likes it, like an AR-15, then they for sure label it as an assault weapon.
As for the word "weapon," I have difficulty with that, as well.
As a military veteran, I recognize a weapon to be an offensive instrument of destruction. As civilians we don't have weapons. Our intent as civilian owners of guns is defensive. Therefore, our guns are not weapons. They are simply firearms.
Bad guys, though, may be an exception. They are bad guys, after all, wanting to commit crime, loot, pillage, or riot against what they believe to be alleged right-wing presidential candidates, or commit Islamic jihad. Their activities are an assault against their victims, and against common sense, and I suppose anything they use to achieve their aims could be considered a weapon. So, if they do their deeds, anything they use could be considered an assault weapon. So, the meme is using a pretty broad term. When they asked "if you think assault weapons are a human right" did they really mean "guns"?
Of course they mean guns. So, why didn't they say so?
It's all about the use of language. You know, just like the "human right" thing. Be extreme. Be nasty.
If they said, "If you think guns are a natural right," it might not come across the same way.
Now, let's tackle healthcare.
Once again: "If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America."
We must now determine if healthcare is a right in the same way that keeping and bearing a firearm might be.
Which brings us back to their definition of what a right is.
Remember, the liberal left sectionalizes rights to lead you away from the real definition that our rights are natural and God-given; and therefore God-defined. The assumption here would be, then, that your rights according to them are not God-given, nor God-defined.
There is also another thing to consider. The 14th Amendment. From the point of view of the liberal leftist, the "equal protection clause" and the "due process clause" are gifts to the federal government, giving them the authority to "guarantee" our rights.* As guarantors, they have also decided that they are the definers of rights. So, if something is a "human right" (from their perspective), it must be something guaranteed and given by the central government. So, what the sentence from the meme is really saying is, "If you think guns that can be used against the government is a human right, but healthcare is not something that should be guaranteed and given by the government because everyone should have access to healthcare no matter what, then you are what is wrong with America."
I could see that totally making sense to an uniformed citizen that believes our rights are defined, provided and guaranteed by the allegedly benevolent bureaucrats of administrative America.
Except, healthcare is not a right because rights are not something given to us, or guaranteed, by government. A right is something we have because we live, because God gave them to us. They are Natural. We have a right to live, defend ourselves, be free, own property, and shoot at tyranny if it threatens our liberty. Healthcare, however, is a responsibility, not a right. It is something we want, something that we must maintain if we care to enjoy and use that responsibility.
The problem here is that healthcare doesn't even mean healthcare in the sentence in the meme. What they really mean is "paying for healthcare". Health insurance. But, isn't a third party payer a part of the problem in the first place?
Healthcare began as a relationship between a doctor and his patient. Care was provided, and the price was inexpensive because the doctors were competing for our business. Good service, low prices. That is what competition does. The wealthy, however, began to pool their money together, and out of it came health insurance. When the government imposed wage controls during the Great Depression, the benefit of health insurance became something an employer could use to lure good employees into their company. By the time the smoke cleared, government mandated health insurance as a benefit offered by employers, and the cost of healthcare was doomed to rise astronomically as a result. So, government is the reason healthcare has gotten ridiculous, and now it is government offering to fix the healthcare they broke in the first place by offering more government involvement in healthcare to try and make it better.
Thanks, but no thank you.
So, the problem with calling healthcare a right is that first of all, it's not a right, and second of all, it was government intrusion into the industry that screwed things up in the first place (wage controls, requiring health insurance as an employment benefit).
It seems, then, that "If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America" is not clever at all, but a completely uninformed, manipulative statement that shows how stupid the liberal left truly is.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
*If you read the 14th Amendment carefully, it doesn't make the government the guarantor of rights. It simply repeats Article IV., Section 2, which calls for all citizens to be treated the same under the law.
"If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America."
So are hammers, knives, and pitchforks.
From the military point of view, an assault weapon is a rifle that can be switched from single shot to fully automatic with the flip of a switch. The liberal left labels any gun that looks scary as an assault weapon. If the military likes it, like an AR-15, then they for sure label it as an assault weapon.
As for the word "weapon," I have difficulty with that, as well.
As a military veteran, I recognize a weapon to be an offensive instrument of destruction. As civilians we don't have weapons. Our intent as civilian owners of guns is defensive. Therefore, our guns are not weapons. They are simply firearms.
Bad guys, though, may be an exception. They are bad guys, after all, wanting to commit crime, loot, pillage, or riot against what they believe to be alleged right-wing presidential candidates, or commit Islamic jihad. Their activities are an assault against their victims, and against common sense, and I suppose anything they use to achieve their aims could be considered a weapon. So, if they do their deeds, anything they use could be considered an assault weapon. So, the meme is using a pretty broad term. When they asked "if you think assault weapons are a human right" did they really mean "guns"?
Of course they mean guns. So, why didn't they say so?
It's all about the use of language. You know, just like the "human right" thing. Be extreme. Be nasty.
If they said, "If you think guns are a natural right," it might not come across the same way.
Now, let's tackle healthcare.
Once again: "If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America."
We must now determine if healthcare is a right in the same way that keeping and bearing a firearm might be.Which brings us back to their definition of what a right is.
Remember, the liberal left sectionalizes rights to lead you away from the real definition that our rights are natural and God-given; and therefore God-defined. The assumption here would be, then, that your rights according to them are not God-given, nor God-defined.
There is also another thing to consider. The 14th Amendment. From the point of view of the liberal leftist, the "equal protection clause" and the "due process clause" are gifts to the federal government, giving them the authority to "guarantee" our rights.* As guarantors, they have also decided that they are the definers of rights. So, if something is a "human right" (from their perspective), it must be something guaranteed and given by the central government. So, what the sentence from the meme is really saying is, "If you think guns that can be used against the government is a human right, but healthcare is not something that should be guaranteed and given by the government because everyone should have access to healthcare no matter what, then you are what is wrong with America."
I could see that totally making sense to an uniformed citizen that believes our rights are defined, provided and guaranteed by the allegedly benevolent bureaucrats of administrative America.
Except, healthcare is not a right because rights are not something given to us, or guaranteed, by government. A right is something we have because we live, because God gave them to us. They are Natural. We have a right to live, defend ourselves, be free, own property, and shoot at tyranny if it threatens our liberty. Healthcare, however, is a responsibility, not a right. It is something we want, something that we must maintain if we care to enjoy and use that responsibility.
The problem here is that healthcare doesn't even mean healthcare in the sentence in the meme. What they really mean is "paying for healthcare". Health insurance. But, isn't a third party payer a part of the problem in the first place?
Healthcare began as a relationship between a doctor and his patient. Care was provided, and the price was inexpensive because the doctors were competing for our business. Good service, low prices. That is what competition does. The wealthy, however, began to pool their money together, and out of it came health insurance. When the government imposed wage controls during the Great Depression, the benefit of health insurance became something an employer could use to lure good employees into their company. By the time the smoke cleared, government mandated health insurance as a benefit offered by employers, and the cost of healthcare was doomed to rise astronomically as a result. So, government is the reason healthcare has gotten ridiculous, and now it is government offering to fix the healthcare they broke in the first place by offering more government involvement in healthcare to try and make it better.
Thanks, but no thank you.
So, the problem with calling healthcare a right is that first of all, it's not a right, and second of all, it was government intrusion into the industry that screwed things up in the first place (wage controls, requiring health insurance as an employment benefit).
It seems, then, that "If you think assault weapons are a human right, but healthcare is not, you're what's wrong with America" is not clever at all, but a completely uninformed, manipulative statement that shows how stupid the liberal left truly is.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
*If you read the 14th Amendment carefully, it doesn't make the government the guarantor of rights. It simply repeats Article IV., Section 2, which calls for all citizens to be treated the same under the law.
1 comment:
The right to bear arms does not require anyone to give their time, talent or the product of their labor to another. We may not compel anyone to create a firearm or other arms for us. We may create our own, be they only sticks and stones, but we may not compel another to provide it.
To be provided with healthcare, someone must provide it - specifically those trained to do so. To say that healthcare is a right is equivalent to saying that we have the right to compel another(even against their will) to provide us with their time, talents and labor and that is slavery - regardless of whether or not that individual is compensated.
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