{"id":11750,"date":"2010-03-22T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/22\/bernard-goldberg-on-health-care\/"},"modified":"2010-03-22T19:00:07","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T19:00:07","slug":"bernard-goldberg-on-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/22\/bernard-goldberg-on-health-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Goldberg on Health Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bernard_goldberg_whitebg_252\"<\/a> I enjoy Bernie Goldberg's commentary on The O'Reilly Factor<\/em> and I generally agree with it.  But I just heard him say something that is not quite right.  He sees the leftist-conservative disconnect on the recent health care legislation in the following terms:  for leftists it is a moral and civil rights issue whereas for conservatives it is an economic issue.  Leftists are for it because they think citizens (and presumably anyone who resides in this country whether legally or illegally) have a RIGHT to it, whereas conservatives are against it because the country cannot afford it.  (If you listened to that preternatural dumbass Nancy Pelosi last night, you heard her lame attempt to 'derive' the positive right to health care from the genuine constitutionally grounded negative<\/em> rights of life, liberty and the pursuit<\/em> of happiness.)<\/font><\/p>\n

But Goldberg's is a superficial analysis.  It is true that we cannot afford it.  Hell, we cannot afford the entitlements already in place.  See <\/font>here<\/font><\/a> for a breakdown of medicare expenditures.  But the conservative objection is not merely an economic one.  It too is a moral objection:  it is morally wrong, among other things, for the government to force its citizens, on pain of being heavily fined, to buy a privately-sold product such as health insurance.<\/em>  It is an affront to the liberty which is our birthright as Americans.  Think about it:  they are going to force you to buy something from a private company, 'for your own good'  whether you can afford it, want it, or need it.  Now either you see what is wrong with that or you don't.  If you don't then I put you down as hopeless.<\/font><\/p>\n

This is a liberty issue before it is a 'green eyeshade' issue.  In this respect it is no different from taxation.  It too is a liberty, and hence a moral, issue long before it is an economic issue.  But individual liberty is one of those things that 'liberals' don't understand (unless it is the liberty to be a cultural-polluter) — which is one of the reasons we should retire the word 'liberal' and call leftists what they are.  We contemporary conservatives have a much better claim to the 'liberal' label.<\/font><\/p>\n

Goldberg made a mistake tonight that conservatives routinely make.  They fail to see that they do in fact occupy the moral high ground, or perhaps I should say that they are strangely reticent about proclaiming the morality of their position.  When they put the issues in economic terms alone they play right into the hands of their opponents who are all too eager to paint them as mean-spirited, moneygrubbing protectors of their supposed economic privileges.<\/font><\/p>\n

Liberty took a beating yesterday.  That's the main thing.  The economic considerations, important as they are, are secondary.  Bill and Bernie need to 'wise up' to use Bill's expression.  This war is about ideas first and money only second.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I enjoy Bernie Goldberg's commentary on The O'Reilly Factor and I generally agree with it.  But I just heard him say something that is not quite right.  He sees the leftist-conservative disconnect on the recent health care legislation in the following terms:  for leftists it is a moral and civil rights issue whereas for conservatives … Continue reading “Bernard Goldberg on Health Care”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}