Repeal Universal Healthcare in the US

Repeal Universal Healthcare

Dear Mr. President

I am writing this letter to you as an American citizen. I am writing in the tradition of a government "of the people, for the people, by the people." I am writing "in order to form a more perfect union." I am writing to "promote the general welfare.

I do not wish for this to become another letter that you never finish, or never see because your officials read it and respond on your behalf. I wish for you to read this letter and think about it. While I am opposed to many of your policies, I will not rant about them. I do not expect you to be persuaded by this letter. I do not ask you to agree with it. I simply ask you to consider it.

I think that the main difference between us is philosophical. After all, your policies ought to line up with your philosophy. I believe that there is one fundamental belief of yours that sets us apart, the belief that the rich have an obligation to help the poor. In light of our present day culture, this seems like a praiseworthy belief, and all experience has shown that men will fight for a moral standard more often than a sound economy. This is an admirable trait-morality is more important than economics.

However, what if your morality is wrong? You will inevitably object that it is not. But, if the rich owe the poor money, what do the poor owe the rich? This is the question that is banned. It is never raised. Yet, it is important. If the poor owe the rich nothing (as you seem to believe), then one must ask how the rich incurred this debt. Simply being rich does not seem to imply that one has a debt to the poor. After all, what have the rich done to or borrowed from the poor? In most cases, nothing (unless one counts the jobs they provide to the poor-jobs the poor would not have had otherwise).

Mr. President, is it moral to charge blacks more at a store than whites? Is it moral for Hispanics to pay twice as much as anyone else for products? Of course not, you will say,those are ridiculous questions. Why, then, is it okay for the poor to have more rights than the rich? They don't, you might object. Under your system, I am afraid they do. It is not rights to speech, arms, privacy, or religion to which I am referring. It is property rights. When we take from the rich, we are saying that those who make more than x dollars a year don't have as much right to their property as those who make less. This isn't at all fair or equal opportunity for the rich, many of whom worked hard to build their companies in order to enjoy their profits. And you are taking the labor of their years working towards the end goal of wealth and giving it to those who have not done the same labor of years. Is this justice?

Let us consider, for a moment, what would happen if I,as a citizen, did what you, through your administration, are doing now. Let us suppose that I went out to a wealthy person's house and played Robin Hood-I broke in and stole a million dollars. But, let's say I have a kind heart, so I take $750,000 and split it among three families who I happen to know have barely enough money to eat. What would that be? It would be a crime. I would go to jail for a few years, and I would likely be ordered to pay back that million dollars. If it is not okay for a citizen to do such a thing, why is it okay for the government?

You likely get a lot of people calling you a Marxist. You likely object that you are not a Marxist. You would be right-you are most certainly not a Marxist. However, you share in a principle of Marxism, probably without knowing it. This is your Marxist principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." I would like to counter this idea with one from the novelist-philosopher, Ayn Rand: "'Don't you know,' he asked, 'that we can't sacrifice the millions for the sake of the few?'
'Can you sacrifice the few? When those few are the best? Deny the best its right to the top and you have no best left. [I] know no worse injustice than the giving of the undeserved. [Men] are not equal in ability and cannot be treated as such.'"

This is where we get to economics-and this is where your philosophy in this area ultimately collapses. If government (or any entity, including conscience, the difference being that the government has the police power) takes from the rich and gives to the poor, there will eventually cease to be any rich to take from because few (if any) will work hard so that the government can take the fruits of said work and give it to the poor. Instead, everyone would hover around the "normal" range of income in order to not lose money to the government; only to have the "normal" range become rich when there is no one else to take from. This would cause the citizenry to work less and pay more. This would become a cycle that would inevitably lead to the poverty of all. If events remain unchanged, we will end up like the USSR. We may last a while on this system, but it will never be enough.

You may believe our country to have such a strong work ethic that this will never happen. If you do, you are looking at our country in a different time. I did a speech on this. After the speech, a man in the audience came up to me and said, "I'd still rather be on the receiving end." The problem is that, nowadays, so does everyone else. It is this mentality that will kill our nation. It was welfare that created this mentality. How will more government welfare help us avert the coming catastrophe? It will certainly not get rid of this mentality. I ask again that you think about this. Please respond with any objections you have.

Sincerely,

Alan Gibson

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