You have the right...

    You have the right to remain silent; you have the right to an attorney; you have the right to worship (or not); you have the right to make good choices, or, as the electorate proved in 2006 and 2008, you have the right to make bad choices.  You have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You have these rights just because you are a human being.  If you are a spiritual person, your rights are gifts from your Creator; if you are a humanist, then your rights are part of your core operating system.  Either way, rights are yours and do not require the permission of any man, woman or government.
    It’s common sense that your rights end where mine begin. If a 60-inch plasma screen television is part of your pursuit of happiness, you are free to pursue it unless that pursuit leads you to take the one in my living room.  Then you are likely to meet with my right to defend my home with a large dog and a larger gun.  My right to defend my property supersedes your attempted theft of said property. Once we accept this axiom, everyone gets along.
    Rights, like my ability to defend my life, liberty and property, are absolute.  In other words, rights are colorblind and non-discriminatory: thus, the right of a redheaded, one-eyed stepchild of a crack-addled investment banker is no more special or powerful than another’s right.  To paraphrase a line from one of the finest books ever penned, your right is not a claim on any other person’s right.  We have the privilege of living our lives without someone claiming a part of our life.
    Despite a thousand Facebook updates to the contrary, mandatory taxpayer funded health care is not a right; it’s theft.  The founders were very specific when defining fundamental rights, and health care was not among them.  Perhaps this was because in the 1700s, doctors were actually little more than glorified barbers whose favorite treatments included bloodletting with leeches, colonic purgatives and anesthesia-free surgery; 18th century health care was as dangerous as the disease.  On the other hand, perhaps, the thought of forcing neighbors to pay for neighbors’ visits to the apothecary was an anathema not only to the founders’ individualist natures but also to their conviction of the sovereignty of all men over own their lives.
    No one will deny you your right to pursue the best health care within your means. However, once you expect someone else to pay for your sore throat, or a hospital or doctor to render free service, then you are expecting special treatment not offered to others and you offer nothing in return. You are a moocher. Education, health care, food stamps and other ‘expectations’ paid for by others may be social niceties and arguably are required for some level of societal well-being.  However, if support of those institutions is compulsory, then they are no longer niceties, but theft of labor. When a man or woman works, he/she is entitled to a wage.  Forcing a wage earner to provide entitlements for others is theft.
    While the current discussion is about health care, I am also using ‘entitlements’ in the largest sense-corporations who make poor decisions are no more entitled to our support than individuals who make poor decisions.  The other side of enjoying the rights we have is that people are allowed spectacular successes or epic failures.  Either way, they are free to revel or wallow in the results of their efforts.
    Is this a callous position? That’s what the taxers and takers want you to believe.  Imagine how angry you would be if someone stole your iPod, mobile phone or favorite pen.  How would you feel if you worked 30 hours, but the boss decided to pay you for 20, saying that he had a friend who needed the other 10 hours worth of wages? Imagine he did this to you every week.
    I argue that it is cruel and immoral to enslave a person to any other person; and that it is particularly evil when done under the threat of imprisonment or, through the use of that other dastardly enslavement:  the greater good. Forcing anyone to hand over his or her property is theft. We must stand up against the looters, the moochers and the statists from both political parties, or we will continue to see the modern day colonic purgative of our rights and our freedoms.