by Vic Nicholls
What is the justification for taxing people to provide healthcare? There is no mandate for it in the Constitution. The “general welfare” was never considered to include health care. The campaign slogans of the Founding Fathers never included, “Free leech treatments for all!”
Are all men “created equal”? No. Everyone has different talents. I can’t get on a football or basketball team. They can’t do what I do in Information Technology. Is it the job or responsibility of the United States government to make me equal to them or them equal to me? No. Are we equal in the sight of God? Yes.
Should people who sacrificed to made the personal choices to earn college degrees and delay having children until they were married be penalized for making those choices by forcing them to pay for others who didn’t? Would you expect to pay higher insurance because your neighbors’ kid wrecked two of his parents cars? Is it fair to discriminate against those with bad driving records? Should the government require equal insurance premiums for everyone?
If we institute Medicare/Medicaid for all, where would personal responsibility start and end? If there is a shortage of doctors, how do we determine who gets one and who doesn’t? Since we were given the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” how does freedom from the tyrant’s power to tax me to fund his armies and empire translate into the power of my fellow countrymen to tax me to provide them 21st-century medical care?
Nowadays, appeals to personal responsibility and initiative are described as justifications for white privilege. If you earned a B.A. degree, got a job in your field, married, and then had kids, would you expect your children to have a better start in life than one who’s parents didn’t? Of course! Does that make you “privileged”? Not at all.
Notice that in listing the essential requirements for success in life, I didn’t mention race. That’s because I know non-white spouses who followed the formula and live as well as I do.
Many assume that all differences between the races are due to racism. But once you factor out marriage, education, in-wedlock birth, age (whites are older on average than blacks and Hispanics and have had more time to climb the income scale), and inheritance from parents who made the same responsible choices, what difference is there left?
If it’s racism that keeps people down rather than hard work and grit that allow people to rise, how do we explain the career of the noted African-American economist Dr. Walter Williams? He grew up in the projects with his mother and sister, but no father. He earned a Ph.D. in 1972, and has been teaching at George Mason University since 1980, and he publishes a nationally syndicated column. Racism was worse back then than it is now. How do we explain his success?
Explain Mae Jemison. She was born in Alabama in 1956. Her mother was an elementary English/math school teacher and her father was a maintenance supervisor. Her family moved to Chicago to give her better educational opportunities. She graduated high school in 1973 and went to Stanford at age 16, graduating 4 years later with a B.S. in chemical engineering and B.A. in African/Afro-American studies. Engineering professors would pretend she wasn’t there. Her family was always encouraging, though. She got her M.D. in 1981 at Cornell.
Explain Dr. Ben Carson, Dr. Charles Drew, or countless others less famous. Explain my African-American next-door neighbors, both of whose kids have masters’ degrees. I can explain their success: My neighbors married before the kids were born and have lived in the same house since the ’80’s. They sacrificed a ton to make sure their kids got a solid start in life.
It’s time we asked a different question: When government takes away from those who worked for their success and gives it to those who didn’t, does it subsidize failure? When government subsidizes failure, do we get more of it?
Vic Nicholls lives in Chesapeake. For more on the topic, she recommends viewing Walter Williams’ speech, “How much can discrimination explain?” on the video above.
