DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

Read it.

William Marotta and the recipient of his donation signed an agreement that he would have neither rights nor obligations with respect to any offspring that resulted. But the state of Kansas says that shouldn’t insulate him from paying child support for the three-year-old daughter on whose behalf the state picked up $6,000 in medical bills unpaid by the mother, who had fallen on hard times.

This is the essential problem with accepting government ‘benefits’: It provides government with a reasonable-sounding argument that doing so entitles them to regulate the behavior of the person receiving the benefit, even when the benefit and the behavior are things with which the government has no business dealing. He that pays the piper calls the tune.

If government pays for your health care, it’s entitled to regulate your activities that might affect your health, because hey, it’s picking up the tab. This includes whether and how you reproduce.

If government pays for your housing, it’s entitled to regulate where and how you live, because hey, it’s picking up the tab. This includes whether and how you reproduce.

If government pays for your food, it’s entitled to regulate what you eat, because hey, it’s picking up the tab. This includes whether and how you reproduce.

If the government pays for your travel, e.g. the roads, then it’s entitled to regulate how and when you travel,  because hey, it’s picking up the tab. Hence the oft-repeated trope ‘driving is a privilege, not a right’.

If government pays for your education, it’s entitled to regulate how and when you go to school, and what you learn there, because hey, it’s picking up the tab.

It’s all part of the same scheme. To the extent that the government can do something for you, it’s entitled to do something to you.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2012 at 06:40 and is filed under Think about it.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.