Food as a Right?
There is a debate afoot that indicates Healthcare as a right and does so by equating it to food. The argument is that food is a right as is health(care). Some of the arguments limit the word to simply Health and some extend it to healthcare. It seems to me that the logical disconnect is occurring at the level of the definition of the words. Let us start with the definition of food.
Food is a Right?
What is food exactly? I will explain food below, but let’s see what food as a right could mean: The statement food is a right, could be saying one of two things:
1. The living thing involved is going to use its own energy to capture, purchase, create, an object that can be consumed by the body for nourishment. This object, will require the individual living thing to use time, energy and other resources in its possession to do this. In other words, it will use its own Life (time energy), and Liberty (the ability to make decisions for the self) to add objects to its Estate. Combined it will feel satiated and thus will have pursued Happiness.
2. Or… a hungry individual will find a way to take sustenance from someone else who’s efforts created or procured it. The only energy they will spend is to steal the objects from someone else. In other words, if a person has food and another person does not have food, then the order of food being a right, grants the hungry individual the authority to simply take it.
Let us not flinch at the reality of what we are discussing here. Food is the direct destruction of some other living thing. It is the theft of Life, Liberty and Estate from whatever is being consumed. It is the natural order of living things* to destroy other life to survive. Yes, even herbivores destroy life, for when a cow dips its head into the grasses and pulls it from the roots, it does in fact take the life of the plant, it does steal the liberty of the plant (the will to live and not be eaten) and it does, above all, take the First Property of the plant’s Estate (the plant itself). It is foolish to assume that herbivores are less violent simply because the plant has no eyes to beg with, no mouth to plead with. Plants get a pass because they are alien to us, we manage to convince ourselves that they are somehow not the same thing as a cow. They are, as all things are bound energies that other things exploit. It is still a living thing, being destroyed for the will of another. **
If to eat, is then the willful destruction of another living thing, then it would be safe to assume, that eating is in fact a very individualistic, primitive, view of the nature of existence. Individualistic of course, because only the individual participates in the act. To further, in early social structures, the strongest would eat first and best. Kings were well feed as were conquering armies, not so much for the vanquished and the plebs. We need not even travel back in time to realize this as an honest truth, for today the wealthy can choose to enjoy a better meal than those that live meal to meal. Over the course of human history, we have become more compassionate, more social and by doing so have come to a place where starvation of others actually bothers our sensibilities. We have shelters and charities that all take donations to help people in need, especially in the necessity of eating. And there is the crux: Eating, that is the act of surviving is a necessity, not a right. The right is the how I do it, not the what I do of it.
If society thus, passes laws that take on the idea of using force to take food away from people that procure it for themselves or for profit, then the reality of the argument is that we are regressing as a society, for we are using a new kind of conquering army (the vote) to force our will on the conquered (the minority). Worse, is that the social structure of community is utterly obliterated, for your neighbor becomes an unknown quantity, either a follower or a heretic , and every conversation, every glance becomes some object by which to judge them by, especially to the conquered. For a man who’s heard the call of Life, Liberty, and Estate that is thusly hammered down into a cog to placate others would surely hold resentment for the situation he finds himself in. Community is possibly one of the greatest humanistic advancements. To destroy it, is to send humanity back in time, past, even before the writing of the Bible.
Does a man whom has the right to food (that is the authority to simply take it) have the power to walk up and take candy from a baby? Does such a ‘right’ also apply to other bodily necessities? Can a cold man take a woman’s coat to stay warm or raid her purse for cash to buy such a coat? Can a family simply squat in a home and call it their own as an object of their ‘right’ to housing and to keeping the body safe from the elements? Does a man in need of defecation have the right to simply squat in the street? Such ‘rights’ are no longer considered morally acceptable. Most of which are theft of someone else’s property and would be met with force, being, like eating, we have the individual authority to determine the value of the objects in our Estates.
As Rand mentioned, if a concept can be taken backwards, that is it can further be defined by sub-components, then it is not an axiom, but is a function of an existing axiom. So eating, is a requirement for survival, it is necessary. But it is not a root, for there is the individual ability to eat that supersedes the necessity. The how of the what. Given the choice between eating a brief meal of raw carrots or a seven course meal, a man can choose either, he makes the how, because, he has Liberty to make the decision of what he is applying to his Estate. The same is true for all living things, just ask a cat.
This brings us back to Health(care). And it applies directly to the two possibilities from above:
1. Either you are willing to use the wealth of your Estate (that could be by offering labor through the use of your Liberty and Life or by simply giving something of value from your Estate) as fair services in trade for the work of another whom know the trade and can provide the service
2. Or you are willing to use force (in this case, unfair taxation) to move your conquering army (by the vote) into the fields of those conquered and force your will on those that will pay to provide the services.
If then, we assume that the government and the people want to enforce a will of telling others how and when and of what value they will receive care in their pursuit to health, then we have to assume that this is not a progressive and advanced philosophical practice, but is instead a very old, very rudimentary, almost primitive, opinion of enforcing our will on others. It is the ultimate regressive ideal. If regression is the opposite of progressive and if progressive is educated (thus enlightened) then regressive motions are black webs taking us further away from the actual human progress of the last 20K years.
A note on Health as a right
I find this argument to be completely absent of any reality. Nothing in this universe is entitled to health. I will be so bold as to call health, the perfect functioning of the object. The mere fact that so much 'non-health' exists in nature (cancer, disease, mutations, etc.) already disproves that the universe herself doesn’t agree with the very human definition of health. Health is not a natural product, it is an opinion of an objects disposition. A brand new car is thought to be ‘healthy’ but it is just a collection of objects opined to be something. The same goes for us, unfortunately, for we are simply a collection of organs and objects that billions of years ago symbiotically all agreed to work together. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t and no vote or voice of disagreement is going to alter nature***.
No one is entitled to health and I'm not being an ass here, for I didn't write the rules of the universe. If one needs to be angry, fire your slings and barbs at Mother Nature, point your arrows at the feet of your Gods, but I'm just the messenger. Health is a pursuit that you undertake under the ever watchful eye of nature and at the chess table of death. Play at your own risk.
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*There are of course some animals that do not follow this particular lifestyle. For example, bees do not destroy other living things to eat. They drink a nectar that is offered by flowers. Perhaps this exchange is intentional and well designed, perhaps it is a happy accident. Either way, some insects specifically do not murder other living things to survive. Which brings up the notion that their is a biological imperative between plants and animals that exits outside the ridiculous notions enforced by men and their arrogant pursuit of overly defining all things.
**Some will say that plants don’t destroy living things thus proving they are the ‘base’ item from which all other living things are built. This is only true in that plants do not destroy ‘life’, which in and of itself is a arbitrary opinion of objects, that is further convoluted because the word itself is as old as man and thus no longer subject to re-interpretation by science (at least on the surface) - Saint Horz discusses this in one of the un-published. Hopefully I will have them done in a few years - Plants do in fact take elements and energy from the system. To better understand the failing idea of calling something ‘life’ and another thing ‘object’ one should review the logical argument over the classification of mushrooms as a good starting point if you are curious. As they are neither plant nor animal and yet they are also both. In the end, the definition is there to be used as a point for other conditions: Living things have action, etc. Not to for all time, define something distinctly unique against the back drop of the universe, for after all, we are more than our bodies and minds, but also, much, much less.
***I am intentionally limiting this argument to the order-able universe and not taking any Eastern or spiritual philosophies into account - ontological or teleological arguments - if we did the we’d have to laugh at the very idea of even calling something ‘healthy’ to begin with.
Food is a Right?
What is food exactly? I will explain food below, but let’s see what food as a right could mean: The statement food is a right, could be saying one of two things:
1. The living thing involved is going to use its own energy to capture, purchase, create, an object that can be consumed by the body for nourishment. This object, will require the individual living thing to use time, energy and other resources in its possession to do this. In other words, it will use its own Life (time energy), and Liberty (the ability to make decisions for the self) to add objects to its Estate. Combined it will feel satiated and thus will have pursued Happiness.
2. Or… a hungry individual will find a way to take sustenance from someone else who’s efforts created or procured it. The only energy they will spend is to steal the objects from someone else. In other words, if a person has food and another person does not have food, then the order of food being a right, grants the hungry individual the authority to simply take it.
Let us not flinch at the reality of what we are discussing here. Food is the direct destruction of some other living thing. It is the theft of Life, Liberty and Estate from whatever is being consumed. It is the natural order of living things* to destroy other life to survive. Yes, even herbivores destroy life, for when a cow dips its head into the grasses and pulls it from the roots, it does in fact take the life of the plant, it does steal the liberty of the plant (the will to live and not be eaten) and it does, above all, take the First Property of the plant’s Estate (the plant itself). It is foolish to assume that herbivores are less violent simply because the plant has no eyes to beg with, no mouth to plead with. Plants get a pass because they are alien to us, we manage to convince ourselves that they are somehow not the same thing as a cow. They are, as all things are bound energies that other things exploit. It is still a living thing, being destroyed for the will of another. **
If to eat, is then the willful destruction of another living thing, then it would be safe to assume, that eating is in fact a very individualistic, primitive, view of the nature of existence. Individualistic of course, because only the individual participates in the act. To further, in early social structures, the strongest would eat first and best. Kings were well feed as were conquering armies, not so much for the vanquished and the plebs. We need not even travel back in time to realize this as an honest truth, for today the wealthy can choose to enjoy a better meal than those that live meal to meal. Over the course of human history, we have become more compassionate, more social and by doing so have come to a place where starvation of others actually bothers our sensibilities. We have shelters and charities that all take donations to help people in need, especially in the necessity of eating. And there is the crux: Eating, that is the act of surviving is a necessity, not a right. The right is the how I do it, not the what I do of it.
If society thus, passes laws that take on the idea of using force to take food away from people that procure it for themselves or for profit, then the reality of the argument is that we are regressing as a society, for we are using a new kind of conquering army (the vote) to force our will on the conquered (the minority). Worse, is that the social structure of community is utterly obliterated, for your neighbor becomes an unknown quantity, either a follower or a heretic , and every conversation, every glance becomes some object by which to judge them by, especially to the conquered. For a man who’s heard the call of Life, Liberty, and Estate that is thusly hammered down into a cog to placate others would surely hold resentment for the situation he finds himself in. Community is possibly one of the greatest humanistic advancements. To destroy it, is to send humanity back in time, past, even before the writing of the Bible.
Does a man whom has the right to food (that is the authority to simply take it) have the power to walk up and take candy from a baby? Does such a ‘right’ also apply to other bodily necessities? Can a cold man take a woman’s coat to stay warm or raid her purse for cash to buy such a coat? Can a family simply squat in a home and call it their own as an object of their ‘right’ to housing and to keeping the body safe from the elements? Does a man in need of defecation have the right to simply squat in the street? Such ‘rights’ are no longer considered morally acceptable. Most of which are theft of someone else’s property and would be met with force, being, like eating, we have the individual authority to determine the value of the objects in our Estates.
As Rand mentioned, if a concept can be taken backwards, that is it can further be defined by sub-components, then it is not an axiom, but is a function of an existing axiom. So eating, is a requirement for survival, it is necessary. But it is not a root, for there is the individual ability to eat that supersedes the necessity. The how of the what. Given the choice between eating a brief meal of raw carrots or a seven course meal, a man can choose either, he makes the how, because, he has Liberty to make the decision of what he is applying to his Estate. The same is true for all living things, just ask a cat.
This brings us back to Health(care). And it applies directly to the two possibilities from above:
1. Either you are willing to use the wealth of your Estate (that could be by offering labor through the use of your Liberty and Life or by simply giving something of value from your Estate) as fair services in trade for the work of another whom know the trade and can provide the service
2. Or you are willing to use force (in this case, unfair taxation) to move your conquering army (by the vote) into the fields of those conquered and force your will on those that will pay to provide the services.
If then, we assume that the government and the people want to enforce a will of telling others how and when and of what value they will receive care in their pursuit to health, then we have to assume that this is not a progressive and advanced philosophical practice, but is instead a very old, very rudimentary, almost primitive, opinion of enforcing our will on others. It is the ultimate regressive ideal. If regression is the opposite of progressive and if progressive is educated (thus enlightened) then regressive motions are black webs taking us further away from the actual human progress of the last 20K years.
A note on Health as a right
I find this argument to be completely absent of any reality. Nothing in this universe is entitled to health. I will be so bold as to call health, the perfect functioning of the object. The mere fact that so much 'non-health' exists in nature (cancer, disease, mutations, etc.) already disproves that the universe herself doesn’t agree with the very human definition of health. Health is not a natural product, it is an opinion of an objects disposition. A brand new car is thought to be ‘healthy’ but it is just a collection of objects opined to be something. The same goes for us, unfortunately, for we are simply a collection of organs and objects that billions of years ago symbiotically all agreed to work together. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t and no vote or voice of disagreement is going to alter nature***.
No one is entitled to health and I'm not being an ass here, for I didn't write the rules of the universe. If one needs to be angry, fire your slings and barbs at Mother Nature, point your arrows at the feet of your Gods, but I'm just the messenger. Health is a pursuit that you undertake under the ever watchful eye of nature and at the chess table of death. Play at your own risk.
-----------------
*There are of course some animals that do not follow this particular lifestyle. For example, bees do not destroy other living things to eat. They drink a nectar that is offered by flowers. Perhaps this exchange is intentional and well designed, perhaps it is a happy accident. Either way, some insects specifically do not murder other living things to survive. Which brings up the notion that their is a biological imperative between plants and animals that exits outside the ridiculous notions enforced by men and their arrogant pursuit of overly defining all things.
**Some will say that plants don’t destroy living things thus proving they are the ‘base’ item from which all other living things are built. This is only true in that plants do not destroy ‘life’, which in and of itself is a arbitrary opinion of objects, that is further convoluted because the word itself is as old as man and thus no longer subject to re-interpretation by science (at least on the surface) - Saint Horz discusses this in one of the un-published. Hopefully I will have them done in a few years - Plants do in fact take elements and energy from the system. To better understand the failing idea of calling something ‘life’ and another thing ‘object’ one should review the logical argument over the classification of mushrooms as a good starting point if you are curious. As they are neither plant nor animal and yet they are also both. In the end, the definition is there to be used as a point for other conditions: Living things have action, etc. Not to for all time, define something distinctly unique against the back drop of the universe, for after all, we are more than our bodies and minds, but also, much, much less.
***I am intentionally limiting this argument to the order-able universe and not taking any Eastern or spiritual philosophies into account - ontological or teleological arguments - if we did the we’d have to laugh at the very idea of even calling something ‘healthy’ to begin with.
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