Rand Paul: Universal Health Care = Slavery

NOTE: this entry was originally posted on May 12th, prior to Blogger's meltdown.

Rand Paul on health care:

With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. ... You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.

Really Senator Paul? Slavery?

Okay, let's set aside the extremely divisive issue of universal health care for just a minute. If you can, try to forget that topic.

Now. Here's the question: What things are "like" slavery? Think about that for a minute.

What other situations are similar -- akin, if you will -- to slavery?

Imprisonment? Sure.
Forced labor? Absolutely.
A hot-button political issue? Yeah, probably not.

Just like those politicians and pundits who claim that "So-and-so is just like Hitler!", Rand Paul is using extreme -- and I would argue inappropriate -- hyperbole to illustrate his point.

The problem with this type of rhetoric is that it diminishes actual slavery.

Look Senator Paul, if universal health care does come to the United States someday, nobody is going to approve a police-state where you will be awakened in the middle of the night and be forced to perform an appendectomy. That idea is false on so many levels -- and my hunch is that you know that.

...not to mention that you are now a U.S. Senator. Like your father before you, my bet is that you are now in politics for life.

------
Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images

filed in: Health Care, Quote, Rand Paulshare: