From: pandit@ssd.intel.com (Milind Pandit)
Subject: Re: Health Care Rights?
Organization: Supercomputer Systems Division (SSD), Intel
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:43:01 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.233927.26939@shearson.com> jredford@shearson.com (John Redford) writes:
>In article <C02z9F.Arn@hfglobe.intel.com> labelle@hfglobe.intel.com (George La Belle) writes:
>   Excuse me, who made this a law? Where does it say I am OBLIGATED
>   to help others in need? Seems to me this is an individual decision.
>
>Well, thank you for providing us with your biased crap. I suppose that
>when someone show you a law you suddenly say "Keen!" and dont bother
>to think that a law is not the final measure of rightness in the
>world.

A law made by a government is of course not the final measure of
rightness in the world.  Mr. La Belle is referring to a law in the
more general sense of a rule that enforces restrictions on our
behavior.  I think he is simply asking who determined that he or any
one is obligated to help others, why they determined this, and how
they intend to enforce this obligation, if he chooses not to oblige.

>I can attempt to help needy people if i wish. I can attempt to bomb
>Iraq if I wish. I, like most people, am more likely to accomplish the
>former of course. Anything one can do, one can be said to have the
>'right' to do. A person can _attempt_ a very large number of things,
>including things that are called impossible.

No, you are redefining 'right' so as to generate a truism.  OK, I
don't know what its exact definition is, but it is something like an
action that you are allowed to do, an object you are allowed to
possess, or a service you are allowed to have performed, and if some
one prevents you from performing the action, or takes away the object,
or prevents you from having the service performed, they have violated
your rights, and have done something wrong and reprehensible.

Operation Restore Hope is a prime example of the US government
protecting charitable peoples' right to help needy people without
interference from Somali warlords.  On the other hand, you simply do
not have the right to bomb Iraq by yourself.  No one will consider it
wrong if people prevent you from doing so.

>it is
>still possible to say that "Society as a whole has an obligation to
>help those in need" if you allow that society has an interest in
>self-preservation and that "those in need" are members of society.

Yes, it is possible to say it (or anything else for that matter).  But
it is difficult to believe it.  You speak of society as if it is
something more than a collection of individuals.  Any statement you
make of society must apply to every individual in the society.  To say
that society has an interest in self-preservation would mean that
every member of society has an interest in preserving every other
member of society.  This is simply not true.  There are millions of
people who couldn't care less whether I live or die.  It would be an
impossible task to force them to care.  On the other hand, I care
whether I live or die, and there are hundreds of others who care, and
I care whether they live or die.  As a rational person, I will help
myself and these others when we are in need, and no one needs to force
me to do so.  Another person may not care about any one but himself,
and if so, he shouldn't be forced to help any one.

>The only question then is "can society force its members to follow its
>restrictions?" and the answer is that the question is meaningless. Any
>people who dont wish to follow the restrictions of a society are NOT
>members of that society. They might occupy space in close proximity,
>but that is not the same.

What?  The question is, *should* one group of people have the right to
force another group of people to behave in a certain way?  For
example, should the majority of a population have the right to force
the entire population to behave in a certain way?  Ayn Rand's answer
is no.  If people in a society spontaneously engage in force,
coercion, and fraud against other people, then force may be used
against them only.  In a moral sense, force is only right in
retaliation to spontaneous force.  

-- 
Milind S. Pandit			| pandit@ssd.intel.com
Operating Systems Engineer		|
Intel Supercomputer Systems Division	| Standard Disclaimers Apply
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism