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The use of the term "slavery" here is pretty standard rhetoric used for emphasis by the American libertarian movement; its use descends from the vocabulary deve
by jasonisalive 12y ago
The use of the term "slavery" here is pretty standard rhetoric used for emphasis by the American libertarian movement; its use descends from the vocabulary developed by the body of anti-Socialist thinkers in the early to mid-20th century.
A more sophisticated rhetorician would argue that the various bodies of your society (those who pay for the universal medical services via taxation, those who partake of the medical services offered, those who actually provide the services (i.e. the doctors), and those who administer and regulate the provision of service) have all internalised and unconsciously accept a worldview which debases and discredits the right to free action of individuals in society. You may not be slaves in the classical sense of being enslaved by a third party, but from the perspective of someone with a "strong" view of personal liberty, you are in a sense enslaved to your own lowered expectations and faith in liberty.
So while you might all claim that you are perfectly content with your current system, your critic would view your opinions as hopelessly biased, and point to what they would classify as numerous instances of the poor results of socialised healthcare (incessant arguments about over-spending and budget problems, claims of corruption in service administrators, complaints of high wait time and low quality of service, low morale and satisfaction among service providers) as evidence to strengthen their claim.
- jasonisalive 12y agoWow. It absolutely astonishes me that someone would downvote this. Since when is clarifying a use of a term, then demonstrating what a contrary point of view would look like - without once stating my own personal opinion - downvote-worthy? This is just disgusting behaviour to see on Hacker News.
- nitrogen 12y agoSometimes downvotes are accidental, especially on phones.
- dmfdmf 12y agoFreedom is not a rhetorical device as you charge. It is an important social principle with a specific meaning and how we understand social issues. By your method the fundamental principles of physics like causality or conservation of energy, etc. would be "mere" rhetorical tricks not means of understanding the world.