“What Ms. Kennedy and others were saying is that this is a new government-granted right." -- Rep. Paul Ryan
TPM Excerpt:
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Sunday that ‘Obamacare’ should be repealed because the rights of individuals come from God. I think this at the end of the day is a big philosophy difference,” Ryan told ABC’s “This Week.”
We disagree with the notion that our rights come from government, that the government can now grant us and define our rights. Those are ours, they come from nature and God, according to the Declaration of Independence – a huge difference in philosophy.”
Who do you disagree with congressman? The Pope? Pope Benedict XVI doesn't think government induced or protected health care is a newly granted right.
Catholic News Excerpt: (Nov. - 2010)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI and other church leaders said it was the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status or their ability to pay.
Access to adequate medical attention, the pope said in a written message Nov. 18, was one of the "inalienable rights" of man.
[...]
The pope lamented the great inequalities in health care around the globe. While people in many parts of the world aren't able to receive essential medications or even the most basic care, in industrialized countries there is a risk of "pharmacological, medical and surgical consumerism" that leads to "a cult of the body," the pope said.
"The care of man, his transcendent dignity and his inalienable rights" are issues that should concern Christians, the pope said.
Because an individual's health is a "precious asset" to society as well as to himself, governments and other agencies should seek to protect it by "dedicating the equipment, resources and energy so that the greatest number of people can have access."
"Justice in health care should be a priority of governments and international institutions," he said ...
There's no point working around the Pope's words or bending them into something they're not. He clearly defined health care as an age-old God-given inalienable right and has asked governments and agencies, not businesses or charities, to administer, secure and protect man's right to health care.
Faith In Public life Excerpt:
First the Pope specifically rejects the Ayn Rand-ian, free-market vision of profit-driven self-interest producing the best results for all of society:
From Caritas In Veritate:
Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end that provides a sense both of how to produce it and how to make good use of it. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty (21).
...
Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution(36).
I encourage everyone regardless of your politics, religiosity or secularism to read Caritas In Veritate. Not in any attempt to indoctrinate on my part, believe me, but just to be aware for a discovery that Catholic Church teachings are built on the health and care of the body, mind and the human spirit and are far away from whatever "understandings" Paul Ryan discriminately abused for his "Catholic" marketed government budget proposal.
Paul Ryan is right on Ayn Rand. He's wrong on Catholicism and he's wrong on the Declaration Of Independence and the U.S. Constitution - that puts him on the outer edges of the far, far right.
ADDITIONAL READING:
Blogging Blue - Why I Think Paul Ryan Is A Terrible Catholic
Democurmudgeon - Ryan Thinks We Don't Need Government For Rights ...Only God
Cognitive Dissidence - Paul Ryan Knows Nothing
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