Libertarian boy-wonder, Rand Paul, spoke to a Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing yesterday, and during the hearing he voiced his opinion that a belief in a right to healthcare is the same thing as a belief in slavery.
Because expecting doctors to, ya' know, help sick people is an affront to the common good and is comparible to slavery.
"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies," the senator said. "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," Paul added. "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." [...]
"Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery."
Wait, what? Is Rand Paul implying that no one is entitled to food and water?
Not that such an implication would be entirely uncharacteristic of congressionally-approved Republican policy. Republicans recently called and voted for a $758 million dollar cut to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). $503 Million of the original proposal passed at their insistence to avoid a total government shutdown.
I'm fairly certain than adequate sanitation is mandated through city ordinances, state laws, environmental law, and the health department, so I'm not sure where he's going with the right-to-plumbing angle. Are basic sanitation services abolished in the fantasy world of Atlas Shrugged?