Recently, as part of a long back-and-forth and in response to my suggestion that the consequences of ObamaCare have been harmful to American life, a friend replied:
“Of course the ACA has consequences. That is the idea. Some will be good for some people and bad for others. Some consequences may be good and bad for a single individual. You may not like the consequences for you and that is fine. . . I don’t think anyone should be forced to vote against what that person perceives as his/her self-interest, but I think they should be free to if they want. But once something becomes law, I do believe that a person can be forced/coerced into doing something that they may perceive is against their self-interest. That is a natural consequence of democracy in my eyes.”
To which I replied:
It is your choice to want to live in a place where one of:
(a) a majority vote,
(b) good intentions, or
(c) a benevolent use of plundered property
justifies taking one man’s property or forcing/coercing him to act against his self-interest. However, that is not a place that would be governed by the principles of morality and justice set forth in the Declaration of Independence and established as law in US Constitution. That is not a place where liberty would obtain; it is a place where one would conform or cease to live. I hope for your sake that what’s popular doesn’t become deadly or unacceptably inconvenient for you, I hope that no majority ever votes to force you to stop behaving in a way that you perceive to be your personal preference, or compel you to behave in a way you perceive to be against your interest – your personal perceptions about your interests being, in your view, subject to everyone else’s determination.
More importantly, even without your support, I will fight with every breath to reverse the forces that are taking us in the direction you advocate. That you will directly benefit from my effort is incidental and does not lessen my desire for both of us to be free from the hellish world that invariably ensues when men allow the state to control their lives.
Because my friend is a strong proponent of marriage equality for gay couples, I finished with:
My final question (in multiple forms, as it turns out) is: Why is one person’s choice of a life partner a protected right (a factual proposition with which I have no quarrel or objection) whereas another’s choice of how to dispose of his property, his decisions regarding making tangible the consequences of his having lived, his preferences about how to extend his life’s work beyond the literal reach of his two hands, are subject to someone ELSE’s perception of what is the right or wrong use his very life? How does one man or the state possess the power to dictate the consequences of another man’s life but not the power to tell him with whom to share it? Or vice versa? If one choice is subject to the whim of a majority, why isn’t the other? (To be clear – It is my view that NEITHER choice ought to be within the purview of the law.) How can you support a set of principles that calibrate freedoms and laws that allocate liberties based upon the vote of a majority?
Is a man’s freedom, is a man’s life, divisible? Is there anything other than a person’s sexual preference [or ‘reproductive’ rights, or race or degree of poverty, or . . .] that is of the essence of his life and consequently beyond the reach of a popularity contest?
Does a man own all or only a negotiable fraction of his life?
America's CURE - by Jeff Neal 
Will be back to read more of this blog. Very well written and are we living in a democracy or a republic? Our liberties are threatened almost daily as well as the ability to be independent, responsible and well, just a whole lot more.
Thank you.