Obama errs in his reasoning

President Obama wants to make health care reform about morality. He said so in his speech to Congress last week. The argument being it is moral to insure the uninsured and make sure everyone has equal access to health care.

The president is committing a logical fallacy. He is substituting a specific morality (an altruistic concern about the uninsured) for the entire concept of morality. But a moral code is a code chosen by an individual as the basis for his or her appropriate actions on Earth. In a free society, people choose their moral beliefs and then follow them, leaving fellow citizens to do the same.

When citizens of a nation institute force through law, they have ceased to believe in freedom. (Or morality, I would argue.) "Force" is the opposite of "free." Totalitarian governments, theocracies and social democracies believe in force, the difference being one of degrees. Or, if you like, the difference between murder and grand larceny.

In a free society, people who hold certain beliefs — as the president and millions of others do about health care costs and access — would be free to make every effort to help others. They could open free clinics, contribute to charities, pressure insurers through the media and commit to a whole host of other options. But in a free society — a truly free society — they would not have the power to force others to follow similar paths. Rather, each individual would make that choice.