Baby Alfie, the Latest Victim of Omnipotent Government

This article was originally published by Ron Paul at Ron Paul Institute

Twenty-three-month-old Alfie Evans, passed away in a British hospital on Saturday. While the official cause of death was a degenerative brain disease, Alfie may have been murdered by the British health system and the British high court. Doctors at the hospital treating Alfie decided to remove his life support, against the wishes of Alfie’s parents. The high court not only upheld the doctors’ authority to override the parents’ wishes, it refused to allow the parents to take Alfie abroad for treatment.

In upholding the government’s authority to substitute its judgment for that of Alfie’s parents, the high court is following in the footsteps of authoritarians throughout history. Ever since Plato, supporters of big government have sought to put government in charge of raising children. The authoritarianism of a system where “experts” can override parents is underscored by a police warning that they were “monitoring” social media posts regarding Alfie.

Alfie’s case is not just an example of the dangers of allowing government to usurp parental authority or the failures of socialized medicine. It shows the logical result of the widespread acceptance of the idea that rights are mere privileges bestowed by government. It follows from this idea that rights can be taken away whenever demanded by government officials or the popular will.

Of course, most western politicians deny they believe rights come from government. They instead claim that government must place “reasonable” limits on rights to advance important policy goals, such as limiting the right to free speech to protect certain groups from hate speech, or limiting property rights to promote economic equality. But, a right by its very nature cannot be limited or abolished and still be a right.

This disdain for a true understanding of rights is found among both liberals and conservatives. Both support a welfare-warfare state funded via the theft of income taxes and the indirect theft of inflation. Both support jailing people for nonviolent actions like drinking raw milk. Many politicians, regardless of ideology, support restrictions on parental rights such as mandatory vaccination laws.

While claiming to support the right to life, most modern liberals not only support legalized abortion, they want to force pro-lifers to fund abortion providers. Both the right-wing neocons and left-wing humanitarian interventionists dismiss the innocents killed in US military actions as inconsequential “collateral damage.”

America’s Founding Fathers rejected the idea that rights come from government. They instead embraced the view that rights are either granted by the creator or are a basic attribute of humanity.

Since rights do not come from government, government has no more legitimate authority to violate our rights than does a private individual. Thus, if an individual cannot use force to make you help others, neither can the government. If an individual cannot use force to stop you from gambling online or telling un-PC jokes, neither can the government. If an individual cannot use force to stop parents from seeking medical treatment for their child, neither can the government.

Widespread acceptance of natural rights and the principle of nonaggression that flows from natural rights is key to obtaining and maintaining a free society. Thus, educating people in the benefits of free markets, individual liberty, and a foreign policy of peace and free trade is key to protecting future Alfie Evanses, and other victims of the welfare-warfare state, as well as to restoring respect for the moral principles of liberty among a critical mass of the people.

Socialists In Oregon Pass ‘Universal Healthcare’ But They Have No Idea How To Pay For It

Typical socialists: approve a massive government program by calling it a “right” with exactly zero plans or ideas on how to fund the program.

House Democrats in Oregon passed a resolution referring a question to voters without a single Republican vote. It heads next to the Senate. The provision would ask voters to alter the state Constitution to declare healthcare a “right.” There are many reasons healthcare isn’t a right, but that’s neither here nor there.

Owning a gun is right, but there aren’t any gun owners running around demanding exorbitant tax increases so the government can provide everyone who wants a gun with one. This is exactly what the left always gets wrong about healthcare.

Just because our rights are secured by government, it does not follow that they must be provided by government. This means that while it is correct to suggest that people have a right to food, it is incorrect to say that the state must provide it. Indeed, flowing from our rights to liberty and life, we have the right to keep the fruits of our labor, through which the marketplace has proved superior in providing access to food, as failed communist states have made clear. This brings us to the heart of what is wrong with declaring health care—ex nihilo—a human right. –The Federalist

Buoyed by voters’ approval of health care taxes in the January special elections and terrified of congressional Republican attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act, Oregon Democrats are looking at health care as a key election issue this year. But not even all Democrats agree. Some say that the federal government (the same government that’s $20 trillion in debt with over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities) should be in charge of universal healthcare, not the Oregon state government.

Not to mention putting any government in charge of any amount of healthcare leads to the gradual stripping of medical freedom from individuals and the eventual outcome is medical tyranny. It also has no idea how to get the money to provide all Oregonians with “free” healthcare. The League of Women Voters’ president Norman Turrill and social policy coordinator Karen Nibler pointed out that without federal funding for universal health care, Oregon would be on the hook to cover the entire cost.

“The League cannot support an amendment for health care as a right because there is an implied state responsibility to provide the health care for all residents,” Turrill and Nibler wrote. “The state of Oregon has insufficient income to support its current responsibilities and cannot provide the added cost of health care coverage for all its residents at this time.” Imagine that. Things have to be paid for, but surely Oregon voters would just vote away more of their money.  They love tax increases it seems.

FDA Approves New Digital Sensor To Ensure ‘Patients With Mental Health Issues’ Take Their Meds

The Food and Drug Administration has just approved a new pill with a digital sensor in it. It will “ensure” that patients who suffer from mental health issues take their medicine when they are told. But privacy concerns have not gone unnoticed.

Regulators in the United States have approved the first bill that can be digitally tracked as it makes its way through the human body.  The Abilify MyCite aripiprazole tablets used for treating schizophrenia and manic episodes have an ingestible sensor embedded inside them that records that the medication has been taken. A patch worn by the patient transmits this information to their smartphone.

But many are raising the red flag that this could simply be another form of medical “big brother.” You may no longer have the right to refuse medications in the very near future.

The Abilify MyCite features a sensor the size of a grain of sand made of silicon, copper, and magnesium. An electrical signal is activated when the sensor comes into contact with stomach acid — the sensor then passes through the body naturally. A patch the patient wears on their left rib cage receives the signal several minutes after the pill is ingested. The patch then sends data like the time the pill was taken and the dosage to a smartphone app over Bluetooth. The patch also records activity levels, sleeping patterns, steps taken, activity, and heart rate, and must be replaced every seven days. The patient’s doctor and up to four other people chosen by the patient, including family members, can access the information. The patient can revoke access at any time. – The Verge

Is it really hard to understand why people are raising concerns about privacy over this new pill? The pill is one way to address the prevalent problem of patients not taking their medication correctly. According to the IMS Institute’s estimates, the improper and unnecessary use of medicine cost the US healthcare sector over $200 billion in 2012.

But, the approval also opens the door for pills that are used for other conditions beyond mental health to be digitized and monitored, and could eventually lead to tracking devices for humans being slipped into medication. What is the government’s obsession with keeping the people doped up? Complacency, perhaps?

Others are worried that tracking pills will be a step towards punishing patients who don’t comply with either medical or government demands to take drugs. Ameet Sarpatwari, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School told The New York Times the digital pill “has the potential to improve public health. [But] if used improperly, it could foster more mistrust instead of trust.”

WATCH: Cops Threaten Mom at Child’s Bus Stop to Make Sure She’d Vaccinated Her Son

A mother was stalked and harassed by police and subsequently threatened with arrest for her choice to vaccinate her son, as she dropped him at the bus stop.