“Let us suppose … that some prince were desirous to force his subjects to … preserve the health and strength of their bodies. …”
The above hypothetical was posited not in yesterday’s debate but in 1685, in “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” John Locke’s momentous essay on religious liberty. To expose the folly of 17th-century religious intolerance, Locke brings it to a logical and ridiculous extreme: government-run health care.
Self-evident to his contemporaries was the truth that no one “can be forced to be … healthful whether he will or no.” Equally futile, then, were laws to compel spiritual health, i.e., eternal life in heaven. For “even God himself,” Locke observes “will not save men against their wills.”
The reductio ad absurdum succeeds due to a close parallel between state-established religion and a health care mandate. In both, the potentate justifies repressing people by a stated desire to save them. The difference between a government church and a government doctor or apothecary is the type of salvation in view.
To satirize the crown’s laws banning certain Christian doctrines and forms of worship, Locke enlarges his analogy as follows:
Shall it be provided by law that [subjects] must consult none but Roman physicians, and shall every one be bound to live according to their prescriptions?
The “Letter’s” hyperbole has since become a reality in England, and the stuff of serious proposals in Washington. Indeed, we need no longer “suppose” Locke’s farcical prince of health. One matching that description occupies the White House.
The ridiculous has become sublime, and vice versa.
In a sense, we live at the antipodes of Locke’s England, when, as the “Letter” explains, “nothing in the [temporal] world [was] of any consideration in comparison with eternity.” Today an opposing ethos prevails: Nothing in eternity is worth consideration in comparison with the things of this world.
Vice President Biden recently described the supreme worth assigned to bodily well-being, quoting the pagan poet Virgil: “The greatest wealth is health.” He thus rejects the Christian belief in Locke’s day that the greatest wealth is an imperishable treasure in heaven.
Yet even here in the antipodes, Locke’s ancient analogue retains its power. The key is to view it in a mirror.
To see how this works, consider first the logic of the “Letter”:
The care of every man’s soul belongs unto himself, and is to be left unto himself. But what if he neglect the care of his soul? I answer, What if he neglect the care of his health …? Will the magistrate provide by … law, that such a one shall not become … sick?
Next, simply transmigrate, as it were, the body and soul of the comparison:
The care of every person’s body belongs to himself and is to be left unto himself. But what if he neglect his body? I answer, What if he neglect his soul? Will government provide by law that such a one shall not go to hell?
Compulsory religion, once a menace that disenfranchised Locke, forcing him into exile, is inverted to a fanciful hypothetical – used only to illustrate the inanity of state-run health care, our present peril.
Some will object to the analogy on grounds that behavior they deem risky imposes costs on others. In fact, the English monarchy too cited societal costs to justify intolerance. Allowing unorthodox practices was understood to diminish heavenly rewards for the king and his faithful subjects.
Empathy, so avidly desired of late, can be enjoyed by today’s left if they will only reflect on how virtually impossible it is for them to tolerate unorthodox practices – foregoing insurance, drinking soda, and the like. They will thus apprehend how hard it was for the old ruling class to tolerate heresy in the church.
But for Locke – and the Founding Fathers he inspired – health, in body and spirit, depends on the breath of liberty.
Now, if bodily health is indeed the “greatest wealth,” we must have the greatest freedom to keep (or neglect) it. Having surpassed even the care of the soul in the hierarchy of values, health care warrants the status of a right – with protections as durable and robust as those granted by our First Amendment (the ultimate triumph of Locke’s philosophy) – to wit, the separation of health and state.
It is appropriate, therefore, to propound the following amendment to the Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of health care or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Though the goal be not instantly attainable, advancing it would allow for the right sort of thinking, a Lockean offensive instead of the current defensive posture, and inspire hope of one day slaying the fire-breathing bureaucracy that mercilessly consumes our substance in ruinous entitlements.
Roger Banks is an attorney and writer in Washington, D.C.
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