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Townhall...
A Price on Our Heads
By Cal Thomas
Back in the American Wild West, federal and state governments often put
a price on the heads of infamous outlaws like Billy the Kid, Jesse
James, Sam Bass, Belle Star and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Today, our government is not so selective. It’s seeking to put a price
on the head of every American. Not because they’ve robbed a train, but
for a different reason that could lead to a very bad end.
Various government agencies have come up with formulas for determining
how much we are worth. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
set the value of a human life at $9.1 million. It reached this
determination while proposing tighter restrictions on air pollution.
During the Bush administration, EPA calculated our value at $6.8
million. Was the difference in price caused by inflation? The EPA
didn’t say.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) arrived at its own figure for
the value of an American life. It says each life is worth $7.9 million.
That, too, is an increase from the $5 million value FDA had assigned
each human American life in 2008. The agency calculated our value while
proposing new and tougher warning labels on cigarettes that include
pictures of cancer victims.
The Transportation Department -- yes, Transportation -- put our worth
at $6 million while seeking to justify recent decisions to impose
regulations the Bush administration had rejected as too costly, such as
stronger roofs on cars.
It’s nice to know that our government values its citizens beyond what
it can extract in taxes. But given the Obama administration’s likely
pursuit of health care rationing (Dr. Donald Berwick, a wealth
redistributionist who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, is a proponent of rationed care) it is easy to forecast where
this could lead should human life be regarded as having only that value
placed upon it by government, or an agent of the state.
The beauty of our form of government is that it begins, not with
government, but with us: “We the People.” In our Declaration of
Independence from Britain, there is a clause that sets us apart from
virtually all other nations. Instead of receiving our basic rights,
such as the right to life, from a king or despot -- as was the case in
older cultures and too many modern ones -- America’s Founders saw basic
rights emanating from “our Creator” and thus, outside the reach of
government and bureaucratic tampering.
Where could a formula for a governmental valuation of human life lead?
If government gets to determine our worth, it could lead to government
determining when in its judgment we are worthless. It could lead to
government deciding that when we are costing the state more than we are
paying in taxes, we might be seen as a bottle, package or can, whose
“sell by” date has expired. And that would mean the government could
regard us as disposable and allow -- or force us -- to “expire.”
Too extreme? “It couldn’t happen here,” you say? All great horrors
begin at the extremes and work their way into the mainstream because of
moral weakness or exhaustion, or self-regard, or the rejection of (or
ambivalence about) certain fundamental truths. Such neglectfulness
paves the way for the great inhumanities, which today are studied in
schools. They wonder, “how it could have happened” and “why didn’t
anyone see this coming?”
How and why, indeed? Consider yourself warned.
Read it at Townhall
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