{"id":898,"date":"2012-06-29T14:46:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T22:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/?p=898"},"modified":"2012-06-29T14:46:57","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T22:46:57","slug":"four-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/archives\/898","title":{"rendered":"Four Reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grant writing time. Which you’ll understand accounts for the present paucity of posts here. This is a time for dense, persuasive prose, and considerable chest thumping, in order to get our research aims… well, paid for. Aka, begging for money.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, heard on the boob tube:<\/p>\n

The POTUS said (I’m paraphrasing), “It’s no different than forcing people to buy car insurance.”<\/p>\n

I have a couple problems with that line of reasoning.<\/p>\n

1) While lots of people drive, it’s not a law that you do. So in that sense, no, Mr. POTUS, it’s not the same thing, because just being a citizen of the US will subject you to being forced (coerced if you like) to buy health insurance. Practically, there’s no opting out of being a US citizen, like you can opt out of driving. Apples and oranges, sir.<\/p>\n

2) Even if you do choose to drive, while auto insurance is mandatory in most states, plenty of people nevertheless drive without it<\/a>. You need a key (or secret code) to start car, not an insurance policy. In fact, this is why insurance companies offer uninsured motorist coverage; in case you collide with an uninsured motorist the cost to repair your car and\/or yourself is covered.<\/p>\n

3) Even conceding the auto insurance analogy, arguing that forcing people to do Z is unobjectionable because we already force them to do A, B, C, whatever, is (or should be) some kind of political fallacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4) Any government coercion reduces personal liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grant writing time. Which you’ll understand accounts for the present paucity of posts here. This is a time for dense, persuasive prose, and considerable chest thumping, in order to get our research aims… well, paid for. Aka, begging for money. Elsewhere, heard on the boob tube: The POTUS said (I’m paraphrasing), “It’s no different than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}