Vilified! - Red Meat for Conservatives from a Guy who’s Got a Lot of Beefs - A Conversation about Healthcare Between Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock While at Dinner

Date: 7/21/09

A Conversation about Healthcare Between Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock While at Dinner

Jefferson: Hmmm. Everything on the menu looks so good.

Adams: Waiter?

Waiter: Yes, sir.

Adams: I'll start with a mug of beer.

Waiter: The house brew sir?

Adams: I suppose. I'm pretty used to that swill. If I had any mind, I'd brew my own.

Franklin: Sam Adams Beer? That'll be the day. What's next? A company that issues cheap commemorative dinner plates which feature portraits? We could call it the Franklin Mint! How absurd!

All: (laughter)

Waiter: (coughs loudly)

Hancock: Are you not well, sir?

Waiter: Oh, it's nothing. Probably just the consumption. Sadly, I do not have the ways and means to see a doctor.

Jefferson: Franklin - you're rich. Why don't you give the man a few dollars to see one.

Franklin: Why don't you fly a kite? A penny saved is a penny earned.

Jefferson: But, are you not a man of means?

Franklin: I am, indeed. But, charity starts at home. You first.

Jefferson: Uh, I seem to have…uh…left my currency under my other powdered wig. What say you, Adams?

Adams: Sir: I am a founding father. I am not HIS father. What obligation do I have to give him MY money so he may seek out the medical ways of a doctor?

Hancock: Could it be argued that he has a right to medical care?

Adams: A right? Let's say this waiter turns to a life of crime. He grabs a purse from a young lady and runs off. Suddenly, he trips over a wayward package that has fallen off a wagon and breaks his leg. Does he have a right to have it mended even though he brought his bad fortune upon himself by his own actions? I say not.

Jefferson: But, what about disease. What if the waiter continues to live a moral life but some years from now he is struck down by the kind of disease only the Lord can inflict? What then? Is he at fault? Should we not help?

Adams: No. He is not at fault and we should not. He is a participant in destiny - as we all are. We do not know why God has chosen to break his body. It is just broken and I have nothing to do with it. I am sad for him, but I am sad for many. Yet, I cannot be responsible for hundreds or even thousands of my fellow men whose destiny diverges from mine.

Hancock: So, gentlemen. Is it our consensus that the health care of this waiter rests not with society as a whole, but with himself, as an individual?

Franklin: Alas, he is another Poor Richard in a long line of misfortunate.

Jefferson: Even so, I would be willing to donate some coin to help.

Adams: I, too. But, our decision to be charitable should be just that. I would be highly offended - and would feel my liberty imposed upon - should a higher authority demand that I give any part of my hard-earned income to a coughing waiter.

Franklin: I agree. My knee hurts daily. No one offers to give me silver to buy treatments.

Adams: Ben, your knee hurts because you spent way too much time bowing to your precious French aristocracy in Paris.

All: (laughter)

Waiter: (coughs)

Jefferson: As for you: we trust you will not cough on our food. Gentlemen? A toast! To a future country that offers every man a chance to be free - and to be responsible for his freedom - no matter how fate may intercede.

All: Cheers and to good health!

- Corey Deitz