A New Threat to Civil Liberties

Consider for a moment if, as the leftists want, we socialize health care. 

What will this lead to? Obviously, the state would be playing a larger role in the health care industry, possibly even running the whole thing itself.  But the important thing is who picks up the tab.  As long as the individual, not the state, is paying his own bills, it is fine to say he should be able to take whatever risky decisions he wants to with his body, since he is paying his own bills for the possible results of said risky decisions. 

In a socialized health system, where health care is 'free', and no individual is paying his own bill individually, there is a present and great incentive for the people to vote for infringements of civil liberties - to ban certain activities that, in a capitalistic health care system would be entirely acceptable due to the fact that the individual is picking up his own bill.

If you are a civil liberties advocate who cares little about economic freedom, you should consider this before you join the ranks of the socialized medicine supporters.  Once socialized health care gets passed, you will find yourself fighting an uphill battle to protect a great many non-economic freedoms.

For a quick example.  If health care is socialized, there will be an increasing incentive for the state to ban smoking or drinking because it is very unhealthy. 

In a socialist system, the state must pay the bills of the people who drinks or smokes, not the individual.  The result? In a universal health care system, the public has an interest in somehow forcing you to act the way they want you to - an incentive they would not have in a capitalistic system.

This line of thinking, when combined with a socialized universal health care system would, without a doubt, lead to more infringements of personal freedom and choice down the road.  Freedoms that you take for granted now to do all manner of unhealthy things from smoking to drinking to eating ice cream or  engaging in any other unhealthy activity if you want are suddenly more likely to be in the crosshairs of public debate in the future, if socialized health care is implimented. 

Any personal freedom that is unhealthy will be up in the air as long as it is arguable that it is likely to result in the state paying some form of bill or other, rather than the individual taking the risk.  Socialist health care will invariably lead to a reduction of personal freedom and choice in our society, if implimented. 

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There is a difference between an artificial price set by the government, and the market price.  If the price of a pack beer costs 5$ on the free-market, and you can afford that, but the government taxes the price up to 2000$/pack, and you can't afford that, your freedom of choice has been taken away by the government, effectively. 

The yacht companies in your example have a right to charge what they want for their product, since it is their product, and they own it until it has been purchased by someone.  Again, it is their property, and they can choose not to part with it unless they are offered a price that is acceptable to them (the seller).  This is entirely within their rights as property owners.  Anything less would be an infringement of their freedom of choice. 

This is entirely different from a scenario in which the government arbitrarily denies the freedom of choice to the consumer in the free-market.  In the given situation, the government is denying the consumer his rights to purchase the product from the seller at a price agreeable to the two of them.  This transaction between buyer and seller is a basic human right - the right to property, and the right to do with that property what you please (such as trade it away), as long as you aren't infringing upon the rights of others in the process.

By setting an artificial price, the government is interfering with a private and peaceful interaction between people and denying them basic liberties.