Also, I would actually question the legitimacy of the notion of consent that you are assuming as obvious.
1) I am not everybody. So to say, “the people elect X”, doesn’t mean that I voted for X or that I consented to obey X by voting. I could vote for a large number of reasons, all of which having no bearing on my actual allegiance. Even further, I could have abstained from voting altogether, so there is consent granted by the voting process that I see. Heck, given that voters are the minority, it is hard to claim that “the people” have done anything.
2) The notion of implicit consent doesn’t work. There are a large number of problems:
a) Moving is an enormous expense. This is relevant because in order to call something “consent”, we have to say that getting out of the supposed contract is something that can be done by a reasonable person. The issue is that we don’t see this in this situation. Rather, the barriers to switching are larger than most products we would call a monopoly. In fact, I would have to argue that if we saw these barriers in any other “industry”, we would not call this consent at all.
b) “Peacefully” is a problem. You have to recognize that if anybody violated the law, they would suffer immensely. The problem here is that basically, by you taking this premise, you are stacking the deck for your own idea. It is hardly consent if dissent leads to immense suffering/loss.
c) These requirements seem to beg the question. You see, in order for voluntary co-existence to be consent, we have to assume that the government is legitimate, but the government is legitimate because people implicitly consent, but people can only implicitly consent if the government is legitimate. So, we have a circle between implied consent and legitimacy that ends up destroying the notion.
d) Arguably any government at any time can be held as having implicit consent, even very bad governments who take extreme actions. The issue is that we don’t regard bad governments as highly legitimate, even though I think your theory forces us to predict that they often are. Perhaps you’ll qualify the matter more, but you can’t say that everybody tries to escape even a bad government, and certainly you have to admit that even our government includes in your existence here a possibility of being executed or drafted to possibly die for a cause you don’t really agree with.

Now, I just bring this up simply because I dislike social contract theory. I mean, one can still feel fine with paying taxes and not have social contract theory, but I don’t think it works to analytically prove consent.

As for your argument for taxation, the issue is not whether it is Biblical to pay taxes, but rather whether it is Biblical to ask for them. I think one could reasonably argue that your verses don’t apply so much to the latter question. I would think though that to go totally anti-tax, one would have to argue for removing the government entirely. (even tariffs are still taxes on individuals) However, I think most people don’t want to go that far. (If they did, then I think they could make a Biblical case that government is immoral. For instance, with Luke 4:5-6, to argue that Satan owns governments.)

“Therefore Christians should weigh the retention of their material wealth against the possibility of that wealth providing a social safety net for the unfortunate, or providing protection for their neighbors.”

The problem is that it is only a hindrance for the Christian. You have to recognize that if you are going to make this argument, then you could just as justifiably argue for holding to Sodomy laws for protecting the virtue of society, as it is still trying to hold people who may not be Christians to a higher burden for a Christian causes. After all, social virtue can also be considered a public good as many conservatives point out. As it stands, one can make the argument that the Christian notion of goodness is one of personal sacrifice.

As for your last point, I am sure that every anarchist would disagree with you, but I like radical political theory more than you do.

It admittedly gets murkier when the consequence of not getting treatment is death or long-term disability. Is “Give me $1 million or I will let you die” any better than “Give me $1 million or I will kill you”? I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that I would never want to tell someone either.

In an ideal capitalist system (admittedly such a thing is as unrealistic as any other “ideal” system :)), the incentives would work in favor of good, cheap healthcare rather than exploitation. People will ideally choose the providers that offer the best value for the money. The reward for exploiting your customers is ideally that you no longer have any customers, as they have flocked to someone else providing a better value. If existing providers are all offering high prices, there is ideally a huge incentive to enter the market as a supplier, offer lower prices, and take all of the customers.

As you point out in the original article, this works well for a lot of things but isn’t working out very well for healthcare in the US. A hybrid system that provides basic care on the taxpayer’s dime, but still allows people to opt in to better care may well be the best practical compromise between the two ideals of capitalism and socialism.

At any rate, thanks for giving me something worthwhile to think about while I’m at work. :) It’s always a pleasure to read other people’s perspectives and try to formulate my own into actual English sentences.

http://americanclarity.com/2009/05/30/spirituality-vs-religion/

Personally, I think it’s nice of you to not want to offend your brothers and sisters, but ultimately there is sin, Christ had to die for it, and although we’re no longer going to hell because of his sacrifice, becoming a Christian should imply that He’s molding us to His character, in both His moral nature and in His self-sacrifice.

His word should be the moral law. Without it, we cannot confess our sins to Him and become more like Him as required in 1 John.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%201:5-10;&version=31;

Furthermore, in Matthew 5, Christ taught is that those who teach others to disobey His law will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Notice the “in the kingdom of heaven” part. That includes those who are not going to hell. I don’t know what you mean when you say “controversial practices,” but I wouldn’t be too condoning there. Sin leads us to grieve the Spirit, and when we’re not under control of the Spirit, we’re under the control of our flesh.

So while we shouldn’t shake our fingers out of condemnation, we should do it out of a desire of restoration. Doing anything less would be an act void of real love.

Dmoney:
Is coercion any better if it comes in the form of red ink? The problem being here, is that for a Capitalized system the incentives are setup to foster exploitation rather than to reward good care. Socialized health care is far from perfect for sure and I would love to see a healthy hybrid of the two working in the US. Most of the best healthcare systems in the world are a mix of public and private. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden are all this way. They have private clinics that take anyone who has private insurance, as well as public hospitals that will take both public and private insurance. Its sad that this myth of these two systems being mutually exclusive is so prevalent here.

Jeremy:
You’re right, it would reduce costs somewhat, but it wouldn’t be a huge change. Tort fees and malpractice settlements only account for 0.46% of total health care spending in the US. Source

Thanks for the Comments guys, its always good to have feedback!

But aside from the fact that corporations have the capability to raise prices (which when done reasonably makes sense), what kind of impact do you think frivolous lawsuits have on prices for medical services? Do you think that caps should be placed on lawsuits, as well as a “loser pays” system for lawyer’s fees?

After all, before we became an incredibly litigious society, a man could pay for his family’s medical bills without breaking the bank. These lawsuits cost doctors big.

At least with a capitalist system I get to choose how much I think healthcare is worth. There are many areas I would rather invest my resources in than trying in vain to keep myself alive forever, and if we as a culture didn’t put such a ridiculous emphasis on life-at-any-cost, the market wouldn’t charge us so much for it. :)

I see what you are saying. As with any thing else, without love, it’s of questionable value. I like your observation about the role of authenticity as a point of accountability in community.

Thanks for the input!

The entire point of being authentic with people is that I get the added leverage of friends saying “You told me last week that you were trying to drink less, but now you’re saying how drunk you were on Monday night. What’s up with that?” And ideally I’m providing a similar level of accountability for them. It’s 100% about community and having calibration points for my behavior outside of myself. Within that context, authenticity is a great thing.

If it’s just about asserting that we are the way we are and to hell with the consequences, then I agree with you that it’s worse than useless.

I firmly believe in the concept of evolution. (Which is very different from scientific arguments about exactly how it occurred.) But I’m still working on what implications that has for my Christian faith.