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Is Statist Medicine a Good Idea?

R. J. Rushdoony
  • R. J. Rushdoony
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As homeschooling parents/teachers, we need to supply our children/students with good, sound arguments in defense of liberty.

The following is excerpted from the essay "Statist Medicine" written in the 1980s by R.J. Rushdoony, who saw all-too-well the rise and effects of the statism in our time.

"There is no reason to suppose that a socialized and federalized medicine will be any more benevolent than the Internal Revenue Service. The I.R.S., after all, was created with at least equal idealistic motives. Anyone who can think of the I.R.S. as the people's friend today does indeed have mental problems! Socialized medicine will be no better than the I.R.S., and potentially far worse. Any and everything which puts us into contact with a powerful state and its bureaucracy is dangerous, and socialized medicine will place us in a very close relationship to the power-state: at pregnancy and childbirth, in ill health and accidents, for a variety of required medical examinations and much more. Also, as euthanasia becomes an accepted practice like abortion, the more the state knows about you, the less safe you are."*

*The complete essay is found in the book Roots of Reconstruction.


R. J. Rushdoony
  • R. J. Rushdoony

Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.

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