Americans have a very poor sense of duty. President Donald Trump’s followers’ rejection of the mandate to buy health insurance is indicative of the lack of this trait.
In my mind, physically fit and healthy individuals should take care of the injured, sick, disabled and aged. The mandate is a way of creating a system under which this occurs.
Individualism, although responsible for much human progress, fails to acknowledge tribal roots. Under tribalism, there is the one and the whole. The whole has a duty to the one and the one has a duty to the whole.
Americans need to discover a sense of duty. The mandate to buy health insurance is a good place to start.
Dale McCracken, Renton
Note from KBJ: Sorry, Dale. Your health is your responsibility, not mine. If the duty of which you speak is a moral duty, then there is nothing stopping you and like-minded people, right now, from paying for the health care of "the injured, sick, disabled and aged." Are you doing so? If not, why not? It's your duty, right? What you appear to want is coercion of some for the benefit of others. How is that justified, and where does it stop?
