Trans journalist Erin Reed called Douthat’s interview “hostile” and noted that El-Sayed previously stood up for trans rights when asked in August by Fox News’ Jesse Watters whether he supports “sex changes for minors.” El- Sayed replied, “The government shouldn’t tell you what kind of health care you should have, and if you’re a minor, that’s between you and your doctor and your parents.”
In September, a state university student asked about his position on gender-affirming care. El-Sayed answered, “I don’t think the government gets to have a say about what health care is provided in what circumstances and why.”
Reed also praised El-Sayed for remaining steadfastly committed to trans rights at a time when other Democratic politicians have adopted right-wing framing, saying they oppose government-funded surgeries for trans kids (something that almost never occurs) and “biological men in women’s sports” (an inaccurate and insulting reference to trans girls and women athletes who want to play on sports teams matching their gender identity).
“El-Sayed’s race will be one of the most important to watch on election night,” Reed wrote. “If he can win a highly contested seat despite the anti-transgender Republican money spent against him and the attacks from the right-leaning wing of his own party, it will be a clear case that embracing anti-trans views is not required to win swing states and swing districts across the United States.”
On his campaign website, under the heading “Healthcare Freedom for Women and LGBTQ+ Americans,” El-Sayed wrote, “Healthcare decisions should be made by a patient (and their parents if they are a minor) and their doctor–no one else. That includes reproductive and gender-affirming care…. I oppose any effort to criminalize certain medications and the use of lawfare or funding cuts to stop healthcare providers from providing full-spectrum healthcare that meet all the needs of their diverse communities.”
Sure, but so what? What you’re missing here is the whole picture, which isn’t a knock on you. I never said this was simple, but it’s also not that complicated when you really get down to it.
Let’s say you do own Mars and everyone (or at least, the relative force monopoly) respect that and protect your rights over it. So what? Why should that even be a bad thing from a subjective perspective? Someone HAS to have exclusive authority over everything. There’s no such thing as a government - not really. A government is an idea, and ideas cannot own property. They can SAY they own property, but you can say anything you want. An agent of the government can just make a claim saying they can take your house and then the “government” owns it, all the while that single representative is the one who actually has exclusive authority over it.
The notion that you have some say over “public property” (a clear misnomer) is illusory. At least one person who represents “government” has the final say in what happens with that property. There’s no vote, and even if there is, there’s only a vote because that person or people let it happen. To argue that it’d be absurd to allow you to be the exclusive owner of Mars is nonsensical. Even if this weren’t the case, who exactly do you think is going to have exclusive authority over it if we ever do anything with the planet? Someone will. It will likely be divided up between owners, and many - if not the majority of those owners are going to be “government”.
Let’s assume you “own” a house. Do you, really? Do you hold EXCLUSIVE authority over that house? Can you do anything you want with it barring those actions do not violate the will of your neighbors? Well of course not. Hell, you can’t even finish your basement without the OK from the city. But there also is no OK from “the city”, is there? There’s always a PERSON who gives the OK. What does it matter who voted that person to have that authority? Who cares if that person has a badge, or a uniform, or claims to be “government”? Nothing changes that from just being a human being with the final say in what happens to a thing.
And what about property tax? You never stop paying taxes on the home you reportedly own.
So let’s go back to the Mars thing. So you own it, so what? What do you actually think you can do with Mars in a TRUE free society where we actually have freedom of both association and exclusive authority over our own property? Let’s say people ask to buy some land on Mars from you and you say no. OK, what if people want you to let them put hospitals on the planet, or power plants, or research facilities, or some such that might better mankind as a whole and you say no?
Well OK, so what stops your reputation from being tarnished due to an overwhelming feeling from people that you’re just a selfish asshole? If I own a place that sells food, I can just blacklist you from buying food from me. What happens if you can’t make purchases from a large portion of businesses because your reputation is so tarnished that everyone wants nothing to do with you?
What if your money becomes worthless because nobody will trade with you?
A true free society is one where someone can refuse to sell to black people and that’s “OK” because even if you and I disagree with that stance, we have freedom of association, so we can just refuse to associate with that individual.
If you like I can touch on your other points but I only had a few minutes to respond right now.
“Sure, but so what?”
Well, for starters, you’ve just conceded that your supposedly objective moral framework allows someone to acquire exclusive ownership of an entire planet simply by thinking about it first.
And your defense is that people might boycott them if they refuse to share? What does someone’s reputation have to do with the moral legitimacy of their ownership?
You also claim that “someone HAS to have exclusive authority over everything.”
Why? A government official approving a building permit doesn’t own the building. You’re conflating ownership with decision-making authority and presenting another unsupported assumption as objective logic.
But here’s the real problem:
Your entire philosophy supposedly rests on the principle that nobody’s will has objectively greater value than anyone else’s. Yet you’re arguing that my desire to own Mars at noon gives me moral authority over someone who desires it at 12:01, along with every future generation of humanity.
Why does my desire suddenly carry greater moral weight simply because it occurred first?
And before you say “because I owned it first,” that’s circular reasoning. We’re questioning what makes that ownership legitimate in the first place.
You keep responding to requests for logical justification with additional assertions about how you think society should function.
That’s not deriving morality from logic. That’s constructing a moral framework around your preferred assumptions.
So let’s make this incredibly simple: What principle of formal logic establishes that the first person to desire exclusive control of something gains a moral right to exclude everyone else?
Because so far, your objectively derived theory of property rights seems indistinguishable from calling dibs and declaring it a universal law of morality.