If you live in a “progressive” state or commonwealth with an equally soft governor, you may have heard a proclamation concerning deadly coronavirus, that ended something like this: “We can get through this. When times have been tough in the past Americans have pulled together and that is what will get us through this today… together. We are all in this, together.”
What was being meant, in fact, was everything including the next-to-the-last “together.” The last sentence really wasn’t “we” are all in this together – it was “YOU are all in this together.” You know what you thought you heard, but that’s because you haven’t recognized until right now, that when a state official, or even a minor state functionary, says “we,” he or she means “YOU,” the person with the target on your back. So it is with coronavirus and the ‘stay at home’ and business-cessation directives. There’s an “us” and “them” equation at work. If you’re a state official, or a political hack who works for the state, or a unionized state employee, or the otherwise unemployable cousin of a judge or court clerk, “us” means yourself and every other person on the state payroll or receiving a generous state pension, and includes every welfare recipient and illegal entrant. That’s who “us” is.
“Them” is you, me and every other tax-paying zhlub who actually, in reality, DOES work for the state, supporting every paycheck that “us” cashes. See how it works? Only people in the dreaded private sector are hurt – possibly destroyed financially – due to the absolutely essential shutdowns and lay-offs. We are “them,” vis a’ vis the state. We are not the people who don’t lose a penny of pay, benefits or pension; we are the ONLY people in all this togetherness who DO lose a lot, if not everything. “You are all in this together, you saps.” (Okay, okay, I added the “saps” part.)
Massachusetts is one of those squishy, “progressive” states with a soft, “progressive” Governor. These kinds of states are typically one-party ruled, not Republican, although that line is blurry. An observer can spot the squishiness thanks to a few shared qualities of how those states are governed. Payroll is a big one. State employees are comparatively highly paid compared to private-sector employees, sometimes egregiously so. Massachusetts, an obvious example, has 930 or more employees making over $200,000 per year, a large number making $200K to $900K, and two who make over $1 Million per year. Despite being on salary, many earn overtime which gets paid at a much higher rate, especially for state police officers, for whom total pay can easily exceed $300,000. Of course, unlike the dreaded private sector (DPS), there are automatic raises for “public” employees. All one need do is avoid murdering someone to see steady increases.
Recently a host of state police officers were “convicted” (admin slap on the wrist) of defrauding the state and its taxpayers, by claiming overtime hours not worked. The amounts were in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, and the fraudulent activities extended to supervisors with higher ranks. All of those found out were making a lot more than the average income of the citizens they are “sworn” to protect. They lost their jobs but – and here you’ll want to hang on to the arms of your chair – they didn’t lose their pensions! Our beneficent, democratically elected governors, and THE governor, who purports to be a Republican, and the shadowy boards and commissions they have placed between justice and state-employed criminals over many years, decided to not actually punish the criminals who have stolen from their ostensible bosses (pesky private sector taxpayers), unlike what the consequences would be if any of those civilian citizens had similarly defrauded the state or other citizens.
“You’re all in this together,” the Governor meant to say. “You have to stay home; you can’t gather in groups, even with family; you can’t go to the movies, to a barber, or to the gym; you’ll have to stop working in most industries and occupations; you’ll have to file for unemployment. Even though your customers will stop buying from you or mailing you checks for past work performed or products delivered, you will just have to suffer economic ruin even though you committed no crime except to be susceptible to a disease you only recently heard of. Have a nice day. Hunker down and we’ll (you’ll) get through this together. We in state government will, at the same time, look very concerned while sacrificing none of our pay or benefits and enforcing the statewide shutdown on you, our beloved supporters.”
Prudence will be served best by a rational analysis of how
and why the COVID-19 strain of “coronavirus” so dramatically upset governance,
liberty and economics, compared to other flu-like illnesses that infect huge
numbers of Americans every year. This essay
is beginning at the height – or the depth – of the national economic shutdowns
and of the extraordinary fears that have everyone suspicious of every other
warm, breathing human. It wasn’t going
to be published until we were at the other end of this national economic
threat, which will, it seems Prudent to say, going to arrive. But it cannot wait. What can this new virus be compared to?
Annually, more than 30 MILLION U. S. residents make hospital
visits due to the 4 common flu viruses. And
hospitals are busier because of them: there are some 200,000 hospitalizations. This happens with no enforced shutdowns of
business and trade, or restrictions on movement of legal residents. If someone tells you they may have the “flu,”
you back away, say “don’t give it to me,” smile and recommend your favorite
home remedy: “Hot water with lemon. Make
sure it’s fresh lemon, squeeze it so you get all the juice.” Then you carry on your daily activity, sure
that you have cured someone.
Television advertising reminds everyone of the wonderful “flu” medications for sale that, in fact, suppress symptoms, enabling customers to feel good enough to go to work! But, did you know that in the 2017 – 2018 “flu season” that there were 900,000 hospitalizations? You didn’t hear about that then? Weren’t the media keeping us up to the second with every new case, and in which county and city it appeared? You weren’t afraid to leave the house? Why not? EIGHTY THOUSAND people died from flu that year, and in just a few months! Ye Gods! We should have been cowering, waiting for the federal government to rescue the entire country and we failed – we failed – to pay attention. Thank God we survived that crisis.
The 2017 – 2018 season was 4 TIMES worse than the year
before and our virtuous political leaders were asleep at the switch. How was it that they didn’t whip us into a
frenzy of prevention, segregation and economic dependency?
Is it Prudent to offer a couple of predictions? One is that a relative handful of economic
powers, some or all at least partially financial
powers, will emerge with MORE economic power than they had prior to
COVID-19. Why does this seem
likely? Because those are they who know
how to profit from crises, whether military or medical.
Want another? The
crisis we believe coronavirus has created, will be extended in many aspects,
into the Fall, possibly through the beginning of November. It’s possible that enough economic damage
will have been done by mid-April for this to happen regardless of politics, but
if not, political considerations will make it last for two valid reasons: 1)
Democrats believe they can damage Trump into non-re-electability if things get “bad
enough;” 2) Republicans believe that
managing a terrible crisis with signs of steady improvement, will keep the
nation from “changing horses in mid-stream.”
It would be more Prudent to put the whole thing to bed, so to speak,
before the middle of April. Let’s hope
this prediction doesn’t pan out.
Based on the tawdry quibbling over how many non-virus-related hands will get greased by the, perhaps, $2 Trillion dollar rescue, bailout, support, small-business/ big-business load the Congress is “debating,” many socialist dreams could get realized thanks to the Chinese coronavirus. Rational residents of our once-great nation should be shaking their heads at the crude nature of most of those august men and women, but we’re afraid to spread the virus ourselves. Evidently, the House under Speaker Pelosi, has tried to include a dozen or more components of the leftist agenda in the “emergency” legislation. One has to wonder.
Another prediction involves the health-care industry/system. They are moving public policy at every level of government while struggling to meet the sudden pressures of a contagious disease. It’s a disease that needs lots of products for just protection of care-givers – more than anyone had in stock. It also requires lots of specialized equipment for treating those infected – more than anyone had in stock. COVID-19 also requires lots of decisions about how to both remove the shortages of stuff, and to “prevent” the continued spread of infection – there is an oversupply of those: politician-provided. And, unlike gloves, masks and ventilators, the proper operation of decisions is very difficult to measure or evaluate.
By definition decisions are made in advance. Decisions made about the past are notoriously
ineffective. Real decisions lay courses
of action, often without knowing which of the potential consequences will
actually manifest. There is always a
hope that the one consequence a decision-maker prefers will be the one that
happens, but once a decision is made, it’s a bit of a crap-shoot. There are too many moving parts to control
which consequence will be true tomorrow, or the next day, or a week or so from
decision time. In this current matter,
the decision was to keep people from congregating, even down to groups as small
as, well… two! This has a corollary that
says most businesses must close, especially those that operate with
congregations of people – like restaurants, churches, schools, public
transportation, planes and on… and on… and on.
It means no weddings or funerals, no court sessions, no legislative
gatherings, no business meetings, book clubs or sales leads groups. Very few business activities will be “allowed”
to happen. Meanwhile, millions of people
are not paid, millions of transactions are unconsummated, billions of dollars
of commerce are unrealized, and trillions of dollars of wealth are vaporized in
a few days.
Was this damage a decision or an unfortunate
consequence? Who could possibly benefit
from this consequence? Some will,
unfortunately. As this shakes out –
hopefully with the United States still an independent nation (this is relative)
– the new economic patterns will emerge and we’ll see the beneficiaries. China will have something to do with them.
Odd, it seems, that the paralysis of the West has coincided with the miraculous cessation of reported cases in China. Clearly China has manipulated its stories about coronavirus, its reports about coronavirus, its claims about who started the virus’ infections (the U. S.), its denials of anything wrong having ever been done by China regarding coronavirus or regarding the punishment of doctors attempting to warn the government of China about its uncontrollable spread, and now, about the incredible end of new infections. Is there any reason to believe that this disease was not released to have precisely the effect it has had on America and Europe? Or, to believe that the West has reacted in the only ways most favorable to China?
You may have heard of this new virus, COVID-19? Many have.
It’s not as widespread as “the flu” or hemorrhoids, but it’s becoming a
popular meme. The Chinese provided the
best possible environment for the rapid spread of “Coronavirus,” but they are
quite reluctant to take full credit for their successes with this new flu virus. Funny, that, for the progressive and benign
inventors of virtually everything, starting with justice for all.
People and governments,
businesses and schools and other institutions, have reacted in some ways
foolishly. Again, the Chinese were world
leaders, although they have started to forcibly push that honor onto the United
States, displaying their progressive generosity, to the point of claiming the
highest honor of all: being the victims of COVID-19, rather than the originators. How friendly is that?
There
are numerous “corona” viruses, 7 at least.
Some of them haven’t “sold” as well due, possibly, from their not having
been granted cool, mysterious names.
Right now, COVID-19 is hot, and everyone seems to want it… or, at least,
wants to worry about it. 229E (alpha coronavirus), NL63
(alpha coronavirus), OC43 (beta coronavirus), and HKU1 (beta coronavirus), all
gain customers every year but are never celebrated as much as SARS, MERS or the
king, COVID-19. I mean, who the Hell
would want people to know he or she were suffering from “NL63?” No one, that’s who.
“Coronavirus,” however, or COVID-19, clearly carries a certain élan, some people are so
excited about it they are posting their symptoms and difficulties for all to
envy and, perhaps, copy, if they’re lucky.
Admittedly, your correspondent, who has never caught SARS, MERS,
229E, NL63, OC43, or HKU1, and not even the 2009 Swine Flu, and whose ability
to get within 6 feet of COVID-19 is equally in doubt, still shares your desire
for victimhood and all the benefits that go with it. President Trump and Congress have cooperated
to pump air into our virus-deflating economy.
They call the air, “money,” so-called “billions” of dollars’ worth. It, and many regulatory changes may prove
valuable in the limiting of COVID-19’s popularity, so those of you who have gotten
hold of some will be even more famous as the weeks and years go by.
Popular and social media, along with other “influencers,” have
managed to whip up a pretty good frenzy over “coronavirus.” In response, every business that typically
attracts crowds of people to its products, from Wal-Mart to the NBA, major
league baseball, the NHL and various marathons and fun-raisers, have cancelled
or postponed their events, at great economic loss. Individual star-players have stepped forward
to financially support the hundreds of ancillary employees and businesses that
function to operate sporting events and to serve their attendees. Real generosity, as compared to the “federal”
type. A lot of the lost or displaced economic
activity will never be restored or replaced.
Some businesses, naturally, will benefit mightily… paper-goods
manufacturers, for example and any store or supermarket that sells them. Bottled-water purveyors and those same
stores, again. Company’s that make hand
sanitizer, antiseptic surface wipes and face-masks, among other goods, are
doing nicely as sheeple attack their supplies to obtain extra quantities of
those items that no one and no family, certainly, could bear to do without.
Toilet paper is a big item as the perceived threat of worldwide
pestilence rears its empty head. Dozens
of rolls. If the supply chain for toilet
paper gets severed, people are calculating, their family is not going to suffer
the absence of toilet paper until the very last possible minute. This is perfectly logical, possibly even
Prudent, although neither quality can be judged on real merits. Faced with a frightening disease, the natural
reaction is to stock up on toilet paper.
Clearly adherents of this philosophy have not thought things through: if
conditions deteriorate to the complete cessation of toilet-paper production,
there likely won’t be any food to eat, either, and wiping one’s butt will mean
less and less in the grand scheme of things, until we are all smothered by the
final, rapid descent of what’s left of the sky, bonking us all on our heads,
rendering us senseless. No shit?
Basically, coronavirus, COVID-19, is a new strain of an old
friend, causing a variant of the seasonal flu.
AS WITH ALL “FLU” VIRUSES, elderly, especially elderly nursing-home residents
are at the greatest risk, as are those with other respiratory diseases or
weaknesses, smokers and those otherwise immune-compromised. Without strong immune systems, infected
victims will find it hard to conquer the virus, and in those, the virus will
replicate at its fastest, causing fluid build-up in the lungs and death from
pneumonia or, in effect, drowning. No
one wishes such an end on anyone.
The “flu,” we have observed, tends to decline in the spring and
virtually disappear in the summer. Why
would that be so, if it’s so virulent?
Why are some people able to fend it off easily in its “high” season, mid
to late winter? Why are carefully-tended
nursing home residents so susceptible?
It’s all dependent upon individuals.
It is our habits, our practices, our health and nutrition and our good
sense that enables a virus like COVID-19 to succeed or fail.
Why do flu viruses infect more people in the winter? In large part it is because humans tend to
have more bronchial and rhinopharyngial inflammations in cold weather. We cough, our sinuses produce more fluids and
mucus, we blow our nose, and our bronchial tubes collect mucus and fluids. We work hard to get rid of these intruders
and enflame these sensitive linings.
Both bacteria and viruses find welcoming environments and it’s off to
the races. Over the period of a couple of
weeks to a month our bodies fight off the infections and our immune systems are
invigorated. Fairly soon there are fewer
and fewer people who are contagious and the season passes into spring and summer,
and another factor kicks in: sunshine.
Vitamin D is essential in all sorts of organic functions,
including strengthening our immune systems.
We are likely to be a little healthier in warm weather because we get
more sunlight and our skin creates more vitamin D. It’s not just that simple, but it’s not a lot
more complicated, either. Nursing-home
residents don’t get as much sunshine, for one thing, rarely consume really good
meals, don’t get to take supplements, and are kept away from viruses to a great
extent, thus rarely exercising their immunities, leaving them more vulnerable
than just age alone would make them.
With flu warnings hammering us every “flu season,” we also modify
our habits, cover our coughs and sneezes more diligently, stay away from others
when we’re feeling ill, take our vitamins more diligently, wash our hands more
often, things like that. And, we survive
the flu, kind-of like the way we are surviving the new “coronavirus” this year,
too. There aren’t many MORE ways to have
reacted badly to COVID-19 than the ones we have and are trying, starting with
the Chinese in particular. If we had
simply described this virus as an especially aggressive flu bug and blasted the
airwaves with how to protect ourselves and what to do if our symptoms are one
way or another, we’d be acting extra carefully and still going about our daily
and business activities. There’d be more
absenteeism, but no mania, the cost of which we can hardly estimate.
COVID-19s is a nasty bug.
It has a more severe effect on lungs than other coronaviruses, making
breathing difficult and stressing hearts.
The death rate is higher, too, and, like other coronaviruses, mainly for
senior citizens, rates spike with age and certain pre-existing conditions. Number-one is heart disease. Another big one is diabetes, which is its own
epidemic in overweight America. If your
health is already under attack, please protect yourself. For age groups over 60 the risks are
higher. Compared to other well-known flu’s
– the ones that come back every winter – the death rates spike higher with this
new one for these at-risk, older groups.
Use good sense: don’t snuggle with anyone exhibiting ANY flu symptoms.
In the United States, hyper-politicized and divided into sets of
enemies, we have allowed the entry of the latest coronavirus to modify our
governance and our economic relationships, citizens and federal government, and
states and federal government. It’s
dangerous.
COVID-19 is a serious disease, mainly because it is more easily
transferred than other flu’s. It doesn’t
mean we’re all doomed to catch it, nor that every senior citizen is going to
die if he or she is infected. The speed
of its spread has tripped up health systems, but now that it is better
understood, the natural anxiety caused by the rate of infection can be set
aside and replaced with best practices to help people recover, AS MOST OF THE
INFECTED ARE GOING TO DO. Reactive
mania, while politically irresistible, is not particularly helpful beyond the
shortest of terms. The concerns about
testing rates have more to do with getting the infection statistics right than
with specific treatments for those infected.
One of the reasons South Korea has relatively low infection and death
rates is its widespread testing. That
data keeps panic at bay. With cleaner
air nationwide, and lower smoking rates than Asian nations, Americans are in
some ways healthier and somewhat less at risk.
Americans have learned, on a sudden, how quickly their freedoms
may be curtailed by a handful of press conferences and an executive declaration
of a “state of emergency.” Families can
be disrupted with school closings and by “woke” corporations changing job
descriptions without notice. Whole
businesses may be shut down by arbitrary event-attendee limitations, mostly by
state authorities. It seems unreal, yet the
expansion of economic, social and religious displacements is evident with every
hourly newscast. It seems imPrudent.
Take your vitamins, extra C, as much as 3,000 IU’s of vitamin D, eat fresh fruits and veggies, and an orange every day. It makes a lot more sense to stock up on oranges, lemons and limes than toilet paper. Don’t smoke… anything. Get plenty of sleep. Don’t frequent venues where people are packed tightly together; stay away from others if you feel sick, have a tough cough or are sneezy. Pray – praying for those who are sick is always recommended. While you’re at it, ask God to protect our hapless United States of America.
Lyon Hospital, Department of urology. Sex reassignment surgery, transgender Female to Male, hystero-ovariectomy under laparoscopy. Operation which precedes the phalloplasty, hysterectomy, ovariectomy, vaginectomy, (Photo By BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“Male and female created He them.” For hundreds, thousands, millions of years,
this truth was not a burden on humanity.
Many would rather ignore the whole statement because they don’t – or
don’t want to – accept the “He” portion.
Somehow, and religious teachers must bear some blame, “we” have, over
just a couple of decades, tried to
undo the essential facts of biology: male and female. Being called a female or male, amazingly,
collides with thousands of people’s beliefs.
Why has this phenomenon crept out of counselors’ offices and parents’
concern? Who are they who work so
tirelessly to force the sexual variant of Jonestown
on the rest of society?
Because lives are definitely lost amongst this new belief
structure.
Transgender-ism is a belief structure. It is not supported by biological fact in any
but the rarest of anomalies. It is a
belief, usually quite temporary, that one’s body is the “wrong” one. This is a strange thing to believe… strange
only if other humans were interested in discovering the source of the belief,
itself. But, strange becomes “normal”
and deserving of societal respect if – and only if – the individual’s feelings
have been elevated to the level of truth:
truth in the absence of evidence, a new faith.
Non-evidenced “truths” are now receiving legal
status as craven legislators bend over as far as possible to pander to
the new faith. Sadly, there are craven
doctors, too.
And craven educators.
Public schools are not merely tolerating and preventing overt discrimination or bullying against children pretending to be their opposite gender, but they are encouraging transgenderism among those children who are, for the moment, envious of the opposite sex. Parents, and professionals, ought to be helping children to be comfortable with their bodies, not to be revolting against them. At the same time, adults should all be trying to find the source of childrens’ “gender dysphoria.”
The resolution of this heretofor rare condition, is something adults should pursue, even if it means
a full social transition. Few people
will need to know that an individual was not born as he or she appears. Whether full surgical mutilation is called
for, is quite another question.
In the past decade the number of dysphoric youth has grown
1,500% to 5,000% and even more in some countries, with the ratio of girls to
boys flipping dramatically. Why? Transgenderism “advocates” would say that
only now are trans youth enjoying the freedom to express their “true”
identities, thus accounting for the explosive growth. Critics of the trend might see a frightening
desire, like a virus from the bowels of China, that infects female and male
alike, however disproportionately, with the desire to escape the
responsibilities of their sex.
There are unnumbered ways to achieve sexual release, alone, in pairs or even groups, and none require total denial of self, or bodily mutilation, so there is something else at work, beyond the sexual. Perhaps it is more Prudent to consider a virus that infects not those who reflect its torment but their parents, schools, and social institutions, like unbalanced feminism, which, with other failures of freedom, convince late-term, newborn, toddlers and pre-schoolers (which age socialists and fascists would have include all of the earlier mentioned) to distrust, if not hate, the prospects of womanhood and manhood. Despite our access to Instagram and Twitter, Panera, Chick Fil-A, Starbucks and weed, our twisted norms create a society in which children don’t want to be, well… who they are.
The result is not true gender dysphoria for most of its claimants, but a hatred for life, itself. Prior to actual suicide (the end-game for many who attempt to change their sex) these, now, tens of thousands try to kill their personal realities.
For those who are dysphoric, one’s heart must fill with
sympathy, and great care should be shown them, and tolerance and kindness. For most of the new residents of Jonestown,
however, new beliefs, alone, can save them however that counseling can be
accomplished. Doctors and clinics that
press them with chemical and surgical confirmation of unreality, are but
licensed charlatans. Their parents,
worse.
Shame on religious institutions. From old, old texts, replete with truths eternal, they have made difficult lessons and philosophies not more clear, but softer and “more inclusive,” practically rejecting realities in order to fill pews. The elegance and majesty of womanhood should be the easiest clay to work into gracefulness and motherhood, but they’ve largely failed to enhance those values. The responsibilities and required wisdom that men are obligated to accept and to achieve, are trivialized and even derogated, as boys are drugged into submission and global communications portray men not as leaders but as fools.
The institutions of our culture and nationhood, almost as
though coordinated by some evil puppeteer, are all reinforcing the concepts of
unreality and hyper-sexualization.
Websites produce and provide pornography 24/7 for free, perhaps the most
insidious attack on men, marriage and mental health. Congress after congress ignore this corrosion
without even discussing ways to restrict and limit global pornographics. Why?
Money? Is this addiction
different from opioids, gambling or tobacco?
Or does it simply expose the flaws within males that all “woke” geniuses
knew were there all along?
In a thousand ways we have made life, itself,
unattractive. Why would thousands of
young people, even youngsters, refuse to the point of embarrassment and
mutilation, to be who each actually is? Is
it because so many are born with the “wrong” body? All of a sudden? Doubtful. Birth is not the issue, Prudence believes,
but influences, even before birth. We
are teaching boys that being male is a sort of disease; and teaching girls that
life is a system of oppressions, including motherhood.
The destruction of social roles and values is reaping its
foul rewards with great efficiency. The end-game
is social dissolution, loss of nation-hood, economic stratification and, worse,
institutionalized unreality. What shall
we teach our children when lies have gained legal status?
There are people who believe that the latest health threat
to emanate from China is caused or somehow made contagious by Corona Beer, a
well-known health threat from Mexico. It
is on this canvas that the gloppy acrylics of impeachment, economics,
presidential politics, petro-dollar monetary policy, Antifa, Hezbollah, North
Korea, opioid deaths and suicides, and the real threat of coronavirus must
create a picture that is both truthful and meaningful to majorities in dozens
of countries including our own. Whew! There are 15 national leaders whose views and
beliefs about these and other issues, will define the next ten years and
beyond: Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin
Netanyahu, Ali Khamenei, Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping, Ram Nath
Kovind, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Volodymyr Zelensky (who at least has a sense of humor), Arif
Alvi (who doesn’t), and both last and least, Nicolás Maduro, who is an idiot.
Mixed up in all of their opinions is the existence
of American constitutionalism, our ostensible structure of rights and freedoms,
and our unbalanced, imperial economy.
Our primary concern must be the survival of the United States and
freedom itself. What presidential
politics does every four years is stir us enough to reflect on our beliefs
about our nation and our country, not the same things.
Democrat hotheads, committed to control of… well,
everything, have impeached Trump to no good end, although his acquittal was
never in real doubt. No good end,
certainly, but the disinformation value of, first Mueller, and then impeachment
itself, must appear to elected Democrat leaders as a worthy end
nevertheless. Those who now shy away
from bottled Corona most assuredly cling to bottled hatreds, known and unknown,
but felt viscerally. So there is the
worthiness of relentless hatred of the aforementioned Mr. Trump.
There should be little disagreement with the
proposition that hatred is the worst
basis for political competition, yet hatred is everywhere employed in the United
States, of all places. Hatred doesn’t
develop automatically. Fear does: it’s
pure ethnocentrism, even “racism,” per se.
But racism and fear of difference are not hatred. Hatred is a visceral
desire to kill or destroy the “other.”
To fear or to mistrust a stranger – or a strange “culture” – is
instinctive and need not be taught. To HATE
that person or group requires coaching, teaching, explanation and
mythology. It’s a long-term, methodical
process to convert fear to hatred. Who
does crap like that?
Here and there are parents who were, themselves,
taught to hate certain others and to varying degrees manage to convince their
children to also hate them. But it’s not
as easy to do in the modern era, as public schools, ostensibly, fight the urge
to bully or to gang-up on the unusual or most defenseless kids. To some degree, children receiving messages
of hatred at home are going to hear enough lessons countering that prejudice,
that fewer and fewer reach early adulthood with firm hatreds.
Yet, now we have a split electorate, fueled by the
sweet lies of socialists (people complain about Trump’s looseness with the
truth but never a peep about the absolute and historical bullshit spread in the
name of socialism). A virtual communist is
at or near the front of the pack in the ostensible “Democrat” party’s campaign
for nomination to the presidency, and giddy polls regularly trumpet the
acceptance of “socialism” by millenials.
There are reasons to fear Bernie Sanders’ cry for “transformation” of
the United States, just as there were for the stated intentions of Barack Obama
to “fundamentally transform” the United States.
Consider just the “ACA,” Affordable Care Act, which was not “affordable,” whatever that was hoped to mean, and it wasn’t about “care,” particularly: it was about coverage, the perpetual stumbling bloc to health care. The nature of every “coverage” entity, whether “insurance” companies and HMO’s or governmental agencies that both regulate and directly pay actual care providers, is to reduce costs. The main difficulties inherent in the ACA-expanded coverage industry were made worse and more expensive, nearly removing people from decision-making while nearly removing physicians and others from caring about their customers.
These sorts of change ought to be anathema to citizens of a nation with the heritage of the United States. Our mythos is founded in individualism, self-made success, pioneering advancement into unexplored territories, and homesteads created even where the only building material was prairie turf. Somehow the steady erosion of socialist promises of “free” safety and comfort have weakened the resolve of Americans to take control of their lives and circumstances, and to do so responsibly.
Obama also made substantial changes to our foreign relations and to our ability to control events to our benefit, rather to enhance the influence and strength of Muslim regimes. Fundamental transformation. Here in 2020 these same intentions are voiced repeatedly by Bernie Sanders and others whose vision is not to improve or “perfect” our union, but to replace our form of government by altering Constitutional institutions and original rights. The “new” goals are not comprised of strengthening liberty, but to “set” everyone’s standard of living so that no one is “above” his fellow residents: ultimate “fairness,” a new form of political organization that removes the interference in individual beliefs by churches, and in which every sort of human pleasure-seeking will be permitted… by benign elites, and, perhaps, taught in public schools.
The struggle of socialism is never-ending. While “we” in the American, Judeo-Christian
traditions of individual liberty and responsibility tend to assume our battle
for freedom is won… and done, globalist socialism never rests on its continuum
of undermining and destroying liberty and faithfulness. It is a continuum that extends back to the
“Garden of Eden.”
“What?” you say, “nothing Prudent about that silly
claim.”
Well, a few terms we don’t think about enough: Thesis – The Word of God, or the first premise; Antithesis – Direct opposition to the Word of God; Synthesis – Human-generated, pretended, compromise position with the Word of God. The synthesis becomes the new Premise, no longer the Word of God, something less. Is this not exactly what the “Serpent” offered to Eve, assuring her that God’s threat to not eat of the tree in the midst (center) of the Garden, or touch it “…,lest thou die.” would not come true. “thou shalt not surely die.” the serpent told her. God issued the thesis to Not eat of the tree; Serpent offered the antithesis that the punishment would not be death (at least not right away) and the rewards of knowledge were worth the chance. Is this process any more or less than the Hegelian dialectic? Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis. Abortion is no longer murder; socialism will create a better America than God did.
A patients view of the doctors, just before going into surgery.
Few topics or “matters” matter as much or generate as much
discussion and political malfeasance as health care, and not really “care,” but
coverage. Coverage is where the “easy” money is. “Coverage” is like a giant public works
construction project: easy to skim from.
It’s virtually impossible to get any graft – or campaign contributions –
from individual medical procedures, but insurance conglomerates and hospital
corporations and the pharmaceutical industry are deep wells for craven
politicians. Consequently, those same
politicians are willing to expose the federal budget and debt creation to the
medical “field” to the benefit of all, and even of patients sometimes.
Money, money, money.
About one-sixth of the U. S. economy is tied to “health care,” but a
much smaller fraction is tied to CARE, itself.
These are huge industries with gigantic advertising, promotion and
bribery budgets. The ever-pure United
States calls those filthy bribes campaign contributions… or, they might be
“donations” to colleges and universities for research and production of new
doctors who, coincidentally, will be fully committed to pharmaceuticals,
chemotherapies, surgery and maintenance for life – or death. It’s all expensive.
Cancer is one of the cash cows of medicine: the big
shibboleth in human caring and willingness to help others. People fear it, and rightly so. Breast cancer is a powerful subset, and so is
pediatric cancer. We love kids and care
about their health more than for any older group. Kids are helpless and pathetic; humans feel
these things and sacrifice to raise them from complete dependency, to minimal
independence, to experimental independence, to sports and education and
personality development and, one day, separation into adult-hood. We hate any interruption to these things and
sacrifice to facilitate the stages of normal childhood. Cancer is a Hell of an interrupter and we want to pay to stop it. And we do.
Billions of dollars have been raised by the American Cancer Society, for example, and they claim a 79% rate of actual cancer expenditures: mostly for research, but a large amount is for “soft” expenses that help those who are in treatment and their families, and other non-care, non-research uses. A big pile goes to run the Society, of course. To its credit, A.C.S. does a lot of good along the paths it sees fit, and it’s much more efficient than the federal government, a low bar. Sadly, despite its widespread use of children to raise its millions (Relay for Life, anyone?), only a small percentage of ACS dollars are employed to solve pediatric cancers.
In one case Prudence knows well, a 6-year-old girl survived
neuroblastoma after much chemo, operations, stem-cell harvests and replacements
only to fight through it again 4 years later, with more of many of the same
poisons that forced the cancer to retreat the first time. Five years later, more chemotherapy to force
a third retreat. “A miracle,” her family
declared. 3 years later osteosarcoma
attacked her right tibia, part of which was removed with cadaver bone up to the
knee. More chemo – same crap as earlier
times, same poison to push the cancer back.
College and Masters degrees completed, 6 years later the fifth attack
and fifth battle with cancer, now in the thoracic cavity pressing on the
lung. The bone cancer was a not rare reaction
to earlier treatments; the chest problem a recurrence of the bone cancer, by
genus. Same poisons prescribed and
administered, except she was unable to tolerate any more of it. Twenty years of treatment, constant news
about this and that breakthrough therapy, DNA, customized immunology, yada,
yada, yada… same attempts to kill the cancer a little faster than the patient.
When the young woman with the lengthy, miraculous, cancer
survival history heard what kind of poisons they were planning to pump directly
into her bloodstream, she naturally pointed out that it was the same crap she’d
received the last time! Was there
nothing better? Newer? Apparently not. Bring
us your sick children and we will poison them for you in the hope that the
cancer cells will die first and we can hold your child back from the brink of
death.
Medical students arrive at medical school with science knowledge –at least biology, maybe chemistry – ready to be taught some skills, mostly about using and understanding the data produced by wonderful diagnostic electronics, and about the latest in pharmacological weapons to counteract natural biological weaknesses, failures, breakdowns, related pains and mental/emotional discords and incongruities. There is a lot to learn. If surgery is the interest, there is a lot of practice. Students develop likes and dislikes that lead them to one specialty or another, or, for many, general health and well-being such as “family” doctors ought to know. Some of these general practitioners are really “internists” who understand “internal medicine” as distinct from “external medicine,” one supposes.
In any case, new doctors are taught according to fairly rigid protocols and traditions by people whose adherence to standards is well known… and respected. Indeed, it is only by proving one’s own adherence to those standards that a doctor will be licensed or safe when sued. “Recognized” standards, “current” protocols, “best” practices – those are the only defense a doctor has. Where is the profit for leaving medical orthodoxy?
Does this mean that “doctors” or “big pharma” are blocking the introduction of miracle cures that an obscure researcher somewhere has developed because traditional medicine would not? Well, “yes,” and “no.” I think, or at least hope fervently, that the answer is “yes” although there is no intent to do so; and that the answer is “no” because there is no intent to do so. But, the inhibition of new ideas is almost inevitable. Thankfully it is not impossible and progress does get made, inventions are developed and made marketable – and trustworthy – and new drugs are eventually approved. So, what’s the problem?
The problem is that the new drugs are rarely giant steps –
sometimes they are, but not often. This is because most research is built on
previous success and lines of inquiry and wide departure from the reservation
is not very likely – it doesn’t get funded.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking for sure things. Often the greatest advances are side-effects
of drugs, new and old, that coincidentally prove beneficial elsewhere. More power to them.
Similar effects produce medical technology like, for popular
example, knee replacements and hip replacements. Now very reliable and long-lasting, such
replacements are commonplace, almost to the exclusion of alternatives. Could the damage and erosion of joints be
prevented? In most cases. Are there nutritional preventions that are
still regarded as anecdotes, not science?
Absolutely. Do you suppose that
part of every knee replacement is dedicated to learning how to prevent knee
replacements? Well, no.
Americans, and most residents of highly developed countries, eat themselves to death, drink and drug themselves to death, smoke themselves to death, fertilize and pesticide ourselves to death, and so on. For all of our health clubs, gyms and YMCA’s, Americans tend, on average, to not take very good care of the bodies we are born with and, now that parts can be replaced by our remarkable “repair, replace and maintain” medicine, there seem to be fewer reasons to worry about the consequences of ice cream, sodas and cheese-burgers and lack of basic exercise regimens. We are told 8 times every half-hour by our flat-screens that we need never suffer from aches, pains, discomforts, anxieties or depressions. There are pills for each of these maladies. In fact, there are separate analgesics for shoulder pains, neck pains, knee and foot pains, back pains, headaches, migraines and insufficient sleep. People who have allowed apnea to intrude on their ability to sleep can get a C-Pap device to counteract it. What’s to worry?
What do all of these OTC chemicals do to us? Some of the long-term effects are known, not
the least of which is liver damage, but it’s slow, virtually unnoticeable,
until it isn’t – kind of like moderate smoking.
Sugar and alcohol also have cumulative effects, if not simple diabetes, then an acidification of body chemistry that weakens the immune response to invaders. Too much gluten, perhaps? The American diet is awash in wheat and wheat proteins, right down to canned tunafish (only one brand is clean). Tunafish? And lots of other products: vinegar, puddings, many candies, gravies, prepared foods of all kinds include wheat starch, “hydrolyzed vegetable protein” and on and on. Many people know they are allergic to gluten, far more do not… know, that is. Skin problems, digestive problems, immune problems and, of course, weight problems, stem in large part from too much wheat in our diets. The body tends to become allergic in the presence of too much of the same thing – often the food you like the best, as well. But, that’s no problem! There are multiple crèmes and pills to fight off the effects of our odd diets, so many, in fact, that they must be profitable enough to purchase TV advertising nationwide. Do you ever wonder if every prescription for these somewhat dangerous drugs includes a small amount of money to fund prevention of gluten intolerances? Nahh. Bread, cake, doughnuts, fried clams, stuffing, ice cream, mayonnaise, salad dressings, sub-rolls, pita, crackers and… and… whatever, are too tasty to forego and, besides, “they” have things for that.
When Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency he warned America
about the encroaching power of the “military-industrial complex.” Rightly so, although that sloppy circle of funding
and influence has managed to keep the country fairly safe in an uncontrollable
world. One can almost hear the words of
a true outsider warning us against the “medical-industrial complex,” although
almost no one would listen. On the edge
of Boston and Brookline there is a street called Longwood Avenue where
hospitals have grown into connected proximity.
It’s starting to look like Las Vegas.
The insertion of politics into health care really got moving with the “Great Society” in the mid 1960’s. It hasn’t been all good despite the public intentions of the socialists who caused the Great Society to be codified. Today federal funds feed into the insatiable maw of modern medicine, and to help it along, every Congress adds new mandates for care and coverage. Combined with the primacy of welfare (federalized at the same time) the general interface with patients has trended to impersonal, if not de-personalized, care. The vision for health care is still greater impersonality, robotics and, again, health orthodoxy that satisfies… umm, well, the federal government, and “averages.”
No one is going to stop the money. If we have to borrow from our 5th descendent generation, by God, we’ll do it! No one who needs a new hip, rich or poor, will be denied one! What? Do we want to have a society where there is one level of care for the wealthy and another for the poor? With enough agitation and politics anything that needs a licensed medico to accomplish will be funded. Trans-gender mutilations? Where’s the checkbook? Prudence would advise that there is not enough money, or desks for nameless bureaucrats to sit behind, to provide all the repairs and drugs that are known, to every person who thinks he or she needs them. Maybe robots will provide more even-handed care and cost less than humans. Not so far.
We had a disturbing survey call the other night, all about nurses and how many patients each nurse should be caring for at one time. The Massachusetts Nurses Association has obtained enough signatures to place a ballot question for the November, 2018 election.
The gist of the question is whether the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall create or expand an agency that monitors nursing staffing levels in order to enforce certain ratios of nurses to patients. The mechanism of enforcement would be $25,000 fines for each instance of “failing” to maintain nursing levels that are satisfactory to nurses(!).
Arguments in favor run the gamut of every negative consequence of inadequate nursing levels. Further strictures in the proposed law demand that nurse staffing levels be brought into conformity with the nurse-association-prescribed nurse-patients ratios without reducing other staffing levels as for maintenance or food-service departments. This, naturally, would increase hospital costs per patient-hour and of health care generally. Still, the over-arching deep concern for everything patient-related causes the M. N. A. to forge ahead despite the cost implications.
Some of the nurses’ arguments are valid. Patient outcomes are better with adequate nursing attentiveness. Sometimes this means simple numbers of nurses, but not always. Poor outcomes often result from poor administration or administrative requirements – requirements that sheer numbers won’t correct.
This is essentially a pro-union effort at the ballot box, sponsored by about 25% of nurses, hoping to increase the numbers of nurses (and union dues-paying members), but it threatens exactly what they hope to “improve.” First, if it passes and hospitals are forced to add nurses, the average pay is going to decline. This is not hard to understand. The only alternative to that likely outcome is the threat of nurses’ strikes for higher pay, and this is, like all union initiatives, the fundamental bargain – read: threat.
Neither care quality nor care cost will come in to alignment with patient desires until patients, themselves, return to the position of customer. Customers do some research on what they are going to buy. They are able to check out Consumer Reports, for example, where experts have done the research for them. They can visit different sources for the same products and services before choosing one to buy from.
In truth, people know more about their next car or flat-screen television than they do about their next medical procedure, the likely providers involved or even about their own doctor(!), never mind the amount of nursing attention they might receive. Maybe if patients – or a trusted advisor – knew enough about health providers and institutions to make rational judgments about which provides the best balance of nursing care, cost and outcomes, cost would come down, nurses would not be overworked and patients would be best served.
Asking the government and its politicians to make and enforce more rules about how to make patients well (ostensibly) is not an answer or even a good question. Restore the concept of “customer” to potential patients, in place of “entitled victim.”
As for nurses, the last thing we need is for skilled professionals to be relegated to average “service-unit” status for bargaining purposes, leaving neither room for excellence nor sanctions for failure.
Now that life, itself, is measured only in financial terms, at least for many – mostly young First-Worlders, the shining wisdom of liberal thinkers is becoming clearer… and more frightening. Canada recently completed a study that showed “savings” of nearly $140 Million, Canadian, that might be realized with more accessible “end-of-life” care, as they call it.
Or suicide, for the crudely honest. And that $140 Million could finance, ummm, infrastructure improvements and transportation safety! For those who remain, of course. One hopes that all that protein won’t go to waste – maybe pet food. After all, we’ve been eating animals like forever and they’re only human, too.
This is a side-effect of socialized health care, like those ads for the latest wonder-drug where the disclaimers about side effects like moods of depression or suicide, elevated heart rates, rash, constipation, diarrhea, dry mouth, bad breath, loss of vision and tingling in hands and feet, are three-fourths of the ad. Certain cancers and even death have occurred. If you experience any of these symptoms, speak to… your… doctor. He or she is a caring, white-smocked employee of the Government Accounting Office.
Abortion as a “constitutional right” is the first step to the destruction of not just life, but of freedom. We have been sold on abortion providing “Freedom” of choice for women who are shocked, shocked to find themselves pregnant when a child is too much to cope with… for any number of reasons. Even Planned Parenthood, responding to the outcries of stranded, pregnant, shocked women, has found ways for all that protein to not be wasted, as a market exists for whole, pre-natal organs and tissues. Financial value and loads of freedom for those who remain. They’re a non-profit, you know, so not much help with the infrastructure thing.
Some Planned Parenthood executives have had their own infrastructures improved.
And yet, despite all the excess babies we produce, “scientists” are struggling to clone humans like frogs and sheep, as if there were not enough, already. Maybe we just don’t want to accept the risk of imperfection; let’s replicate a human that “we” like.
We’ve followed the liberals, the socialists, the communists, the progressives and the Democrats down the path to where dollars or other forms of power define the value of life, even as the role of churches, religion, spirituality itself, are cast aside like so much magical mumbo-jumbo, a drag on society and on tax-receipts. We should be taxing all that church-owned property because our collective costs to protect it are born unfairly by non-believers. Abortion, and infrastructure, and voting… that’s real.
Since we can’t keep up with fertility, and since more people born into the last, best hope for freedom is a big public problem, we have got to destroy hopefulness, as they have in Russia, for example, where too few people are being born. Perhaps some terrorism will help spur the youngest, most fertile citizens to fear bringing children into “such” a world… a world where Donald Trump can be elected. Let’s just hook up after lecture hall and if I get pregnant I can get an abortion before mid-terms.
The value of life is primarily spiritual, if there’s any purpose beyond finance and fun, at all. Isn’t that the big question? What is the purpose, the meaning of life? Didn’t you see the movie? Hilarious. No, but honestly, sometimes I get the feeling that there just must be more to it than eating and screwing, don’t you think?
Well, we could help people who are having problems – that always makes me feel good. You should take that job at the clinic and you could help girls with unwanted fetal masses. When I get my promotion at the condom factory we’ll have enough money to maybe donate to Greenpeace or PETA. How would that be?
I’d rather donate to my alma mater where the money could help poor kids get their Masters. Aren’t they a religious school? Oh, they used to be.
Roughly speaking, Americans can choose, now, between the Death Party and the Life Party. The Deathers are pretty firm in their beliefs, while the Lifers are kind-of soft in their defense of Life. The former can state their death wishes as matters of Freedom, and Choice, and purging the country of brown people… except they don’t mention the last part. Lifers are almost afraid to mention their beliefs or their spirituality, yet they somehow won an election the other day. Seemed like spiritual intervention, but with all this warm weather we’ve been having, who can worry about that?
The main thing is to get back on the death track or we’ll never balance the budget. Consumer confidence is high, though. Maybe Christmas sales will cap a really good year, financially.
Socialists never learn. Socialism, or Communism, failed in the past because the practitioners weren’t as smart as we are, today. Can you say ‘hubris?’ Can you recognize utter failure to learn from history OR from human nature?
Single-payer health care (they mean single-payer FINANCING) is some people’s answer to the problems governments have created in health-care. This is a pattern for statists: problems can never be solved by freedom or free enterprise (the system that has solved more ‘problems’ than any system ever devised) but only by the benign love of government bureaucrats.
If those bureaucrats have actually made things worse (typically), the solution is ALWAYS, always more money (from taxation) or more bureaucrats who are told to be nicer or to not be stupid, and to be “fair.” Laws are passed to these effects. Oh, what a glorious new morning!
Single-payer is sold to the gullible as THE means to “contain costs” of medical care. Only through coercion, my children, only through coercion. How benign can they get?
You need to read “Health Care, Fairness and Free Enterprise” and I’ll send you a copy if you send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Prudence Leadbetter, PO Box (tba)
Let’s imagine a personal freedom – personal responsibility health-care system. Many argue against the “health-care mandate” as if they’ve thought it through; it’s not the mandate that’s the problem, it’s Obamacare. Fundamentally, taking care of one’s responsibilities in matters of education, food, clothing and shelter, employment, tax-paying and child-rearing, should not disappear when it comes to our MOST PERSONAL responsibility: health. Your health isn’t a shared responsibility, nor is the health of a welfare recipient.
The choices we make that have impacts, potentially, on our health, are choices the consequences of which are OUR OWN responsibility. This is not to inhibit charity or ASSISTANCE, when needed. The point is, we are believing in something that is not true if we think responsibility for our own health and well-being can successfully be transferred to another person (after about age 10 or so), group or government entity. It is equally wrong for insurance companies and the government to sell bigger government on the premise of taking responsibility for us.
Most people know more about the car they are going to buy than they do about the multiple products and services that will comprise their next contact with the health-care industry. We live in a dreamy fog of hope and trust that everyone who is about to have control over us for a while, is on our side, our friend, our advocate. The trouble is, with some unknown entity actually paying for your imminent care, everyone you are about to entrust with your life is actually NOT working for you, the patient/customer; they all “work for” the people who pay them – the people who set the rules for payment and therefore of engagement with you.
You, the lowly patient have become simply a means for effecting some lucrative billing.
It really isn’t radical to expect every adult to establish the means to pay for medical services he or she may need… whenever. This is a smart step psychologically as it will restore a sense of responsibility for how one treats his or her body. Personal responsibility increases when we choose to own firearms, cars, power tools, tobacco, pot or alcohol. It increases more when we choose to scuba-dive, sky-dive or prostitute-dive… and a hundred other activities.
What we need is flexibility in FINANCING the purchase of health-care products and services. Health savings accounts should be the basis, starting at birth being the best advice. As we grow up, adding forms of insurance from whatever source that pleases the customer – you and me and everyone else – and which fulfills minimum requirements to establish one’s “health responsibility,” freeing him or her to take the risks he or she chooses. That’s a card worth carrying.
Imagine we could hire a “health care agent” (HCA) who did NOT work for either providers or insurers, but for the patient-customer individual, family or group. Insurers will sell insurance based on actual risks and, when a claim is processed, send the check TO THE PATIENT and his or her agent. That means that care invoices will be understandable to the patient, and that the business it represents will have been COMPETED FOR by the provider!
Your HCA can negotiate for its over-arching group of, say 10,000 clients. He or she will be required, by license, to know where the best source is for various kinds of care or surgery or therapy, and what their history AND PRICES are! Everyone involved in delivering care will be concerned that the PATIENT, you and me, who is, in fact, the CUSTOMER who will PAY THE BILL (virtually guaranteed by the HCA under agreements that include significant limitations on why and when malpractice suits could happen). Collection costs will be minimal.
Individuals, with pertinent knowledge from their HCA, will make the care purchases they choose and providers will sell them the care they want! What a country.
Why is so much of what is described above, illegal now? To improve care? No, it’s so that government has control.
Imagine that catastrophic care, care not covered by most insurances, could be financed with very low cost LOANS through a “national extensive care fund” (NECF). That is, individuals, families, groups (like HCA groups) or extended fraternal or charitable “groups” could sign on to repay someone’s or some family’s NECF loan at so much per month, each. The “nation” could help finance extensive care when those affected decide to buy it! Even if repayment takes a lifetime, the NECF would be solvent because expenditures would be repaid without much administrative cost or case management. Sources of income would add a withholding and other assets would add a lien. Everyone pays his or her way. The numbers work. Both responsibility and freedom are restored.
The solution for those on welfare is even more interesting. Let’s talk about how they will benefit, too.
