A Toast To Your Health

What with the US Congressional battle heating up over the so-called "Obamacare" debacle, now is as good a time as any to attack the entire concept of socialized healthcare.  The entire notion of government running anything, much less something as intimate and important as healthcare, is about as insane as it gets.  Furthermore, healthcare is not a right, it is a commodity that can be purchased based on one's needs and desires.

Over the past half-century or so, it has become almost axiomatic that individuals have a "right" to healthcare.  You don't.  You have a right to access and purchase any product or commodity you deem appropriate to your health and happiness, but it is not a right, as such.

The first thing wrong with socialized healthcare is that it places in the hands of government the decision on who gets how much of what healthcare.  Not only is this situation completely anathema to a "right," it allows government to determine what constitutes "healthcare" and how much of what treatments and cures one can receive.  In other words, it makes healthcare a privilege apportioned by a remote and faceless bureaucracy, not a right.

Socialized healthcare forces every individual to pay for every other individual's healthcare.  I chose to smoke and drink alcohol despite the copious warnings about the health risks because I deem the activities a necessary part of my pursuit of happiness.  It is my right to do so and I exercise it at every opportunity.  By the same token, I do not have a right to force anyone else to pay for the health consequences, should there be any.

I have knowingly accepted certain risks in order to obtain enjoyment.  If I should develop lung disease or liver cirrhosis, that is my responsibility and the treatments - should I choose to accept them - are my expense and no one else's.  By extension, I also have the choice of what treatments I seek and how much I am willing to pay for them.  However, none of these personal choices implies the responsibility of anyone else to help cover the cost, nor does it give the right to anyone else to choose the treatments for me.  Nor do I have the right to expect anyone else to cover my costs for treatment.

Let's take cancer as an example.  If I develop the disease, there are many types of treatment available, such as Chemo-Radiation, Herbal, Homeopathic, Acupuncture, etc.  Because I have been forced by law into a government-controlled healthcare program that only allows and will pay for Chemo-Radiation treatment (because some lobbyists paid-off a bunch of legislators), my right to choose is immediately withdrawn.  This is not to mention the fact that my payments into the system were extracted from me at the point of a gun in the first place.

Exactly where in the above scenario does my right to healthcare come in?  I was forced to pay into the system, forced to choose only one of several treatment options, and in many cases, I can be forced to take the treatment even if I opt to just die rather than go through the horrors of Chemo-Radiation.

At no point in all of this have I exercised a right.  I have either been granted a privilege, or forced to accept a product I don't want.  Thus, the whole concept of a "right" to healthcare is completely null and void, since a right invokes a choice on the part of the individual.

Arguing further into this problem, suppose I am a gang-banger on the mean streets of Chicago.  I have chosen, as is my right, to engage in a lifestyle that has a high mortality rate.  I know this; you know this.

One night, I am involved in an altercation with other gang-bangers and I get shot.  Do I have a right to force you to pay for my lifestyle choice that led directly to my getting shot?  By the same token, if I have the right to force you to pay, then don't you have the right to force me to choose another lifestyle in order to save your out-of-pocket expenses for my care?  Once force enters any part of the equation, we are no longer discussing rights.

Ultimately, this discussion strikes at the root.  So much of what we call modern society does not involve rights.  It is symptomatic of the century-long effort to remove personal responsibility from the free individual.  Frighteningly, many individuals willingly surrender their rights because they don't want personal responsibility.  They would rather remain child-like their entire lives, free of long-term ownership of their choices and actions.

As part of my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, I have the right to smoke and drink to my heart's content, but if I develop lung disease or liver cirrhosis, then I must also be willing to accept responsibility for that outcome.  This goes for any personal choice.

If I choose to surrender my personal freedom to a remote faceless bureaucracy in order to remove my personal responsibility, then so be it.  But I should not be forced to participate in that system if I so choose.  At the core of this argument is the fact that much of what we consider society is compulsory adherence to someone else's idea of what I should be doing.

I have no problem with a government-administered healthcare program that is voluntary, like any insurance scheme.  Anyone who wants to join it may do so, and they can share the costs of every other member's stupidity.  But do not force me to join the scheme, nor force me to join any other scheme.  If I die in the gutter of cirrhosis because I don't have a health plan or a family that cares for me, then that is the result of my choices and I take full responsibility for it.

Related to that, if I gather 100 people who contract with each other to pay into a fund each month, and we establish a Board of Directors and a set of rules for payout, why should I have to license or register this private fund with any government entity?

Additionally, if I choose to combat a cancer by smoking big-ass hog-leg joints of weed, sucking down herbal potions and sticking needles in my nerves, what the hell business is it of anyone else to tell me I can't?  My medical situation is a direct result of my actions, and the treatment and costs should also be my choice.

As the new US Congress get down to fisticuffs and name-calling, which is the modus operandi of US politics, one can hope that they opt for individual freedom and responsibility.  I have no problem with Obamacare per se.  Anyone who trusts government enough to administer their money and healthcare should be free to sign up, but for god's sake, leave me out of it.  I don't want it.  I don't trust it.  And I sure as hell don't want to pay for anyone else's lifestyle choices, nor do I expect anyone else to pay for mine.

Most of all, the best thing the Congress could do is get the hell out of everyone's lives, legalize and deregulate all herbs and remedies, and let people make their own choices.  Sure, a lot of people will scream and holler.  These are the people who want to remain child-like the rest of their lives and nothing short of round-the-clock coddling and cradle-to-grave Big Mommy will make them happy - may, not even that will be enough.  Let them form their own corporate entity and pay for their own "security."

This problem and a vast number of other societal ills are all related to an out-of-control System that we have argued many times needs to be completely dismantled - lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
There is no repairing this mess because the underlying assumptions are themselves faulty.  Any attempt to do repair a faulty system will only make it worse.  The ony real solution is personal freedom of choice and personal responsibility for those choices.  Period.

BTW, do a google for "images healthcare."  When, exactly, did the color blue become the "official" color for healthcare?  Every single damn image is blue!

But One Just Man

In our ever-optimistic approach to insanity, we can still find a positive spin on the recent US Supreme Court decision regarding the 'tax' called, euphemistically, Obamacare.

We can now say, without reservation or equivocation, that the US is a fascist dictatorship.  The primary difference between fascism and socialism is the corporate logo behind government fiat.  In this case, we can see the stamps of massive insurance conglomerates like sponsor patches on the togs of professional athletes.

Stephen Decatur Miller famously said, "There are three and only three ways to reform our Congressional legislation, familiarly called, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box"  To this has been added the soap box, in recent years.  In every case, these boxes of liberty are now corporate owned.  Diebold owns the ballot box.  The American Bar Association owns the jury box.  A handful of manufacturers own the cartridge box.  And media mega-corporations own the soap box.

Why is this so positive?  Because it's always a good thing when the truth be known, even if it is unpleasant to look at.  Now that Obama has created an entire nation of syndics, and the Supreme Court has rendered its stamp of approval, we can safely remove our blinders and stare unblinkingly into the eyes of ruin.

Of course, there will be the vox populi of bovine humanoids who point to elections as proof that the US is still a 'democracy'.  This sophomoric defense fails in two ways, though.  First, it assumes that the corporate owners of the ballot boxes allow actual votes to be counted, and second that swapping out the butts in chairs has anything to do with changing things.

The old republic passed away over ten years ago in an orgy of nationalistic fervor, when a piece of legislation called the USAPATRIOT Act was enacted.  Anyone who actually read it, a group which excludes those who voted for it, knows that this particular piece of work was simply a translation of the Enabling Act that empowered Hitler after the Reichtstag fire and a couple of other lesser-known false flag events.

The Obamacare decision was not so much the institution of fascism, but rather confirmation that the supreme powers of the Executive Branch are now applicable to every aspect of human existence. 

As one stands back for a bit of perspective, one sees that all the conspiratorial theorizing about prison camps being built across the US for the past 20 years was overly optimistic.  The real plan was to turn the entire nation into a gulag.  The theories erred on the side of thinking that there would still be an 'outside' and 'inside' delineation.  Who could have dared conceive of a single concentration camp thousands of miles on a side?

Not that this was unexpected.  Ask any American indian or Japanese-American of an age and they can give you copious examples of the US practicing for just this evenuality.  A quick study of Lincoln's General Order 100 will form the historical framework for the US' ultimate decent into dictatorship.

Where a lot of people stumble on this issue is that they assume that having a dictatorship necessarily means having a single dictator, such as Hitler or Mao or Stalin.  In the case of the US, the dictator is only fronted by an individual who, like a spokesman for a product, can be replaced at a moment's notice.  The popular ones are kept around for eight years until the brand needs a fresh image.  The unpopular ones are summarily fired after four years.  We can't have them sullying the good name of the brand.

At this point, there frankly can be no reform.  Any challenge to the direction of the country must, by necessity, go through the courts, and we see now that they are completely owned by private interests.  Any student of history knows that you can't attack an enemy at their strong point, and so a revolutionary war is out of the question.  And the ballots are controlled at even the smallest levels by tabulators that are programmed and processed by foreign entities far outside the jurisdiction of the courts, even if the courts offered relief.

America: Land of the Free - full of security cameras, genital grabbing, TASER-happy cops, and warrantless searches. 

America: Home of the Brave - where whiz kids sit in bunkers 10,000 miles away and rain death from robatic aircraft.

America: Where No Man is Above the Law - though some are quite a bit more no-above than others, depending on how much bank they have.

America: The Shining City on the Hill - where torture, murder, lies, prevarication, cheating, scapegoating, greed, and corporate interests come far ahead of moral and ethtical considerations.

One can truly say this is the apocalypse, meaning great things are being revealed.  The pretense that the world's great power and empire has any elevated intentions has finally fallen away.  That nation now stands before the world as a naked aggressor without even the shred of law behind it.  It's new national motto is "might makes right", and it will slaughter anyone who gainsays it.

That the American people are not rioting in the streets shows that they are little more than frightened lambs cowering lest they lose their 'preparations' and their 'stockpiles'.  They are being goose-stepped headlong into Perdition with all their 'preparations'.  It was said long ago that when fascism came to America, it would wear the flag and sing patriotic songs.  Such things prophecy is made of.

There is one curious sidebar to this whole mess, and regular readers knew I wouldn't let them down.

America, despite all the bloviating on the part of got-rocks evangelical a$$holes, was NOT founded as a Christian nation on Christian principles.  It was founded by heretics and pagans escaping Europe where they were being burned at the stake by Christians.

This occultic miasma let to the creation of a truly unique American institution: The Church of Latter Day Saints, or more commonly, the Mormons.  In fact, in all of American history, it is probably the most unique creation to have come from 300 years of history.

The Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, made a number of prophesies which remain at the heart of their faith and a central tenet of their thinking.  The prophesy stated that in America's darkest hour, when the Constitution had become a shredded pile of hemp paper with pretty writing on it, a Mormon leader would rise up and lead the charge to take back the country and return it to its lawful roots.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mitt Romney.

We report, you think about it.