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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> I'm over my initial anger, but you should probably say that someone is
> being a moron, or acting like a moron.

I will stand corrected thus far, but it was meant in earnest at the time.

> As far as the actual issue goes, I think it's divisive and anti-American 
> to hold inquisitions into whose health problems are "legitimate" and whose 
> are self-induced.

I'm not understanding that.  Why divisive and anti-American? The termendous 
cost of keeping the very aged and sick "alive" an extra 24 hours [and I mean 
this stricly literally] aside (the most expensive aspect of modern medical 
costs), would you disagree that the large majority of medical problems 
taxing the medical care system are self induced?  The single largest cause 
of death is smoking.  The second is obesity.  Because doctors fear being 
sued, 25% of children are delivered by C-section.  For the past eleven years 
I've done work for  a pharmaceutical company (to end in January, free at 
last!) and I've seen the major drug companies get out of researching 
medicines to cure diseases and begin inventing diseases to sell some 
chemical to cure, usually a disease that has no specific etiology, no 
specific symptoms, and you will have to buy their highly toxic and adictive 
drug the rest of your life.  This drug dependency has become a way of life. 
It is fashionable to be sick.

And the thing is, I genuinely believe my own schtick.  I have seen the 
effects of a positive attitude, clean food and water (and beer), and 
physical movement and involvement on the weak and infirmed.   From what I've 
seen and what I've read, there are literally no conditions which are not 
improved from the above, even if the person is permanently disabled or 
terminal ... their quality of life still improves.

Further I think that we all choose a direction toward health or a direction 
toward sickness every day and in every decision.  I was at several 
homeschool meetings where there are few men and mostly women (adults).  Half 
the women were enormous and half were quite slim.  Can't explain it, but 
there were no middlings.  These meetings are at parks generally and the 
large women sat down on the picnic benches as soon as they arrived and did 
not stand up nor move for four hours.    The slim women were like demented 
marionettes flitting about.  If there were a way to do something in ten 
steps they invariably (and unconsciously) took seventy.  If a child made a 
noise that could possibly be distress, the DM (demented marionettes) ran 
over and back and over again.  The large ones sat, sent another child to 
check to see if anything was wrong.  I observered.  The large were expending 
a great deal of ingenuity to arrange things so that they never moved.  The 
DM's were wearing out a pair of shoes per meeting.  At some point someone 
becomes (due to age and/or illness or melancholia) disinclined to move and 
so becomes less toned and gains a few ounces.  At that juncture they give 
into that further or distance themselves from it.  If they give in they 
become less toned, heavier, less inclined to move etc etc  And eventually it 
becomes an art to just sit there and never move at all.

Now someone who weighs 380 lbs can't leap up and chase 4 yo's around a park. 
They'd die, or fall on the 4 yo, or a dozen of them.  But they could get up 
and walk around for two minutes at a time for starters ... a little more 
later ... a little more after that.  But wait and watch as I might, not one 
even stood up.  That's self-induced.

My sermon is that this is not necessary nor inevitable ... nor wise ... nor 
honorable.

But even at that .... I'd be willing to keep that belief largely to myself 
(it'd be hard to advocate the homesteading lifestyle and do that 
completely).  What I comment on is making self-induced illness a virtue, 
when those who have not wrecked their health by their own actions are 
supposed to act embarassed and defferential to those who have.




> How long before hang gliding enthusiasts are up > against the wall too?

They are.  They should be.  Have you applied for life insurance lately?  One 
of the questions is whether or not you hang glide (and scuba dive, and sky 
dive).  If you answer in the affirmative, your insurance premiums are much 
higher if a policy is available at all.

>  I think maybe you meant to say that IF people want socialism, they're 
> going to have to put up with fascism as a necessary consequence.

Yes, I meant to say that, but not only that.  What I meant to say was that 
the very people who want socialism because they imagine that it would be 
conducive to the type of 'fashionable to be sick' lifestyle would be quite 
unhappy with socialism if they had it.


James