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  • From: "clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Re: Eloquence
  • Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 22:10:32 -0500


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





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