I mean, why not?
If government – using its magical powers – can make health care “affordable” why not make everything people need (and hell, everything they want) affordable?
It’s a little mean-spirited to lower the cost of going to the doctor, but do nothing to make a Starbucks latte – or a new Corvette – cost less, if government has the power.
Everyone a millionaire! A turkey in every pot! Six pack abs for all!
Maybe everyone has a right to a best friend and a good head of hair, too.
You’d have to be what they call in Vegas a mark to believe it.
And yet, people do believe it.
More, they demand it.
Give us affordable health care care! Affordable housing!
Inevitably, they will demand affordable coffee, too.
As Captain Picard used to say, make it so.
But, deep down, they do not believe in magic. They know (they must know) that government – which is just other people, after all – cannot conjure things into existence any more than they can conjure things into existence.
Things have to be made by someone.
But government has one thing they don’t have – the physical power to take things from some people (those who made them) and give those things to other people (those who did not make them) . . . and the psychological power to induce resignation and acceptance among those who made the things that were taken and given to others. To regard it as normal, legitimate. The price of living in society. Our civic duty.
Ayn Rand ginned up a clever phrase to describe this. She called it, the sanction of the victim. It is the process by which the notion that other people’s needs (and inevitably, their wants) impose an obligation enforceable by violence on others is impressed upon the subconscious minds of a working majority of the people – both the takers and the producers – in a given society. And it must be subconsciously impressed. This is critical. Because consciously, most people recoil from taking things from others – using violence or otherwise.
From earliest childhood, they view that as theft.
To get them to accept thievery, especially on a large scale – to get them demanding it be done – one must compartmentalize. Individual thievery is always a no-no. You may not walk over to the next door neighbor’s place, announce that you need help with this month’s mortgage – or that your Starbuck’s card is running low – and simply take from them whatever you deem sufficient to cover the cost. Moreover, you understand that if you tried to do such a thing, your neighbor would resist – physically – and you’d accept his right to resist.
This is crucially important. Our disinclination to steal in person – ourselves holding the proverbial gun – is an expression of our deep-down moral-ethical compasses. We know it’s wrong to stick a gun in the neighbor’s face and “ask” (odious euphemism) him to “help” (equally odious). What’s blanked out is the ethical tautology that if a given action is wrong for me to do then it is also wrong for thee (or anyone else) to do it. Check Holiday Gift Guides and Michaels Ad. And it cannot become right by dint of proxies or numbers or rhetorical legerdemain.
If I call a duck an elephant, it does not become an elephant by dint of my saying it is.
Just as theft does not become not-theft by dint of calling it “taxes.”
Everyone knows this. But when a sufficient number of people evade the knowledge of it, tamping it deep down in their minds in order to avoid confronting the ugly truth that when they demand “affordable” whatever-it-is, they are in fact demanding that others by compelled to provide it in exactly the same way as a street mugger demands the valuable of his victims, a fail-safe switch has been thrown.
Looting becomes accepted.
It is now “public policy.”
At first, of course, it is limited and channeled in ways that are not immediately ruinous and which may even seem admirable. You get infrastructure, you get great public buildings, men to the Moon. But inevitably – the principle having been accepted – the looting becomes less and less admirable. Grotesque frauds are perpetrated on a grand scale. Billionaires are able to rent-seek (use government to enrich themselves via boondoggle projects; e.g., Elon Musk and the six-figure Tesla electric car). Immense corporate cartels are able to socialize their losses – and capitalize their profit (e.g., GM, big banks and other “too big too fail” enterprises). Young, able-bodied louts are able to drive around in Cadillac Escalades and swipe EBT cards to buy sushi paid for by people who can’t afford sushi themselves – in part because they’re compelled to “help” able-bodied young louts eat it instead.
How long will it be, do you imagine, before there is a clamor to make a Starbucks latte “affordable,” too?
Earthy old Ben Franklin’s observation about the republic lasting just as long as people are able to refrain from voting themselves the property of others comes to mind.
Time’s about up, wouldn’t you say?
Throw it in the Woods?
PS: As you may have seen (check the “thermometer” on the top right of the main page) we’re running low this month… reader support, not gas. Well, it’s kind of the same thing. We’re close to the end of the month but donations are not yet where they need to be to cover our fixed costs – including servers and also Dom’s pay (and mine).
If you think EPautos is worth your support – and are in a position to – please do. Our donate button is here.
Thanks again to all of you!
logical fallacy of the day: appeal to authority
Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true. It’s important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus.
Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence.
However it is, entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.
Example: Not able to defend his position that evolution ‘isn’t true’ Bob says that he knows a scientist who also questions evolution
Nizkor Project – Appeal to authority
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
Nuns with authoritatively hard-wooded rulers infused it into my cerebrum and vertebrae as Ipse Dixit and Argumentum ad Verecundiam
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_verecundiam
Ahhh, Ayn Rand. She really knew it all before any of us. Her choice of names, like Wesley Mouch, coincides so much with the real world. Mr Boner — oh excuse me, Mr Bayner (Bohner) as one of the Annointed Ones, in line to be President if the “unthinkable” happens. Not so very unthinkable, now is it? Do you have to wait until you see guys with names like I. M. Crooked and Rye T. Blankchek to know that you’re being robbed? How about good old Uncle Al the Kiddies’ Pal with his company Blood and Gore to rob people of money for CARBON taxes?
God is funny that way and even though I don’t believe in the Hairy Thunderer and more in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you got to open your eyes to the cosmic coincidences! Imagine, the Pick3 Lottery number (or whatever they call it) drawn on 9-11-2001 was 9-1-1. HEY! It’s a cosmic message saying “DON’T BELIEVE IN COINCIDENCES!” Hey, what were the odds?
Hahaha, “Too Big to Fail”! WOTTA JOKE! Hey, I was too much of risk back in the early 70s with a crummy low paying job! Did I get that $300 loan I desperately needed for 30 days? NOOOO! I was “TOO SMALL TO RISK IT!”
You guys let those FAT SCUMBAGS (in Washington) convince you that their buddies would need BAGS and BAGS and PALLETS and TRUCKLOADS of YOUR cash so that they could go back to their usual jobs of OVERCHARGING you!
Anyone remember the good old 7% you used to get on deposits back in the good old days? They stopped that quick enough because it would DOUBLE your money over 10 years. You’d be lucky to get 1-1/2% these days (which by the way gives you an amazing 16% return after 10 years, COMPOUNDED)!
THERE AINT NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH, Kiddies!
In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, there’s a minor character, a brain surgeon named Dr. Hendricks, who refused to practice under a socialized medicine. This excerpt (reprinted in “For the New Intellectual”) explains why Dr. Hendricks decided to shrug:
“I quit when medicine was placed under State control some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I could not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors. Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, but ‘to serve.’ That a man’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands? Their moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims. Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn. Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”
Instead of bickering about the price tag of Obamacare, it’s time to fight the battle against socialized medicine on moral grounds.
http://blog.aynrandcenter.org/the-forgotten-man-of-socialized-medicine-and-us/
I had ALL of her books back in the late 70s, but I had to leave them behind when I moved to South America in the mid 90s.
At least ANTHEM is available at Gutenberg.org for download. But I really miss the rest of them, like The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism The New Ideal, The Anti-Industrial Revolution, all the others, Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Night of January 16, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and the rest… these books turned me from being a socialist slave to an independent thinker.
Every law that is brought down has the concepts that she warned about: Anti Dog Eat Dog, Sanction of Victims, Punishment for Success, the Hatred toward the Individual, and the Condemnation of Independent Thought.
Sigh…
@rust – The books are still around on the Internet used book stores, and usually for cheap. A couple of them are now on Audible as well.
Her ability to recognize trends and personalities attracted to human control and power still amazes me. Just goes to show that we only think in terms of our “own times” as being unique, and why the socialist thinkers hate her so much. Kinda like an exorcist showing up at their house 🙂 .
In one review of Atlas Shrugged several years after publication a railroad executive told her that all of her ridiculous government rules and restrictions predicted in the novel now had their duplicates in real life.
Thanks, but shipping to the country where I live PLUS the duties make buying at Amazon (or others) cost prohibitive. And the fact that a very very low percentage of used books in this country are in English puts rebuilding my Rand library into the realm of Unicorns and Pots of Gold. ATLAS SHRUGGED came back into my hands about 4 years ago by pure chance. I really enjoyed my third reading.
Travelling back to my home and native land is cost prohibitive for me now… so there’s very little chance of it happening. I live off a very very very small pension that barely lets me survive, even in this country.
And now, something from LIVELEAK:
OBAMAISM
You have two cows.
Obama takes them both, gives them to an inner city dweller, along with a new phone he forced you to pay for, and tells you it is fair because you had so much and he had so little.
Obama bills you for housing your two cows because the inner city dweller has no idea what to do with cows and no land to keep them on.
Obama charges you with the crime of allowing your two cows to shit on your land which is really his land because he declared it to be a wetland (your cows also peed on it).
Obama throws you off your land to protect it from you.
Obama sends you to prison for your heinous crimes against nature and you are forced to care for government animals as part of your sentence… two cows.
Obama threatens to send your family members to prison too because they raised money to hire a lawyer to defend you.
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=721_1393025705#0tFsKoKE7sKyEj6B.99
@Rust – You mean the poster child for his Maxist mentors, Cloward & Piven?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloward%E2%80%93Piven_strategy
Dear rust,
“Hahaha, “Too Big to Fail”! WOTTA JOKE! Hey, I was too much of risk back in the early 70s with a crummy low paying job! Did I get that $300 loan I desperately needed for 30 days? NOOOO! I was “TOO SMALL TO RISK IT!””
There is “too big to fail” and there is “too small to succeed.”
This isn’t even the worst of it. For the real outrage, watch these two videos. Together they tell the WHOLE story.
1. The Biggest Scam In The History Of Mankind – Hidden Secrets of Money Ep 4 – Mike Maloney
2. How the corporatist (not capitalist) banksters set up the scam historically.
The Creature From Jekyll Island by G Edward Griffin 360p
All other government scams pale next to this, including Obombercare/Commiecare.
I ditto Chris.
The main cause of healthcare goods and services being expensive is the US Government.
The US Govt. has a power to dictate on any aspect of our lives. It rents this power out to the highest bidder (why shouldn’t it? The people had “supposedly” given this power to the USG for a reason). This is even aligned with market principles. If something is wanted , – it will be offered for sale.
Why can’t I bring a less expensive pill from a foreign country? Why should I have a doctor’s prescription to buy a pill? The regulation of healthcare had successfully shut down the free market aspect of it. The prices can only rise in such case.
Sometime long ago, I have read a quote from T.J. I can’t ever find it again. If anyone can quote it, provide a text, – that would be great. I am paraphrasing: ” If we separately do not own the other man’s property, then what gives us together any right to his property? ”
My only answer to this is that we must be running a fascist system. Because, it is under the fascism, that its two main principles can give us such right:
1. Anything can be written as the law.
2. The interest of the fascist state is always above that of any individual comprising that fascist state.
Without the US federal government medical care in this country would be dirt cheap. I spent a portion of my career in the effort to do that in one of the most government stifled and dominated areas of medical care. My views developed through this experience. People are needlessly dying today because of a 1960s intervention into the market.
The goal should never be to make high prices affordable, the goal should always be to eliminate high prices. But so few people understand this. The most frivolous things are left alone by government. They become cheaper and cheaper over time. Now the poor in the USA can have air conditioning, cars, cell phones, etc and so on but they can’t get basic medical care. Why? Because medical care was too important to leave alone.
Hi Brent,
My grandfather was an MD; he had an office on the first floor of the brownstone he and my grandmother lived in (Allentown, PA). He had a nurse/assistant who helped him – that’s all.
He charged less than people pay today for a Jiffy Lube oil change for a routine visit/allergy shot. This was in the ’70s (he retired in the early ’80s).
The days before HMOs and PPOs. Most people simply paid cash – and not much – because there was no price-padding (and obfuscating) by insurance co’s.
“Government obfuscating” – exactly. One reason the rates are so high is that the insurance companies – esp. Medicare – will only pay a low percentage of the amount billed. You don’t have that leverage. In older times, you could explain to the doctor that you would be paying cash and he would discount the bill. But if he tries that now, and he gets ‘caught,’ he is in all sorts of aromatic organic waste.
Exactly so, Mava.
But people’s minds (most people’s) have been compartmentalized, such that they are able to view, on the one hand, personally demanding at gunpoint that their neighbor “help” them pay their bills as armed robbery while, on the other, viewing the same act when performed by a proxy (e.g., your local Commissioner of Revenue) as “taxes,” which are “the price we pay to live in society” – and so on.
It is this confusion that must be cleared up.
My own opinion is that most people are not bad people – and if you can get them to confront the reality that when they support, say, Obamacare, they are supporting exactly the same thing as shoving a gun under the chin of their neighbor and threatening to kill him if he does not “help” them, we’ll have won the battle.
It’s a war of ideas – of concepts – not opposing armies.
What is your definition of “bad person”? I certainly think that supporting statism shows a failure in ethics.
Hi David,
My definition of a bad person: Someone whose actions diminish the lives of others.
This goes a step or two beyond the NAP, of course. But – for me – the NAP is an ethical construct elaborating the proper interactions of people in society; a foundational legal principle governing what people may and may not do in terms of their outward actions. It does not address whether a person is pleasant, uplifting, someone who you’d like to have as a friend, a neighbor, a business partner or member of your family. How they are internally, as human beings.
Put another way: Under the NAP, a person has every right to be an asshole – so long as his being an asshole doesn’t actually cause tangible harm to anyone.
But is an asshole a good person?
Actually Eric, the cost of health care would drop drastically if the government would remove it’s gun from everybody’s ass and quit enforcing the medical extortion monopoly system. Gov force is the only reason medical providers can get away with charging thousands for medical supplies and procedures that can be obtained elsewhere for a fraction of the cost…
Nothing magical about that, except the magic that would be required to get the philosopher kings of the US to back off.
Right as far as government is concerned, but do remember that the doctors and other health care professionals are being screwed over by government every bit as much or more than the rest of us now. Very few doctors get “rich” anymore, especially not in the current compensation from government “insurance.” Their costs and liability are insanely high too. And they are leaving in droves – medical professionals at all levels, and few are entering practice to replace them. Eventually, what will remain will be the incompetent, those happy to toady to the bureaucrats and live off scams and subsidies.
Get healthy now, and learn how to take care of all but the most serious problems yourself and for your family. Soon you may not be able to see a competent doctor at any price.
Roger that, Chris!
I demand central bank intervention to make the costs of wine, whisky and beer a negative amount. For all other things free markets are fine.
This is the only economic lesson you need. Too bad most people don’t know any better and are ignorant of it.
I lived in Korea for 10 years, you know the 11th strongest economy in the world even though the country only has a population of about 48 milllion people. There, health care is very affordable. That’s because the health care system, like everything else there, is much more free market than anything else. When my daughter had an ear infection, we called for an appointment. We had an appointment in two days. They put a small camera in her ear so we could see the inside of her ear on a big TV screen on the wall. It also wasn’t that expensive. I had all four wisdom teeth pulled in Korea. It cost me $400 for all four. How much in Canada or the US per tooth? There is no reason for health care to be so expensive. It is only so because modern medecine is a cartel (there are so many smart people who want to be doctors, but only a students are admitted every year). Many people who are as smart as doctors but in diferent areas, think Ph.D holding archeologists, work 70 or 80 hours a week for far less money than doctors. Doctors do NOT have a God given right “make a killing”. Just my two cents.
Indeed, Jason.
Here’s a True Story for you:
About three weeks ago, my wife suffered very minor second degree burns on the tips of three fingers (just a small blister on one). It was painful, though, so we went to one of those “Urgent Care” places (because it was late on a weekend night when this happened). She saw the resident Quack for less than 5 minutes. He put some ointment on her fingers, wrapped them up.
A few days ago, we received The Bill.
It was over $350.
The price-padding has become outright financial gang rape.
I used to admire the medical profession (my dad was an MD). I do not admire it now. There are many dedicated, honorable people in medicine. But the profession itself has become a weird mish-mash of Soviet-esque mindless (and incredibly wasteful) bureaucracy and “Greed is Good” vulture capitalism.
The best course is to shun it to the extent possible.
Stay healthy.
The sad truth is that the doctors and other health care professionals are not getting that kind of money at all. Medicine, of any kind, is probably the most regulated, taxed and socialized part of American life. It has been distorted and damaged for a great many years, very often by people who THOUGHT they were doing everything they could to provide for the “poor,” etc. The law of unintended consequences has finally caught up with all of them, and Obummercare is the apex of the insanity. We have yet to reap all of the unintended consequences from that, much less those that are intended.
Here is an example of doctors and providers working hard to restore the free market and rational, individual decision making to medicine. http://surgerycenterofoklahoma.tumblr.com/
They don’t take insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or Obummercare. They take cash. And they list their fees up front so you can make rational choices. It’s catching on.
Take
@ MamaLiberty “The law of unintended consequences has finally caught up with all of them”
The consequences may be unintended, but they are certainly not unpredictable! There is an old saying that “a good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bears bad fruit.” Let us go to first principles and consider what results we could reasonably expect from a system that is based on coercion. In today’s governmental system every tax, every law, every current court ruling is based on one principle: “Do what we tell you or we will send men with guns and gas to kidnap or kill you.”
How can any rational person expect good results from a system that allows sociopaths to rule on every aspect of our lives — and to enforce their decisions by raw, violent, aggression?
Well, Jason… one can then conclude that those who wish to control (own) others are incapable of rational thought… they are not rational people, and never have been. 🙂
Dear Eric, and everyone else,
“… my wife suffered very minor second degree burns on the tips of three fingers (just a small blister on one)… A few days ago, we received The Bill. It was over $350.”
Here’s a tip that can save you a lot of grief next time you get a burn. Not to mention 350 smackeroos.
Act fast! Immediately apply ice or ice water to the burned area.
Say you burned your fingers. Quickly dump some ice cubes into an ice bucket, add ice water, then plunge your hand into it. Keep it in there as long as you can. If it gets too cold, remove your hand briefly. If you start to feel pain from the burn once your hand warms up, immediately plunge your hand back into the ice bucket. Keep doing this until you feel no pain once you remove your hand from the bucket.
This works because the damage is inflicted by the heat. Remove the heat from the area soon enough, and you can prevent the tissue damage from happening in the first place.
But you have to act fast. Seconds count. Wait too long and the damage is already done. Speed is of the essence. Act quickly enough and much of the time it’s almost as if you never got burned at all.
Try it next time and see if I’m not right.
Right idea, Bevin, but too limited. ANY water is going to be much cooler than the burning flesh. Plunge that burn into any water available, immediately. Don’t wait to drag out ice cubes, etc. I saved my hand from a major burn once after slipping and pouring boiling bacon grease over it… I just reached over and plunged my hand into a tub full of cold, old dishwater. It was a miracle, because I normally drain off the dishwater as soon as I’m done. I immediately grabbed a pot and filled it with even cooler water from the faucet, transferring my burned hand into that, and just renewed the cold water for a while until it felt better. I wound up with a few spots of 2nd degree burn between the fingers… and OH YES, that hurt, but the whole thing healed very quickly.
It is very important that no oil, grease or ointments be applied to burns at first, certainly not while the burn is still hot. It only keeps in the heat. After the burn is completely cooled, it needs to be kept clean and protected. It also needs to be protected from drying out. A very light vitamin E oil would be appropriate for minor burns to prevent a crusty scab after the blisters come off, but the blisters should be left intact as long as possible to protect the healing flesh underneath.
Dear ML,
Agreed. No argument. It all depends on how quickly you can access the ice water. YMMV.
One ideal scenario: You’re at an outdoor BBQ and there is a plastic garbage can or galvanized iron tub filled with ice water to cool the drinks.
Problem solved! Just stick your hand straight into that.
Re: ointment or grease
Correct! Rushing to apply ointment on the burn then bandaging the burned area is a terrible approach.
Ya gotta draw the heat away from the burned area. That is the be all and end all. Do that and it’s almost as if you never got burned in the first place.
I’ve used this approach out for many years and I know it absolutely works.
Primary concern: cool the wound ASAP.
Secondary concern: make sure vitals are within normal range. don’t cause a drop in body temperature (hypothermia) and deterioration of blood pressure and circulation (shock) or damage the tissue around the wound with excess cooling.
Tertiary concern: watch for infection. elevate the wound above the heart. avoid all unnecessary contact with the wound. remove foreign materials if you can safely do so. cover wound if you have appropriate supplies. use pain relieving substances. fully and comprehensively inspect wound and determine extent of damage.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-burns/basics/art-20056649
Dear Tor,
Yes. One has to exercise judgment.
If your hand gets so cold it’s unbearable, by all means withdraw it from the water.
Then if throbbing pain from the burn returns because it has been away from the cold water too long, plunge it back in.
Don’t just hold it down in the ice water regardless of body signals.
Dear Tor,
A related insight with broader implications.
If you get a small cut or scrape, one that does not need stitches, the best approach I have found, is to adopt a mostly “laissez faire” approach to healing the wound.
I say “mostly” because one must not oversimplify. There are qualifiers involved.
But it is essential to avoid applying greasy ointments that prevent the wound from naturally drying out and scabbing. That is essentially a “top down statist” approach to healing. It wreaks havoc with the body’s natural healing. Do that, and you keep the wound damp, prevent it from scabbing and closing up, and delay healing as long as it is kept damp.
Instead, let “free market” body processes do what they need to do to naturally. The wound will “bandage” itself by scabbing, and underneath the scab, immediately beginning healing.
This does not mean that one does absolutely nothing. One should judiciously clean the wound, remove debris, and prevent foreign matter from landing in it.
That’s fine. Just so long as the wound has good air circulation and remains dry.
One can for example, apply quick drying disinfectant. Iodine for example. Not a problem.
If you’re going to shower, you can wrap a spare plastic bag around the area and seal it off with duct tape for the duration of the shower.
This approach can reduce the healing time for a minor cut from weeks to days.
Bevin, as an RN with extensive wound care experience, I have to counter some of your assumptions. The best initial treatment for superficial cuts and scrapes is plain soap and water. Wash thoroughly, lots of running water, and make sure to remove all foreign debris. There is zero value in applications of alcohol or other drying substances, or iodine in any form. Topical anti-biotic ointments are particularly useless.
The wound should be protected from getting dirty, and soaking briefly in warm salt water from time to time will promote healing seriously and relieve pain. A light application of coconut oil or vitamin E oil will actually retard infection and promote healing as well. A thick, hard scab is not necessary at all and can simply provide the ideal environment for an infection to develop. The key is not to pick at or disturb any scab that does form unless there are signs of infection under it. Then soak in warm salt water until it dissolves or comes off. Pat dry with clean cloth and apply coconut or vitamin E oil.
The signs of infection are: heat and redness in the surrounding tissues, swelling and pain.
A superficial cut or scrape should never take more than a few days to heal. If it lingers longer, you may need to seek a professional for evaluation.
Hi Eric, I guess you didn’t use insurance? The cartel would have only paid about $40 bucks, and you would have paid a $20-$40 deductible. The main reasons health care is so expensive is because of health insurance. The physicians are encouraged to bump the sticker price up as high as possible, because there are formulas that insurers use to reimburse. Look at a hospital bill or lab fees for better examples. Simple blood test costs a couple of bucks to run, but docs charge over $30. Average hospital stay is close to $10000 a day sticker price, but insurance routinely reimburses just 10-20% of that and miraculously the hospitals stay open (even posting profits). A large part of real expenses are the overhead of dealing with insurance submission and proper coding of procedures for later reimbursement, something that would largely disappear if everyone paid for care themselves. Also, the need to rape the uninsured (the sticker price is the price, unless you have an insurance mafia strong arm the provider) would evaporate as the true cost would be revealed and recognized. At that point, you can shop around and get the best deal for routine work. Emergencies, if fair pricing ruled the day, that would be more affordable. We had a baby last year and only had catastrophic coverage (the premiums were less and deductibles less and coverage better that obamacare), the total out of was about $2800 (insurance negotiated) for the 2 days and the birth. When we went to pay, we were put in the finance office and the lady asked, with obvious trepidation how we would like to pay for things. We asked the charge and she told us, then mentioned if we paid it all then, we would get a 20% discount. My wife and I looked at each other and cut the check. The lady was surprised, seems no one takes them up on the pay it all up front discount. Weird. I wondered what was going on with most people that they couldn’t find the money for what is obviously a planned event. Then it hit me, these are the cheerleaders for the obamacare type schemes foisted on America. Ugh. Ironically, in this same situation, obamacare would have forced them to come up with the funds as the deductibles are way higher. So….can anyone explain why obamacare is a good deal?
Help for the hapless. People who prepare, people who live below their means, people who generally cover their own asses are now considered “lucky”. The political types and the media have disconnected decisions from consequences. It’s all ‘luck’ now.
This will eventually translate into it being perfectly acceptable to steal from savers. See it’s luck you had the money to pay for that. It’s not that you didn’t go without a new giant flat screen TV… no, it’s luck.
BTW, Obamacare has banned catastrophic policies. Why? They are against the interests of the cartel and dependence. Obamacare is a good deal for the cartel. It forces people who have no claims to pay high premiums. It’s free money. If obamacare allowed catastrophic policies then people who can take care of themselves would opt for those. So they are not compliant unless the person meets specific hardship requirements. In other words, the responsible people to whom they are best suited will not be allowed by law to make that choice.
Dear Jason,
“There is no reason for health care to be so expensive. It is only so because modern medicine is a cartel… ”
“Cartel” is absolutely dead on.
Everyone here is probably familiar with the name “G. Edward Griffin.” He is to Federal Reserve System what Edward Snowden is to the NSA.
But did you know that he also played a similar role in exposing the Big Pharma cartel and its outright falsification of cancer research?
I recently watched this video and it blew my mind. You know how Keynesianism is considered “economic science” by the mainstream, and how Austrian Economics is suppressed and dismissed?
Apparently the same thing prevails in medicine. Allopathic medicine is considered “medical science” and alternative medicine is suppressed and dismissed.
G. Edward Griffin – A World Without Cancer – The Story Of Vitamin B17
Dear Jason,
Sorry, wrong video.
This is the one on Big Pharma monopoly and deceit.
The other one is also great. A must watch. But it’s more about the science than the politics of medicine.
Great stuff, Bevin. (comment 159904 responses #1 & #2)
I am seeking UPB for burn care. We’ve agreed there is no UPA(universally preferred authority).
What remains then, is to create our own behaviors from scratch, and to vet them with others and synthesize and reconcile them with what we hear commonly preached. Ultimately it is done DIY(do it yourself). But in the interim of the process, it is of benefit to DIT(do it together).
My Intro to Traditional Chinese Medicine
http://41pills.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-introduction-to-traditional-chinese.html
All matter is commanded by the Demiurge Yang to join one of the 5 elemental factions: Wood Fire Earth Metal Water – (see Divergent)
These factions spar and align to rule over the many dualities. Dualities both real and irrational.
My Duality Narrative: The inner spirits I perceive in myself and others call for my aid to help the Yin spirits seek sanctuary and existence away from the tyranny of the Yang spirits. Urban term: captain saveaho.
Classically, when used in place names, yang refers to the “sunny side.” Refers to the sun, and literally means “great yang.” In the northern hemisphere, sunlight comes predominantly from the south, and so the the north face of a river valley will get more direct sunlight. Therefore, yang means a place is on the north bank of a river valley. For example, Luoyang is on the north bank of the Luo River valley.
In the same way, yin would be the opposite, the “shady side.” Yin means that a place is on the north slope of a mountain. For example, Huayin is on the north slope of Mount Hua.
Symbolism and importance: Yin is the black side with the white dot on it, and yang is the white side with the black dot on it. The yin and yang is often described in terms of sunlight playing over a mountain and valley. Yin is the dark area occluded by the mountain’s bulk, while yang is the brightly lit portion. As the sun moves across the sky, yin and yang gradually trade places with each other, revealing what was obscured and obscuring what was revealed.
Yin is characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, earth, the moon, femininity and nighttime.
Yang, by contrast, is fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, sky, the sun, masculinity and daytime.
Yin and yang applies to the human body. In traditional Chinese medicine good health is directly related to the balance between yin and yang qualities within oneself. If yin and yang become too unbalanced, one of the qualities is considered deficient or has vacuity.
Existentially we are bombarded constantly by contrary forces which endeavor to keep us interconnected and interdependent with the natural world they have manifested.
Contrary forces which they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another and sometimes cause fall and dissonance to each other.
Endless natural dualities – light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, and so on – are thought of as physical manifestations of the yin-yang duality concept.
This concept is the root of many branches of classical Chinese science and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine.
Ching Wan Hung – Burn Ointment
http://www.itmonline.org/jintu/chingwan.htm
Lobelia 27.5%, Myrrh 17.5%, Tang-kuei 12%, Borneol 12%
Sanguisorba 8.5%, Chaenomeles 8.5%, Frankincense 8.5%
Carthamus 8.5%, Pistacia 8.5%
Don’t be fooled into thinking traditional Chinese medicine is only something one can purchase in Chinatown. It is an entirely separate TLD (top level domain) approach and methodology to achieving robustness and wellness. Sometimes you can combine with Western medicine, other times you have to make a choice between approaches.
The Golden Path of Health
http://www.itmonline.org/jintu/goldenpath.htm
Example:
Dr. X and I talked for awhile at my first appointment. Tried acupuncture for the first time.
He explained that too much heat is bad and certain foods, like coffee for example, put “heat” in the colon. Tea, on the other hand, is “cold” and that is soothing to the colon.
He prescribed a bunch of pills for me. All herbs designed to provide balance to my system and remove the “heat” from my colon. Here is what I am taking:
Honeysuckle-12 tablets a day.
Agrimony–12 tablets a day.
DHT-INT–12 tablets a day. This is a blend of peach seed, Job’s Tears seed, Baikal Skullcap root, Patrinia, immature bitter orange fruit
RBX–15 tablets a day. Pulsatilla root, Lithospermum root, Sophora fruit, Sanguisorba root, Corydalis rhizome, Rhubarb rhizome, Red Peony root, Licorice root
This is divided into 3 doses, taken before or after meals. These 17 pills taken all at once require the consumption of a great amount of water.
Dear Tor,
Yes. TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine is essentially another example of private sector, civil society wisdom accumulated down through the generations. It’s not that different fundamentally than Western folk medicine, much of which we are now learning was dead on.
It is to Big Pharma defined orthodox medicine, what common law is to statutory law.
It’s gratifying that ordinary people in both the East and the West are rediscovering the old wisdom.
Examples: Butter is better than margarine. Sugar is better than HFCS. Red meat is better than wheat.
I’ll admit I had to look up the word “proletarianized” to see exactly what you were talking about. yes I agree.
This is my best guess as to where The USA is heading.
The dollar continues to die at an ever accelerated rate. Homeland Security and your local police department become one and the same and brutal. Your rights become museum pieces that collect dust with the first and second amendments dying overnight……you’ll be told it’s for your safety…the sheeple will believe. Mass incarcerations will begin with a list sent out to arrest anyone who has potential for rebellious leadership, they will be declared “terrorists”. These people will vanish and all this will be done at an ever accelerating pace with the Supreme Courts approval. The country will become so dysfunctional and brutal nothing will work anymore. With the USA now considered by most a banana republic the succession movement wins. The country fragments and this will lead to civil war. If the military objects or is suspected of obedience issues a war will be created overseas to keep “em busy” and distracted. What happens after that I do not know.
I don’t see any other scenario playing out except if peaceful succession happens or the government willingly goes back to the rule of law and our freedoms.
An affordable coffee act would be difficult to build an excuse for.
Plunder always needs some excuse to get people who are being plundered to view it as moral or needed. Foreign boogiemen, strategic resources, helping the sick, the poor, etc and so on.
There needs to be this emotional excuse to sell it. Another one, ‘drunk driving’… ‘speeding’, the list of ways people are manipulated and plundered is damn near infinite… the snake god is displeased with your level of sacrifice, the climate will become hot and dry and your crops will fail…. on and on for thousands of years.
The selling is the most important thing. Be it selling it out of fear or out of a desire to help people. People don’t invest the time and energy to understand the moral implications, they just take the lazy way out. They just accept what their ‘leaders’ say, what the school teach, etc. Anything contrary to the conditioning is rejected.
An emotional excuse? BrentP… you have never seen the ultimate “emotional excuse.” “A woman scorned?” Piffle… You do NOT ever want to deal with me in the morning before I have my first cup of coffee. Probably a good reason I’ve been a celibate widow for 30 years.
But I’m equally picky. I buy premium whole beans, grind them myself, and have a rather elaborate method to brew them.
Meddle with that at your peril! LOL
Government sanctioned looting of the working class is drawing to a closer. Its always fun to spend other peoples money…..till its gone. My question is what will happen when the wealth transfer ends? Will the Feds go complete tyranny, will succession of the states begin, will World War lll start?????? Questions Eric questions.
Hi Joe,
It’s the middle class that’s being squeezed now. This is purely anecdotal, but everyone I know (and these are all middle class people; college degrees, skilled professionals, etc.) is seriously worried about money. It has become much harder to accumulate significant savings because incomes are down and the cost of everything is up and not by a small amount (I would guesstimate an average 20 percent uptick over the past six years).
Taxes continue to go up – notably, this new tax (Obamacare) which will put the arm on everyone who isn’t already on the dole – or affluent. The middle is caught – in the middle.
If the rest of the world ditches the dollar (this is happening already) we’re done. All of us – except those already very wealthy.
America s being proletarianized preparatory to being Sovietized.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/198468.Margaret_Thatcher
Third quote:
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Bastiat called it “Legal Plunder”
I think you’re onto something. I know how to fix this. How about the Federal Reserve, or the government, doesn’t matter, just gives/credits everyone 15 million dollars? Everyone would be rich then. Everything would be affordable by everyone!!!
15 million dollars, Brandonjin? I don’t know about you, but I’d shut the hell up if I had that.
You know, they could do that.
Because they don’t. It may mean we are just pawns?
…And/or they know that a month or two later we couldn’t STFU and it’d be a waste of money? Who knows?
You’ve been watching Steve Keen, haven’t you?
That would, of course, be more stealth theft from savers, but at this point, any savers that haven’t figured out that it was coming wouldn’t be in for such a big surprise. It’ll never happen because bankers always want for themselves and their friends to have first dibs on marginal utility.
@Helot
Its difficult to define what a waste of money is nowadays. All it would do is increase inflation quickly. Add a few zeros to everything and everything is back to normal. It may also get people excited for a very short time.
Another way the govt could implement the Affordable Coffee Act is by giving everyone coupons guaranteeing they’ll only cost 99 cents. Company losses would be covered by the government. Follow this to logical conclusion, where the govt subsidizes everything to be affordable, then what? Massive debt, massive inflation, then collapse? Why collapse then as opposed to now? Where is the safe subsidization line drawn?
@Warp
I have not been watching Steve Keen, should I be? I just considered this a viable solution because,… things work strangely when you control the production of money. No personal repercussions to their actions.
Ahh, Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – now there was a book! “Sanction of the Victim” indeed. The really cool thing that’s about to happen (well, it’s coming for sure, but who knows when?) is going to be the blank faces when the “voters” realize that they cannot vote productivity and surplus energy into existence. As we plumb the depths of the oil bust, not to mention the natural resources bust that’s coming – as we get closer to that singularity that beckons just beyond the economic event horizon – what glee we, the aware, will be able to scarcely suppress when viewing those vacuous black eyes, those lips forming the monosyllable “whuh?” as it all comes grinding to a halt.
Amen! The false “altruism” is so deeply embedded… it must be dug out and destroyed.
Hallelujah Mama!
Open Carry – Mama’s Got A (BIG) Gun!
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/09/04/editor.htm
In the end, I live therefore I am. I need no one’s permission to live nor deign to defend my manner of existence. I ignore your efforts to vet my intentions and sanity. I seek no approval of my self-defenses and self-definitions. I will not explain. I will not provide reasons.
You can merely observe, or pick up a tool and enter the field of constructors. The choice is yours.
The price of liberty is far more than simple vigilance. The cost includes the integrity to accept complete personal responsibility for your life, safety, property and welfare. The price you may find hardest to pay, however, is the fund your integrity to leave everyone else alone to do the same.
You cannot change human nature, and you cannot legislate/force others to be honest, thrifty, safe, intelligent, and whatever else you consider virtuous. Others must do it on their own or bear the consequences, you have no right to do anything without invitation but defend yourself from aggression.
– – – – – –
Thepriceofliberty . org
The purpose of this web site is to define the terms, discuss the application of those terms to our quest for liberty, and to explore the ways in which we may achieve liberty in our own lives with a legacy of justice for our children.
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Many articles are not complimentary to politicians. Though we have a policy of no “personal attacks”, when a person becomes a politician or bureaucrat and assumes a position of power, he is no longer able to claim protection. Those in power’s actions and characters are very much relevant to our lives and property. We must be able to learn and communicate the things they do and even the possible reasons they do them so that we may be prepared and protect ourselves from their predations as much as possible.
No one need remain in the public eye or face unfavorable journalism. All one has to do is keep their word and honor their oath of office or resign and go home. It isn’t an “attack” to defend yourself against a pack of mad dogs. We won’t sustain and maintain our liberty if we are “politically correct”.
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FreeSpeechMe & Dot-Bit alternate domain registry
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/?p=3707
Why thank you, Tor! I welcome all serious inquiry, sincere criticism, and appropriate contributions of articles and comment. The Price of Liberty has been presented there since 2003… and will be for as long as I can manage to continue. 🙂
I’ve really enjoyed PoL. You’ve kept it going and growing since October of 2003. Which is amazing. Keep on keeping on!
}This site has only reached 36% of its February goal, yet the month is 68% complete. I pray that the sacred miracle of the free lunch continues.
}My online emo-petulance-catharsis process is one of the things I depend on to keep my social self-enslavement bearable.
My Story – Life Snatched From The Jaws of Death!
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/mystory.htm
Politicians and Athlete’s Tongue
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/editor.html
The Poor Seniors – How Do We Care For Them?
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/01/27/editor.htm
Since politicians love to redefine the meaning of words (liberal, choice and fair come immediately to mind), lets redefine altruism as spoken by politicians.
Altruism: verb. Meaning remove property from one’s possession for the purpose of giving it to another (ostensibly worthy demographic).
Next they will start calling taxes “sharing”. Peace means war. Charity, when practiced by uncle sugar means “steal from the productive at the point of a gun”.
I find myself wondering if the majority, or at least the voting majority will ever wake.
On a positive note, wrapping grand jury duty up, finally (10 full days and 2 half days over the course of 3 months), how do most working class, non unemployed/non retired do it? I could by dint of self employment. Sure, employers have to release you, but losing an employee one week out of 6 and still paying them is hard. We heard a case last week: idiot noticed by cops sitting in car in parking lotion closed businesses, pretty late. Cop turn in, idiot departs, tried to evade cops. Pulled over. Cops smell dope. Ask to search, idiot allows. During search they find marijuana scraps and a .38 revolver stuffed under the back seat. Search occupant, and take him to jail. Prior to entry into jail, he is told he will be searched and any contraband found on his person will mean felony charge, plus whatever else he ends up charged with. Of course prison guards find small bag of pot in his undies, instant felony charge. At grand jury, we heard case and voted. Only charges were unlawful concealed weapon and contraband felony. Well, IMO, so what if guy had gun (said so prior to vote to get brain cells rubbing together). Another juror said he would have been fine if the gun was up on the dash in plain site. whatever. Vote was 11-4 to indict, not enough as you need 12 to indict, so citizen doesn’t get hung out to dry for what I see as doing nothing wrong and then getting hung up on felony related to wrongful charges. I like to think I opened they eyes of at least one other person. We’ve already heard grumbling from law enforcement about some accused not being indicted for what the leo’s felt were people obviously guilty. Well, we don’t think personal use MJ, or having a gun are illegal, so perhaps the cops here locally will get the message.