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| "Dr. Mitt", Uncle Sam, and "Dr. Barry" A Responsible Approach vs Hopey Changey Happy Pills |
[from billlifka[ I have a deceased uncle (let’s
call him Sam) who was a heavy smoker. He was feeling poorly and a doctor
diagnosed his condition as an advanced case of lung cancer. Sam didn’t want to
hear that so he went to several other doctors who delivered the same verdict,
along with the prognosis of an early, painful death.
One of these, Doctor Mitt,
was quite experienced in the field and had cured many cancer patients before.
He promised Sam that he could be cured if he were willing to undergo treatment
that would be very uncomfortable for a time but would return him to robust
health as he had enjoyed before he became addicted to smoking. The treatment
would require that Sam cease smoking immediately and submit to chemotherapy and
radiation. His hair would fall out, temporarily, he’d be extremely nauseous
most of the time and he’d lose much weight. On the other hand, Dr. Mitt would
prescribe modest doses of pain killers and a special diet of food and food supplements
that would build up Sam’s total body to offset much of the damage to the
localized cancer area.
Sam considered this advice but sought an easier solution.
In all professions, there are
practitioners who tell their clients what they want to hear. Usually, they are
successful in their practices since most humans want to hear what they want to
hear. And so it was that Sam was able to find other doctors who told him just
the opposite of what Dr. Mitt and others of his persuasion had told him.
Principal among these was Dr. Barry who was a glib, handsome devil who was very
popular with his patients, especially the ladies. Dr. Barry said all that
discomfiture was unnecessary and, most likely, was bad; even a little bit of
suffering caused patients to lose hope and hope was known to be the best
medicine for any kind of ailment. Giving up smoking, according to Dr. Barry,
was also bad; resultant unhappiness was another cause of the loss of hope. He
prescribed stronger pain killers that produced a euphoric feeling in Sam for
several months.
After a few months, the stronger
pain killers and the continued smoking didn’t make Sam any better. In fact, his
condition steadily worsened and he spent an extremely painful eight months
until his early death. To the end he recommended Dr. Barry to friends and
associates as a doctor who cared deeply for his patients.
This is a true story but I’ve
changed the names of my uncle and the doctors to protect the guilty and the
innocent. You might have noticed the similarity between my real uncle’s story
and the on-going story of our Uncle Sam. My uncle’s immediate family members
were enablers to him in his choice of a comfortable short term over a
successful long term cure. Currently, Americans have the opportunity to enable
their Uncle Sam to continue in his rotten habits that feel good in the very
short term but will lead to his painful death in the slightly longer term. They
have an alternate opportunity to restore him to full health and a long life. Which
will it be?
This analogy may offend some but
it’s dead on. Just because one is a lemming doesn’t mean that one must follow
one’s leader over a cliff. Many lemmings are credits to their species and have
the intelligence to know a cliff is ahead and it’s time to ease themselves to
the sides of their pack and not get swept over in the crowd. It will allow
their species to survive, which should be high on their list of instincts.
Their next step should be to select a leader with more common sense.
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