My Version of Hell

St. Roscoe Rooster, 2/7/2008-12/25/2009  “May we rest in peace”

There is no better therapist than a personal journal.  A journal waits patiently, doesn’t interrupt, argue, criticize, judge, talk back, condemn, nag, or gossip.  It’s there on your terms, when you want it, and it’s essentially free.

It’s also fun and sometimes embarrassing to re-read and see how perspective changes, or how memories differ from the written version.  I’ve kept a journal on and off throughout my life.  I’ve lost some, burned some, and some were stolen.  I prefer writing by hand, as I sit with morning coffee, because there’s no urgency, no need to correct typos, and there’s something inherently satisfying about low-tech pen and paper.

Ten years ago this month, I had entered early retirement, had acquired my first batch of chickens, and was watching my stock investments fall below the value of my medical school debt.  I was considering whether an individual could secede from the United States and not be owned by any country.  I was reading a lot, as always, books, magazines and newspapers.  I was beginning to pay attention to the FDA’s periodic food scares and seeing a pattern.  I was philosophizing about how things ought to be.

Now, in 2018, my views have evolved, but not too much.  I’m more offended now than before by the path the US is taking but am resigned to it.  Ten years older, I feel the squeezing of time into fewer remaining years.  Ambition and goals seem less important.  I’ve recognized that many dreams may never come true, nor will some nightmares.  Day to day existence goes on automatic pilot, most of the time, with less to interest or inspire, but more enjoyment from unexpected events, like a sunny day after a week of clouds and rain.

Here are some entries from November, 2008:

INDEPENDENT OF COUNTRY

Sunday, November 2, 2008–I may secede from the US.  Why should I be a citizen of any country?  I’m still a taxpayer if I live here.  Does that make me illegal, if I was born five miles from where I live?

As an independent country, I am a citizen of the planet.  How’s that?  I belong to no government, and no government belongs to me.  I make up my own laws as I go along, and if I break them, nobody cares but me.  My own government is self-governance.  It costs me nothing in taxes, and it provides generous returns on my investment.

I wonder about the expectation that anyone should be a citizen of any country.  What’s the point of citizenship except to vote and pay taxes?  If I were a foreigner, I would still pay taxes, and if I owned property, I would pay property taxes, so I would be contributing to government services, such as they are.

Radical revolutionary that I am.

WORK ETHIC

Thursday, November 6, 2008—The internal nags don’t let up.  The work ethic is so heavily instilled in me that I feel worthless if I’m not accomplishing things.

I avoid the study and the computer, and the piles of written words that await me there, my own files, and books and newspapers and magazines.  So much information, much of it misleading, descriptive of a value system, and set of beliefs I don’t share.

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Saturday, November 8, 2008—I can’t blame anyone for the fact that I attract problems.  I’m the solution all the problems are looking for, but do the problems want to be solved?  No.  They would lose their identity as problems, because they are ego-attached to being problems.

Maybe I’m ego-attached to being a solution, but I’m letting go of that.  I worked myself out of a psychiatry job by declaring crazy normal.

I am neither solution nor problem, because both are traps.  The concept of problems and solutions is as suspect as strength and weakness.  Relative to what, I ask.  My “solutions” bring new “problems,” and my ‘weaknesses” help develop “strengths” that then become “weaknesses” in turn.

MY VERSION OF HELL

Saturday, November 8, 2008–My version of hell is having to put up with miserable people forever.  I can hear the whiners now:

“It’s your fault you’re here.  You murdered me.  You deserve to be here.”

“So why are you here?”

“It’s a mistake.  I’m appealing God’s decision.”

“God made the right decision, alright.  Why do you think I murdered you?  I did the world a favor.”

“Hell wasn’t such a bad place, until you got here.  The beer is free.”

“The beer is free?  In hell?

“Yep.  Keeps people from wanting to go to heaven.”

“Why do they call it hell?”

“Why do you think?  It costs money to get to heaven, and nobody would buy into it if they knew they could get free beer in hell.  Everything is free in hell, because everyone just takes what he wants without paying, anyway.

“But it’s so hot.”

“We drink a lot of beer and pass out so we don’t feel the heat so much.”

“Has anyone asked the Devil to turn down the heat?  It’s not energy efficient, you know.

“You could ask him, but he gets cold easily in this drafty cave, and he is thin.”

“He could put on a sweater.”

“Why should he?  He’s supposed to be torturing these people, and he’s afraid of losing his job if he doesn’t cause them enough pain.”

“That’s true in all government jobs.  So the Devil isn’t self-employed?

“Hell, no.  Who in his right mind would pay to spend eternity with the Devil?”

“How does he pay for the beer?”

“He steals it, of course.  He sends his hellions topside whenever supplies run low, and they bring back everything people have ordered, including nuclear power plants, to help keep the Devil warm.”

“Sounds like the government.”

“Government is hell.  I thought you knew that”

“Why do we have it?”

“To keep people out of heaven, of course.  Heaven was getting crowded, what with all those people resting in peace.  God ran out of bedrooms and couldn’t wake anybody up to build more, so He created hell to take the heat off Him.  He sent Lucifer down to manage things and wake people up, but he steals beer for them instead.”

 

 

 

 

What Rules the Rulers?

Aldous Huxley published Brave New World in 1932.  The novel describes a futuristic society that boasts a world government with the motto “Community, Identity, Stability.”  The year is After Ford 632, and babies are decanted rather than born.  Eugenics has been refined to the point where viviparous births no longer occur.  Human ova are extracted from purchased ovaries, manually fertilized, and grown in bottles to produce specific castes of individuals, from Alpha to Epsilon.  In the controlled process, growth and development are intentionally stunted in the lower castes, to pre-condition them to lives of menial labor and servitude.

There are no families, and the words “mother” and “father” are obscenities.  There is no social unrest, no disease, and no war.  Books like Shakespeare and the Bible have been banned, because they are old.  The Brave New World emphasizes everything new, with consumerism raised to the level of a religion, in fond memory of “Our Ford.”  Solitude and individuality are considered subversive.  Sexual promiscuity is promoted, and the popular “feelies” are pornographic movies with sensual enhancement.  The feel-good drug, soma, is dispensed freely as a work benefit, allowing everyone to maintain a state of happiness at all times.

Author Aldous Huxley was a teacher at Eton College to Eric Blair, pseudonym George Orwell, who in 1949, published his own dystopic novel, 1984.  When offered a chance to review 1984, Huxley was impressed but claimed his own dystopia was more realistic.  Huxley believed that punishment only deters undesirable behavior a short time, but a system of rewards prompting people to love their servitude was more effective.  He believed his vision in Brave New World, in which soma and easy gratification of desire kept discontent at bay, more probable than the 1984 notion of a fear-and-punishment-based society.

It strikes me that the themes of the books are similar, in that both are dystopias dealing with world government, including control by a powerful, if shrouded, elite.  The parallels between what Huxley and Orwell predicted and today’s political climate are strongly evocative, showing how beliefs seeded years and centuries ago grow over time.  There is nothing new about empire building, or the desire for control of larger and larger areas or groups of people.  Fundamentally, it comes down to the desire to control the minds of others, on a grand scale, to make them love (Huxley) or fear (Orwell) their masters.  Individuality, the anarchist, the malcontent, the extremist, become the enemies of the state and threatening to the masses, who are comfortable in the status quo.  These outliers must be discouraged, dis-empowered, disdained, discredited, disliked, or eliminated, if they veer too far from accepted norms.

While people claim to want leaders, they also resist the authority they delegate.  In Brave New World, perpetual child-like dependency allows for the social stability that seems to ensure the lasting power of the ruling class.  It also creates a state of perpetual stagnation, in which people have no free will and face no challenges or consequences that force them to grow and, theoretically, mature.

It seems unlikely to me that the world government that some hope for and others fear will ever be attained, if only because few people fully submit to control by others.  They subvert outside authority through passive resistance or passive aggression if not outright defiance.  The more control government claims, the more unrest it creates, until the forces of resistance overwhelm the efforts to contain it.

Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, contains twelve essays in which Huxley explored the differences between democracies and totalitarian governments.  He worried that over-population would lead to over-organization, with increasing efforts by the State to fit individuals into machine-like roles, as in corporations.  He emphasizes that organizations are not living beings.  Freedom is necessary in order to become fully human.

Both Brave New World and 1984 depict totalitarian governments teetering on their foundations, forced to use extreme tactics to maintain control of the people they have subjugated.  But for what?  Are the World Controllers in Brave New World, or Big Brother’s henchmen in 1984 any happier for their lofty positions?  What gratification comes from ruling over a passive and demoralized people, those who are kept in a state of perpetual child-like submissiveness?

It’s hard for me to imagine a totalitarian government lasting for long, simply because its foundations would be composed of homogenized individuals who have never learned to stand on their own, support themselves or each other, and are not motivated or able to carry their presumptive masters.

 

The “Health Care Industry” is Sick

THOUGHTS ON THE HEALTH SCARE-SNARE RACKET

Saturday, March 25, 2017—Trumpcare, the Republicans’ answer to Obamacare, failed this week.  Predictions abound about what the government will do next.  It appears Obamacare is imploding, and the media expects it to be saved or replaced.  My right-wing conservative friends declare government control of health care is unconstitutional.  My left-wing friends believe Obamacare needs to be fixed, not replaced.

I’ve been opposed to government and insurance-controlled medicine since graduating from medical school and psychiatry residency.  Back then, it was Hillarycare, which was trounced initially.  During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Hillarycare began being implemented piecemeal through bureaucracy.

For me, the issue then and now was freedom, including freedom of choice about everything from practitioners to types of treatment.  Government-controlled health care translates into a guaranteed captive market for insurance companies, in which the healthy subsidize everyone else, especially the “industry” itself.  Doctors and patients must kowtow to government and insurance rules.  Out the window go confidentiality, honesty, and compassion, since symptoms must fit a diagnosis code to insure payment for treatment.  In psychiatry, this means the psychiatrist must come up with a diagnosis which goes forever on the patient’s record and can interfere with everything from self-esteem to employment.

AND, SEVEN YEARS AGO THIS MONTH . . .

CURRENT EVENTS:  OBAMACARE

Wednesday, March 24, 2010—Everyone is talking about Obamacare, which passed over the weekend.  Everyone knew it would, but nobody knows what it means except more taxes.  The boat is sinking, but we’re afraid to rock it.

VIGNETTE:  OBAMACARE

Friday, March 26, 2010—I met a 35ish guy in line at Starbucks yesterday.  I was standing at the cash register when Sean mentioned something about Obamacare.  I said Dr.Obama needs to write his own prescriptions.  The guy behind me, a big, burly fella with motorcycle helmet and a completely tattooed right arm but untouched left arm, thick dark hair two-three inches long, eyes brown and intense, said something about economics, bankers, the Fed, or a related subject that tipped me off.

I realized he is an awakened soul, sees things as I do, and so we stood there agreeing with each other until both got coffee and moved out of the way.

Tee hee.  I had told the boyfriends the other day there is no gold in Fort Knox, and the levels of security exist to protect the void.  My new friend, whose name I didn’t ask, agrees there’s no gold in Fort Knox, but for fools’ gold, hahaha.  I told him his generation is much smarter than my generation and got a laugh out of someone behind me in line.

On the way out, my new friend mentioned the book, Creature from Jekyll Island, and said he learned on the net that the US has been selling gold-plated tungsten bars to China and I think France as if they were gold, and the deception has recently been discovered.  Apparently it began during the Clinton years, and the cost was something like $50,000 per bar to produce.

Later, Sean said we were two peas in a pod, an unlikely pair, the two of us, but what the hey.  These younger folks are expected to cater to all these old coots who were gullible enough to trust the Woodrow Wilsons, FDRs, Lyndon Johnsons, and other paternalistic exploiters, and I don’t blame the younger set if they believe Boomers are dispensable.  Why should they support us?  I told my friend he is under no obligation to make good on the government’s promises.

TEN YEARS AGO THIS MONTH:

MEDICAL SCHOOL ATTITUDES

Monday, March 26, 2007 – I’ve been thinking about my medical career.  Starting in medical school, I was appalled by the attitudes, and they got worse in the hospital in our third year.  M. was a good study companion the first two years, but his old girlfriend and the vicious, cut-throat, warfare in the hospital in our third year edged me out.  He played the politics and kissed up to the residents, but he also loved doing the procedures, and was like the rest of them, eager to compete for opportunities to do lumbar punctures, draw blood, drain fluid from lungs and peritoneal cavities, deliver babies, run codes.  While I wanted the experience, too, I wasn’t willing to elbow my way into the situations that offered them, and the rush-rush mentality rattled my confidence and made me afraid to touch the patients.

I was horrified at the frenzy of my classmates when it came to procedures, and the careless disregard for the patients they were so eager to practice on.  I wasn’t willing to follow residents around, hoping for chances to draw blood or run errands or otherwise do their bidding.  They perceived my attitude as insolence, and the OB-gyn boys took it more personally than the others. No one ever told me directly, so I was flabbergasted when Dr. S said they complained and almost failed me for the OB rotation.  I only remembered they wouldn’t let us do much, because they wanted to do it, and they kept medical students in a room together entire afternoons while they saw the patients alone.  I spent my time studying, so made the highest grade in the class on the written test.  I thought the OB-gyn material was the easiest.  Everyone else was bragging about how many babies they were “catching,” as if it were a disease.  I only “caught” one baby, that the chief OB resident helped me with, but he was the first baby with congenital syphilis the attending physicians had seen in ten years.

THE MD ROLE

Monday, March 26, 2007 – My no-frills trappings and simple, ascetic life – which it is – runs counter to the doctor stereotype, into which other doctors pour money and pride.  I’ve never felt comfortable in the doctor role.  It belongs to someone else, a non-being, a stereotype formed by others’ expectations, divorced from my self-perceived style.

But I’m good at it, among the best I know, which makes it all the stranger, because it comes so easily.  That I don’t put much faith in the pills I prescribe, the system I represent, the beliefs believed “normal” by today’s standards, ekes out in passing references.

No, I don’t believe in war, competition, health care insurance, the federal government, marriage, or that churches should be property tax-exempt, unless everyone is property tax-exempt.  If I pray directly to god, without need for a priest or rabbi to intercede, why should I pay property taxes when they don’t?  Who’s to say god listens more to them than me, and why should that give them a material advantage?

DRUG AND ALCOHOL LAWS

Saturday, March 3, 2007 – Drug and alcohol laws represent a major human rights violation–as the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion foretold–and should be abolished.  No one has the right to restrict another’s access to her own body.  The key to better health is better education and a free range of choices.  No one feels my pain like I do.

I believe drug laws set the frame for the sadomasochistic power struggles we call addiction. Drug laws are a means by which government seeks control over taxpayers.  Laws put government in a moralistic, paternalistic, top-dog position over the taxpayers who pay its way.

Laws and other social engineering tactics restrict the productivity of the very individuals who support them, and the entire society loses.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PRESCRIPTIONS

Monday, March 12, 2007 – Doing child and adolescent psychiatry means prescribing drugs I don’t approve of, because the teachers dictate medical care for unruly kids.

No, we won’t give them physical education, home economics, shop, or any incentive to behave, nothing that will interest them during the long hours they must sit, while some harried, bored, and boring teacher parrots an agenda designed to stifle curiosity and make children hate education.

No, we will diagnose them as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and put them on amphetamines to control their behavior, because what we’re really doing is cultivating the next generation of slave labor for the imperialists who formerly were industrialists but no longer even produce meaningful industry.  They produce paperwork, insurance, stocks, cash, and debt, using their forebears’ reputations as collateral, generating paper profits on Wall Street, while product quality and workplace safety plummet.

 

The Police State Board Game

I wrote the following political satire piece for my “Adventures in Living in the World as It Is” series in December, 2009.

THE POLICE STATE BOARD GAME
GoverCorp vs. You

In this game, players vie with THE POLICE STATE to get around the board with a minimum of hassle.  They win by overcoming barricades, set-backs, barbed wire, traps, concrete mazes, and other obstacles, to arrive at the point where they began.  Each player meets different challenges.

Tourists, travelers—and anyone who visits an airport—must negotiate airport security.  Cop an attitude and miss your plane. (Go back five spaces.)

Travelers, you can win this round.  If security drones mess with you, demand their names and write them down. (Skip three spaces.)  Do this loudly.  (Skip ten spaces.)  If you can get them to write their own names, skip ten spaces and win an extra turn.  If you miss your plane, call the media and yell into the phone at the airport until they find you another flight.  (Take an extra turn.)

Federal security personnel only have jobs because they failed reading, writing, and arithmetic in elementary school.  They’d probably be in jail if they weren’t paid by the police state  to fleece you.

The doctor and all health care providers with licensed signatures must file Medicare, Medicaid, and third-party payer claims; document everything done and not done; be there for everyone’s crises; listen to everyone’s complaints; manage their illnesses; and, when time allows, save their lives.

Doctors win by avoiding insurance hassles. “Oh, you’re having a heart attack?  Call Dr. Obama.  He’ll call me if your policy covers heart attacks. Oh, he doesn’t answer the phone at night?  You should have bought a better government.”  Then hang up and go back to sleep.

If you really have killed a patient, lose five turns and reapply for your license, if you decide it’s worth it.  If you decide to retire, get five extra turns.  If it’s a nuisance malpractice suit, go back five spaces.  You can go to jail instead of settling and skip ten spaces in THE POLICE STATE.

Teachers have to maintain control in the classroom without using discipline.  Even a yell is emotional abuse in THE POLICE STATE.

Teachers win by doing what they must.  Do not attract attention from THE POLICE STATE. Ignore it as much as possible, unless it is in your face making unreasonable demands, or if you’ve hit a child.  (Go back ten spaces.)  How hard? (If s/he is bruised, go back five more spaces.)  If there are major injuries, go back to the beginning and choose a different profession.

If you can teach the school board something about education, skip five spaces and get three extra turns. If kids enjoy school, the probability of your wanting to hit them, principals, school board members, parents, congressmen, or presidents plummets.

Developers, contractors, and builders must negotiate forests of permits, licenses, fees, city and county parents, planning boards, and the bureaucratic jungle before you can build.  Bribes and favors are the easiest way to do business in THE POLICE STATE.

Builders win by doing the job right.  (Lose five turns for each collapsed building.  If anyone was hurt or killed, start over and apply for a government job.)  Go back five spaces for every problem from shoddy construction.  Win by remembering pipes break on holidays.  You’ll sleep easier and won’t have to schmooze as many politicians in THE POLICE STATE.

Joe Blow, angry women, hot chicks, impotent men, red-necks, teenagers, bruthas—and everyone with with an attitude and a steering wheel—must negotiate traffic, congestion, stop lights, road safety hazards, other bad drivers, suicidal pedestrians, errant pets, parking problems, car trouble, passenger distractions, and other demands that have nothing to do with driving. Impatience attracts everything from fender-benders to fatal accidents, and of course, traffic tickets. Go back five spaces for slugging a policeman, even if he deserved it.

Tips for success: About that traffic violation:  Did anybody die?  Better show up in court. (Lose five turns.)  Anybody hurt?  Be there. (Go back ten spaces.) Anybody’s car damaged? Ditto. (Go back five spaces.) No damage to anyone or anything?  OK.  Just pay the fine, but you have a record now.  Watch your step, because every forward move counts against you in:

THE POLICE STATE