Because You Asked, Here Are My Views
Filed Under: Green Politics on July 30, 2009
I enjoy getting emails from you all when you decide to write. I don’t publish my email, for obvious spam reasons, but you manage to find it anyway. Mostly I get messages through Facebook and Twitter, both of which I’ve linked to on my About page here on the site.
Usually, rather than leave a comment on a post, I get emails asking for a specific answer or source material for a post I’ve made. Often these are questions relating to modifications someone’s making to their own DIY project based on something I’ve posted here. I know of at least three of you that are building new raised beds this summer for next year’s garden, for instance.
That kind of thing is encouraging and I love answering and helping if I can. I also love it when you’re willing to show me what you’re doing and share how you plan to do it. The exchange of ideas is awesome.
This week, though, was very different. Because of what’s happening in Washington right now, no less than four of you have approached me in the past few days asking my views on political things: healthcare specifically.
While I’m not afraid to talk about my politics on this site, and since non-government solutions are one of the focuses of this site, I nevertheless avoid most political speech here. Well, I avoid political preaching, anyway. I post a lot about current environmental-related politics, sure, and tell you what’s going on and how to take action. I don’t preach about what I believe politically, however, beyond giving my opinion on interventions and solutions that are non-government.
One of the reasons I created this blog, besides making fun of Al Gore of course, was to emphasize something that I often see ignored on other “green” sites. Namely, how the free market and not government is best equipped to change our world for the better. Most environmental sites focus on global warming as a problem to be solved by governments and on environmental issues being something governments should “fix.”
In my view, most of our problems with the environment are expressly because the government is involved with them. If the government weren’t there, do you really think that huge mega-corps like Monsanto would even exist, let alone have near total control over our foods? Would even half the government’s agencies like the USDA and the FDA exist were it not for that?
Because government is made up of people and because people are fallible, government will always work in its self-interest, not the People’s. That is my basic view of government. Sure, some individuals may think they have our best interests at heart while working in government, but as a whole, government stifles and controls and never innovates.
All of that said, the questions I received were specifically about my views on health care “reform.” I put that word in quotes because I see little “reforming” happening and a lot of “expansion” happening instead. Just about every “problem” in this country can be boiled down to government having gotten involved as the root of the issue.
Obviously, being a free market person, I have no interest in universal healthcare or socialized medicine. I see way more problems than solutions coming out of that.
I grew up in a family that is heavily into medicine. My father is an anesthesiologist (aka one who is paid to sit and pass gas). My older brother is a dentist (he even has hairy fingers). My oldest sister is a dental hygienist (or was before marriage). My wife is a CNA, my mother-in-law is a nurse as is my sister-in-law. My brother-in-law (married to my other older sister) is a nurse as well.
I grew up in a house where modern medicine was normal. When we got sick, my dad had an injection, a pill, or something like that for it. I got stitches on the kitchen table. I learned to set bones on our animals when they got hurt, to surgically remove porcupine needles from the dog’s snout, and more. In Scouts, I got every medical-related merit badge right off the bat. Every time we slaughtered pigs, cows, etc. it was a chance for another anatomy lesson. That was my house growing up.
My total reversal and stepping away from (so-called) “modern” medical procedure has been entirely because of my over-exposure to it as a child. For my father’s generation, penicillin was the wonder drug of choice. It fixed everything. I’ve ingested pounds of cheese culture via penicillin.
I literally hate pills. Even aspirin is on my poop list. I can’t stand any of them. I don’t totally ignore all modern medicine and medical practice, of course. Much of it is actually very useful and good and is the reason our life expectancies and overall health are so good. There is plenty wrong with it too, though.
In my view, over-simplifying health care (aka “universalizing it”) will only exacerbate this problem. Consider just the FDA. I just published a video from PBS about how the FDA is basically just an official outlet of the big pharmaceutical companies. Do you think this will get better or worse when government controls (through the pocket book) all of health care?
Me either.
That, in a nutshell, is my view on health care.
Thanks to John, Kelley, Miriam, and Chantelle for the emails on this issue. You’re the reason behind this post. Ain’t you proud? haha
Related posts:
- The Food-Pharma-Government Coalition Brings Fear Mongering and Death
- Feds tell court they can decide what you eat
- Take Notice of the Sustainability Factor and Fight Back Against the Disposable Economy
