RANGER AGAINST WAR: A License to Kill <

Thursday, December 19, 2013

A License to Kill


 
--Bring out your dead!
 --Here's one
 --Ninepence.
--(feebly) I'm not dead!
--Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill 
--Monty Python and the Holy Grail 
 
He said, "Call the doctor. I think I'm gonna crash."
"The doctor say he's comin', but you gotta pay him cash" 
--Life in the Fast Lane, The Eagles
 __________________ 

Back in 2001 the United States began a Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) motivated by the death of 3,000 people in a terrorist criminal attack. The response was a flawed logic which called for a military response to a civil criminal action.

At the end of 2013, The Week published a precis that almost half a million people die needlessly in U.S. hospitals annually:

The third leading cause of death
About 440,000 people die as a result of preventable error in U.S. hospitals every year, a new study in the Journal of Patient Safety found. That means one in six deaths can be attributed to mistakes in hospitals, making them the third-leading cause of death.
NYTimes.com

Why do we get all squidgy over 3,000 deaths yet accept this murderous travesty, marching on like Rangers with their faces to the icy wind. Using PWOT© logic, we should bomb hospitals, kidnap doctors off the street and torture them in dark site prisons. (Tangentially, this could provide the basis for a new dark side version of Scrubs.) But what should we do about this rampant medical incompetence?

We also get emotional about gun control and the ~30,000 annual gun deaths, but this is paltry compared to the negligent medical deaths, deaths for which we pay (though under the impression we would get to live after forking out the bucks.) Of course, deaths by medical error are nothing new, ditto gun deaths.

Why do we ignore some deaths while accepting others? Drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria, deficient medical procedure, drunk, aggressive and distracted drivers and unsanitarily raised and slaughtered meat are all more present and dangerous threats to our nation than terrorism. Why does militarizing the least threat comfort us while the manifold daily actual threats get short shrift?

We shunt funding from agencies which could address these actual real-life killers while accepting the diversion of our attentions to foreign endeavors which will never deliver safety here at home. Why?

In Vietnam the soldiers would alternately say of their posting, "This is nowhere, man" or, "This is Disneyland." How prescient that dismissive workingman observation of their confusing situation in Southeast Asia would turn out to be for America, 2013.

This is Disneyworld.

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7 Comments:

Blogger Underground Carpenter said...

"...we should bomb hospitals, kidnap doctors off the street and torture them in dark site prisons."

Jim,

I like your thinking. Get it done.

Davea

Friday, December 20, 2013 at 8:54:00 AM GMT-5  
Blogger Underground Carpenter said...

Jim,

In case you were wondering, my previous comment reflects my very low opinion of the medical industry in this country.

The ObamaLaw really incenses me. I'm now forced to buy insurance against the price of something I will not use. And yes, I think that little of the abilities of the quacks and charlatans whose entire talent lies in making drug slaves. (Take two pills each day, forever or until you die broke)

Dave

Friday, December 20, 2013 at 5:11:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger rangeragainstwar said...

Dave,
Merry chistmas to you and yours.
jim

Saturday, December 21, 2013 at 12:06:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Lisa said...

Dave,

I agree: most of the doctors are shills for Big Pharma. They haven't the time to update themselves in an impartial way, so busy are they herding us through in order to pay their bills.

We are not money-makers for them unless we can be put on lifetime "managed care", which is far from care. It's shoveling pills down our gullet and operating on us, when possible.

Note the recent hype contra vitamins (again). No money to be had in staying well, so after a lifetime of marginal nutrient intake you will develop an illness, and they will have a drug for that -- probably some patented cognate of the vitamin or supplement you might've been taking cheaply and more safely had they not dissuaded you.

Saturday, December 21, 2013 at 12:43:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Underground Carpenter said...

Jim and Lisa,

Merry Christmas. Peace and Goodwill everywhere.

Dave

Saturday, December 21, 2013 at 1:43:00 PM GMT-5  
Blogger Peter of Lone Tree said...

US Sailors, Assisting With Fukushima Clean Up, Crippled By Cancer

Sunday, December 22, 2013 at 7:50:00 AM GMT-5  
Anonymous CholoAzul said...

Those numbers are scary stuff. A month ago a very good friend of mine went to the ER complaining of over all exhaustion and pain... he never came back.

Every couple of a days a new specialist would 'run tests for' another malady, and stick another tube into my friend. When he died, they still had no clue as to what was wrong with him.

MD's as a whole aren't my favorite species.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013 at 10:48:00 PM GMT-5  

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