Health Care, Science, Dream, No Poker

John Stossel is did an interview with Michael Moore and really grilled him about the Cuban health care system. Stossel found it hard to stomach Moore's claims that Cuban health care is better than US health care, and I can't totally blame him. Let's face it: the US makes a LOT more money than Cuba. Further, we actively brow-beat the rest of the world into cutting Cuba off because they are damn dirty Commies. With minimal money and minimal access to resources, their health care system CANNOT be as good as ours. I know Moore went to a decent looking hospital, but I promise that if he had gone to a rural area or a poor part of town, there would not have been a marble lobby and (likely) a US educated medical staff. However, Stossel, like a douche bag, attempted to discredit Moore's entire argument against National Health Care because Moore didn't tell the whole truth about the Cuban health care system. Modern "journalism" makes my head spin. Several times a week I wonder "Am I the only one left with a functional brain?" And sadly I know that people actually swallow this shit. A lot of people. People should be hung for this. I propose that it should be a capital crime to perpetuate ignorance. Seriously. Science has done enough to harm the human race (see next section), now we have pseudo-science and corporate-backed science that are joining in the dog pile to crush us out of existence. Politicians have forced politics to become the primary concern in any issue, and we just let them. I wish we had a parliamentary system so that we could take a vote of no confidence and fire every goddamn one of them. They need to be reminded that they work for us, not vice versa. I'll also post my reply to the comments thread at the bottom because I'm not sure if it worked on the ABC site.

I was in Lincoln last night gathering the last of my crap and I stopped by Quiller's. We went to get some food, and then we had an in-depth discussion on a heavy topic like we always do. This conversation was about how science is ruining the human race. Bear with me, this may seem cold-hearted, and it is, but it is also true. When the human race was back in the caveman days, only the strongest and brightest survived. If you were physically or mentally inferior, you got eaten by something. I'm not talking strictly disabled in the modern sense, I'm saying that if you were of average intelligence or physical prowess, you became Saber-Tooth Tiger poop. Our brains developed and we built better tools than spears. We figured out fire. The wheel jumped in there somewhere. The threshold for survival got lower. Jump to today. There are helmet laws for motorcycles, seat belt laws for cars, 98 airbags crammed in a Prius, and a medicine for everything. The only idiots who die today are Cletus and Gomer playing "Watch this." Natural selection has been taken out of the mix entirely. Instead of the physically and mentally gifted being the only ones that survive, they are now awarded multi-million dollar sports contracts and Nobel prizes. As a result, we are dumber than our ancestors. We know more things, but our individual intelligence isn't where it could be. What does this mean? I don't know, we didn't talk about it, and I don't want to think about it. I do know that I'm scared for my children or my grandchildren, because in their lifetime, they might have to tangle with this question when the Earth hits its carrying capacity. I hope not.

After that heavy junior Hitler piece, this should brighten your day. I had a dream about Iraqi ninjas last night. That's right. I was in Iraq as a soldier. We operated out of this warehouse thing. Outside there was a stripped down jet that I would get in and pretend that I was flying (oh yeah, I was making the gun noises and everything despite being 25). When I went back inside, somebody threw a bomb in a Folger's can in the door. It had like a firecracker fuse on it, so I just threw it back outside, but then I looked out the window and saw one of my fellow soldiers running from a ninja. The ninja was throwing ninja stars at him. I yelled for backup and went outside to help him. I surprised a ninja sneaking around the corner and shot him, but then I was pinned down by three other ninjas with throwing stars. It was actually really scary, and I woke up pretty scared, but then I laughed my ass off because I realized I was dreaming about Iraqi ninjas.

ABC News Thread Reply:
I'm sorry, but who cares? They're trying to discredit Moore's entire argument against health care by focusing on Cuba. It is an argumentation tactic that unfortunately works, but not if you're perceptive. I would imagine that poor people in Cuba or those who live in rural areas probably don't get the kind of treatment I saw in Sicko. I get that part. That's the same everywhere. For God's sake, Magic Johnson has been living with HIV for how long now? Rich people get better medicine, but that was the point of the documentary. There's no real reason why they SHOULD get better treatment; they're not better people, they just have more money than the rest of us. If Stossel was so happy to peruse the CIA World Factbook, he should've checked the other industrialized nations of the world. If he did, he would've seen that the USA ranks near the bottom of the barrel in nearly all measures. Of course we have a better health care system than Cuba, Moore was an idiot for saying otherwise. I earn probably 10 times what the average Cuban makes, and I don't make good money, but I live in a country that does make a lot of money and it should help me out. Yes, I want the government to run my health care. Capitalism isn't good for health care because they are not concerned with Joe Averageman. Further, prices at the doctor's office or drug store have never gone down that I can remember, so where is the benefit from competition? There is none, because the guys with dollars are throwing them at our national representatives to keep our health care system private. It is time that we make the government start working for us again, and not for their own gain.

Bret Londer