Are We Completely Crazy

An inquiry into the nature and mind of mankind asking, Are We Completely Crazy?

Forward 

 A story about the gentle arts as opposed to the art of killing...if such can be called 'art?'

The dictionary defines crazy as mentally deranged, demented, insane, senseless; impractical and totally unsound. The question we ask in this book is- are we an insane and doomed species? That question has tormented those of us who consider such for centuries. The question keeps coming up like the proverbial message in the dark ball that floats into view answering everyman's questions. Looking at the quantity of wealth and intelligence expended in the 'business' of killing compared to those same qualities expended in saving lives and making the world a better place. I mean here in terms of human input, comparing physicians, medical professionals, artists, musicians, builders and designers; those who make our world a better place-  contrasted against those who have dedicated their lives toward designing and, building bombs, tanks, bio-weapons, WMDs including those who dedicate themselves to using these weapons.

If the philosophers can agree that saving lives is a 'moral good' while taking life is not, then the former is a  'good' while the latter is clearly a 'bad.'  Perhaps, this is a simple way to define and argue that such as "good" and "bad" actually exist and are not, even in this absurd age of 'political correctness' moral ambivalence and the denial of evil, subject to logical argument and ambiguity? That is, of course, if any two philosophers can agree on anything. The skills and education required in pursuit of saving lives (both animal and human) most certainly exceeds that of those who kill for a living.  That point cannot be argued. (evidence the happy gang of fun guys right)  

The money expended on designing, building, testing and using WMD's of all kinds including the vehicles to deliver them may well equal the combined costs of all medical advances.  However, an important distinction needs be pointed out. Orders and funding for killing always originate from Governments while medical advances are mostly the product of private enterprise. What does this say to us about the nature of Government as opposed to that of the healing arts.  Can we not argue that any government who contracts for and funds terrible and dangerous weapons of mass destruction is evil by so doing. 

CHAPTER 1
MEDICAL ARTS THROUGH THE AGES

 "It is open to a war resister to judge between the combatants and wish success to the one who has justice on his side. By so judging he is more likely to bring peace between the two than by remaining a mere spectator." Mahatma Ghandi

Many wonderful individuals make decisions to spend arduous years devoted entirely to learning the healing arts. These people live in a world as far removed from the ugly underbelly of humanity where dark persons busily plot the destruction of others while employing those devoted to inventing, perfecting and using the implements of war as it is possible to be. To me, those in the medical arts represent the epitome of sanity in a world seemingly gone crazy! Others pursue music, painting, the fine arts, writing, architecture, construction and, as I, as a pilot, transportation. In all these fields, the object is to improve the quality of civilization and, in no case, to deliberately cause harm. 

Before we begin, let me refer you to the appendices herein where we have listed the numbers of companies manufacturing military hardware followed by a list or those designing and building medical devices. As it turns out, there are 19 pages of the latter and only 6 pages of the former. Does that suggest perhaps we are not as crazy as we think? Perhaps yes and perhaps no!  Read on, decide for yourself.

We will attempt to make sense of this grand dichotomy and hopefully, by so doing, deliver a small contribution to the field of human ethics and understanding. We will attempt to offer a nuanced understanding of and contrast between the role of the medical profession’s ethos in relation to a darker study, namely the mindset of those who practice the art of killing. By so doing, we hope to offer insight into what has proved a uniquely dark moment in the history of human interaction- meaning the attempt to destroy the American medical profession by the hideous intrusion of the heavy hand of the federal government masquerading as The Affordable Care Act!

Has the post-modern American 'liberal' culture so altered the terrain of medical care that moral confusion and deflated morale multiply faster than both technological advancements and ethical resolution? Are the horrible exposures of the purposeful murder of our soldiers by the Obama Veterans Administration becoming the norm? Are we not seeing in the deficiencies of the veteran's administration the ugly reality of any single payer system? Have we become so callous and apathetic that we can simply shrug off these thousands of premature deaths? 

This look into the Ethos of Medicine in the Postmodern Obama era is an attempt to examine this question with reference to the social decline of decency and the responsible political and cultural developments (i.e.) socialism, Marxism, 'entitlementisim' consumerism, computerization, corporatization, and the destruction of privacy, compassion and human kindness in a world dominated by an irresponsible ever expanding colossus of a government running totally amuck in every area- preparing for imminent and horrendous collapse toppling like Sadam's statue, from its own bloated unwieldy monstrous size, crushing and destroying everything in its own gasping death throes.   

Any inquiry such as we are attempting, (i.e.) into the 'hidden core' of the human soul, has, by definition, to reach any level of truth, examine and consider the views of the greatest minds we know of. Hence in this volume we often refer to such great thinkers affirming again how dependent we are on the brilliance of those who have gone before. Truly, we all stand on the shoulders of the great. 

The cultural insights of postmodern thinkers such as such as Theodor Adorno, Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Bauman, and Levinas try, each in their own way, to elucidate the changes in healthcare delivery that we are seeing occurring early in the twenty-first century. (see appendices for a brief description of those referenced above) Just as a totally mind blowing reality and as a truly horrendous  and almost unbelievable example of the insanity of centralized government run amuck consider this; under the English government run National Health program, the public owned and operated hospital facilities are actually heated by burning the fetuses of aborted humans. (In the event that this revelation is simply too unbelievable, see the evidence in the appendices.)