That’s it, I’ve had enough. I just could not believe my ears, last night, listening to some po-voiced BBC reporter agreeing with some equally pompous do-gooding UK doctor that British people simply cannot be trusted to look after their own health. They also agreed that Wanless Chinder’s HM Treasury proposal, to introduce yet more tax-funded social engineering into British health care, was a desperately needed breath of fresh air.
Jesus H. Christ. Just when will you people get it? When will you get it into your thick skulls that it is your damned social engineering policies, over the last sixty years, which have created all of your alleged problems in the first place? When you take away people’s responsibilities for their own health care, by providing them with an MRSA-infested paid-for-by-everybody-else National Health Service, the obvious response is for many of them to start abusing their own bodies, or at the very least to start taking less care of themselves. Why? Because someone else will be forced to pick up the pieces afterwards, that’s why. So what the hell, let’s eat another cream cake, let’s drink another bottle of whisky. Because the NHS will pay for any liposuction I may need, afterwards, and the NHS will always supply me with a new liver, should I need one. And if they refuse to, then I’ll sue them for a loss of human dignity. Take, for instance, asthma patients who smoke. I came across many of these, as a medical student, when I worked in the Northern General Hospital, in Sheffield. So why do they smoke when this lands them in an oxygen tent manned by a medical student making a mess of their right-arm, in his pitiful attempts to take blood samples from them every morning? Because the NHS supplies all of the Ventolin Inhalers they may need, supplies all of the incompetent medical students they may need, and supplies all of the sick notes and hospital beds they may need, to help their damaged lungs recover from their stupid and continuing nicotinic self-abuse. Some of them were even happy to be there, to spend a few weeks away from home, relaxing, getting paid on the medical sick note, watching television all day, and chatting to nurses and medical students. Oh yes, and when well enough, slipping outside for a quick smoke.
Would they abuse their bodies as much, smoking with asthma, if they had to supply their own wages insurance, had to pay the full cost for their own Ventolin supplies, and had to pay for their own hospital treatment insurance, to pick up the pieces, at a special ten times rate for asthmatics testing nicotine-positive on their blood samples? Of course they wouldn’t. And will more social engineering and more extravagant government targets make them quit smoking? Are you kidding me? They’re in hospital, facing death through smoking, right in the face. And a subsidy on Kumquats funded by a tax on chocolate Kit-Kats is going to make them give up? Beam me up, Nanny. Even an outright ban on smoking would only stop them for a few weeks, until the rapidly expanding tobacco and chocolate black markets got them hooked back in again.
When nanny supplies a comfortable cot and a bottle of warm milk, baby is just going to lie there lapping it up, even if it begins a process of artery clogging. And by the way, just what divine right is it you possess anyway to stick your noses into their lives, even if they did choose to be so stupid? I suppose, you might say, because Joe Taxpayer is forced to fund the NHS, so Joe Taxpayer, in the form of your good selves, has the right to make people obey health diktats. I have a better solution. Let’s get rid of the filthy disgusting chippy-staffed NHS, instead, problem solved. And let’s not forget the sheer hypocrisy of your leading priests, as they genuflect at the font of the God of Society.
You’ve got lardy High Priest Gordon Brown, whose fat jowls are now dropping well below his tailored shirt collars, and the even fatter and the even lardier Head Whipping Boy John Prescott, whose broad face is the very road map which highlights the dangers of personal over consumption.
And then, of course, there’s Social Engineer-in-Chief and Lord High Defender of the Faith, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, a coffee-abusing man who can only carry out his job because there’s a team of heart specialists waiting 24 hours a day at the Nomenklatura Hospital, in Chelsea, waiting for him to collapse again through overwork, so they can re-start his heart. I assisted in such procedures, in the Rotherham General hospital. But despite what Blair’s aides have reported, even when such heart restart procedures are scheduled, they are never routine. Stopping and re-starting someone’s heart, to get it into the correct sinus rhythm, is not something you do either lightly or while scoffing a Kit-Kat. It is always dangerous and it is sometimes lethal. Everyone around the table, especially the man with the shock paddles, gets a big hit of adrenaline when the capacitors charge up. Many people die in hospitals. But it’s not every day you get to personally perform the action which kills them, especially when it is the bare chest of a British Prime Minister in front of you, all smothered in conductive K-Y Jelly.
But yet we all have to take lessons on health from this workaholic man, who is driving himself into an early grave through endless political briefs and night-time flights, because he is Social Engineering Superman. Despite heart restarts, which are nature’s way of telling you to stop politicking and to start gardening, he still knows better than the rest of us as to how we should look after our own health. He even has the right, apparently, to force us how to look after our own health, through taxation and social engineering, because assorted health fascist Guardianistas, who make their obscene gravy-train living from the health-and-welfare monster that is the British state, say that he has this right, as they float around in a comfortable tax-funded sea of their own, smoking cannabis, drinking Chardonnay, and engaging in dubious STD-inducing night-time practices of sexual self discovery.
Well, good luck to you in your private lives. But if you do it, why can’t anyone else? Your stupid social engineering, your filthy hospitals, and your unbelievable waste in the NHS, make me, and everyone else, sick. We will all be a damn sight better off, if we simply got rid of all you social engineers, and all of your terrible self-defeating Nanny State works, which make everything worse rather than better. Do you never learn anything? Sixty years of continuing NHS failure and your benighted solution is yet more of the same. It is simply unbelievable. It is time this ratchet was broken.
I take it you’re not in favour of this, then?
Why yes, drop that British reserve, and tell us how you really feel, old chap!
A very fair summary of the State of the Nation, though perhaps just a tad understated.
Bair covered in K-Y – ewwwwwww!
John F writes:
I take it you’re not in favour of this, then?
Well, after due consideration, and taking into account the wide range of conflicting opinions within my own mind, and balancing out the Popperian argument for piece-meal social engineering against the Hoppeian argument for self-balancing spontaneous evolution, and filling it out, as it were, in the round, against a background of mature civilised debate developed over the decades, indeed the centuries, on the one hand comparing the Lockean natural rights of self-ownership against the John Stuart Mill declarations of the recognition of individual ownership versus the rights of society to establish a common base level to which everyone ought to feel justified in receiving the benefits thereof, summarising you understand, in order to avoid protracted debate and needless obfuscation of the matter under question, …errr…, No 😉
Your stupid social engineering, your filthy hospitals, and your unbelievable waste in the NHS,
Tangential, perhaps, but got me thinking about the US’s fair thespian with the affected British manners Gwyneth Paltrow. Apparently with child due to the fecundity of a British Musician with stinky socks (thank you IMDB) she has reportedly made it clear that she wishes to raise said off-spring in the UK due to the horrific schools here in the US. But is also said that she plans to birth the child in the States due to the horrific state of health care in the UK. And yet all the while one can’t question her faith in all things collective despite the results to these institutions in their respective countries. Of course, due to her wealth, she can navigate around as best she can and choose the best of the services provided, a luxury the average citizen doesn’t have. The point? I don’t know if I really have one other than the frustration of those who should be able to see the results of the Nanny State being a advocates of more of the same. Perhaps its merely a manifestation of when the government breaks something the best answer is more of the same (with the continued faith that maybe next time they’ll get it right). Regardless Mrs. Martin certainly could use a lesson about real life.
So according to your argument, if we got rid of the NHS, people would take better care of themselves. Please show me one shred of evidence that in states without a national health service, people smoke less, drink less, exercise more and eat better.
It seems that the government will take away the ability of every single British subject to make their own decisions without Government interference. Rots ‘o Ruck to y’all.
Andy,
A truly brilliant and accurate rant. Best thing Ive read this month.
H.,
1) I dont care of they dont take care of themselves, as long as caring for them doesnt give ME a heart attack from overwork. Do you realize the health benefits of not having to work 5 months or more of the year for the government? I would have so much less stress and could work far fewer hours with far greater productivity. Furthermore, if the dumb people that dont take care of themselves die off, that will mean more jobs for the rest of us.
2) I have had some personal experience with the destructiveness of safety nets. I have a good friend that I helped out financially for many years, and he kept getting himself into a bind. Finally, I realized we were both getting dragged down by his actions and told him I would no longer help him. Guess what? He stopped being stupid with his money, tightened up his budget and started paying his bills on time. He didnt need me, in fact, I was hurting him by allowing him to think that he did. Life is a tightrope. If you know you have no net, you will work a lot harder to keep your balance. That may sound cruel, but thats what life is. You dont think life is cruel? Spend two weeks in the wilderness with only your brains and the clothes on your back. Nature will teach you lessons about life that all the words I could say couldnt come close to.
For me personally, I dont have health insurance. I could have it, but I chose not to have it taken out of my paycheck. Guess what? I take care of myself. I dont smoke, I only drink a little, I excersize a great deal, and I eat quite healthy. I dont let myself get too stressed, and I spend a lot more time reading and studying than watching tv and movies. I do this because I know that if I fail myself, I dont have something to run to to take care of me. So do I think this will translate to society in general? You bet your butt I do.
Mervelous rant. I think I will keep it someplace to re-read from time to time.
H,
Perhaps it matters less that they would take better care of themselves than that anyone else should pay for their stupid lifestyle choices? They choose to live unhealthily then they should pay the price: either monetarily or through getting off this planet that much sooner and saving us all from their foul nature. Why should anyone else pay the wages of their sin?
A caller phoned into a local talk-show trying to defend President Bush’s new prescription drug benefit added for seniors over here. The woman said “But the medicine is so expensive, what would I do without this support?” The host responded: “Well, you could die . . .”
Far be it from me to ruin a good rant with inconvenient facts, but having watched much of the same thing, I’ve got to say — people in this country (USA) who don’t have health insurance still smoke, and still find it very difficult to stop, even when it’s glaringly acutely killing them. I’m not defending the NHS, but the notion that people who lack health insurance take better care of themselves is, well, nonsense.
H’s point is sensible. In the “third world” everybody smokes. These self-destructive habits are attempts to “escape reality” — completely tangential to health service availability. (Not tangential to government screwing things up, but that’s another story.)
What the NHS does encourage is people treating it like it was free, bothering the doctor for a head cold, just in case. As such, you could see the NHS’s institutional unpleasantness as a self-defense mechanism. Those patients who can’t be dissuaded by price, must be scared away instead.
“…smoking cannabis, drinking Chardonnay, and engaging in dubious STD-inducing night-time practices of sexual self discovery.”
I guess it’s not all bad then…
So according to your argument, if we got rid of the NHS, people would take better care of themselves. Please show me one shred of evidence that in states without a national health service, people smoke less, drink less, exercise more and eat better.
I suppose there is an element of this in Mr. Duncan’s post, and that, of course, this is the mistake that some can make in arguing with the Do Gooders. I am willing allow an element of both, those who change their bahaviors for the better due to State interference, but also allow that, in others, behaviors will change for the worse, especially when they regain a sense of health and that future interventions by others will maintain it for them.
The cleanest approach is stating that I am disinterested one way or another. People may or may not behave differently (presumably for the better) as a result of the confiscation of my property, but it still no justification to do so in the case that it might. Other people’s behaviors, and the consequences derived therefrom are not my business. I will not be forced to share my resources in attempts to recondition them, nor pay for frailties of others (I may choose to by my own choice). The diseased logic of the Do Gooder in reconditioning programs is that it will save moneys now spent after people are afflicted. The logic of course is that that is not my concern either (especially via forceful confiscation by the State).
In a nutshell that is all I have ever said about Statism. The State does do some Good, but it is offset to zero by ‘Bad’ which is usually shuffled off the ledger, or reserved for someother time to justify invasion into private affairs. For every ying there is a yang, the State can do no more or no less. It merely decides who receives benefits and bears the burdens, using the collective value judgements of the people who inhabit the bureaucracy. It merely changes whose value judgements rule over resources and property, the individual who created it in the first place, or a bureaucrat with the guns of State who presumes to be in touch with a higher power. But the quasi-theocratic State doesn’t ever produce net Good, it merely takes from one and gives to another by force.
limberwulf writes:
I dont care of they dont take care of themselves, as long as caring for them doesnt give ME a heart attack from overwork. Do you realize the health benefits of not having to work 5 months or more of the year for the government? I would have so much less stress and could work far fewer hours with far greater productivity. Furthermore, if the dumb people that dont take care of themselves die off, that will mean more jobs for the rest of us.
I see that logic is not your forte. You want to do less work yet have more jobs to do.
The Times reports: Doctors want all patients to buy insurance.
Paul,
I ran two thoughts together there, my apologies.
1) I will have to do less work to support myself.
2) Those that are unemployed and being supported by me and other taxpayers will have more opportunity for gainful employment. Based in private sector efficiency versus that of the government, services that get moved to private sector will be done better and with fewer personel. These excess personel can fill any remaining gaps caused by increased job availability so that I can indeed work less.
Compressing that into two sentences was definately not a good display of logic.
We enjoyed your “rant” – and updated a two day old post about the Irish Green party’s effort to block the building of a McDonald’s through the planning process to link to it in:
The Green Meaney vs Ronald McDonald.:
…
There are better ways of dealing with the excess kilos, as two stories in todays Independent demonstrate. You can limit your caloric intake. Or you can get some exercise.
So Brian, exercise your parental authority. Tell your children not to nurse at the teat of the nanny state. Tell your children to exercise personal responsibility and walk past the new McDonald’s.
And give us 50 sit-ups!
Or we will lock you in a room with Nuala Ahern and Patricia McKenna.
BRAN
(Posted on February 24, 2004)
Andy,
Great piece! I was ranting about the NHS just the other day. I have linked to this on Girl on the Right.
Rightgirl
It is not hard to quit smoking at all, with one qualification. One, you have to actually want to quit. Oh, sure, sounds pretty obvious, right? I know a lot of people who have been chewing that ripoff Nicorette crap for years while still smoking on weekends (which is what they supposedly wanted to stop doing!) and I know one guy who tried the patch for a couple weeks–except that after about a week, he started smoking again while still on it. Three guesses whether he gave up the cigs or the patch, and the first two don’t count.
Ok, we could talk about things like working around lots of other people who smoke, which admittedly makes things tougher–I know a few people whose stated reasons for not quitting is that everyone else where they work smokes. Quitting is a bitch when the guy next to you is blowing a cloud of smoke in your face.
I know this because I quit a pack a day Camel habit on the patch. Cost me a lot of money, that patch. But it worked, and I haven’t had a cig in over a decade. It’s (almost) all about desire.
I have to agree with some of the views expressed: that the nature of the the health care available will make absolutely no difference to an individual’s dicing with death. I gave up smoking ten years ago after a couple of heart attacks, not because of any thoughts about what care might or might not cost me but because I wanted to stay alive.
This is another dichotomy similar to the Solidarity/Diversity post above.This is the conflict of liberal behaviour with collective responsibilty,basically individuals can do as they please but if anything goes wrong it is down to everyone else to pay to put it right.
It isn’t going to work!
You just don’t get it, do you H. If I choose to eat pizzas, play video games, smoke dope, get cream inducted into my bloodstream via blood drips, it really does have absolutely nothing to do with you. We’re all going to die. Shock. Horror. You are going to die. And I am going to die. The day you realise you’re going to die, is the day you finally become an adult. How we do it, is up to us. Do I tell you what you can do in your life? Do I tell you what you can do this weekend, which may, or may not be, harmful, in my god-like opinion, to your health? No. I don’t. And why not? Because it has got absolutely nothing to do with me what you do with your life. It’s your life. And my life belongs to me. Oh, and by the way, if the the NHS is so totally marvellous, why is it that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS COPIED IT, except for perhaps North Korea or Cuba? Because it’s useless, perhaps? Because it is disgusting? Because it is a total waste of money? Because it’s full of people pulling sickies? Because it is incapable of wiping out all those MRSA infections? Because everyone in it is afraid of telling nurses to wash their hands between patient treatments? Because it is full of chippy unionised slackers? Because your chances of recovering from cancer in the NHS, are the worst in the western world? Because its waiting lists are the worst in the western world? Because incompetent surgeons are impossible to sack? Because incompetent nurses are impossible to sack? Go on H., you tell me. Why is it ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD HAS COPIED THE NHS? The best health system in the world? Go tell it to Gwyneth Paltrow. Or Madonna.
Go tell it to the French. Go tell it to the Germans. Go tell it to the Spanish. Go tell it to the Italians. Go tell it to the Americans. Go tell it to the Norwegians. Just see how far you get.
The NHS is a disgusting expensive uesless sacred cow nightmare. Sixty years of failure, and continuing. The worst death rates in Europe. The worst cancer survival rates. The worst heart disease rates. The worst mortality rates. The worst everything rates.
Let it go H. It had its chance and it failed. Big time. More of the same total uselessness is not an option. It is time to move on.
Andy nails it again.