Psychiatry does NOT Kill: Stupid Internet Videos Kill

Not everyone who hangs out their shingle
on the Internet knows what they are
talking about.

Okay, can you tell I'm angry? I just saw a video entitled "Psychiatry Kills". The premise is that the medicines psychiatrist give are all bad and you should get off them. The trouble is, rather than trust a highly trained physician with years of study and research behind him, you're going to trust a lot of anecdotal "evidence" from a group of people that the video says, quit all their meds "cold-turkey".

EXACTLY WHAT THEIR DOCTORS WARN THEM NOT TO DO!

Here's what happens when you quit a psychotropic medication cold turkey.  First, you start going back into the depressed, panicked, schizophrenic or whatever state you were in that caused the medication to be prescribed in the first place. Second, the change in neurochemistry in the brain caused by the sudden stopping of your meds triggers all sorts of brain neuro-transmitters to either shut down or kick into overdrive giving you the equivalent of a very bad LSD trip.  So every story in this video (and no I'm not going to give you the link to some advice that can kill you, so don't ask), is based on someone doing what their doctor told them not to and in many cases probably because the person saw one of these scary videos about evil Big Pharma and decided some anonymous Internet video cares more about them than the physician you are paying to look out for your health.

Do psychotropic meds sometimes cause side effects?  YES.  You see, you can't peek inside the human skull when the patient is alive to see what's causing his mental problems. That would do more damage than good (remember lobotomies).  Diagnosing psychoses is a very much working in the dark process. We can only diagnose by observing behavior and listening to you tell what is wrong.

If you do a lousy job of telling the doctor what's going on in your head or if you spin the story to make it sound worse or sound not so bad, you will almost certainly get the wrong medication the first time out.  That's how psychiatry works. It's a partnership between patient and physician. He is not a magician. There are no magic words he can say nor magic pills he can give you, especially if he doesn't get good information from you. If you don't tell your physician what is going on, you probably are going to have a bad experience.

The truth is that the chances of the first medication you try working for you are pretty slim. That's because the causes of many mental disorders cause symptoms that look pretty much the same. One pill may work great for one kind of depression and be really bad for another kind of depression.

And yes, not every depression is exactly the same and cannot necessarily be cured by the same treatment.  I know people expect doctors to wave their magic prescription pad and cure their problems, but it's not that easy.

Think of the doctor/patient relationship as a collaborative research partnership.  Here's an example.  My grandmother's physician prescribed a powerful anti-biotic for an infection she had.  Just after she started taking it, she had a terrible panic attack. I was in grad school at the time and so the first thing I did was ask if she was taking any new medications. I'd never heard of an anti-biotic causing panic attacks, so I went down to the pharmacist to ask about side effects (this was pre-Internet).  Sure enough one of the side effects listed was panic attacks.

We called her general practitioner and he prescribed valium for her anxiety. It didn't work and the problem escalated. She was so freaked out, she was afraid to drink water. Fortunately, at school I had access to Medline and looked up some info on panic attack. A doctor in Shreveport had done some work on panic attacks and noted that anti-anxiety meds don't work on severe panic when used alone. He recommended pairing it with an anti-depressant and had shown good results with a combination treatment.  I went down to the doctor's office (his secretary wouldn't let me talk to him). I ambushed him as the office was closing, told him about my grandmother's problem and showed him the research I had found (he was not a psychiatrist, remember).  He said he'd take a look. He called me a couple of hours later and told me I was right. He prescribed an anti-depressant to go with the valium and once we convinced my grandmother to take it, she got better immediately and within two weeks, just like the research said, the panic attacks were totally gone and she was able to quit the meds as she should have.

Treating mental illness is a tricky process. There are no instant cures. If you are lucky and diligent to give the doctor good information, you may get the right treatment the first time, but don't count on it. If you have bad effects from the medicine, tell the doctor and he'll try something else. Trying a lot of different meds doesn't mean you've got a bad doctor. On the contrary it may be a sign that you have a very good doctor.

Here is some advice for those of you with mental illness who are taking or considering taking psychotropic meds like anti-depressants, anti-anxiety or anti-psychotic medications:

1. If you need psychotropic meds see a psychiatrist: If the problem is severe, you may need to see a psychologist too. A psychologist will test you to find out what's wrong. A psychiatrist handles medication.  Either may send you to a counselor for talking therapy if that's appropriate.
2. Trust your physician:  Take the meds as he or she tells you to. Don't fiddle around with the dosages or times you take them. Doing that can cause some side effects or mess up what the drug is supposed to do.
3. Choose a treatment partner:   Your spouse is the best or a parent or adult child who lives with you. That person needs to know what you are taking, why you are taking it and go along on doctor visits to provide a 3rd party report to the psychiatrist as to what your behavior is really like. They WILL see things from outside that you don't see from inside your rattled brain.
4. Trust your partner! Your partner will tell you when you are going off the rails. It's the hardest thing in the world to trust someone to tell you your behavior is erratic. You probably don't want to hear that and you may be so screwed up that you think your partner is out to get you. You need to know that this may happen. It's the illness, not necessarily the meds. It could be both if you have the wrong medication too.  Here's where you have to use cold rational thinking to overcome your feelings. If you are mentally ill, you cannot trust your feeling.
5. Don't self-medicate:  Pot may make you feel "mellow", but it may also have some nasty interactions with the stuff your doctor gave you. Illegal drugs are notoriously irregular in their strength and dosages and pushers are a real hazard to your health. My son wound up 3 days in a coma because he believed pot had no dosage limits and smoked his whole supply wrapped up in papers his helpful dealer had treated with PCP. It nearly killed him.  That's why you don't self-medicate.
6. Call the doctor if there is something wrong or give your partner permission to call on your behalf: When you are having an "episode", you cannot trust yourself to act in your own best interests. People who trust their own judgement when they are mentally ill are the ones who kill themselves or do something monumentally stupid that they wind up in jail or worse. You need someone who will get you to the help you need and you have to keep reminding yourself that you trust that person, no matter what you feel emotionally.
7. Don't switch doctors:   Too many people switch doctors the first time their medicines don't work and then complain because the new doctor gives them the same medication.  Each mental illness diagnosis has a protocol that doctors follow. You give Medicine A first and then Medicine B if that doesn't work and then Medicine C and so on. Change doctors and he's going to start down the same protocol list.  Stick with your doc till the two of you figure it out. If you find a physician that will listen to you when you tell him what's wrong, then stick with that doctor. You've found a jewel.
8. NEVER QUIT COLD TURKEY:  Every damned story in the "Psychiatry Kills" video was of someone who belonged to a group which quit their meds cold turkey and they all had suicidal ideation, homicidal thoughts and really twisted urges. No wonder. THEY QUIT COLD TURKEY. The warnings that come with the medicine say never to quit cold turkey. It can be fatal.
9. Don't believe everything you see on the Internet:  There are some wonderful resources there. Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and other reputable information sources have a wealth of material about every disease imaginable. If you see some hysterical warning on Facebook, skip it. Search out the information for yourself. Avoid the independent websites. Hook up with social media groups to share stories and learn how other people handled their disease, but be careful of quack cures and hysteria. Your doctor studied all those years because she wanted to help people. Besides, killing your patients is not a very good way to make a living. Dead people don't pay for doctor visits.
10. Remember that you are unique:  No two people are alike and there is no "blood test" or X-ray for mental illness. Even MRIs and CAT scans can diagnose your mental illness on their own. It's a long and complex process.
11. Don't make big decisions when you're not thinking clearly:  If you or a loved one is struggling with mental illness, make it an agreed upon thing that you don't make big decisions when you're having an "episode". Always let your treatment partner be the one to be the final word on whether you are up to it or not. That's hard to do, but it's the best way to regain control of your world. By deciding not to make impulse decisions when you aren't at your best is very wise.

Finally, remember that fear, paranoia, sadness, elevated mood and rage are all components of various mental illnesses.  They come with the territory. Apologize in advance to your loved ones. You may say stupid things that you regret later, but which, at the time, seem like they simply must be said. Build around you a circle of loved ones who know what you are going through and who you trust to be on your side when you are in trouble. You want people who won't let you go to the casino when you're manic, because they know you'll bankrupt yourself if given a chance.  You want doctors who have enough experience with you to piece together a correct diagnosis and who trust you to tell them what's really going on in your head. Not every general practitioner is good with medications for your mental health. If you need medication support, go to a psychiatrist who is expert in treating mental illness and build a partnership with him or her in helping you reach stability.

AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE STOP WATCHING CRANK INTERNET VIDEOS.

Tom King
© 2016

Here We Go Again

I got a hoax e-mail yesterday about Glade Plug-ins. You can read about it here: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_plug_in_air_freshener.htm And here: http://www.scjohnson.com/family/fam_pre_pre_news.asp?art_id=133 There are several versions of this “Alert” out there, some signed and some not. If you check the website of the “attorney” that supposedly signed it, Hunton & Williams are corporate lawyers defending the likes of TxU, Bank of America and Bell South FROM these kinds of lawsuits. Their pro bono work is largely environmental lawsuits. Someone stuck the phony signature on it after reading that a lack of signature was a dead giveaway that it was a phony e-mail (they probably read it on About.com). 

 Use a Glade Plug-in properly and your bathroom will smell just fine and is unlikely to burn down as a result. Of course, if your bathroom plugs are cracked and broken and your wiring inadequate, you could start a fire there, but that’s not the plug-in’s fault. Sounds like some unscrupulous lawyer (probably not Hunton & Williams) setting up the manufacturer for a lawsuit. By tainting potential jurors in advance with this word of mouth attack on Glade, an attorney has a better chance of winning a nice fat lawsuit. Maybe it was done by a rival manufacturer who wants to improve their sales of a similar product by besmirching Glade’s brand name. Whoever it was knew enough about attorneys to make a realistic looking signature for the note. 

 Shame on them. Please understand that by passing this sort of stuff around without checking it, we all contribute to rising costs for the things we buy in the store and the goods and services we use. There are more than one million lawyers in this country – at least one for every 250 of us. At an average salary of $75,000 (and that’s very modest – it’s likely much higher), that means you and I pay out an average of around $3400 per year to support lawyers. This cost is not just in direct fees, it’s hidden in every product we buy, every service we use, every thing we do. How many things do you know of that you cannot do anymore because of the fear of lawsuits. 

Been on a hayride recently? Churches don’t do those anymore because their insurance won’t let them. How about a nice program for seniors at your church? Nope! Can’t do that without licensing and liability insurance out the wazoo – which you often cannot get at any price! Take a group of kids out in your boat? Not without signed waivers and proof that you have liability insurance. Swimming pool in your yard? Not without an ugly high fence and locks and a sign that says no trespassing (as required by your insurance company). Had a fender bender and apologized to the other driver because you made a mistake. Not without worrying for weeks afterward that the other driver was going to show up in court with a neckbrace and take your home from you? Apologized and helped them up when a neighbor slipped and fell on your porch or stumbled over your kid’s tricycle? Not without worrying whether such an apology was an “admission of guilt” and basis for a suit. Offered a homeless person a job for a few days to help him out? Not without wondering if you were being set up for a suit. Better to let those “homeless organizations” with good insurance do that. When’s the last time your kids played baseball on a sandlot? Not without waivers, proof of insurance by the sandlot’s owner and certified umpires and safety equipment. When’s the last time the local band did a concert in the park for free? Not unless someone paid for it, because there was the city’s insurance against lawsuit to consider. Somebody paid for the concert you can bet on it and somewhere a lawyer got some money, however indirectly. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m not happy with what I’m getting for my $3400. AND for every dollar that goes directly to an attorney, at least another goes to his support staff, court fees, filing fees, penalties and losses to companies which they recover by charging you more for goods and services. Got mesothelioma, Parkinsons or Lyme disease? Had a car wreck? Mom in a nursing home? Taken heart medication, pain or diet pills? Got a rash from a bottle of lotion? Looking for a quick pile of money? Who ya’ gonna call? Just watch daytime television for a few minutes. They’ll give you a number you can call. There’s an old folk song that I heard once. I’d like to offer a revision to the last verse. …And when I die and go to heaven, There won’t be no lawyers there. 

Just one man's opinion... 

Tom 

Bored? You've Got to Be Kidding

I was cruising my bulletin board on MySpace and found several messages from 20 somethings claiming to be bored. How is that possible? Who has the time to be bored?

The world is huge. We have surrounding us so many things to do and see that one lifetime is not enough to do and see it all. It remains for God to grant us immortality for us to have even a chance to be bored.

From where I sit, I see a shelf with some 250 books, each requiring about 3-6 hours to read if you read very fast. In front of me is a television hooked to a satellite dish with 150 channels. Below the TV is a drawer containing some 75 DVDs and a shelf with more video tapes than that. There are 3 shelves stuffed with more than 100 books on tape, a drawer full of CD's and another bookshelf with about 100 books in it downstairs. In the shed I have 5 boxes of audio tapes and some boxes of books my wife made me put there because she says we don't have room for them all in the house. I have a shelf in my closet with 15-20 board games, card games and then there's the video game channel on my satellite dish. I have about 10 video games on my computer (there are two laptops and two desktops in the house and 5 television sets). Each game would take about 5-10 hours to finish just one run through and some of them offer dozens of different scenarios. I can download games for free from the Internet if I run out of games or borrow some from one of the kids. I have a music program someone gave me that lets me compose music on my keyboard and print out sheet music once I'm done. I can transfer videos to DVD's on my DVD recorder, copy DVD's, create photo and video programs on my computer, turn audio tapes into DVD's and Photoshop my photographs so I look like I've lost 50 pounds and grown my hair back - how cool is that!!!

I can paste my head on Johnny Weissmueller's body and print out fake Tarzan posters with me in the starring role! I can find clips from old movies on-line and watch them. I can go to You-tube and watch the next generation ride skateboards off of roofs and land astraddle of a steel handrail, insuring they will not likely procreate - which may prove Darwin correct after all! How much fun is that.

We have 5 guitars, a fiddle, a banjo, a dulcimer, piano, 2 bodhrans, an alto recorder, penny whistle, jaw harp, a kazoo and a bag full of harmonicas, all of which I need to practice on if I'm ever going to learn to play them. I've got two astronomical telescopes and the pieces of one I haven't finished building yet, a pair of binoculars and a bird book and a pair of hawks that live in a tree across the street to watch. I have pieces of cherry wood a friend gave me and a Dremel moto-tool for carving the engraved wooden box I'm building for my wife. There's a fire in my fireplace and a refrigerator and shelves full of food and a cabinet with about 20 recipe books in it so that I can make all kinds of really good stuff to eat. There's a fresh loaf of homemade honey wheat bread I made last night.

I've got a catamaran with a broken rudder I need to finish repairing so I can go sailing. I've got two canoes and two sailboards that need to be cleaned for the season and taken out on the lake or down to the river for a paddle. I've got 3 bicycles that need to some maintenance so I can go riding with my grandkids. My granddaughter is downstairs working on her homework and probably will be upstairs soon wanting me to help with her latest last minute essay.

I have a giant plastic box full of photos and negatives in the closet that I am trying to scan into my computer so I can organize them and make photo memory books for each of my kids. I have a book I've written, and one my wife has written that I need to sell to a publisher (which could take me writing some 50 letters before I even get a nibble). I have another two books I'm writing, four websites I manage and need to update, 4 e-mail boxes to tend to and a book of songs I'm working on for our youth group that needs some new songs added to it. I also write 4 weblogs and manage two MySpace pages.

I'm writing 7 grants in the coming 3 weeks and creating a 5 year budget for a wildlife refuge expansion project. AND I HAVEN'T DONE MY TAXES YET!!!!!

It's Sabbath afternoon and I'm sitting in a wonderfully comfortably La-Z-Boy recliner by a warm fire on a rainy day with my family all around and I could sure use a nap (see above).

I'm almost 53 years old and I know I'm not going to live long enough to get everything done that I want to do, much less what I have to do.

I have the entire Internet full of amazing stuff to see and do and read and what do I see on the bulletin board but a bunch of 14-28 year olds whining about being bored?

Man I wish I could trade places with you guys. Then you would only have a few years till you were dead and I'd have time and energy to do all the fun stuff I want to do, but will probably run out of time to do.

Now get up off your butt and go find something fun to do for crying out loud!!!!!!

I don't want to hear anything more about anybody who is under 75 and not paralyzed from the neck down being bored!!!

Just one man's opinion....

Tom King

I Never Got My Confirmation Number

A dear friend sent me an e-mail telling me if I forwarded this to just 9 friends, Applebees would send me a 50 dollar gift certificate. Poor trusting thing got snoogered on this one like some tens of thousands before her. PT Barnum knew whereof he spoke.

But I would disagree with Barnum on one thing. It's not a sucker that's born every minute. Okay maybe every other minute, but it's not just the greedy and self-seeking that are easy prey to con-men and frauds. It's also the innocent and trusting as well and I say, "Shame on anyone who would take advantage of a trusting person." It's a vile thing to do and you should develop a rash for treating a nice person like that.

As you've probably guessed, the Applebees 50 dollar gift certification confirmation number e-mail doesn’t work (It's appended below without everybody’s e-mail addresses just in case). Somebody is trying to see how many people they can fool into forwarding this e-mail.

Here are some ways you can tell when you’re being hood-winked on one of these.

1. Logic - There is no way for Applebees to confirm that you sent the requisite e-mails without putting some sort of tracking software on your computer to verify that you actually forwarded those messages. They’d have to do it with a virus or Trojan-like program without your knowledge or they’d have to set up an auto-install program that asks your permission to put tracking software on your computer – in which case you’d know it was there. It’s exactly like if you were to send 9 letters via the post office. How would anyone track that unless they watched you put the letters in the mailbox. If it does work, it means something bad has attached itself to your computer…

2. Go to the bottom and look at the first person to post this message – in this case it was one Roger Wilson. I looked down the list of every previous post and in every case but one, the poster’s e-mail address is shown. Guess who's name did not yield and address when clicke - OUR BUDDY ROGER WILSON’S. That’s a dead giveaway. He doesn’t want some anti-spam vigilante tracking him down and bonking him on the head. I once tracked down one of those websites that hijack your computer and make it inoperable unless you buy something. He had an office in Austin, Texas. I went to visit with a baseball bat. Someone else had the same idea first evidently, because when I got there, the place was abandoned and there was some pretty radical damage to the premises.

3. Rule of thumb – If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is: Doing this would break Applebees virtually overnight. If this worked, you could have this scenario. First e-mailer sends to 9 people. Those send to 9 each (that’s 81 so far). At 50 each, Applebees would be in for 4050 dollars. The version of this e-mail had gone through 11 rounds. Let’s say only 1/3 of the people actually forwarded it from there on out and only a third of those responded and so on.. Let’s see what kind of damage that does.

3rd round – 81x3= 243
4th round – 243x3= 729
5th round – 729x3= 2187
6th round – 2187x3=6561
7th round – 6561x3=19,683
8th round – 19,683x3=59049
9th round – 59049x3=177147
10th round – 177,147x3=531,441
11th round - 531,441x3=1,594,323

Now at 50 dollars each that’s - 50 x 1,594,323 = 79,716,150

That means that after only 11 rounds, this e-mail would have already cost Applebee's close to 80 MILLION dollars and that’s if only a third of the people who receive this actually forward it to someone who hasn’t received it already. You can reach far more people with your message for far less cost than that by buying commercials during the Superbowl.

If all 9 responded at every level, the total would be a devastating 31,381,059,609. That’s over 31 BILLION dollars Applebees would lose on that little deal in just a few weeks.

4. Rule of thumb #2 – If it looks too good to pass up, there’s probably a hook in it. That’s how you catch fish. Remember this: One day, this e-mail may come back to this guy (since he started circulating it first among people whose e-mail he actually knows and who probably know his, only not as “Roger Wilson, but by his real name. When he gets hold of it, with all those forwards, he can harvest all the e-mail addresses (which are probably good addresses since the people sent them to people they know). He can then sell them to spammers or use them to spam himself or to send you viruses if he’s a mean person. AND every time he gets it back, he gets a whole knew tree of e-mail addresses because of the way pyramid forwarding works. Remember after only 11 rounds it could have passed through 1.5 million e-mail boxes. He’s set out what amounts to an e-mail drift net and when he comes upon it again, the e-mail address he harvests from that net may be yours or mine.

Also notice about midway through the list, there’s a note that says “it works!” That’ can’t be real because you wouldn’t know it works till after you send the e-mail, so how could you have said “it works” when you sent it in the first place, since you hadn’t found out yet whether it works or not, huh? The spammer is probably the one who sent it although the e-mail address may be disguised or phony.

5. Look it up on Snopes.com or About.com's urban legends/hoaxes site: They've always got the straight poop on the latest of these. Do that before you pass anything along!

NICE PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TRUST WHAT THEIR FRIENDS SEND THEM WITHOUT HAVING TO THINK LIKE A CROOK. SADLY, WE DON’T LIVE IN THAT SORT OF WORLD YET. EVERYTHING WE RECEIVE, FORWARD AND OPEN HAS TO BE VIEWED WITH SUSPICION ANY MORE.

THAT’S KIND OF SAD WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT.

I HOPE ROGER WILSON GETS A VIRUS.

If you want to do some good, e-mail this column to 9 people. I bet it doesn’t make it past the first round. That’s just human nature.

Just one man's opinion,

Tom King

"Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is."

. - Will Rogers

Why would we want to boycott Exxon?

Well, I got the e-mail proposing a gas boycott of Exxon/Mobil today. It's kin to the one day "gas boycott" that went round last year. On the surface it makes some kind of sense, but there are a couple of flaws in the plan I'd like to point out.

1. Why hit Exxon/Mobil? Exxon is an American company run by Americans and employing tens of thousands of Americans. Sort of like going to war and having the sargeant tell you to shoot your own guys first!

2. How many people can really work up a lot of anger at Exxon? Why would I want to inconvenience myself to hurt this one company when so many are raising their prices too. It's not just Exxon after all.

So my proposed solution would be as follows:

Why not hit the oil companies that are owned by foreign oil interests - someone we can all get really mad at?

How about let’s go after Citgo, for example?

Instead of damaging an American company, how about we get the attention of one whose primary stockholder doesn’t even like America – Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez?

This in USA today:
But in fact there's nothing ordinary about Citgo. One of the USA's largest refiners, Citgo is a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA). As such, it ultimately belongs to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an avowedly anti-American leader who counts Fidel Castro among his closest friends and mocks President Bush as a "genocidal murderer." – USA Today

The rest of the article can be found at
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2006-01-11-citgo-cover-usat_x.htm.

The article further says…
"The only difference between Citgo and other companies is that Citgo has only one shareholder," he (Felix Rodriguez, the company president) said, referring to the Venezuelan president. – USA Today

Chavez’s company owns 6% of the US refinery capacity, but what is scary is that...

Thousands of veteran executives and petroleum engineers were recently cashiered, replaced by those politically loyal to the president's revolutionary aims (including company president, Rodriguez). – USA Today

Then there is this telling statement:

As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated, any disruption to the nation's refining industry instantly increases gas prices. What if Chávez, who periodically threatens to curtail oil shipments to the USA, closed Citgo's refineries?

"He'd only have to do that for 90 days, and he'd destroy our economy," worries Matthew Simmons, a prominent energy investment banker. "He actually has our livelihood in his hands."
Others note that imported oil from elsewhere eventually could compensate for any interruption in Citgo supplies. And, because Chávez depends on the company's specialized refineries to process Venezuela's sulfur-rich crude oil, a shutdown would cost him and his country dearly.

"His capacity to make life difficult for George Bush would be at the cost of burying himself," says Claudio Loser, a former International Monetary Fund official. – USA Today

I don’t know about you, but I kind of like George Bush’s doctrine of preemptive action. Let’s take Chavez at his word and consider him a threat. If the US Government won’t make war, I sure as heck can wage my own personal war as an American citizen by boycotting Chavez’s gas.

Will Americans be hurt?

For a time maybe, because some American’s do still work for these bozos. But do you know how fast you can change gas suppliers down at the Kwik-E-Mart? Just try and find a Diamond Shamrock station, for instance – they were there yesterday weren’t they? If business goes to other oil companies, so will the jobs.

Or maybe the Venezuelans (who do belong to OPEC) will come to their senses and boot Chavez out like they did once before.

Who knows? But it does make more sense than hurting an American owned company like Exxon/Mobil, Valero, or Chevron. If you get this e-mail, why not send this blog entry back to whoever sent it to you and see if it makes sense to them? If we’re going to get the attention of the oil industry, lets slap the hands of companies whose owners have every reason to jack up oil prices – ones that hate us and are using the money they make off us to finance anti-American activities.

Tom King

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
--Theodore Roosevelt

What's Wrong with America - In Response to a "Survey"

GOT THIS IN MY E-MAIL

I'm taking a poll on what is wrong with America. If you would care to tell me what you find wrong with the country's moral dilemma, taxes, gun control, abortion, TV, the War in Iraq, or anything else. I promise I will keep names secret, but will send the results to you.

Susan


Here's what's wrong with America, Susan:

1. Freedom of Speech - You can't shut people up who disagree with you. How can you keep people from thinking things you don't want them to think unless you can keep other people from saying things that give them ideas? Adolph Hitler kicked his country's economy into high gear, boosted national pride and reduced crime virtually overnight. The first thing he did was shut down newspapers and radio stations that disagreed with the majority view - which also happened to be his view. Free speech promotes inefficiency, unrest and too much thinking. All that talking gets us into trouble all the time. All those peacenicks in the 30s made Hitler and Tojo think we were a pushover and led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The soft-talking government we elected in the 70's made the Ayatollah think they could make hostages of our embassy staff to embarrass us on the world stage. If we could make everybody shut up, then the other Nations of the World would finally understand us because we'd be more like them. In most countries of the world, television and radio stations are controlled by the government. Surprisingly little gets through that is disagreeable. Now isn't that a more enlightened way to run things. Think how much happier we would all be if we didn't have to watch all that arguing and wrangling on the nightly news here in the States.

2. Freedom of Religion - Religion is the most powerful force known to man. If you can make all religious authorities say the same thing, it's easier to control people, easier to make them do what you think they "should" do, and easier to isolate and eliminate groups whose ideas you find repugnant. It would be easier that way to create one big religion that makes people be more moral or get rid of religion altogether since religions only serve to make people feel guilty for doing things they the way they want to do them.

3. The Right to Bear Arms - If all people can carry weapons, it's much harder for a government to enforce its will when the people do not agree with what the government is doing. If you can take away everyone's weapons, the rate of gun crime will go down because the government can more easily control the populace the media and the spread of information and ideas. The government would then be able to make people "feel" better by telling them the crime rate had gone down (even if it hadn't) because there would be little way for anyone to find out any different. Government leaders could more easily consolidate and retain power. That way really smart people (who ought to be running everything anyway) could force us not so smart people to behave ourselves, do what they want us to do and not gripe so much - a major cause of unrest in America.

4. Limits on Taxation - (If the smart people in government could take more of our money, then they could redistribute it more fairly and evenly so no people would ever be hungry (or fat), be anxious (or well-informed), be ignorant (or too smart for their own good) or be troublesome (if someone shoots up a school we won't have to fool with a pesky trial, national media attention or any of that upsetting stuff. We could just take the kids out and shoot them and cover it up in the press so nobody would know and be troubled by the incident and no other kids would be able to copy cat these violent acts.)

5. Free Trade - If the smart people in government could decide how trade should be conducted then other nations would finally understand Americans. If the smart people in the government could make it so everybody got the same amount of pay so no one would be upset because someone made more than them, then you wouldn’t have the problem of the ambitious, high performing, hard working types getting more than their share of the money. You'd never lose your job no matter how poorly you did it and only smart government people would live in big mansions instead of movie stars and corporate executives - government officials deserve a higher standard of living after all because they're so much smarter than we are. We haven't had a really well regulated economy since the fall of the Soviet Union. Remember how you never used to hear the Russians complaining about their economy.

6. Our republican style of government - By having so many elected officials and limiting elections to the rules in the Constitution, we're always having to mess around with electing a new government every few years. If we could go to mass "democratic" elections, then someone who was really a good talker might be able to get a 62% approval rating for what he was doing - say if the economy was good - and then he could get himself elected to a third or fourth term - maybe even for life - and then he could gradually get all his buddies elected too and then we wouldn't have to think about elections anymore because we could do away with them and keep this really cool guy in office that makes us all feel good about ourselves. Best of all, we'd never hear about dimpled chads or butterfly ballots any more. The smart guys in government could just recount elections until the will of the people was revealed. Wouldn't it be great if we had a nice stable government like Cuba or Libya.

These are some of the things I think are wrong with America. If you could just fix these things then we'd never have to worry our simple heads about the country's moral dilemma, taxes, gun control, abortion, TV, the War in Iraq or anything else.

Just One Man's Opinion....

Tom King