Monday, June 11, 2012

Universal Healthcare: The Ultimate Doomsday Prep

Why is it that, with the onset of the Internet blogger, objectivism has become clouded for the majority of Americans?  It's not really that difficult to tell the difference between a rant (this) and objective journalism (that).  Take, for example, the issue of the interesting subset of individuals known as "Doomsday Preppers". 
Doomsday Preppers are people who live their lives in preparation for a catastrophic event, not including feasible occurrences. They work ardently to make sure that they are going to be the ones who survive the apocalypse. 

I have two questions for this group.
 
First, why would you want to survive the apocalypse?
We've all seen the ruins of a burnt house before.  If you have seen a house that has burned completely, it is eery and quite disturbing.  Even if you have only seen images in news magazines, or on television, it can still be jarring.  I want to bring an image to the forefront of your mind.  Have you ever seen a house that had completely burned, and the entire thing is in ruins, except for the chimney/fireplace?  At first glance, you would never have even expected a house once stood on the lot, save for the uncannily well fortified fire stack.
My first thought, having seen this image was, "why didn't they make the whole house as well as the chimney?"  My thought was purely hypothetical, but the more I considered it, the motive of the Doomsday Prep bunch became more clear.  They are the ones, who systematically attempt to make their total environment "fortified". 
It seems feasible enough but if you think about it, really think about it, it is so far from it.

In the end we all bite the big one.

That's all there is to it.  You can cloister yourself away underground with a weird tilapia farm, and teach your kids to scramble every time a plane passes, but is that better than dying?  In the end it's the same argument as euthenasia.  Is a life without quality, still better than death?  It seems to me like the ultimate in faithlessness.  I define "faith", as a trust that you did everything to make yours a life that was well-lived.  If you spend your entire life delaying the inevitable, is yours a life well-lived?

Second question: Is it not just as worrisome, if not more so, that your family may contract an infection of some sort?  Shouldn't universal health coverage be a concern if you are 'prepping' for disaster? 
There is a much higher chance your loved one would contract a life threatening disease, and not get proper care?  I, personally, took health care for granted until my husband lost his job.  COBRA, for my family, would have been fifteen hundred dollars for the each month my spouse, or myself, was unemployed.  Fifteen hundred dollars cuts deep, especially with a baby who had not yet received all his vaccines.  Anyway, I digress.  My point is that the Doomsday Preppers should become as afraid, if hyperbole is what it takes, of real disasters rather than imagined, or unforeseen events.  A lot more people get ear infections than get taken out by a tornado... even as horrible as tornadoes are. 

A lot of you will see my views as 'liberal'.  I really don't see how I could be more objective.  I wouldn't dream of infringing on any one's right to live as they see fit.  I'm just observing and applying my filter.  I do believe that the idea of living one's life as if they were in a Cormac McCarthy novel is no way to live. 
I have seen a few episodes of "Doomsday Preppers" and they all seem to have an underlying fear in everything they do.  I think that's sad.  I also think it's sad to sink so much trouble in preparing for only oneself, or one's own family.  I've seen that episode of "The Twilight Zone", also.  I am more frightened by what the onset of the Doomsday Prepper says about our world. 

So, having said that, I would sooner walk into the monsoon than live my life in fear of it.

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