(Continued from Part 1.)
Drug Addiction and Homelessness
To this point, I have talked about the attack on babies to prevent their existence or to terminate them after they come into existence. How about adults?
In many major US cities there is an epidemic of drug addiction and resulting homelessness. The news frequently covers the resulting tent cities, crime, filth, etc. But the toll on the addicts themselves is enormous.
I recently heard that at the height of the 1960s drug culture, there were approximately 6,000-8,000 drug overdose deaths a year. It is estimated that 100,000+ people died of drug overdoses last year.
I don’t remember the 1960s other than riding my bicycle and playing baseball. But I do remember the 1970s and drugs were rampant anywhere you cared to look. Drug addiction is nothing new in this country or the world for that matter. I personally know a fair number of people who have taken a pretty large amount of recreational drugs over the years and survived. I don’t know if more people are addicted or the drugs are more potent (Fentanyl likely is) or what is happening but death is visiting the addict more and more all the time. And our leadership is encouraging this by safe injection sites, decriminalizing possession, allowing tent/RV cities, refusing to jail users, turning a blind eye to low-level property crime and pushers, and refusing to even somewhat slow the wave of people crossing the southern border with hard drugs.
I recently went on business travel and stayed in the Gas Lamp section of San Diego, California. Every day walking from my hotel to the parking garage or a restaurant, I walked past tents or worse yet people passed out on the sidewalk. One image that sticks in my mind is a young black man passed out on the sidewalk, head facing downhill with an electronic ankle bracelet indicating that he was on some type of “home” confinement. Laying on the sidewalk. Unconscious. I cannot imagine that he was not in violation of some confinement order that would have warranted him being in jail. In jail, he could eat something decent, sleep in a bed, shower, be detoxed and maybe start to overcome his addiction. Held accountable yes, but also treated as a human. It seemed to me nobody cared if this man lived or died.
Many people turn a hard heart toward the addict. I do agree that it was their choice to get in that position. But I suspect the addict reaches a point where free will is pretty much gone and they need other people to pull them out of the quagmire they are in.
As a corollary, how many “respectable” people are being legally poisoned by overuse of legal prescription opioids and/or alcohol right in their own home? More death. Just not as visible. I would argue that our public actions regarding addiction constitute a war on life.
Corruption in Medicine/Nutrition
This topic is broad and subject to much debate. Suffice it to say, the COVID-19 fiasco of the last several years has caused me to look at many health/medical matters related to and totally unrelated to COVID-19. This topic is also complicated because I believe many of the problems in this realm are related to personal decisions, genetics, our work, environmental factors, etc. I will just hit some highlights. I will mostly just pose questions. I think my opinion on many of them can be guessed. I think a lot is going on with money and politics in these issues. But I ask the reader to focus on, how much unnecessary death or prevention of life is occurring in each of these issues:
Why was COVID 19 first downplayed and then played up?
Why were we locked down?
Why were liquor stores and pot shops open during COVID but churches and many small businesses were not?
Why were certain treatments limited and others promoted to such an extent? Is this happening in other areas of medicine unrelated to COVID?
Why the face mask fiasco?
Is the vaccine safe and effective or not?
Is the vaccine killing people? (I personally feel I am inundated with people in my acquaintance developing cancer and I have heard more sudden death stories than ever in my life.)
Why did we transfer sick patients to nursing homes?
Did the ICU protocols kill more than they saved? The prescribed drugs?
Where did COVID come from? Natural? Lab? Whose lab?
Getting away from COVID.
How many morbidly obese and/or people with diabetes do you know now compared to perhaps 20-30 years ago?
How much are people drinking compared to the past? And related, why did the medical guidance on drinking shift from 6 drinks a week maximum to the current general guidance of 14/7 for men/women?
Is marijuana safe or not? Was it formerly safer? Why is it being legalized at an increasing rate? What is it doing to people?
Why are sperm counts and testosterone levels in men dropping? (A very long-term trend.)
Why are people actually having less sex in a hypersexualized culture?
After looking at the COVID vaccine, are other vaccines safe? Which ones?
After looking at COVID drugs, are other drugs safe? Which ones?
Why are medical mistakes ranked the number 1 to number 3 killer in recent years in comparison to other causes of death?
What is in our food now that was not in our food 100 to 200 years ago? What is it doing to us good or bad?
I could go on and on but that would muddy waters that are already plenty muddy.
I think it is safe to say that there are any number of answers and reasons for the small sample of questions above. But to get to my point, I think we need to look at these issues in the same light that we looked at the evolution of tobacco use, tobacco abuse and tobacco death in this country. Tobacco was touted as healthy for many years by thousands (millions?) of people. Some of those people probably really thought it was. In my youth, some doctors still felt smoking was beneficial. The “stress relief” outweighed the published health risks. Some people found it convenient to ignore that it was not healthy or were in denial. Some actively and cynically knew it was deadly and promoted its use for profit despite that.
So how much of our life is currently being robbed by bad medicine/food/etc. and who knows that answer?
It took decades to finally get to the truth about tobacco. It will take equally long to get to the truth about other matters.
Is This a Vast Conspiracy?
Some would argue that there are organized forces in this world intentionally trying to actively kill upwards of 80% of the world’s population. Reduce the “Useless Eaters” and strive toward an “optimum” population of 500 million. There are other that would say this is nonsense. I honestly do not know, but I have a sort of in-between opinion.
First off, as a Christian, I believe we live in a fallen world full of sin. The Bible is clear that the wages of sin is death. Sin = Death. That explains a lot right there. All of our actions that do not conform to God’s will/design trend toward death.
Regarding specific trends, we have been increasingly bombarded with propaganda minimizing the value of human life for decades. We are told there are too many of us. We are told the planet is on the brink of destruction. We are told that our children are a bother, too expensive and a threat to the planet. We are told that life has no meaning. We have been told that the traditional family unit is not necessary. We are told all manner of lies which lead toward nihilism.
So do I think there is centralized coordination of all these and other trends? It is possible but I doubt it. But I do believe we have been sold a philosophical framework for modern life that in the end results in trends toward weakness and loss of vigor and life. Couple this with some good old-fashioned laziness, larceny, lack of ethics, etc. (think pharmaceutical industry, drug cartels, politicians, etc.) always present in man’s heart and I think you can explain the current trends perhaps without much else.
So, while there are those who want a vastly reduced population (they openly say it!), I do not think they are necessarily driving the bus. I think the bus is careening toward a cliff mostly on its own.
What To Do?
I write the heading of this section as a question because I do not necessarily know. But I will express some thoughts, starting with personal health:
The place to start in all these matters is with ourselves. Some things we cannot control, but we can improve our exercise, diet and other habits.
If you search the SurvivalBlog archives for “J.B.H.”, you can find some previous words I wrote about fitness a few years ago. I recommend reading it and establishing an exercise program that will work for you.
Diet is a subject that stimulates an enormous number of opinions. I will offer a few but each person really should look into this for themselves.
Think twice about eating much food that has been recently invented or recently became cheap enough to eat large quantities of. This would include transfats, sugar, seed oil, and a few other items. If your great grandparents’ generation did not eat it (at least in quantity somewhere on the earth) than consider avoiding it.
Eat less unless you are at your ideal weight. But do not starve yourself.
Avoid processed/premade foods.
Eat a variety of foods. All kinds of vegetables. All kinds of meats. Dairy. Grains. Fish. Everything. However, if you find that something consistently disagrees with you, then of course avoid it. Be aware and take note of what foods makes you feel good or feel poor.
Guidance recommending lowering salt and fat intake (particularly animal fat) is proving over time to be harmful. For all of human history, man has eaten a fair amount of salt and fat. Our bodies need it.
For most people, especially women, I believe vegetarianism is a very bad idea. I have seen some exceptions for people with specific health issues but overall I believe it is harmful. Our bodies were designed to eat meat. The vast majority of us need it.
Consider growing/raising your own food.
I am suspicious of GMOs, glyphosate, and other similar trends within our food supply. However, at this time, I am unwilling to pay the high prices for organic foods other than what I grow myself. At this time, I believe this issue is low on the “health” priority list and there are numerous things of higher priority that I could improve. I keep an open mind on this matter however and my stance may change with time.
Do not use tobacco products or recreational drugs including marijuana. I have no firm opinion on medical marijuana other than to try to avoid needing any medicine. Drink alcohol in moderation or perhaps even not at all. The older I get, the less alcohol agrees with me. Teach your children to abstain from drugs and limit alcohol.
Get some sleep. Probably somewhere in the vicinity of 8 hours per day. As a Navy veteran for 23 years I was sleep-deprived a lot in my career and life. It was sort of a badge of honor. “Real men” work continuously at sea, without sleep, and then drink and party in port all night, without sleep. Since my retirement, even US Navy has finally recognized the value of sleep as they were presented with data that lack of sleep was a health risk causing many issues including cancer.
As a side note, there are those who claim that the dropping testosterone and sperm count levels may be largely related to lack of animal fat in the diet and lack of sleep. I have read claims that testosterone is only produced or optimally produced during sleep. So if lack of sleep can reduce testosterone production, maybe “real men” actually do sleep despite what the Navy (and much of society) tried to teach my generation.
Do not be passive about your health. If you have a health issue and you know how to solve it, solve it. I will give an example.
I have two friends with diabetes. Both were on medication for their diabetes. One (in his 70s) decided to do everything he could to get off the medication. He modified his diet. He increased his water intake. He exercised regularly and found specific exercise (in his case high-rep weight lifting) which controlled his blood sugar best. Within a reasonable amount of time he was able to eliminate his medication with his doctor’s blessing.
I told my other friend about this, who is younger (in his 60s). He replied that he already knew he could get off of his medication if he did those things but he simply preferred to not do them and to just take the medication –even though that was worse for his health.
Personal health requires work, but I believe it is our responsibility to do the best we can with what we have so that we can contribute to our families and communities as much as possible for as long as possible. And be ready for any task that God might send our way. Oh and by the way stay alive as we are talking about matters of life and death. We need to keep sight of that.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 3.)