1 year ago today

I don’t usually post about personal issues, especially health issues.

However, today I will.

One year ago today I had major bowel surgery. The surgeon removed 2.5 feet of my small intestine, 1 foot of my large intestine, fixed 3 strictures and an abdominal fistula. After 6 days in the hospital, I went home with some interesting scars and weighing only 135 lbs.

Why? I have Crohn’s disease. I was diagnosed about 12 years ago after having an emergency appendectomy during which the surgeon saw that there was nothing wrong with my appendix, but my small intestine was severely inflamed.

Today, I am up to 175 lbs and can knock off 40 push-ups in a row. I watch what I eat and am getting more and more exercise. I am probably healthier now than I have ever been.

 No real point to this post, just that I’m happy and wanted to share.

 

One Step Closer…

Picture the scene.

It’s Friday evening, I just got home from a long week at work and I’m sitting on my couch with my feet up, reading the daily paper. I had already glanced through the headlines earlier and read the ‘big’ news items. Reality Catches Up With Spitzer, Sacrifice to Afghanistan Extended til 2011 and Tragic Explosion at Local Car Dealership, when I come across 4 column inches on page A5.

It seems that another province has decided to try and sue Big Tobacco, this time in the name of “people whose health has been harmed by tobacco products, families who have lost loved ones to tobacco-related illness and taxpayers who have borne the added costs to the health-care system.”(bold mine)

This last part is what frightens me. It sets a precedent that the government can go back to the producers of goods and hold them responsible for the health care costs of willing, non-coerced consumers who used their products. Who is next? Keith’s & Captain Morgan? Coke & Pepsi? Mr. Christie and my Mom?

There is another level to this government meddling. It sets the framework to follow in Britain’s footsteps down the road of heath care rationing. If individual citizens are defying the government decrees that certain acts and products could be harmful to their health, then they get no ‘free’ treatment of their health issues.

That is bad enough, but lets take this a step further.

The government has proof that you have made poor health choices. Say during some routine blood-work your blood was tested, without your knowledge, for nicotine and trans-fats, and the results were positive. The next week you get a registered letter from the ‘Ministry of Health’ with an itemized bill for health care procedures they say you needed due to your poor choices. At the bottom of the bill it says if you don’t pay in 30 days the government will sue you for the costs, in the name of your neighbors who paid for the procedures.

I know it sounds far fetched right now, but with the rising costs of health care in this province, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nova Scotia jumping on this bandwagon shortly. And then it is a slippery slope down to a socialist democracy, where individual rights are only upheld if they have no real or perceived negative impact on society.

Why we should remember.

I wrote this one to post on my Facebook page, Sunday, Nov 11, 2007. I tagged my grandfather as a person in this note.

I like to think that all of those soldiers, living and dead, did not sacrifice their lives for us. But that they made a choice, in full consciousness, to place their love of freedom ahead of their personal safety.

I like to think that these courageous soldiers made the decision that they would rather die than live in a world controlled by evil and then went out to do their best to stop their worst fear from happening.

I like to think that if people of today stopped thinking of the veteran’s courage as a sacrifice and saw it for what it truly is; Man responding to the highest values possible, love for his self, his family and friends and his freedom, they would be able to celebrate this day in a manner proper to that of remembering fallen heroes. Instead of feeling a vague guilt that these men and women died for us so many years ago, people would feel a sense of gratitude to those who had the courage to follow their convictions to their own end; to those who had the honour to put their lives in the path of a horrible spreading evil; to those who had the ability to see that the only way to have a world of happiness, justice and peace is to fight evil to the death, where ever it shows it’s ugly face.

I like to think, as I take my own personal time to remember those who put their lives into defence of this great country, where we are free to make our own choices of who and what and when to remember, that if it were necessary, I would be able to make the kind of choice my grandfather made and put my body in the path of evil for the defence of freedom.

Introduction

Let’s start this off with some definitions;

Radical : adj. Departing markedly from the usual or customary

             n. One who advocates fundamental or revolutionary changes in current practices, conditions or institutions.

Reason: n. The capacity for logical, rational, and analytical thought, intelligence.

Therefore, holding reason as an absolute, at this time in the world, makes one by definition, a radical.

I wear that proudly.

I, like many others, knew there was something rotten in the world, so I rebelled. At first it was against the hypocrisy in the church. Specifically the United Church of Canada allowing gay ordained ministers.

Now don’t go reading more into that than I said. I have no problems with any sexual conduct between two, or more, consenting adults, practiced in private or in front of willing voyeurs.

What I have a problem with is picking and choosing from the bible. Either it is the word of god or it is not. Either it is correct or it is not. Explicitly forbidding homosexuality in the bible does not make it wrong, except to Christians. And I just want them to practice what they preach.

The other side of that issues raises a question. Why would any homosexual want to be a Christian?

Next, I rebelled against Capitalism.

Coming of age in the early nineties, I fell in with the backlash against the pro-business eighties. I went for environmentalism and socialism. (‘The theory is sound. Humans are just too weak to implement it correctly.’ Uggh, that is enough to make me physically ill now.)

But still something was lacking. I was always asking why and never getting anything beyond dogma and appeals to authority. At this same time I looked into several religious options, to find what was lacking in my consciousness, but once again I found nothing more than dogma at their root. So I drifted philosophically.

I was raised with a strong work ethic, but no philosophical grounding as to why that was a good, moral trait. So, while I denounced Capitalism, I have held a paying job from the age of fourteen. All the while considering myself a subversive in the midst of a consumer based system. I knew I needed money to survive and I never had seen the need to suffer, so I wanted enough money to be comfortable. Yet, I could feel something was wrong with my beliefs and my actions.

Eventually I entered University as a commerce student, with the intent of knowing my enemy and making money while scorning the system. I wanted to bite the hand that feeds. I did well at it. Very well in all my business courses. Still something was wrong. I realized that, while I understand the need for production, I agreed with the altruist based philosophy of how we as a society should divide what was produced. I could feel the contradiction, but I couldn’t name it.

Then one day, while talking with some friends about university and career prospects, I explained the feeling I had. If I remember correctly it went like this;

“I just don’t understand. I want the money. I like the actual work involved and I am good at it. I just don’t want to do it.”

And my friend said, “You need to read some Ayn Rand.”

Some people never have a specific moments they can point to and say, “That is where my life changed.”

I can.

I borrowed “The Fountainhead” from a friend and read it voraciously, twice back to back. Then I went out to find more about Objectivist Philosophy and have never looked back.

This blog (and eventual physical organization) is the logical progression of the search I began so many years ago. The search lead me to Ayn Rand and Objectivism. Which in turn lead me to validate views on logic and reason I have held and suppressed. This in turn has lead me to critically view the world and want to change it to suit my values and beliefs.

Because that is what you do if you believe in something.

What I really want to do here is to show some young rebels that there is a cause to get behind. One that gives you real answers, requires that you to think critically and demands that you ask “Why?”.

And also to give hope.

Hope that we can keep our ideals and show the masses why we are right.

Hope that we won’t be radicals anymore.

Chris

August 13th 2006