The NEW Media Pinata: Opioids

I am so sickened by the media's new idée fixe: Opioids. The think they have all the answers.

If it were up to them, people in the end stages of cancer wouldn't be given opioids because they might become addicted. People who are in excruciating pain and doomed to live with it could also be addicted. From their viewpoint it's so much more noble to suffer than live a life worth living.

I have twice been in the kind of pain that, if it had continued, I would have welcomed death. I understand pain. I'm blessed I don't have it to that degree, but I get it.

However, many of these anti-opioid crusaders are enjoying the latest hysteria without considering the cost to others.

And in the midst of all this obscene rabble-raising comes an interesting new angle: Look over here! This obscenely wealthy family is making a ...wait for it... PROFIT on opioids! Maybe we can gin up the masses on THIS new factoid.

And so Esquire now has an article out on the Sackler family out of Brooklyn. It's pretty interesting reading, actually. But the appeal is an obvious one. Since most of the media has socialistic leanings, they see the wealthy elite as boogeymen. They would, in fact, be very surprised to discover you may not. But just in case, they will attempt to manipulate you through envy, if you're not merely aghast at the concept of someone having more money than you.

The real issue is appallingly simple: Do we allow doctors to make decisions on our well-being and medications, or do we give that power to others? CVS has already make a power grab, here. They are now going to be overriding your doctor and allowing you only so many opioids per week in many cases. 

Insurance companies are meeting over the so-called 'opioid crisis' also, seeing this as a great excuse to deny payment in this category. And as we all know, insurance companies only have our very best interests at heart. 

Ahem.

They say Americans consume the majority of opiates, and that may be true. But there are 323 million people here, as opposed to only 65.6 million in the UK, and 67 million in France. So even if the percentage of the population using opiates remains the same, the US will outdistance most other countries. Anyone who's taken statistics knows to dig into figures like this.

This is manipulation.

This is unethical.

This is ginning up the masses, and it has consequences.

Many who are in pain and denied opiates are turning to heroin. I knew a Vietnam vet who had to take morphine daily. He's passed on now, but he had every reason to need it. He'd lost a leg in the war, and his severed, mutilated nerves were never at peace.

We need to stop non-medical interference with opiate prescriptions. 

The answer is to leave this up to the medical professionals. Not their hospital administrators. Not the insurance companies. And not the pharmacies.

Some day the tables will turn. Some day the American public will say they are tired of Big Brother.
Some day the pinata will get tired of being the punching bag.

The Close-mindedness of the Modern Conservative

The title is just scraping the top of the archaeological dig. If I had time, I'd dig down to the history of conservatives in the USA. How the conservatives were behind the original Black Lives Matter of the 1800s. How conservatives were conservative in the system they followed but were never closed to ideas.

I am blessed to still know some true intellectual conservatives, but many of them are falling to the wayside of emotions. Irrational, emotional thinking is what the majority of us despise in the modern liberal but now it's their turn to do exactly the same thing.

I am a conservative-leaning moderate. I sympathize. I want to offer advice to these friends the very best way I know how: Through reason.

We've all seen parents give in to a screaming child. But we also know that grown adults shouldn't behave the same way. But we've also seen that government officials sometimes give in to interest groups if their tantrums are loud enough.

We all know the shoulds and shouldn'ts. We shouldn't carry grudges. We shouldn't direct hatred of an idea to the hatred of the person who mentioned it. We shouldn't try to be louder than the next guy: If our ideas are good enough, we should win the argument. In other words, we should try very hard to not be the people we despise.

And when it comes to healthy adulting, we should not allow ourselves to take an issue so personally that it brings us to tears...unless that issue directly affects us. For instance: If you hear of a white kid shot by a black cop and it's obviously an injustice, do you:

• A) Write to government officials and news outlets demanding accountability
• B) Go on to Facebook and get into heated arguments with others, start crying, and unfriend everyone
• C) Do as Obama did and, before all the facts are in, declare that the white kid could be your son

We all know which answer we should choose. But do we choose that? Are we striving to be the people we should be?

I see self-styled conservatives saying and posting things that are - well, there is no other word for it - foul. They post memes that are inappropriate, disgusting, and hate-filled. Those of us who are Christians distance ourselves from such people when we should confront them with kindness, and I am guilty of that just as everyone else is.

The question is: Can you be a true conservative if you are an extremist who loves the fight more than justice? Are ideas no longer important? Is it now only a question of who the biggest bully is? You might eat someone's lunch, but in the court of public opinion... you've lost.

I was recently unfriended and blocked by a Christian who writes for The American Spectator. I had truly admired him. It saddens me, because he is still friends with the people who post garbage memes like this:

But I was never given a chance, never told how I offended the man. I had just been in a discussion of how the recent racially-charged Dove ad was offensive to myself and so many others, and I suppose that must have triggered him, even though I tried to keep it civil as my friends duked it out online.

According to Christian standards, he was very wrong. He should have discussed this with me and we could have rectified the situation. Or at least so I hope. I have another Christian friend who is black and a liberal-leaning moderate. There are times she has to unfollow me because my friends get on her nerves. The Dove discussion also enraged her. I get that. But she always tells me with love and gives me the courtesy of an explanation.

Recently a couple of friends had a dust-up and my friend Todd reached out to his combatant and invited him out for drinks. That is how a true conservative should behave. 

That is how we all should behave.