Ayn Rand, Doctors, and a Good Book

The Autonomist ^ | 05/04/05 | Reginald Firehammer

[Hank Kerchief]

PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Hank

[Doctor Stochastic]

"I quit when medicine was placed under State control, some years ago," said Dr. Hendricks....

Sounds like what my Dad's heart surgeon said upon retirement. He basically said, "I am no longer free to practice medicine."

[BipolarBob]

WE'RE DOOMED, with that said yes much of what Ayn wrote is slowly fulfilling her prophecy. A slouching towards mediocrity if you will. 51% of professional science degrees (engineering,medical,etc . . ) being granted in the U.S. are to foreign students (or at least thats what I read). As optimism dampens (blame the media and public education) people quit taking risks and applying themselves to long range goals.

[ImpotentRage]

I have felt for some time that I have been living in Atlas Shrugged. Frightening!

[willie1]

I agree, it is frightening. I just finished Atlas Shrugged and being an unabashed capitalist and evil real estate developer, I was both inspired and enraged while reading it. I can see the slow erosion of our freedoms every day and in my business you can really see the tentacles of socialist governmental bodies getting longer and longer. It's like being overtaken by a creeping malignancy.

[doc11355]

Sounds like what my Dad's heart surgeon said upon retirement. He basically said, "I am no longer free to practice medicine."

I'm one shrug away from following him out the door!

[Neville72]

The power of her writing is astonishing. Reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged back to back in 1975 changed me from a clueless, mindnumbed 21 year old nitwit who had voted for George McGovern three years earlier to a life-long conservative. My late father always said that giving me those two books for my birthday was the best gift he ever gave me.

[joesnuffy]

There are good doctors and bad doctors those who
love medicine and those who love money more...

There is the AMA who would put us all under a dictator
with themselves at the top of the pile

Then there are those who would fight tooth and nail to prevent
such things from happening

Those who love our country and God more than mammon will always be good doctors...

Those who love medicine more than the state will always be
good doctors..

The state not with standing..

While the state may bring out the best and worst in people
some people will not waver regardless...their character
is independent of the state, peer pressure and consensus

People are not all Pavlovian enough to be swayed by external
circumstances..

However the govt that governs best governs least..and power corrupts

imo

[Investment Biker]

While I agree with most of the writing of Aynd Rand I must disagree at a most fundamental level in her writings on doctors. She makes no mention of the freedoms of man. She makes no statements about our ability to self diagnose and obtain our own medicines when we deem we are able. By her silence in these matters she supports the gatekeeper theory and the restrictions on individuals obtaining their own medications from pharmacies. She in essence supports restrictions on freedom of the individual.

[PeterPrinciple]

So what the the professions and businesses now that DON'T have a lot of regulation?


Where to the entrepreneurial people go to?

[untenured]

By her silence in these matters she supports the gatekeeper theory and the restrictions on individuals obtaining their own medications from pharmacies.

I have a lot of sympathy for that point of view. But what of antibiotics (or anti-HIV drugs), for which improper use creates resistance, most of the victims of which are other people?

[Castro]

If anyone reads this could you let me know your thought; review it for me? Ah-gracias.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It is the controlled substance laws that enabled government to monopolize the health care industry.

Socialized medicine is the natural and inevitable outcome of government control of medicine, regardless of the worthiness of the motive.

[Castro]

If anyone reads this could you let me know your thought; review it for me? Ah-gracias.

...I was referring to the recommended book, not the article.

[stylecouncilor]

AR ping

[LegendHasIt]

For the last 20 years or so, I have read "Atlas Shrugged" at least once per year... Obviously one of my favorite books.

I always considered it not a novel, but a documentary. And always felt it should be required reading (and required to be understood to graduate) in High School.

Unfortunately, all too many NEA members think that Wesley Mouch , Balph Eubank etc. are the good guys in the story and that the communists that inherited, then destroyed, the factory where John Galt developed his motor had the right philosophy.

I wish I could afford to buy the copyright for Atlas Shrugged and put it in the public domain so everyone could read it... (even though Dagney would slap me and Frisco would beat me up for doing something like that ;-)

One of Any Rand's stories IS in the Public Domain though: "ANTHEM"

You can download a free copy here:
http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/page.cgi?g=Detailed%2F2106.html&d=1

There is an unrelated thread over at Lucianne today where there is a lot af Ayn Rand "slamming" going on.... I'd hate to even imagine what the DUmmies would be saying.

[Investment Biker]

And the government should protect us from our lack of knowledge? Or would people gravitate toward good pharmacies that also dispense good advice? Would not self help guides become widely available? Take a look at Iliad software by ADAM that is a diagnostic tool for computers, wouldn't these go into wide use?

If an individual misuses a drug is that not the individual's responsibility? Doctors today, by being regulated by the government and even through accepting beneficial regulations that support their business are nothing more than trained government agents.

[windcliff]

ping

[windcliff]

Oops. I pinged you as well.