Tag Archives: society

Ways to steal from the kids

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There are lots of ways to steal from the children.

Speaking with a friend of mine, we got on the subject of social security, welfare, unbridled handouts and so on.

He was angry.

I didn’t disagree with him.  I still don’t.  People want and politicians want–they make deals to satisfy each other by taking a loan out in their children’s name.

Sleazy, dirty, dishonest, corrupt, foul–all are good adjectives.  And accurate.

But then he went on to say that we ought to be drilling oil wherever we can find it.  The North Slope.  Wilderness areas.  The Gulf.  Wherever.

“Do you think,” I asked him, “that maybe our children, our grandchildren and their children might want to have some oil?  Do you think they might find that handy?  Do you think they might possibly need a few gallons to ensure their own survival?’

He blinked, blinked just as if I’d tapped him between the eyes with a hammer.

And he didn’t answer.  For good reason.

He had no answer.  So far as I know, he still doesn’t.

Everyone likes to think that their variety of handout is the good kind.

It isn’t just the socialists who are stealing from the kids.

It is the handiest way for a politician to win some votes–and it doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum that the politician is on.  The average politician reaches out into the future and takes a finger or a lung–or a job, or the oil, or the air to breathe–or their educations and the right to their own minds, from the children.

Next time you shake hands with a politician, remember to wash.

And if he gives you something, at least say a prayer for those who will pay.

Education and the devaluation of competence

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I was in a conversation, actually another blog thread, the other day on the subject of job education requirements.

I think education is a fine thing. Everyone should have one as a child. They can learn how to keep it dusted and when to haul it out to impress the relatives.

At least that’s the case with education as it is practiced in the USA.

Now, if you want to talk about Education, as in learning a subject for competence, able to demonstrate skill, ability to produce a predictable result. Hell, I’m all for that too. I just wish we had such a thing.

In my earlier conversation, the one that started this ramble, we had as our subject the Information Technology industry, one I have been familiar with for the last twenty years. When I started, it had been possible for someone to walk in, demonstrate competence, and have a job. Especially when the personal computers exploded onto the market, many of the arbitraries got set aside and competence, willingness, skill and ability to learn could outweigh any lack of paper credentials.

Those days are done.

Today we drown in vast pools of paper experts. People whose qualification is that they managed to sit through four or six or eight years of college, people whose qualification is the diploma, the certificate, the paper–also known as the ticket. Their parent’s money didn’t run out. They were able to get enough loans. And the school looked the other way at drunken binges that had a good percentage of the student body barfing on street corners two or three or four nights out of seven.

Often the subjects taught and the degree obtained are in a field of complete uselessness, completely dreamed up, unproven, unworkable and not needed. Professions whose practitioners leave destruction and confusion in their wakes. Psychologists and MBA’s come to mind, but they are far from alone. Even the technical subjects require no demonstration of competence, no hard measure of skill. All that matters is getting the paper at the end, the ticket.

These paper tigers gravitate to positions where no hard product is seen, where failure is always due to the environment or business conditions or whatever. In those environments, all that matters is the ticket.

When the ticket is the only qualification one has, defense of the ticket’s value becomes a very, very serious thing. Allowing the merely competent, the ticketless, to work or advance demonstrates rather dramatically the real value of the ticket. For those in this age of ignorance, our new age of ignorance, whose only qualification is the ticket, requirements for competence or skill cannot be allowed to threaten the value of that piece of paper.

At times in my career, I have been in the position of interviewing applicants–and in the process turning away four year IT degree holders who were clueless. I remember taking one aside, telling him to buy a computer and learn how to use it.

Could he have learned this in school? Sure, if he had demanded of himself that he learn. But it was not required by the school. At the same time, I had applicants who had taught themselves. Being a practicing professional myself, I was in the position to judge whether the self-taught knew their stuff.

Very often they did.

I’m sure you can guess which I hired.

This, of course, could only go on for so long, especially in large companies. There is a group of people who should properly spend their time filing papers with the government and making sure paychecks are for the proper amounts. They used to be called the “Personnel Department.” It was an honest name for an honest function. However, there’s no ring to that, not much of a claim to power.

Today, as part of their move to the center stage, they are called Human Resources. Replete with a complete and dazzling set of pseudosciences, they now demand respect.

One of the primary functions of Human Resources is to ensure that the tickets are respected. It is not hard to understand why. Each of the HR mucky-mucks advances, if they advance, primarily on the value of their own ticket. It has to be so because the jobs they hold have almost no valid measure of performance. Worse, if the jobs were required to be validly measured, it would have to be done by HR personnel, who typically have no clue how to do such a task.

When it comes to technical fields, such as computer systems, HR people, being as intentionally ignorant of the Information Technology as they are of the details of any industry, are compelled to insist on the paper–this protects the value of their own tickets and gives them something with which to cover their behinds when a new hire fails.

When I wanted entrance into the industry, even twenty years ago, some kind of degree, even a minimal one, was already becoming part of the dues. Having by then been in that exact fight a few times, I swallowed my pride and spent the few years to get the piece of paper. Not that my time in school was a complete waste—I met my wife there. But my IT skills? Those I learned of desire and necessity. Though I picked up a few new skills while in college and the school (to their credit) made it easier to do, I would have acquired the skills anyway if needed–I already knew more than most grads when I started my classes.

Since then one of the saddest things I have seen is doors closing on bright, talented people because they are not in the club.

This reflects a continuing degradation in society, a calcification visible not just in the IT field. When it comes right down to it, we’re not very far from hereditary positions. How far? I don’t know. One generation? Probably not. Two? Three? Five? Maybe. The point is that once competence is thrown out as the key job requirement, the rest comes easy. Many parents want a sure thing for their drooling children. Virtually the entire cycle of royalty was, after the initial power grab, no more than that–seeing to it that junior did not have to compete and did not have to earn a place. We have the same motives in action today, buried under different guises and names, but with the exact same intent.

In every society there are parasites. The longer the society is in place, the more chances the parasites have to find a way to do their leaching. Our society is no different.

Historically, this is all very predictable. Yet is not a pleasant thing to watch.

The Mothers Act – OR – Have a little dope with your diapers.

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(A note for 2020:  This bill did not pass thanks to many who fought against the insanity.  However, with another Democrat reaching for the White House, I am not confident that a similar insanity is far away.)

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Mothers Act.  But its back.  It’s through the House and in what’s termed a fast track in the Senate.  It puts into law that every new mother will get psychiatric screening, which also means, when the doctor has the urge, psychiatric treatment.  Imagine, as a new mother, going in for a checkup and being ordered to take psychiatric drugs (or receive electroconvulsive shock or whatever) or face having your children taken away.  In other words, Eli Lilly and friends are not happy doping our school children and our spouses, now they want the mothers and the newborns.  Supporters of the bill claim there is no such screening requirement, even a few supporters on Senate staffs.

However, here’s where the document can be seen, and I’ll give you the excerpt. 

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1375, Section 520K “Establishment of Program Grants”, Part (a).

`(1) provide education to women who have recently given birth, and their families, concerning postpartum depression, postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, and postpartum psychosis (referred to in this chapter as `postpartum conditions’) before such women leave their birthing centers and to screen new mothers for postpartum conditions during their first year of postnatal checkup visits, including the standard 6-week postnatal checkup visit …

This group has more information:  https://www.ablechild.org/

There is nothing I despise and oppose more strongly than the psychiatric state.  Here is a copy of a letter I am sending to every Senator on the HELP committee.   You can call the senators too.  I have.

April 7, 2009

Senator,

The Mothers Act just flew through an uninterested and ignorant House. We cannot let it do same through the Senate. This act, despite what may be said, implicitly requires that every new mother be given psychiatric screening.

I do not know if you support this bill.

If you do not support the act, perhaps my words will lend you courage to continue the fight.

If you do support this bill, are there any words that I can write, is there any information I can bring, that will allow you to change your mind?

I suppose those sound like silly questions. But I am no longer a young man, and I no longer believe that anything is a given. So, should I save my words?

If so, please stop reading now and simply let me know.

Yet, if I could persuade you, I would write that whatever limits you have been told exist, the real language of the bill describes screening for every mother in this country. This is personally horrifying, for I am all too familiar with the efficacy of psychiatric tests in “finding” what they deem illness.

If you were interested, I could tell you about a teenage girl, someone I know very well, someone very dear, about her trip to the local physician. She must have been sixteen and having trouble with her menstrual period. And being sixteen, life was not always so clear and easy. The physician administered a screening, the exact sort of screening as outlined in the Stokes bill. She came home from the doctor’s office with a paper bag full of psychiatric drugs. The doctor had told her she was, in layman’s terms, crazy, and would be for the rest of her life. His prescription to her was to sample the drugs he had given her and find one she liked. It took him no more than fifteen minutes. In fact, less time than that. They gave her a questionnaire, one conveniently supplied by a drug company, and walked away. A nurse spent a few seconds matching the young girl’s answers to the drug company’s requirements, and then the doctor came returned, told her she was disordered, and prescribed psychoactive drugs for the remainder of her life. She needed only to pick one.

The doctor was very convincing. He believed himself, certainly. When he was done, his patient was also convinced. When she came home, her father and her mother faced a child who had accepted her own doom, utterly distraught, convinced she was crazy, certain that she could not face life without psychiatric drugs.

Her parents threw the drugs away and spent a long night holding their daughter, persuading her that her life was not ended. I will not give you details, for they are not mine to divulge. I do know that only because they fought so hard, they succeeded. I know this. I was a witness. The next day their daughter was willing to believe that it was possible she was not insane and might be able to live a normal life. And she does. She was no more crazy than any other teenager. She only needed to grow up. That was simply a matter of enough years, enough mistakes, enough pain and enough joy. She has a full life, has gained an education, and is finding her way. Actually, one of the less confused among her generation. She has her own children, as bright and sane any you’ll ever find.

That doctor tried to steal that from her. Her parents did not let that happen.

Yes, I am familiar with these screenings. If it would do any good, I could tell you about my wife, how she started suffering a reaction that left her exhausted and unable to breath. We were terrified. I was terrified. I can bear many things, but the loss of my wife least. The worst occurred on a weekend. I insisted we stop at the local emergency room. The doctor there, after seeing my wife for a total of at least ninety seconds, diagnosed her as suffering from some sort of panic. The only question was, which psychiatric drug would she like?

We left that place, and left the physician sneering at out ignorance in not accepting his wisdom, and my wife began her own investigation. Eventually she determined she had developed reactions to a few common foods. She stopped eating those foods. The condition went away. Were that anyone but my wife, she would still be suffering from the reactions but now have that coupled with an addiction to psychiatric drugs. To heal herself, she would then need to cure both. How many do you think would find that cure?

If you were to read this and take the chance on accepting what I say, I could tell you about my mother. I could take you to her grave, and we could stand there for many, many hours while I told you about a life destroyed by psychiatric treatment and told you about eight children, long grown to adults, whose lives are still twisted by the long years of exposure to their mother’s degradation. I could tell you about long nights I spent helping her walk off her latest overdose. I could tell you how she stole to support her habit. I could tell you about lies told, blaming one child to another to cover her larceny. These and so much more. So many things. As I said, we could talk for a long, long time.

Some would say, “She was ill. Not the psychiatrist’s fault.” But that was not true, not when it started.

She was overweight and suffered from the condition of having an overbearing mother and a driven husband. At the worst, what she needed was a divorce and to face her mother down. Instead, the prescription was pills, lots of pills, pills that carried her to increasing desperation and addiction. As she destroyed her life seeking relief with her “medicine,” her only remedy was the unconsciousness she achieved with the pills. Later, her doctors were so pleased with the success of their medicines that they prescribed shock treatments. This was not to cure her addiction. It was not to cure her at all. It was just to make her quieter.

It worked. When they were done, what was left was a shell. No longer even a competent thief. Still addicted, still with only one desire, that of more unconsciousness, but no longer able to express any dissatisfaction. She knew better than to talk about anything like unhappiness. She knew what they would do if that subject came up.

Eventually she succeeded in killing herself. The doctor called it a heart attack, but that is not likely. If so, that heart gave out after more overdoses than I could ever count. And yet I remember her when I was very young. She was not a suicide, not an empty husk and not a criminal. Even in the end, there were times, brief moments when the little bit of her that was left would peek out from the shattered mind and the enveloping drug haze.

We used to live for those moments when we were younger, when the moments were more frequent.

The psychiatrists who say they fought a losing battle to save my mother simply lie. I was there. I watched and could not stop it. The doctors succeeded in everything they tried to do. Succeeded to the bitter end. Succeeded because men believe the lies and look the other way. Succeeded because the lies are smooth. Succeed because the truth is so dark, and the lies are so much easier to hear. Succeeded because there is money in it, so very, very much money, billions beyond billions and then billions of dollars more.

Yet these are but a few of the reasons I oppose the psychiatric state.

With this act, in a few short months, we will have children born addicted to psychiatric drugs. Not crack. Not cocaine. More likely Prozac–or whatever is the profit maker this year.   How can I say this?  Because already physicians are prescribing these drugs to pregnant women.  Does anyone believe a congressional mandate will decrease this madness?  These same drugs have known, well documented side-effects of paranoia, depression, suicide, even homicide.  This act will bring terror to mothers and children.

One last item.  It may be true in theory that a mother can decline the screening, but the words relayed to me from one nurse in New Jersey say it all, “But honey, declining is the same as failing.”

So, what would it take, Senator, should you require persuasion, what would you need to see or hear or experience that would allow you to change your mind? Please, tell me. If there is even the slightest crack in your certainty, what would you let slip in that might allow you to change your mind? Please, let me know. I will find it for you. I will march it to your door. I will beg you find the time to look.

You need only ask.

Sincerely,

John Richter

*****

Senators on the HELP committee:

Lisa Murkowski, R: 202-224-6665, AK

John McCain, R: 202-224-2235, AZ

Christopher Dodd, D: 202-224-2823, CT

Johnny Isakson, R: 202-224-3643, GA

Tom Harkin, D: 202-224-3254, IA

Pat Roberts, R: 202-224-4774, KS

Edward Kennedy D: 202-224-4543, MA

Barbara Mikulski D: 202-224-4654, MD

Richard Burr, R: 202-224-3154, NC

Kay Hagan, D: 202-224-6342, NC

Judd Gregg, R: 202-224-3324, NH

Jeff Bingaman, D: 202-224-5521, NM

Sherrod Brown, D 202-224-2315, OH

Tom Coburn, R 202-224-5754, OK

Jeff Merkley, D 202-224-3753, OR

Bob Casey, D 202-224-6324, PA

Jack Reed, D 202-224-4642, RI

Lamar Alexander R 202-224-4944, TN

Orrin Hatch R 202-224-5251, UT

Bernard Sanders, I: 202-224-5141, VT

Patty Murray, D, 202-224-2621, WA

Michael Enzi, R, 202-224-3424, WY