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Kaiser denied me health insurance. Bring on the cascading bummers!
They sent me a very nice letter explaining that they don't insure anyone that actually
might get sick someday. This means that in addition to being unemployed, homeless, and
unloved, I am one of the proverbial seventy zillion Americans living without health
insurance.
I thought about moving to Canadia or some other socialist country where health coverage
is provided by the government. I've heard that Cuba has some kick-ass hospitals, for
example, and they're famous for cigars, so maybe I could take up smoking. But I was
brought up better than that. I am a red-blooded American boy and I understand that when
the government provides basic neccessities to the populace, it's saying that there's no
need for individual achievement. And that's a load of horsepucky! Why, it's part of our
national heritage that in a free-market capitalist system, each individual gets the
rewards that he or she deserves. If you don't put in to society, you don't get back. If
the government were to start handing out free health care, that would be like saying that
each individual human being has intrinsic value. Then they'd have to start making killing
people illegal and make all sorts of draconian laws protecting our so-called "rights."
And we can't have that, now can we?
But I digress. See the bottom line is not whether the government needs to take care of my
needs, but whether I refuse to. I've tried to come up with all the rationalizations in
the world to cover my lame-ass behavior: I'm an alcoholic, or depressed, or have ADHD.
I've tried blaming it all on my mother, or my father, but none of that works like the
plain and simple truth:
I am a loser.
What a relief to put it out there as refreshingly and cleanly as that! It sums it up so
nicely. I mean, I could try blaming my unemployment on the sluggish economy, but that
doesn't have nearly the emotional punch and resonance as facing up to the fact that I
have no marketable skills! I mean, maybe in the Clinton years a blind felon could get a
job as a security guard, but today we have George Bush in office, and the economy
reflects those good old American values. If I don't have skills, I don't deserve a job!
Since I don't deserve a job, I don't deserve money. Since I don't deserve money, I don't
deserve food, a place to live, or medical attention either. See? It's so simple and
brilliant! Yay America!
But I have to admit that it's not always so clear to me. Sometimes I get tempted by
fallacies about self-esteem and so-called mental disorders. I'm someone that sometimes
can't get out of bed in the morning and has trouble accomplishing even small tasks.
Calling that a "mental disorder" or "depression" is like calling a garbage man a
"sanitation engineer." Ha! Must be some Marxist made that one up! Every schoolchild knows
that we're masters of our own destiny here in America!
But even that begs the question: if I had some debilitating illness that prevented me
from being productive to society, then why waste society's time and resources trying to
make me well? That seems stupid. I mean, it's not like I have any marketable skills or
anything.
See, and here's the best part: I don't really believe any of this. I'm just looking for
tons of fan mail to splicer@pigdog.org telling
me, "No, d00d, you're not a loser! You're s00per-speshul and we love yu!"
I can't think of anything more pathetic than asking for validation from Pigdog Journal
readers. Can you?
My Loser-Fu is Unstoppable!
nvious@pigdog.org
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