50 years of drug warring, and now we’ve got a nationwide opioid crisis? Really? How many times can you go to this well before we can all agree you people are not really trying anymore? And did you focus group that new ‘opioid’ coinage before you announced it was a crisis? Because it makes you sound like a dork.
Sheesh, this time there’ll be no doctor in the country that dares to prescribe pain meds. Maybe it’s a way to drive Obamacare costs down or something.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
Of course you can kill yourself with “opioids,” as you can with guns, knives, or a razor blade. Truly “accidental” deaths with these are not all that common, and are totally separate from negligent or plain out stupid use of anything remotely dangerous.
The thing a lot of well meaning people don’t seem to be aware of is the fact that use of opioids is seldom lethal – or even “addictive”- on its own. Most people who die of narcotic “overdose” do so because they stupidly and stubbornly consume this stuff along with alcohol (the most common) and/or other drugs that affect the central nervous system and respiration. And they continue to do this even when the serious negative outcome has been KNOWN for a very long time.
So, as we all know, none of this opioid prohibition/hysteria is about safe use of pain medication. It’s about control. Of everyone and everything. A lot like “gun control” of course.
First, let me point out that at least some south American countries seem to get along fine with all medicines being sold “over the counter”. I don’t read about that causing those countries any particular problems.
It could be that folks who are prone to misuse drugs tend to get them one way or another, so making them harder to get doesn’t really keep those types from somehow obtaining what they want.
The principle is simple: Try making food illegal, and I’m willing to bet that most of us will figure out a way to eat, and government be damned! It’s really the same with druggies.
That said, the area where I live was once lousy with “pain clinics”. These were mainly storefront operations that advertised heavily in certain alternative newspapers. The advertisements always hinted that all you had to do was walk in, be issued a prescription, and then the drugs you specified would be immediately vended to you “on the premises”. Folks came from all over the country to drive from one pain clinic to the other exchanging money for drugs. Obviously what was going on here had nothing to do with medical care, but it was dressed up under that guise. Anyhow, for better or worse, after some new state laws those “clinics” have largely disappeared. Also gone are some of those free alternative newspapers, which apparently couldn’t survive without the “pain clinic” ad revenue.
So, Ben, what’s the difference between taking drugs for “medicine” or for recreation, or just because people want to, regardless of the personal consequences? How is it anyone else’s business? The “pain clinics” were simply a response to the prohibitionists and do-gooders trying to limit the choices of others. And yes, it would be the same with food or pretty much anything people really want.
“Laws” against such things don’t stop foolish or harmful behavior, and they usually create more of the same no matter what people try to do with them.
Weird coincidence that the streets of the U.S. get flooded with cheap heroin shortly after taking over the world’s leading opium growing nation, isn’t it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan
it is about control of the people. those who want control don’t care about drug addicts. that is an excuse to control the rest of us.
i was on percoset a couple of weeks ago in rehab clinic post op. a gift to the idiotic talking heads is that Prince died in the very midst of this ‘opioid’ bull shit. what a load of malarkey. drug addicts get what they want.
people in agony under a doctor’s care get to suffer ungodly pain because the doc will be jumped on by the feds if he eases their pain.
it is about control.
^^^^^
Ding ding!
Winner
“people in agony under a doctor’s care get to suffer ungodly pain because the doc will be jumped on by the feds if he eases their pain.”
Yup. I remember the last time the feds got a bug up their asses about this, and hauling people to the hospital with obvious broken bones who would scream in agony at every bump in the road and every start, stop, and turn, because the feds had all the ER docs afraid to let us give any pain medication. At best, we’d get permission to give a dose so small that it was about as effective as a car air freshener in a sewage plant. One of the local ER docs even got arrested for “over” prescribing narcotics. Fun times. Not.
Based on personal experience, I would say that there are at least two types of people in this world: those that LIKE the non-clinical effects of opioids, and those that don’t.
I was dosed with morphine (or some related chemical) while being treated for a kidney stone. While the pain relief was like a blessing from God, the detachment from reality, the head-rush, and the hallucinations were a curse. I HATED those effects.
Apparently others take the drug for the secondary effects – I don’t understand them.
While most any of us might possibly fall into a bad habit if the conditions are right, I believe some of us are born wired for substance abuse, and some aren’t. As far as I can tell, I am not. It’s no virtue, just a lucky accident of birth.
Sendarius, as a hospice nurse, I supervised the administration of a lot of narcotic pain medications. Most people, especially those in serious pain, do not experience any sort of euphoria or hallucinations. I took morphine, and then oxycontin for several years to deal with serious pain after a bad accident, and I never had those reactions. The side effects most commonly experienced, however, are nausea, vomiting and terrible constipation. I have never figured out why anyone would want to do that to themselves without a darn good reason.
And the whole “addiction” thing is overblown. In 14 years, I never had a patient become dependent, and I experienced none myself. After taking the narcotic medication for several years – when the pain went away… I stopped taking the pills within two days after tapering off sharply. I had no desire to take any more of it, and never have again… even when in pain.
MamaLiberty: If most people do not experience euphoria (or some other effect that they define as pleasant) from opioids, what do you think explains why people take them recreationally?
At least in my ER case, the medical staff only asked if the pain was reduced. There were no questions about any other effects (nor much personal interaction at all, to be honest).
Sendarius, do you experience any form of euphoria when you eat chocolate, take the first taste of your favorite food, or anything else? Yes, there are chemicals in a great many things that give us that feeling to a greater or lesser extent. And no two people experience the same thing either. And much of that is due to what we expect to feel! Some drugs do create a physical dependence in the body, and may cause serious withdrawal for some, but interestingly enough not for most people who take it moderately for actual physical pain. And that difference can depend a lot on the form of narcotic taken too. Heroin is much more likely to cause problems than pure morphine.
The actual initial response of the body to narcotics is primarily respiratory depression, somnolence, and depression. That’s a large part of the reason so many people take other drugs with it trying to make themselves feel better, and not understandint what the morphine actually does.
In my experience, most people take narcotics because they are in pain of one kind or another. When people take it without a “prescription” it is called self medication. Unfortunately, they don’t usually know the optimal dose, and they don’t know how to deal with either the intended effects or the side effects, which can be very different. If the person is also taking other drugs, including alcohol, the effects can be severe and unmanageable. Or even lethal.
I’ve never seen anyone who took morphine because it made them actually feel good, at peace, enjoying life. Most are happy just to have their pain reduced, whether physical or other kinds. I’d say most of the people we understand to be “addicts” have a great many other problems besides drug use, and probably have no understanding or ability to cope with them. The drugs are easier to get than any help, of course, and since using the drug is “illegal,” they won’t usually be given any help even if they wind up in jail and can’t get the drug! What a hopeless and cruel situation.
As for your ER experience, I’m sorry that happened. It is an indication of the deterioration of medical care, especially since Medicare and now Obummercare. Sad to say, you can’t count on any health “professional” to even understand what you need or to ask intelligent questions. And the only remedy for that is to learn as much as you can so you will know what to tell them…
Thank you for that information.
As to euphoria when eating chocolate – don’t you go dissin’ on chocolate! 🙂
Obamacare was not to blame – even partially – for poor ER care here in Australia. We have our own set of useless politicians, interfering nanny staters, and corrupt hospital administrators to blame for that. Don’t ever get to thinking that “single-payer” health care like we have here is a cure to anything.
Oh, no disrespect for chocolate! LOL I love the stuff. Which is why I used it as an example. As for single payer “health care,” I am well aware of the dangers there. Just a different saddle on horse. I spent 30 years as a professional, advanced practice nurse before I retired in 2005. I saw every kind of insanity coming in and taking over, with patients and employees getting the short – and ever shorter end of the stick. The practice of medicine was never perfect, and I don’t think it ever will be, but turning it over to rapacious politicians and their minions has destroyed much of what it even could be.
The thin silver lining to that is the fact that many people are turning away from the chemical saturated medical model and seeking to learn how to take care of themselves, learning about nutrition and better ways to manage their own bodies. And this, of course, is as it should be.