Secret Police

[pasithea]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1035832#articleFull

Well.. Okay. Do you think it's secret police or do you think it's a clever new dodge for HMOs? How easy it'd before them to say, "Oh! This person falsified information to their doctor. They had a drink last Tuesday. Obviously an alcoholic in denial."

Generally I'm all for making parents suffer (particularly the ones across the way from me with about 18 children that all ride around on electric dental drill toys and have very loud bad sound samples on them, and they fight a lot and scream at their kids at 6 in the morning to get ready for school. Oh, and did I mention the parrot? PRETTY BIRD! (Note to self, borrow Atari from Ashy and leave it running in the window to reprogram neighbor's bird)

But seriously. Creepy, neh? I must also admit I find the focus on guns rather dull from both sides. On the one, WAH GUNS LIBERALS COMMIES! And on the other, who cares if some idiot has a gun. Wars in the US are fought with TV stations. Guns are useless against satellites and nuclear missiles and aircraft flying at mach, and tanks. They're not even very useful against modern riot armor. Oh sure, the militias yap about how they could take a military compound or have military people join them but take another look at the first 2. There were huge protests at the start of the Iraq war but they got no air time on TV. They were played down to be 'small groups of angry protesters' on the national news. Guns are useless against media.

Coming back around, I think the thing that bothered me most about this article was the focus on guns and the implication that gun-control (read as liberals) were behind this and that's all that any of the other articles online seem to care about. Guns guns guns! WAH!!!! But you know what. It took joint approval for this kind of crap. The BATF and the increase in power to the FBI was the work of conservative christians regulating morality during prohibition. The Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed by democrats, right wingnuts are fond of pointing out. Though if you were talking about racism instead of guns, they'd happily tell you that most KKK members at that time were democrats. Oh, and the Brady bill... Signed by majority of democrats and Clinton.. Named after the secret service guy that died taking a bullet for Ronald Reagan. Take a closer look at the way the votes went down on that one, and fucking wake up.

A so-called liberal may have pulled the trigger in Massachusetts but conservatives are every bit as guilty for setting up an environment with so much fear that stuff like this could be approved. From what google searches tell me, I suspect they'd make scarcely a peep if kids were just reporting on the drug and alcohol use of their parents or if they were gay or commies. The right will continue to blame the left 100% for gun control issues and simultaneously scare people into accepting more and more control. Run sheep run!

Comments

[paka.livejournal.com]

I understand the sentiments. I dunno... child abuse is one thing. The whole guns thing though is another. I really hate that bullshit.

I think gun control is just another hot-button issue that's supposed to sucker our attention away from what's really going on. Our health care is lousy, our roads are literally falling apart, we have a huge national debt, huge chunks of the population are locked into being poor, the chance of retiring is nil, but that doesn't matter because there's always some big ticket emotional issue. I really think a lot of American culture is one bigassed distraction tactic, where we are intended to shut up and not ask questions which are about money.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Shit I didn't even think of kids ratting on their parent's sex lives. What if they are homosexual? Or poly? Or whatever? Fuck that shit.

The only thing ok is asking about abuse and lets give the doctors some training on that. Catch a kid the wrong age or on the wrong day and you've got an overloaded CPS following leads of kids who don't know fantasy from reality, or kids with vendettas.

I've seen some kids with attachment disorder and other ragey things. I could see them tearing up a family for shits and giggles.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I think the HMO aspect bothers me most. "Oh. Your child has asthma? Well. Your child also told us that Daddy smokes in the garage every once in a while. Your husband said he's a non-smoker. Sorry. You lied and your insurance won't cover you now."

As for asking kids about that stuff... ... I dunno. I would hope that any competent doctor would be able to tell if there was a problem. Some kids are good actors but generally only when they know they're performing. Ask a child questions and they perform. Much better to observe them without the framing of 'Are your parents evil?' and see how they behave. ... Of course, I'm not a doctor so what do I know?

[centauress.livejournal.com]

That's actually very uncommon, and the questions are reasonable, to see how to treat a patient. Knowing their environment is essential.

It's far more common for adults to go peevish on each other and backstab than children (and pediatricians see children, not teens or adults), so how could it possibly be out of line? Besides, there is a strict limitation on how that information should be used.

The HMO using it against the parents is ridiculous and shows not the problem in asking the questions, but the appropriateness of the billing hand of the HMO having access to confidential treatment records.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

How much time have you spent with children to think they don't do things like that? There are enough out there who have done such things, or have been asked in such a way that it would appear the parent is a problem.

I mean, I got in trouble with the authorities because my autistic child lined toy cars up. It was a danger to him and his siblings because he could trip over them.

Asking if parents do legal things is not the business of the doctor or the HMO or teachers or anyone. Trying to get children to rat on their parents is wrong.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I think these were appropriate questions for a pediatrician to ask a child, as I'm sure the statistical evidence would show that homes with substance abuse, domestic violence, guns or all three pose a significantly higher danger to a child than ones in homes without! It's more dangerous than an ear infection, I'd bet!

Did you know that a handgun in the house is 22 times more likely to shoot a friend, family member, or be used to commit a crime than it is to be used for it's legitimate home defense purpose? Gun control isn't even an ideological debate, every time Joe citizen stops a burgaler he's shot several family members and robbed several liquor stores, yet it remains easy and legal to own guns because apparently at any moment we might be asked to organize into militias to kick out the king of England. In a nation where more than 50% of our tax money is devoted to national defense (or offense) I think it's about time we felt safe enough to get rid of the damned guns.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Also, I love the idea of breeders own spawn getting them in trouble in that sort of way. I think there should be a lot more of that sort of thing up to and including a ritual where a child cannibalisticly consumes one of it's parents to make sure that the family is not adding to the problem of world overpopulation.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Damn! I got trolled.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I know, aren't I edgy for hating children? To tell you the truth I don't actually feel strongly against the heterosexual lifestyle choice, I just said it because It's a popular topic in DV_girl's rants and I thought it'd get a smile from her.

I was completely serious, however, in defending the information the pediatrician was pumping the kid for though, they're completely pertinent to the health of the child.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

Oh, one of those, ignore my comment.

Actually, you;re right, DV girl is a bigot about parents -- and I don't know why I stay friends with someone who is so hostile to my lifestyle and spends more time bashing it than being a FRIEND to me.

I need to practice personal safety and keep bigots off my list. Shit.

You opened my eyes, why do I read someone who hates me?

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm not sure I genuinely dislike parents. I mean, I do dislike _my_ parents (well, my mother. My dad is great!) but I like Stacey's parents. I don't like my neighbor because she has no respect for anyone else in the apartment complex. She's a VERY VERY LOUD person and she lets her (about six) children have all kinds of very noisy toys and though they have a little apartment they also have a large dog and recently got a bird that makes noise incessantly. My comment above was meant as grumbling about her rather than parents in general. I really think this thing about using children as spies is pretty sick and sinister.

On the other other hand, I suppose it would be fair to say that I do hold a certain contempt for breeding. We're rapidly approaching 7 BILLION people on the planet. It's sick. I like wild spaces and other animals and room to move around. I do see breeding as being rather selfish and ugly. I'm struck by a certain irony when I go to the zoo and see a family with 5 children gawping at a tiger in a cage and shaking their head sadly that there are so few left. If there weren't so many god damned humans encroaching on their space, there'd be more tigers.

Hate's such a funny word though. I don't think I genuinely hate anything. I hold contempt for a lot of things but it doesn't translate to unequivocal hate for an entire group. I don't hate parents. I don't support the idea of having children and I don't care for people who are rude to others or selfish but hating people just because their parents or christians or ex-republicans or whatever would be like road-rage killing someone who cut you off in traffic. Everyone does things other people don't approve of. It's not the end of the world.

Blah. So hard to explain what I feel is the difference between me and a bigot. I guess the best way I can come up with is a comparison:

You know I hold religion in low regard BUT I don't say that faith is completely useless. There are even aspects of it I envy. My disrespect is for the way people cede power thoughtlessly. Furthermore, I have NEVER said and would never support any kind of law saying people could not practice their religion at all. That's a lot different from the majority of the other side who would happily declare being gay a felony and a mental disorder and do not grant me and my partner of 10 years the same rights as heterosexual couples.

Same kind of thing with having children. I don't really think breeding is a good idea at this time in history but I'm not going to suggest your children get shipped off to the camps and gassed or that you should be beaten with a rubber hose.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

Did you know that your statistics are junk science, that a firearm is used (shown) four times more often to prevent a crime than to commit one (Kleck, et. al.), and that you are a brainwashed tool of Handgun Control International?

I train armed security officers. People like us put our lives on the line so that people like you feel safe enough to spout ridiculous propaganda, in blissful ignorance of the principles of gun safety and of self defense.

The county sheriff has promised a one hour (that's 60 minute) emergency response time to my residence. A lot can happen in that hour. If you are completely confident that your locks can stand up to an intruder long enough for the police to arrive, that's your business. But that's not the situation for 20% of this country's population and 80% of its land area.

You don't want to own a firearm? Fine, you certainly shouldn't. But don't try to interfere with my livelihood and my ability to protect myself from criminal predators by taking my firearm away without due process of law.

As for whether a pediatrician should become an agent of the state, I thought that was settled by the Oath of Hippocrates.

"Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret."

http://www.doctorslounge.com/oath.htm

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

firearm is used (shown) four times more often to prevent a crime than to commit one

That's a rather meaningless statistic. How many crimes in total are thwarted, gun or no-gun? How many had the potential for gun? I also note that your statistic is counting police who show up to everything with guns. So it's a very biased statistic. Someone had a fender bender and is now screaming at someone else and a cop draws a gun, that's a gun used to stop a crime. Count conflicts between citizens and the stats are VERY different. It's rather like the statistics on motorcycle fatalities which include all of the people who were under the influence of something and not wearing a proper helmet. (Those two categories of rider account for about 90% of the fatalities)I exclude them in calculating MY risk riding a motorcycle because I am not an idiot.

Also, if I wanted to be totally anal, I could say that your statement is a total lie because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that guns are a very VERY frequent source of littering. Whether it's sinking beer cans in a pond or shattering glass bottles on a fence, or just leaving lead pellets and plastic shell-casings all over the place. More seriously though, I knew an awful lot of poachers and people who'd shoot non-game animals. I'd count those as crimes. Add those in and you probably get close to FF00FF's number.

Personally, I don't actually care whether or not someone has a gun. I think they're largely a waste in most practical situations. However, first thing one learns in women's self-defense class is that not looking like a victim is a major part of not being a victim. If a gun gives someone confidence, that reduces their risk significantly, so I wouldn't underestimate it sheerly as a psychological tool for self-defense.

I just really get sick of listening to the yokels jabber about how they need a gun to stop the government. Particularly when they've voted in the most controlling government we've had in years. I also dislike the misuse of made-up statistics on both sides of the fence. Samuel Clemens said it best.

There are three kinds of lies. Lies, Darned lies, and Statistics.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

FF00FF's numbers
By way of Arthur Kellermann

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but like I said for the statistics on the other side, statistics can be easily misrepresented, and if you read down a ways in that entry, you find this line:

after adjusting for other factors (such as a police-report history of violence in the home, a convicted felon in the home, drug or alcohol abuse in the home, race, etc.) there remained an independent 2.7 times increase in risk of homicide, specifically associated with a firearm in the home;

Still a pretty big increase but like the motorcycle statistics, if you factor out the stupid people, it's a lot less dangerous than it looks on the surface.


I am more inclined to agree with your position than Drew's simply on the common-sense factor. People who grate their own cheese are more likely to occasionally grate their knuckles than people who buy pre-shredded cheese in a bag, and instances of them being attacked by an angry cheddar that needs grating are statistically low and should it happen, it's nearly always a cheese that was brought into the home by themselves or a family member.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

What you say about decreasing risk factors dramatically with a few simple steps is true, and to keep the conversation polite I couldn't accuse anyone here of being the sort of idiot who has the full 22x actively working against them but do understand, idiots can't be asked to stand up and identify themselves, because they just don't know!

I knew a gun nut furry who was always on a rant about gun control this or liberal fascists that, and he maintained what a spotless record he had with all of his firearms, and how responsible gun owners should take care of busy bodies like Diane Feinstein.

Then he'd get a few drinks in him, come online and talk about the time when he was in a friends college dorm and they had stacked phone books against the wall to shoot .22 pistols at... yes, an impromptu shooting range in a dorm. He said the bullets went right through the phone books and they found them lodged in the wall just over the bed in the next room. Luckily no one had been in it. Great.

My brother later visited this persons house, which is apparently in a ghetto ass area, so fine, maybe he feels like he needs a gun to protect him from the rabid minorities. My brother didn't stay in the house for more than fifteen minutes before retreating, he said there were guns everywhere, and also dirty laundry. He was literally tripping over guns buried under piles of laundry. He could have made off with several handguns and this champion of responsible gun ownership would never have known they were missing.

My point being, sure you can say you're not an idiot, and I can believe you but in general people aren't very good about determining what they are idiots about.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that I can think of about 5 furries who that might be.

I know at least one that accidentally shot himself and there's another whom, upon the first time I visited his house (with some friends) suddenly jumped on me and held a knife to my throat and said, "I could kill you right now!" as some macho bullshit display.

So yeah. I get what you mean about stupid people being slow to self-identify. OTOH, I don't think kids necessarily understand the difference between alcohol use and abuse because we give them zero-tolerance messages. OTOH, having children (particularly young children) is a lot like driving a car in that one need to be ready for unforeseen hazards. Personally, having had a good friend killed in highschool by a drunk driver and having myself lost several teeth and woke up in a CAT scanner (also due to a drunk driver) I never get anywhere near a car if there's even a chance I might be impaired.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Brainwashed? My god, it's all coming back to me! The summer camp, the electrical calipers, thank you, thank you for dislodging these false memories! I thought I had researched this topic myself because I've never heard the non NRA side of it spoken aloud because it isn't PC to be anti gun. My god, you've saved me!

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

Nah. Ear infections are more dangerous if only because they're far more common. Honestly though, I don't know where I sit on the gun-control issue other than feeling that most of the aggressively pro-gun people are idiots.

When I was a child, we did a lot of sustenance hunting and fishing. Guns were important to our family's food. However, we used black powder weapons and cast our own bullets. They were about as cheap to operate as earthly possible and they were single-shot rifles and shotguns. The general rule being that if you couldn't hit what you were aiming at in one shot, you had no real business shooting at it in the first place. For all practical purposes, these were the only types of guns available at the time of the constitution and one could argue they're all the 2nd amendment really allows.

On the other hand, I agree that guns are generally pretty silly for defense. Most robberies are committed by people who know the victim and break in when they know you aren't home. Guns are an item that's small, has a high value, and is easy to sell so they're a prime commodity. Also, unless you sleep with a gun under your pillow, odds aren't so great that you'll be able to get to it and use it to 'defend'. I especially find the idea of a gun in the purse for self-defense against rapists silly. It takes me a good 20 seconds to get my wallet out of my purse and it's in a pouch right on the front. A gun, being heavy would be at the bottom and tangled up in other stuff. Rapists don't wave to you from across the street and say, "I'm going to come over there and rape you." they jump out from behind a corner. Or... Much more frequently, they are, once again, someone you know.

Also, I feel it fair to note that I've been in a few bad fight-or-flight situations. One even where I was attacked by a man who was high on cocaine and had a blood alcohol of 0.25 and a string of priors. I defended myself with the nearest thing I could find (a stick) and I was taken by the police for 'attempted murder', even though I had called the police and was screaming for help when he yanked the phone cord out of the wall. The charges were eventually dismissed but not before spending several days in jail. It was a really horrible experience and I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if I shot him. Also... I'm not a violent person. I still have nightmares about all the blood. I can't imagine how much worse I would FEEL if I'd shot someone.

So anyhow.. I've suggested to people they take a compromise position. If they really feel they need a gun, how about a Starter's Pistol. If you're attacked you can still point it at someone and intimidate them and it goes BANG BANG BANG! And let's face it... I've had a gun pointed at me before. It's a high-stress situation. If you see gun and hear BANG BANG, you're NOT likely to stick around and see why they missed. Plus, if they get your gun, you now know something they don't. You know they don't have any bullets and that gives you a huge advantage in finding some other means of defending yourself.

Anyhow. That's my 0.02.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

If I drink wine with dinner am I a drunk? Is a child a good judge of an alcoholic or not? Guns, alcohol, cigarettes are all legal. Don't ask my child if I am doing legal things that are not the doctor's business.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

I think a doctor who deals specifically with children would know that a child isn't always the best judge of who's a drunk, he probably even knows the difference between a child who's over estimating the amount his parents drink and the child who's been done harm by an alcoholic parent! There's a difference between "Mommy gets really noisy on the weekends when friends come over" or "Mommy locks me in the closet while she goes out." you know?

These things are all legal, but they also have provable impacts on the health of a child coexisting in an environment with them, so I think they're absolutely the doctor's business, since you're paying him to assess the child's health in the first place.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I like how you use my own post to make an anti parent comment.

I shouldn't stay friends with someone who is openly hostile and bigotted to nmy lifestyle.

You call yourself a feminist yet a very big issue for women which oh too bad doesn't affect you is one that you don't give a flying fuck about, and that's ok if you're just a partial feminist -- after all I'm just too sensitive about how REAL feminists feel about mothers and obviously I am making shit up, but you're reminding me I am not.

If you're going to be so nasty about my lifestyle choices, I don't have to read them.

I love my children and just because you think we're scum, I don't have to read it.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I was being facetious here. Just complaining about my neighbor since I've been woken up at 6AM by her children or her bloody parrot 3 days in a row. Quiet hours in the apartment complex are supposed to be from 8PM to 10AM. I assume that quiet-hours does not mean 'let children ride around on motorized toys that have FIRE ENGINE, POLICE SIREN, and CAR ALARM sound effects built into them' while you turn the TV up so you can hear it over the childnoise and then scream even louder into your phone because you can't hear over the rest of the racket you're making.

I suspect anyone would get peevish about it after a few days.

You know. On the other end of things, I bought an electric guitar in large part because I could plug it into headphones and practice all night without bothering anyone. When I play keyboard I also wear headphones. Heck, when I'm sitting at my animation desk on the other side of the room from my computer and I want to listen to music, I plug in a $10 short-range radio broadcaster and listen to my music via a pocket radio and headphones. When I decided to adopt a new pet, I chose a lizard that makes no sounds at all. Not a bloody screaming parrot. I have contempt for this woman because she's just plain rude. Being a parent has very little to do with it.