Letters From An Enthusiast

John, Faust, Plato, Aristotle

    John 1:1, in the New Testament, states, "In the beginning was the word."  In Koine Greek, the word logos means, "something said (e.g. word; saying;message; teaching; talk)."  About 1.5 thousand years later, Goethe, through his character Faust, took a very interesting take on this passage.  At 1224-1237, Faust says:
                    "'In the beginning was the Word': why, now
                    I'm struck already! I must change that; how?
                    Is then 'the word' so great and high a thing?
                    There is some other rendering.
                    Which with the spirit's guidance I must find.
                    We read: 'In the beginning was the Mind.'
                    Before you write this first phrase, think again;
                    Good sense eludes the overhasty pen.
                    Does 'mind' set worlds on their creative course?
                    It means: 'In the beginning was the Force.'
                    So it should be-but as I write this too,
                    Some instinct warns me that this will not do.
                    The spirit speaks! I see how it must read,
                    And boldly write, 'In the beginning was the Deed!'"
If one reads this without much thought, you would accuse Goethe of merely tossing the mind, or reason, aside.  However, I think the implications here are much deeper, stemming back to that eternal debate between Plato and Aristotle: thought or action, word or deed?
    Plato says that pure knowledge is sufficient, that if one merely knows what the good is, then someone will be good.  Aristotle, on the other hand, rejects this notion.  Aristotle states that knowledge alone is not sufficient, but rather it takes action.  It is not the man who knows what the good is, but who actually does it!  Suppose that you were getting ready to get on an airplane, and you had to choose between two pilots.  One had read all the manuals, knew all the physics, mechanics, and engineering behind flight and the airplane, had seen a thousand how-to videos on flying, but had actually never flown a plane.  The other guy started out as an apprentice to a pilot, observing what he does and how he does it, slowly beginning to a fly a plane on his own, until eventually now he has been flying for twenty years.  Which pilot would you choose?
    One could argue against this point with the maxim, "Think before you act."  However, I do not think that this maxim applies-the real debate is not between pure thought and pure action, but rather how one relates to the world.  Are you an Ivory Towered intellectual, sitting away at your armchair, deducing how the world works?  Or, are you likened to a child again, constantly examining the world, taking in as much experience as possible, and from this forming your ideas?  Philosophically, this distinction is called deductive versus inductive reasoning.  Plato and John would state that the world must be understood via deductive reasoning, by starting first with the "word", with the "idea", and taking this "knowledge" and then applying it to the world.  Aristotle, Goethe, and Ayn Rand would state that the world must be understood via inductive reasoning, by starting first with the "deed", with the "action", and taking a collection of the knowledge gained via experience, organizing it in our head, finding a common denominator between actions, and forming our ideas from the world.
    Of course it stands to reason that if your "word" is based upon previous experience and subsequent reasonings, then it is okay to use this knowledge in order to apply it to future situations.  This is not deductive reasoning.  But what always must be remembered is that before the "word" came the "deed", and a mind which constantly seeks the real through the active process of experiencing the world will be safely able to fly the plane of life.

An Anecdote Concerning Cassius

Cassius was a friend of Brutus who died at the same battle after which Brutus ended his own life. Brutus called him "the last of the Romans". He was more enthusiastic in the removal of Caesar then even Brutus himself, though it is reported that this zeal had more to do with private enmity than a principled defense of liberty; this fact renders him less noble then a Cicero or a Brutus but the sentiment in this extract, taken from Plutarch's Life of Marcus Brutus, still ought to be appealing.

For Cassius had from his youth a natural hatred and rancor against the whole race of tyrants, which he showed when he was but a boy, and went to the same school with Faustus, the son of Sylla; for, on his boasting himself among the boys, and extolling the sovereign power of his father, Cassius rose up and struck him two or three boxes on the ear; which when the guardians and relations of Faustus designed to inquire into and to prosecute, Pompey forbade them, and, sending for both the boys together, examined the matter himself. And Cassius is then reported to have said thus, "Come, then, Faustus, dare to speak here those words that provoked me, that I may strike you again as I did before." Such was the disposition of Cassius.
-Plutarch's Lives Volume II, the Modern Library Edition, Translated by John Dryden on page 577-578

In a somewhat related strain, we have a quote from Thomas Gordon in his defense of Brutus for having slain Caesar. It was written in the begining of the 18th century in that elegant style which helps to render pleasant the conclusions of reason. In addition to being a passionate defense of Brutus it strikes against that ridiculous notion of Christianity which renders the mere act of existing as a duty turning suffering into an act of virtue. Happiness, it is rightly concluded, is the sole end of life, that object for which everything else ought to be done, and thus when it is no longer possible, life is no longer a positive value.

It was a Roman spirit; and those who possessed it, did as much disdain to be tyrants, as to submit to tyranny, a spirit that scorned an ignominious life, held only at the mercy of an usurper, or by flattering his villainy, and abetting his usurpations; and a spirit, which those that want it can never admire.... It is undoubtedly true, that by the percepts of Christianity we are not at liberty to dispose of our own lives; but are to wait for the call of heaven to alleviate or end our calamities: But the Romans had no other laws to act by, but the natural dictates of uncorrupted reason. I call upon the great pretenders to philosophy and refined morals, to assign one fair reason, why a Roman, why Brutus and Cassius, should prefer a miserable life to an honourable death; should bear vassalage, chains, and tortures of body or mind, when all those evils were to be avoided by doing only that, which, by the course of nature, every man must soon do. It is better not to be, than to be unhappy...

-Letter 56 from Cato's Letters, By Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard

 

-Jeffrey Luebcke

America, Beware...

     America is facing a danger much greater than the liberals or the conservative Christians, more ominous than postmodernism or her intellectuals, more insiduous even than Islamofascism.  This may seem odd coming from me, lover of Capitalism, material success, and secularism.  The danger is oppulence, or more specifically, how the average citizen handles such wealth.  The West has survived long enough under the burden of hideous philosophy and despicable politicians, a battle which is valiantly being fought by Objectivism.  But no movement today is correctly battling the wide acceptance by the average person of hedonism.  As I have displayed earlier in what I wrote concerning Aristotle and Hedonism, it is hedonism that has the ability to corrupt the very morality and sense of life of the average citizen in such a way that the pursuit of better values is seemingly impossible. 

     Wealth is a very funny thing; indeed, a double-edged sword.  For while it can provide a society with the greatest of benefits, ranging from the basic requirements of food, health, and shelter, to a greater enjoyment of life in nice clothes, nice food, a nice house, music, movies, cell phones, and computers, wealth also has the ability to destroy a society who does not know how to properly use and handle money.  Historically, one need only look at Classical Athens, a society who at one time gave the world some of its greatest philosopy, art, science, literature, which in a matter of only one hundred years lost herself in her own oppulence and wealth; a society who defeated the Persians at Marathon so spectacularly eventually was utterly defeated by the Macedonians due to the effete and oppulent nature of the Athenian population.  Rome, too, offers a historical anecdote, for the once mighty, masculine, and virtuous Rome who defeated Hannibal and conquered the entire known world eventually succumbed, in its own hedonism, to the barbaric and savage German tribes who at one time had been nothing but a mere annoyance.

     Even Ayn Rand noticed this distinction in wealth, and the virtue of proper wealth management, in her novel "Atlas Shrugged".  Notice the difference between characters like Dagny Taggart or Hank Rearden who properly managed their wealth, living almost Stoic lives, using wealth in a proper manner to afford them an enjoyable life.  Contrast this with characters like Jim Taggart, who improperly squandered his wealth on such hedonistic things as parties, alcohol, flagrant wealth, and sex.  Those who enjoyed their wealth properly lived very virtuous and moral lives, allowing money to add to their existence, while those who improperly used wealth lived highly immoral lives and ultimately were faced with a sad and miserable future.

     It is very difficult to see this distinction between proper and improper use of wealth.  Yet the problem with wealth lies not as much with the older generations, who had grown up with a proper moral structure which by the time of America's oppulence had had proper moral habits to combat this influence, but the youth who, though many had been properly raised, had not ingrained within themselves the moral habits strong enough to withstand the onslought of hedonism.  The nihilistic and destructive nature of hedonism means that these youths, so ingrained in their clubs, parties, drinking, and sexuality would be lucky to escape in time to turn out okay as they age, for many will sadly suffer the effete laziness and apathy that results from a hedonistic lifestyle.  Who needs war when we could have peace?  Where is the government to help us out of our crises? they shout from the comfort of their padded lifestyle.  The Iranians are not our enemy, they just think differently than us, but we are bad for judging them upon our standards-they cry as they sip their Starbuck's Mocha Frapuccinos, their iPods in their ears and their laptops at their side.

     The solution, then, must be a campaign by these people's friends and families, by your average Joe, who realizes the dangers of hedonism and oppulence, to stop the tide of our demise before we too will be faced with a Macedon or a Vandal whom we cannot control.

---Jason Roberts

Aristotle and Death Happiness

The primary focus of Book I of the Nichomachean Ethics lies in Aristotle’s attempt to define and flesh out the meaning and nature of happiness. In chapters x and xi, Aristotle asks an intriguing question: can the happiness of those not living be in any way affected? This small detour in the larger body of Aristotle’s ethics has received little scholarly attention[1], making it all the more intriguing. However, before a more critical examination and analysis of Aristotle’s question can occur, it is necessary to: define and flesh out the actual meaning of the terms ευδαιμονια and ψυχη, understand the broader cultural and philosophical understandings of death, the soul, and immortality in the Greek world, and investigate Aristotle’s own views of the soul and the body, before moving on to a closer examination of what Aristotle actually meant in EN I.x-xi so that thus, with the issue being properly examined in a contextual manner, an evaluation of Aristotle’s claim can be made.

 

I. Definitions

 

It is always necessary to begin by defining one’s terms; in the realm of translated philosophy even more so due to the bias of the translators and the differences in linguistic systems. One word that has plagued translators is ευδαιμονια, which has been roughly translated into English as “happy” or “the happy life”. Liddell and Scott define ευδαιμονια[2] as, “prosperity, happiness” which of course shows the difficulty of translating the word. However, they define ευδαιμων[3] as, “with a good genius or destiny, fortunate, prosperous”. This definition is more close to the actual definition of the Greek word, which is actually a composite of two words: ευ[4], which means “well, luckily, the right, the good” or ευς[5], the word from which ευ is the neuter, as “good, brave, noble”; and δαιμων[6], which means “fate, fortune, destiny; one’s fate or lot”. Thus, when combined together, the word properly means something akin to “the right destiny or a good fortune.” An obvious distinction, then, between the Greek word and the English word is the difference between a long-term state of being in a good condition (ευδαιμων) and a fleeting emotion or a long-term state of an emotion (happy)[7].

The other word that presents some difficulty when being translated into English is “ψυχη”, which is traditionally translated as “soul”. However, this translation once again carries with it the philosophical baggage of the English language, so influenced by Christianity and Descartes that “soul” is identified as a separate and distinct object from the body. Contrary to this view, the Greek word (and the original, non mystery cult/Platonic meaning of the word)[8] meant, “breath, life, spirit; the seat of will, desires, passions.”[9] Notice the corporeality of the soul inherent within this definition; the soul was no more separate from the body than the eye is separate from sight; for the soul was a function of the body in a similar manner as sight is a function of the eye. Through a complex philosophical devolution[10], the word arrived at its more modern meaning.

These two words are crucial to a more precise understanding of Aristotle and his views of death. Ευδαιμονια is the end or purpose of life. The entire EN can be said to be a work on how to arrive at ευδαιμονια and thus is the central theme of the work. Ψυχη, on the other hand, does not play a central role in the EN. However, in order to understand why Aristotle would even ask the question of ευδαιμονια after death, it is essential to understand Aristotle’s view of the ψυχη and whether or not the ψυχη “carries” ευδαιμονια with it after death.

 

II. The Greeks, the Ψυχη, Death, and Immortality

 

Edith Hamilton fittingly said of the Greeks that:

“With the coming forward of Greece, mankind became the center of the universe, the most important thing in it. This was a revolution of thought…in Greece alone in the ancient world people were preoccupied with the visible; they were finding the satisfaction of their desires in what  was actually in the world around them…anyone who reads them with attention discovers that even the most nonsensical take place in a world which is essentially rational and matter of fact.”[11]

It is of the utmost importance to understand that the Greeks, unlike almost every other culture in the world, had no conception of a mind-body dichotomy. The mind to the Greek world was corporeal; the ψυχη[12] was inseparable from the body. Our earliest source, Homer, although steeped in the early mythology and mysticism of Archaic Greece, nevertheless did not conceive of a soul separate from the body. The visitation of Akilleus by the dead Patroklos did not involve a disembodied spirit traveling from the underworld to the realm of man, but rather the visitation of a shade or image, devoid of reason and emotion and desire (ψυχη). This shade could speak, but he was not a liberated substance out of the prison of the body.[13] This traditional religious view of the unity of mind and body after death was highly prevalent throughout Archaic and early-Classical Greece; indeed, it was not until the arrival of the mystery cults from Thrace, such as the cults of Dionysios and Orpheos, and their codification by philosophers such as Pythagoras[14] and Plato, that the mind-body dichotomy came into existence in the Greek common conscious. Yet even with the arrival of these cults, it took a few centuries before the orgiastic debauchery of the mind-body dichotomy cults became a powerful driving force[15].

Pythagoras, to an extent, brought the concept of the mind-body dichotomy out of the pedestrian mystery cults and into the intellectual realm via his idea of the reoccurrence of the soul. Plato, however, did much more to flesh out and promote this savage mysticism. Not only did Plato borrow the ideas of the transmigration of the soul and reincarnation from the mystery cults, but he also expanded upon the mind-body dichotomy in his realm of Forms. For indeed, the Forms, unlike the earlier Greek conception of the gods who existed in strict contrast to man[16], instilled the notion of an immortal soul that eventually came to be a powerful force in the Greek intellectual scene. The Forms viciously stripped the soul out of its corporeal prison and elevated it into the realm of the divine. This meant that the ψυχη, the seat of emotions, desires, and the will, was able, alongside the mind with its reason, to continue its existence after the corporeal prison died. Thus it was very proper, especially in the later Platonic tradition, the neo-Pythagorean tradition, and the mystery cults, to think of the soul after death as retaining anthropic characteristics. Though the details were debated (Could the ψυχη, in the face of such perfection, actually become sad? Did it actually join the Forms, or God, or did it exist in another realm?), nevertheless it was true that one could state that soul A, having lived a good life, was ευδαιμων after death.

Save Pythagoras and Plato, the majority of Greek philosophy before the Hellenistic age built upon the framework set up by Homer. Metaphysically, Aristotle belonged to a line of philosophers with the likes of Democritus who espoused a non-supernatural, materialistic view of the world, the gods, and the afterlife. Sextus Empiricus remarks that Democritus, “…says that men in the distant past, remarking the events of the upper air-thunder and lightning, thunderbolts and conjunctions of stars, and eclipses of sun and moon-were frightened, thinking gods to be their cause.”[17] Thus Democritus explains the supernatural as a pre-rational attempt to define the unknown. Aristotle seems to have built upon the theories of Democritus, in typical Aristotelian fashion, and adopted a modified materialist view of the world[18]. The materialist, due to the fact that they believed the ψυχη to consist of the same basic elements as the body, did not conceive of a corporeal prison holding a transcendent and immortal ψυχη. When the body ceased to exist, so too did the ψυχη; when the heart stopped pumping blood, so too did the ψυχη stop desiring. Death meant the death of body and ψυχη. By the time of Aristotle, the supernaturalism of Homer had been cast off, leaving only one possibility for immortality: τιμη[19]. If by the end of one’s lifetime an individual had attained the status of ευδαιμονια, then they had in effect “won” the contest of life and received the proper accolades of τιμη or honor. Their immortality was the immortality of fame throughout time; to this day, people still read and praise Homer, movies are made in celebration of the Spartan 300, and Socrates is still admired as the paragon of intellectual activity. The materialist would say that they had acquired so much τιμη in their own lifetime through their achievements that it propelled their shade or image into the distant future.[20] Yet even those individuals who had not done something heroic nevertheless experienced immortality with their friends and family. The concept is akin to a star that, though having been dead for thousands of years, still shines on to us today.

Thankfully, Aristotle lived at the exact end of Classical Greece and thus was not alive to witness the collapse of Greek culture into a culture of revelry, debauchery, and mysticism. Thus there is no need to examine subsequent views; it is only relevant to note that Aristotle came from a vastly different school of thought than Plato. Aristotle, the materialists, and the majority of pre-Hellenic Greek culture, on the one hand, did not believe in an actual “life after death”; Plato and the mystery cults, on the other hand, did.

 

III. Aristotle on Ευδαιμονια, Ψυχη, and Death Happiness

 

In the EN, Aristotle lays out an entire account of how an individual might obtain ευδαιμονια. For indeed, he states that ευδαιμονια ought to be the ultimate aim or goal of life towards which all actions and contemplations are directed. Aristotle states, “Ευδαιμονια, then, is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.”[21] But does he mean “happiness”, as we understand it? Or, is Aristotle talking about something entirely different? Focusing on the definition of ευδαιμονια as the right destiny or good fortune, one can clearly see that Aristotle was aiming for an entity or goal far more broad than just an emotional state of being. The man who had obtained ευδαιμονια not only lived a virtuous life, but also had good friends, a good family, was materially prosperous, and followed the Delphic maxim of γνωθι σεαυτον, or contemplation. In a famous passage of the EN, I.ix, Aristotle states that the mythical Priam was very virtuous, but after the fall of Troy, he could not be considered to have ευδαιμονια due to the loss of his friends, his family, his nation, and his prosperity. Similarly, the Greeks viewed with disdain the opulent Persians (save Cyrus the younger) because, though they had prosperity and most likely good friends and family, they lacked the Greek idea of virtue.

Due to Aristotle being a materialist and thus not believing in a mind-body dichotomy, it is clear that even those attributes of the mind and ψυχη, such as virtue and contemplation, were viewed just as corporeally as prosperity, friends, and family. Nowhere in the entire Aristotelian corpus does Aristotle speak of an “inner eye”, of “divine knowledge”, of a “higher state of ecstasy” achieved through ritualistic dance, of wisdom as a Form, of virtues existing in the realm of the gods which reason attained, or of ευδαιμονια existing outside of the realm of the real. Ευδαιμονια, then, was a worldly state of being, attained via a worldly pursuit of the right objects, and existing within each individual to the extent to which this person had attained the necessary attributes. Moreover, Aristotle states, “One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly neither can one day, or a brief space of time, make a man blessed and happy.”[22] Ευδαιμονια, then, is not the golden ticket found randomly or by luck inside a Wonka Bar, nor is it the planned and calculated winning of a marathon. Ευδαιμονια is the sum of all of its parts over a long period of time.

Aristotle himself discusses the link between the ψυχη and ευδαιμονια when he states, at EN I.xiii, “...ευδαιμονια is an activity of the ψυχη in accordance with perfect virtue.” The chapter then continues with a brief overview of the ψυχη as having two parts: the rational and the irrational. Aristotle states that the irrational part of the ψυχη consists of the vegetative part, which he says is the cause for nutrition and growth, and the desiring part (Plato calls this the appetitive), which he explains as the element that drives us either to good or to bad things and is thus “semi”-receptive to reason. The rational part of the ψυχη, on the other hand, consists of our ability to reason. The proper or healthy ψυχη comes about when a person uses his reason to guide the irrational part of the ψυχη. Unfortunately, the account of the ψυχη is very brief in the EN; Aristotle continues his discussion of continence and incontinence later on in Book VII, but this account focuses more on the application of or relationship of the desiring element with reason or virtue.

Ever the scientist and philosopher, Aristotle expanded upon his view of the ψυχη, writing an entire work devoted to the subject entitled De Anima (Latin for: “Concerning the ψυχη”). From the beginning, Aristotle states that, “We must…repeat that the affections of ψυχη are inseparable from the material substratum of animal life.”[23] It is clear from this materialist view that Aristotle does not conceive of the ψυχη as an independent, incorporeal, “immortal” entity separate and distinct from the body. Rather, though it is distinct, it is built from the same basic elements. Aristotle even takes a jab at Pythagoras when he states, “…as if it were possible, as in the Pythagorean myths, that any ψυχη could be clothed upon with any body-an absurd view.”[24] Though it is clear that Aristotle believes the ψυχη to be distinct from the body (as the eyes, as an entity, are distinct from the action of seeing; the eye is the cause or origin behind the act of seeing), it is incorrect to take this distinction and automatically assign to Aristotle the belief that the ψυχη is separate from the body (as a passenger on a cruise ship is separate from the vessel itself, merely along for the ride). This distinction is because Aristotle believes the ψυχη to be the originator of movement or motion within the body. The emotion of anger “makes” the blood boil, which thus moves the body to act in an angry manner (or to acknowledge the anger “boiling” inside of himself but to act contrary to his ψυχη). Aristotle continues his attack on the mind-body dichotomy when he states:

“...in the ‘Orphic’ poems…it is said that the ψυχη comes in from the whole when breathing  takes place, being borne upon the winds. Now this cannot take place in the case of plants, nor  indeed in the case of certain classes of animals, for not all classes of animals breathe. This fact  has escaped the notice of the holders of this view.”[25]

Here Aristotle shows himself as the scientist, stating that all living things have some version of a ψυχη because all living things are “moved” to act in certain ways[26]. Man thus cannot be unique in having a supernatural “ψυχη”, as is suggested by the mystery cults, because all living things have a ψυχη. Aristotle concludes his investigation into the definition of the ψυχη by stating, “From this it indubitably follows that the ψυχη is inseparable from its body…for the actuality of some of them [parts of the soul] is nothing but the actualities of their bodily parts.”[27]

What, then, does this say about the relationship between ευδαιμονια and the ψυχη? Ευδαιμονια, as an activity of the ψυχη, seemingly cannot exist with the death of the actuality of the ψυχη. For indeed the death of the body means the cessation of movement and generation, which in turn means the cessation of the ψυχη. This is the reason why EN I.x-xi is so perplexing, for Aristotle says, “So it appears that the dead are affected to some extent by the good fortunes of those whom they love, and similarly by their misfortunes.”[28] Though it is true that Aristotle states that these events, as not being the primary attributes of ευδαιμονια, do not have the potential to make a ευδαιμων individual non ευδαιμων, as it is while they are living, it is still true that these actions can indeed have an affect upon the quality of the ευδαιμονια of the individual. Even though Aristotle does say that friends, family, and prosperity are key attributes of ευδαιμονια, how could these things have any impact upon a ψυχη that is not in existence to experience them?

 

IV. The Answer and Analysis

 

The answer to this dilemma can be found almost 400 years before Aristotle lived in the epics of Homer. As was stated earlier, to the materialist, immortality or life after death was characterized by τιμη. The τιμη that Akilleus had accrued was so great that he lived on in the minds of individuals for millennia. For Aristotle, the τιμη[29] of any individual lived on in relation to the magnitude of his impact. This is why Aristotle states, when speaking to the majority of humans as opposed to heroes exclusively, in EN I.x-xi that the ευδαιμονια of the dead could in fact be affected by the fortunes, or the vicissitudes of fate, of his friends and family. Let us create a hypothetical situation. George Washington had a son, John Washington, who also strove to be in politics. George Washington, renowned in his own time, lived a very virtuous and prosperous life. When he died, it could be properly said that he had ευδαιμονια. After his death, his son John led a revolution in favor of the British. This revolution was so bloody and caused such widespread destruction that the struggling United States was forced to give all of the southern states to Britain and the remaining northern states were forced to become vassal states of Britain until eventually, 200 years later, they were freed as their own country. In this hypothetical situation, though George Washington himself had lived a life of ευδαιμονια, the impact of John Washington cast a very dark image upon the name “Washington”, so that George Washington today was nearly forgotten. Though these actions, as bad as they were, did not “make” George Washington non ευδαιμονια, they nevertheless affected his “blessedness” or the maximization of his ευδαιμων.

Let us take another hypothetical situation on a much smaller scale. Sarah is a loving mother of two who works in an office. She has lived a very virtuous life, has a wonderful family, endearing friends, and has made enough money to live comfortably. Upon her death, her friends reveal that they were only friends with her because it made them “look good” being seen around such a nice and good person. Her children used their inheritance to start a drug business that is eventually discovered by the police, who arrest them. Though Sarah had all of the requirements for a life of ευδαιμονια, the horrendous actions that occurred after her death stripped away her friends, her family, and her prosperity, leaving her only with her virtue. Thus it can be said that the ευδαιμονια of Sarah was lowered by these action.

The affect upon the ευδαιμονια of the dead does not always have to be negative; it can indeed be a positive thing. Let us say that when Sarah died, her friends cherished her memory so much that they established a “Sarah” club to spread her optimism and virtue. Similarly, her sons took the inheritance money and started a company, named in her honor, which rapidly became a Fortune 500 company. In this situation it could be said that the ευδαιμονια of Sarah was increased due to the great fortunes of her loved ones after death.

To Aristotle, the vicissitudes of fortune play an important role in the ευδαιμονια of an individual. Even though they themselves have died, fate has the ability to affect those components of the ευδαιμονια of the dead person, for not all of the friends and family of the deceased have died, and thus the degree of ευδαιμονια of the dead individual is semi-dependent upon those still living. Aristotle says, “So it appears that the dead are affected to some extent by the good fortunes of those whom they love, and similarly by their misfortunes.”[30] It is apparent from this to assume that, the degree to which time passes and the loved ones of the individual die, is the degree to which the affects of fortune diminish their impact upon the ευδαιμονια of the individual. By fully understanding the context within which Aristotle wrote and viewing death ευδαιμονια through such a lens, the perplexities of I.x-xi can be sorted out and understood.

Yet now comes the ultimate question: is Aristotle correct in his assertion that the ευδαιμονια of a dead person can be affected? Once again, we must start at the beginning: what is the nature of the ψυχη and is there a mind-body dichotomy? If we use the Aristotelian definition of the ψυχη as the seat of human desires, passions, the will, and reason, and discard the notion of the ψυχη as the originator of movement in favor of a more scientific understanding of the nature of movement, it can be concluded that the ψυχη of an individual is similar to what we in the modern world call the mind. Leonard Peikoff states:

  “The theory of a mind-body conflict, which has corrupted every branch and issue of philosophy,  does have its root in a real conflict, but of a special kind. Its root is a breach between some men’s consciousness and existence. In this sense, the basis of the theory is not reality, but a human error:  the error of turning away from reality, of refusing to accept the absolutism of the metaphysically  given.”[31]

It is interesting to note that the origins of the mind-body split in Greece came from the mystery cults. They derived this conclusion because of their special religious practices: the women in the cult would gather around in a circle, drinking highly intoxicating alcohol, smoking hallucinatory seeds, dancing to the point of exhaustion, and wailing, screeching, and ululating. The men would sit outside the circle, also drinking the highly potent alcohol and smoking the hallucinatory seeds, banging on drums. In the middle of the circle was a sacrificial victim, and the women, after reaching the point of exhaustion, would rush forward and tear the animal apart, taking the limbs and eating them raw, smearing the blood all over their naked body. The “mania” or ecstasy achieved by such an act convinced the cultist that they were communing with the “divine”, and thus lead them to believe that their souls were the only thing “heightened” enough to commune with the divine. From this belief, it was concluded that the soul was in fact distinct from the body, and only a special ritual could allow the soul to be “free” for a fleeting moment from its bodily prison.[32] The philosophers, such as Plato, picked up these beliefs and discarded the actions in favor of another ritual, “reason”, by which the soul could transcend the mortal realm and communicate with the divine. Inherent in these ideas is a rejection of the actual facts of existence in favor of the primacy of consciousness, attained by a special ritual, which itself could reject the metaphysically given in favor of the metaphysically unknown. Reality itself actually exists, independent of our ψυχη, which itself is just the means by which we understand, interpret, or comprehend that which is in front of us. It is self-evident then that the ψυχη is but merely a tool, an attribute of the body and thus inseparable from it.

Aristotle also appears to be correct in his definition of ευδαιμονια. The “good life” of an individual cannot just contain his virtue. Using the example of Aristotle, Priam lived a highly virtuous life. Before the Trojan War he was described as having ευδαιμονια. But after the war, though he retained his virtue, the loss of everything else led him to become miserable. This is because a “good life” is not a fleeting emotion (for it is assumed that even Hitler had happy moments), or state of an emotion (it is probable that a mafia lord could have a state of happiness), but is the combination of living life well (self-esteem generated through the efficacy of an individual actualizing and maintaining his virtues), having good friends and a good family (for no man is an island, and regardless of his virtue can no man have a good life alone), and being prosperous (always having to struggle to pay bills, eating ramen noodles, and watching your children go hungry is not as good as living a comfortable life). Having ευδαιμονια then must include a variety of things: virtue, good friends and family, and comfortable living via general prosperity.

What then of the individual who has ευδαιμονια but has died? If ευδαιμονια is dependent upon things outside of one’s own body, such as friends, family, and prosperity, then ευδαιμονια is dependent upon things outside of an individual’s direct control. As there is no ψυχη which, upon death, floats up to heaven to join the divine, it must be concluded that the death of an individual also entails the death of the virtue of said individual. The external entities, however, remain after his death. Thus, as in the examples given above, were tragedy or fortune to befall these external entities after the death of an individual, it is indeed reasonable to conclude that the overall state of the ευδαιμονια of that individual would suffer. Aristotle, once again, seems correct in his analysis of death ευδαιμονια. Thus this author whole-heatedly agrees with the evaluation of Aristotle.

With this assumption, it becomes necessary for any individual striving to achieve a state of ευδαιμονια to mind not only his own virtues, but to carefully choose his friends, work well to strengthen the bond and improve his family, and insure some means of prosperity after death. In this world where death is the end, it is a proper desire for every individual to strive to have some sort of immortality. This immortality, of course, can be achieved through accomplishing extraordinary deeds. But more importantly, to achieve a state of ευδαιμονια, we must endeavor while we are alive to strengthen the bonds with wonderful people, be they our friends or family, and to protect our prosperity so that not even death can take such wonderful things away from us.

 

Bibliography

 

Aristotle. J.A.K. Thomson, translator. “Nicomachean Ethics.” London: Penguin Classics. 1953.

 

Aristotle. McKeon, Richard, ed. “On Democritus.” Fr. 208.; “Metaphysics.” 985b4-20.; “On Generation and Corruption.” 316a13-b16.; “On the Soul.” New York: Random House. 1941.

 

Gooch, Paul W. “Aristotle and the Happy Dead.” Classical Philology. Vol 78, No.2. April, 1983. 112-116.

 

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. New York: Warner Books. 1942. 16-17.

 

Herodotus. Aubrey de Selincourt, translator. “The Histories.” Penguin: New York. 1954.

 

Liddell and Scott. Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891.

 

Livy. Gary Forsythe, ed. “History of Rome: XXXIX.” Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr. 1994.

 

Peikoff, Leonard. “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.” New York: Meridian. 1991.

 

Pritzl, Kurt. “Aristotle and Happiness after Death: Nicomachean Ethics 1. 10-11.” Classical Philology, Vol. 78, No. 2. April, 1983. 101-111.

 

Rhode, Erwin. “Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks.” London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co., Ltd. 1925.

 

Roberts, John ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005.

 

---

[1] See Kurt Pritzl. “Aristotle and Happiness after Death: Nicomachean Ethics 1. 10-11.” Classical Philology, Vol. 78, No. 2. April, 1983. 101-111. and also Paul W. Gooch. “Aristotle and the Happy Dead.” Classical Philology. Vol 78, No.2. April, 1983. 112-116

[2] “ευδαιμονια.” Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891. 280.

[3] Ibid., “ευδαιμων.”

[4] Ibid., “ευ.” at 278.

[5] Ibid., “ευς.” at 288.

[6] Ibid., “δαιμων.” at 148.

[7] While it is true that the English definition of happy can have a similar meaning to ευδαιμονια, it is a mistake to take the philosophical baggage of “happy” and try and equate it with the philosophical baggage of “ευδαιμων”. Thus it must always be kept in mind that ευδαιμων encompasses a far greater range of things than just a “happy” life, as Aristotle discusses in Book I of the EN.

[8] This point will be examined in greater detail in a succeeding section.

[9] Ibid., “ψυχη.” at 798.

[10] For more on this complex devolution, see the wonderful and insightful work by Erwin Rhode, “Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks.” London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co., Ltd. 1925.

[11] Edith Hamilton, Mythology. New York: Warner Books. 1942. 16-17.

[12] Mind and soul, in ways synonymous in the modern world, will henceforth be used interchangeably in order to allow a more thorough understanding of the Greek view.

[13] For more on the Homeric conception of the afterlife, see Rohde, “Psyche”.

[14] There is wide scholarly debate concerning the influences upon Pythagoras. Nevertheless, a general direction or idea may be taken from Herodotus when he says, in his Histories IV.95, that, “…Salmoxis…was a man, and lived in Samos, where he was a slave in the household of Pythagoras…he subsequently gained his freedom…and returned to his native country of Thrace…and endeavoured to teach them that neither he nor they…would ever die, but would go to a place where they would live in perpetual enjoyment of every blessing.”, to which Rohde adds, in “Psyche” 279 n.68, “…that such a belief in the “return” of the dead was actually held by the Thracians is clear enough…the story…seemed suspicious even to Herodotus, but it is not pure invention…it is rather a euhemerist version off a miraculous legend…the Thracian belief must also have included the idea of a periodical appearance of the god in the upper world.” Rohde thus concludes that Pythagoras gained his view in the reoccurrence of the soul from the Thracian mystery cult of Salmoxis. An eternally reoccurring soul which comes back to the realm of the living to “inhabit” a corporeal vessel is a clear indication off a mind-body dichotomy promulgated by one of Greece’s first and most influential philosophers.

[15] For an interesting point of view from an outsider, see the reactions of the Romans and the decrees of the Roman Senate upon the arrival of the cult of Dionysos to Rome in Livy XXXIX.

[16] A binarism exists here: gods, immortal; man, mortal.

[17] Sextus Empiricus. “Against the Mathematicians.” IX.24.

[18] See Aristotle. “On Democritus.” Fr. 208.; “Metaphysics.” 985b4-20.; “On Generation and Corruption.” 316a13-b16.; “On the Soul.” 403b28-404a4.

[19] See “Philotimia.” The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World. John Roberts, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2005.

[20] It is important to note here that τιμη did not apply to those who had “lost” the race, or who had done bad things. It could not be said that Caesar or Hitler, through the ευδαιμονια of their life, had achieved τιμη and thus were immortal. Their “immortality” would have been viewed in a negative way.

[21] Aristotle. J.A.K. Thomson, translator. “Nicomachean Ethics.” London: Penguin Classics. 1953. 1097b21.

[22] Ibid. 1098a17-18.

[23] Aristotle. J.A. Smith, translator. “De Anima.” New York: Random House. 1941. 403b18-19. As a biologist, Aristotle believed that mankind was part of the animal kingdom.

[24] Ibid. 407b23.

[25] Ibid. 410b27-411a1.

[26] Aristotle describes the movement of stationary living organisms, such as plants, by classifying growth as movement. A tree, which began as a seed, then grew into a brittle sapling, before finally growing to a mighty tree has “moved” from a seed to a tree.

[27] Ibid. 413a4-5.

[28] “Nicomachean Ethics.” 1101b7-8.

[29] Remember that τιμη was possible only for the good. The evil “lived” on in a different sense.

[30] Ibid. 1101b7

[31] Leonard Peikoff. “Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.” New York: Meridian. 1991.

[32] A discussion of the process of transformation and the origins of the mind-body dichotomy in Greece can be found in Rohde, 253-281.

---Jason Roberts

Say "NO" to Nationalized Medicine

Dr. Gary Forsythe, professor of Ancient History at Texas Tech University, wrote this to be published here. What an honor!

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In recent times one of the biggest issues cooked up by members of
the professional political class is the need to establish a
national health program to cover all U.S. citizens. In doing so
the U.S.A. would join other advanced Western countries such as
Canada and the United Kingdom. Although health care is not
guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, these
politicians argue that it should be regarded as a basic right.
They keep telling us that there are forty or more million people in
the U.S.A. who are living without any form of health insurance, and
that this situation is intolerable.

First of all, it could be equally argued that since no human being
can survive without water, why don't the politicians raise our
taxes to create a federal bureaucracy that redistributes the tax
money in order to make sure that every single U.S. citizen's monthly
water bill has been paid? Secondly, when stressing the horror of
having so many people uninsured, the politicians fail to mention
that a significant portion of the people being included in this
number are illegal aliens. Thus, if the number of illegal aliens
were to be subtracted out of the uninsured, the figure would be
substantially reduced. Another large component of the uninsured
are people under the age of 35 or so, who are very healthy and have
decided that they do not wish to fork out a chunk of their monthly
income for health coverage. Why should they when our permissive
society forces others to pick up their medical tab? This group of
the young uninsured by choice are much more interested in using
that money for making their monthly payment for their nice car,
having a cellphone with all the up-to-date bells and whistles, as
well as having satellite dish TV and buying DVD's of the most
current movies. In the current climate of our permissive culture,
in which few are ever forced to own up to their actions and
decisions, if a young uninsured citizen is in need of health
services, many automatically cry out that it must be given to them,
and the hospital and other patients will simply have to pay the
bill, because after all that is simply the kind hearted thing to
do, even if in the end a policy may result in the hospital having
to close its doors because it has gone bankrupt. Indeed, this is
what has happened to a number of hospitals in southern California
that have been inundated by illegal aliens who are required by law
to be treated.

What would happen if it were an established fact in our society
that if someone shows up at a hospital in need of care and has no
insurance coverage, services will be denied? Would most people not
organize their lives so as to make sure that they had at least some
form of health coverage? Politicians are constantly forcing us to
modify our lives and spending habits by taxing certain activities
and giving tax breaks for others. If the expectation just outlined
were to be part of our culture, young people might have to do
without their cherished celphone and all its costly features, or go
without having satellite dish TV, or not be able to keep adding to
their DVD collection of movies, but why should hospitals and their
other patients be forced to pay other people's bills when many of
them could afford health care if only they reconfigured their
lives?

If there still remained a considerable number of uninsured people
after we eliminate the illegal aliens and the self-indulgent young
from the equation, many things could be done far short of national
health care for everyone in order to make sure that these people
had affordable health care, and it would not require coming up with
a solution that is analogous to killing an ant with an atomic bomb.
Doctors and hospital staff are already groaning under all the
mandates imposed upon them by the goverment. What we need is less
government intrution, not more, and far more sensible and
intelligent solutions to target specific groups and their needs
rather than creating yet another enormously vast and inefficient
federal bureaucracy to try to dole out hhealth care to everyone.

If you are perfectly happy with the poor quality of education
regularly churned out by the public school system in the U.S., for
which the federal government bears a large share of the blame, then
you will love what the federal government will do to everyone's
health care if it is nationalized. Within a decade or two services
will become so degraded that many people will look back upon the
previous period as a golden age, but by then it will be too late,
because as history clearly demonstrates, once a huge government
bureaucracy is established, it is virtually impossible to do
anything to it other than to make minor modifications and
superficial reforms. If health care were to become the
responsibility of a federal program, it would constitute one of the
largest power grabs in U.S. history, because overnight the federal
government would be seizing control of about one-seventh of the
entire U.S. economy. Do not believe anything a politician says
about how much their nationalized health care plan is going to
cost. When was the last time that you heard of a federal program
coming in under budget and staying there? It never happens.
Feeding us such lies is a slick way of convincing some people that
it really will not cost all that much. In addition, these same
politicians insist that the program will be paid by going after big
rich corporations, as if the latter do not employ large numbers of
ordinary people whose jobs may be put in jeopardy by federal
confiscatory tax policies implemented to soak the rich. These
statements are nothing more than demagogery calculated to persuade
the gullible to get behind the idea, but then when the program is
established, and it is too late to reverse course, politicians will
shed crocodile tears in telling us how much more expensive it has
now become; and although they really hate to do so, they are going
to have to increase our taxes significantly to pay for it all. A
nationalized health program will soon begin to consume an
absolutely gigantic portion of the U.S. budget and will make it
very difficult for us to afford other things. No matter what a
politician may promise, taxes will have to be increased
significantly in order to pay for it. It will also place a heavier
burden upon employers; and all these increased expenses will soon
begin to result in slow economic growth generally. The program
will act as a sever choke hold around the neck of the capitalistic
goose that has been laying for us the golden eggs responsible for
the greatest economic system in world history. It will condemn the
U.S. to a stagnant economy similar to the United Kingdom. Small
businesses have long been the most important area fostering
economic growth in the U.S., but imposing larger costs upon them
will make it much harder for these businesses to come into being;
and others already in existence may have to close, because they
cannot afford the increased expenses; and others will have to lay
people off in order to economize. There will be very many adverse
economic consequences of nationalized health care, and of course,
no politician selling the idea will ever mention them, but that
assumes that they are even sufficiently educated in matters of
economics to realize that there will be such consequences. All
that they will do is paint such a rosy picture of the grass being
greener on the other side that many people, like dumb beasts, will
want to jump over the fence and get into that pasture where the
grass is supposed to be greener and tastier.

Given what you know about how politicians manage our tax dollars,
how well do you think that their nationalized health program will
spend our hard earned money? We already have one good example from
the Clinton administration. Indeed, how many people even remember
this? It serves as an excellent illustration of how short most
people's memories are, and how that fact is constantly being
exploited by politicians, because they can come up with one idea,
impliment a program, and have it function poorly, but since most
people forget such things, the same politicians can come right back
at us with their newest idea and program that functions just as
badly as their other one with no accountability ever being exacted
from the programs' proposers. But to return to the main subject,
when Hillary Clinton, the self-appointed and self-anointed expert
in health care, decided that the federal government must take over
the responsibility of having all school-age children immunized
against common childhood diseases, the federal government
established what manufacturers of vaccines could charge, but since
it provided the producers with virtually no profit margin, all of
them decided "why bother?" They simply stopped producing the
vaccines, and the federal government had to go abroad to the U.K.
to buy up millions of vaccines. Then what happened? it turned out
that many of the vaccines were defective and could not be used.
What a classic clusterfuck produced by well intentioned politicians
with no knowledge of how things work in the real economic world!
After leaving his career in politics, George McGovern, a leading
liberal U.S. senator from South Dakota who went down to the worst
electoral defeat as president in 1972, decided to establish in his
retirement a small bed and breakfast tourist business in the
Northeast. When he was confronted with all the regulations
required of him by the government, he was heard to remark that if
he had known this as a senator, his voting record would have been
much different. In fact, a large proportion of politicians at the
federal level have been nothing more but politicians for their
entire adult lives and have had little, if any, real-world
experience in organizing and operating a business enterprise. The
case of the vaccines during the Clinton administration is all too
typical of politicians in their arrogance, thinking that by their
laws and policies they can control fundamental market forces of the
economy, as if they could pass a law forbidding gravity to operate
in nature, or prohibiting tornados from occurring. Free market
forces will continue to operate, no matter what politicians in
Washington D.C. do; and if the latters' policies are in obvious
defiance of such irrepressible forces, the result will be like a
freight train smashing into a car parked on the railroad tracks;
and all the good intentions of the politicians, based upon faulty
economic logic, will be utterly destroyed. In the former Soviet
Union, where all aspects of the economy were controlled by the
government, everyone in theory had a job, so that unlike the evil
capitalist countries, the Soviet Union never suffered from
unemployment, and every worker received a pay-check. It did not
matter that much of the work being done was of dubious economic
value, as was the pay-checks doled out, but it at least allowed the
government to boast to the outside world that everyone was employed
and received a pay-check. In this supposed workers' paradise the
common joke among the general population was that "we pretend to
work, and they pretend to pay us."

Consider the following facts concerning national health care in
Canada and the United Kingdom, which the politicians are always
holding before us as the example that we backward citizens of the
U.S. should be following. Recently a survey in the U.K discovered
that six percent of it citizens were using glue and pliers to
administer their own dental care, because they could not be
scheduled to see a dentist to tend to their teeth. The N. H.S.
(Britain's National Health Service) also released a formal
pronouncement saying that they were incapable of giving all
pregnant women services for delivering their children, so taht
those who were not in immediate danger should seek out the services
of private midwives. The same N.H.S. also recently reported that
they could not keep all the hospitals equipped with clean bed
sheets. How is that for maintaining a sanitary environment?
Besides these clear illustrations of the N.H.S. to supply
everyone's needs, there are constantly coming into the news stories
of persons having to wait months or even years to receive needed
operations. In fact, the situation has become so severe in the
U.K. that another recent survey has reported that its citizens are
leaving in record numbers to travel abroad to find doctors to
service their needs. A few years ago a report was in the news
concerning Canada's system, which some U.S. politicians regard as
vastly superior to that in our lower 48 states. According to this
report, although it is illegal for private medical clinics to exist
in Canada, they were coming into being on a regular basis to
provide services that the state sponsored program was failing to
deliver; and even though such activity was illegal, the government
was doing nothing to stop it, because it realized that the
government system clearly needed help by such privately owned and
operated clinics.

Perhaps the most horrific story that has surfaced in the news
lately concerning the N.H.S. in the U.K. is the following. A man
had an accident resulting in his foot being broken. When he sought
to have it tended to through the N.H.S., he was denied treatment.
Why? He was a smoker, and the N.H.S. insisted that he stop smoking
as a condition for him receiving medical care. He replied that he
had in fact tried to stop, but he simply could not manage to do it.
This is a perfect illustration of how a nationalized system can
intrude itself into people's lives in all sorts of unwelcome and
oppressive ways. We have already seen in recent years in this
country how a large team of trial lawyers successfully sued the
tobacco companies by arguing that they owed the U.S. public
billions and billions of dollars for health care costs. Juries and
judges bought their argument, and the trial lawyers and state
governments enjoyed gigantic windfalls of cash forced out of the
tobacco industry. How much of that money was then spent on health
care? Very little. The issue of increasing numbers of people
being overweight has been in the news for months and months. If a
national health plan were created, what would stop a small number
of its zealous administrators from deciding that they needed to use
their coercive power to give or deny health care in order to force
people to go on diets, to exercise several times a week, and to
give up ice cream, doughnuts, candy bars, potato chips, etc., etc.,
etc.?

If health care is akin to a civil right, why isn't having daily
food to consume? We already do have various programs to provide
the needy with the means of buying food, but so far at least, we do
not have a nationalized grocery plan for all citizens. Using the
analogy of a nationalized health plan, why doesn't the government
simply nationalize all grocery stores and allow everyone to go in
to take what they want? Obviously, this would result in many
grocery stores going bankrupt and out of business. In addition, it
would give the government the power to dictate what people should
or should not eat. one can easily imagine a time when government
employees stand guard at what used to be the check-out lines, where
they oversee what we are taking out of the store; and their job is
to tell us, "you can't have that half gallon of ice cream. You
already look too fat to me. Instead, take this bag of carrots."

This may sound too strange to be believable, but is it? The record
of human history is quite clear in showing that the one thing that
bureaucracies are best at is perpetuating themselves and making
sure that they continue to grow and exercise more and more power.
In addition, of course, they are always very inefficient
economically and become increasingly costly as they grow in size.
Recently in California some politicians have come up with the idea
of having all thermostats in homes and businesses controlled from
a central authority that decides how warm or how cold the place
should be, so that the government can regulate people's energy
consumption.

A nationalized health plan in the U.S. would be a truly gigantic
step down the road of socialism from which it would be very hard to
retreat. Someone has said that communism is simply socialism in a
hurry: that is to say, whatever or whoever (and it might be
millions of ordinary people) stands in the way of establishing
communism is simply run over and destroyed, because the end in such
cases is regarded as justifying the means. Conversely, socialism
could be called communism in increments, communism on the
installment plan, or communism in slow motion.

I truly fear the establishment of nationalized health care in this
cuntry that I love so dearly, because I see it as undermining the
basic economic health of our society that has produced the largest
and most affluent middle class in all of human history. I really
dread to see the day when this begins to be eroded. I truly hope
that if or when that begins to happen, I will be dead and cannot
witness it. I am convinced that contrary to what the politicians
maintain, nationalized health care will be one of the worst things
ever to befall this nation. It is simply their most recent brand
of snake oil medicine that they are hawking to justify their
continued existence as people needing to be kept in power to solve
all our horrible problems to fix things even when they are not
really broken.

Besides causing economic ruin, national health care will result in
just the opposite of what the uninformed members of the public are
being told that it will accomplish. Rather than delivering good
health care to all, it will degrade the quality of health care for
almost everyone, as has been abundantly shown by the workings of
the systems in the U.K. and Canada, which, of course, U.S.
politicians and their fellow travelers in TV journalism are careful
to hide from us.

Finally, another national health care program that receives the
highest praise from these same U.S. politicians and journalists is,
of course, that of communist Cuba under the rule of that dictator
Fidel, whom many on the lunatic left in the U.S. worship as an
icon. We are told how wonderful health care is in that supposed
island utopia, where it is hard to buy almost anything, including
tooth paste, toilet paper, and female sanitary napkins. If their
system is so wonderful as the U.S. left are constantly telling us,
why isn't Cuba being plagued by illegal aliens wanting to get in?
Why instead are there so many illegal aliens flooding into this
country? There is the old adage that imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery. I have heard this adapted to be "immigration is
the sincerest form of flattery." I do not want to see a time when,
like in the present-day U.K., numerous citizens are leaving their
country to travel abroad to seek much needed medical care. Our
current system may not be perfect, because no human institution
ever is; but the health delivery system in the U.S. is outstanding
and is certainly not broken. it does not need to be fixed by a
gang of damn politicians in Washington D.C., who are so full of
good intentions, but whose knowledge of basic economics and history
is profound. When was the last time that they created a large
government program that really fixed a serious problem and did it
well without creating other unforeseen problems that enabled the
same politicians to create additional costly government programs as
remedies for the messes that the initial program created?

You can be sure that if politicians ever do succeed in persuading
enough of the U.S. public to go along with nationalized health
care, one feature of the program will be that all federal employees
(or at least all elected officials) are exempt from it, and that
there will be allowance made for a special group of clinics
(lavishly funded by our tax dollars, of course) whose sole function
will be to provide the politicians with the highest quality of
health care, while everyone else must settle for what they can
obtain from the Frankenstein that they have created and imposed
upon us.