The Real Enemy
Now I am not trying to say Sept. 11 was not a horrific event but here is what confuses me, from my understanding:
About 2000 people died on Sept. 11.
Around 550,000 Americans die from cancer every year.
40,000 die in car accidents.
213,000 from diabetes.
36,000 from the flu.
15,517 die from homicide.
100 are killed by lightening.
Almost a 1,000,000 die from heart disease.
Yet America is so worried about terrorism that a substantial part of its budget is spent on defense. Fighting people they put into power. Using methods that will clearly make things worse.
So the next time you are at a BBQ and someone is smoking and eating a foot long chilly cheese sausage, with extra fried onions, talking about how bad and dangerous the "terrorists" are, ask yourself, "Who's the real enemy?".
posted by Scott McCarthy at
7:31 PM
6 Comments:
Nice!
I'll add to that list: in 2003 it is estimated that 2.2 MILLION people died of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It's truly a global tragedy.
P.S. the word verifier this time was "barfy" Ew!
By
Heather, at Fri Feb 10, 08:28:00 PM GMT-5
Of course, I can't believe I forgot the worst one of all! I can't help but wonder if the money put into defense was put into AIDS research if we would atleast have a vaccinne by now.
By
Scott McCarthy, at Sat Feb 11, 09:17:00 AM GMT-5
Well... if we're panning healthcare systems...
Stats in the US show that the leading cause of death in the US is actually the American healthcare system.
The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million...
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million.
The total number of iatrogenic [induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures] deaths is 783,936..
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed.htm
AND you have to pay for that standard of care.
By
Sara and Scott, at Tue Feb 14, 09:07:00 AM GMT-5
Elaine appears to be suffering from multiple personality disorder...better get her into the US health care system...oh, no money? Off to Canada with you...they'll be happy to help you at no charge in the next 3-4 months.
:)
By
James, at Tue Feb 14, 08:39:00 PM GMT-5
Keep paying into that medicare Elaine, soon it will pay my OVER educated Nurse-from-canada paycheck in Texas, and you'll still wait to see me.......
By
DJ Alley, at Wed Feb 15, 05:10:00 PM GMT-5
Wow so many comments on my blog :).
First I did not say that money has not been invested into AIDS research, just that a lot more could be instead of war. (100's of billions on war, 10-20 billion on all medical research, ballpark figures here but makes the point when you compare to the origional stats, despite any minor fluxuations.) As for the notion of people hiding solutions, I think it would be one of the biggest crimes against humanity ever to hold back a cure or vaccinne for AIDS, so I find that hard to see actually happening. Would make a good movie though.
As for the health care issue please refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems_compared
Which is a little less one sided. It actually points out that the US government spends more money per person on health care than Canada does. Also that "Despite the American government paying more per capita, private sources also pay far more for health care in the United States.". Which kinda makes sence after hearing what Sara said about unnecessary prodedures and such. While it does go on to say that the US system is far more likely to invest in new equiptment, I would argue that the new equiptment must be often used on these unnecessary procedures.
We are generally as Canadians very aware of the fact that much of our taxes go towards health care and that supplimental insurance is required to make a lot of things close to "free". It worrys me when you seem to think we don't get that the money to pay for something has to come from somewhere. (We are not morons, our education system is okay too :P)
My origional point was that if threats to homeland security are actually extreamly low compared to most things, which are a lot easier to prevent than terrorism, why put up to 30% of the budget into military?
On a similar point which I think really illustrates how low the threat is. Last I crossed the Ambassador bridge customs is still on the opposite side. There is nothing to stop anyone from driving a U-Haul full of explosives across the bridge and damaging one of North Americas major trade routes. There are zero checkpoints, you even pay your toll on the other side. It is things like this that make me think if the terrorists (god I am so sick of that word) wanted to do someting else they would.
By
Scott McCarthy, at Wed Feb 15, 05:32:00 PM GMT-5
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