David Larson - The Myth of the Anal Probe

“I’ve heard that it could be as much as 200 or 300 times more.”

“That is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever heard,” Tawny said in honest surprise. “Someone that feeds other people that actually gives something that people can’t live without, makes next to nothing compared to someone that directs a corporation?”

“It seems kind of wrong when you put it like that I guess,” Mike said. “But people that heal others make quite a lot of money as well.”

“Do they make more than the head of a corporation?” she asked.

“Well no. But…”

“So people that are facilitators for a company, people that spend all day telling others what to do make more than people that save lives?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mike said “but that’s how the free market works. If someone wanted to make that much more money they should become a corporate CEO and not a doctor.”

“So then anyone can become a CEO?”

“Well, no,” Mike said. “There are only so many companies in the first place, and you kind of have to be born into that kind of lifestyle to begin with.”

Tawny was just looking at him and taping her lower lip with her pen.

“But there have to be thousands of healthcare workers,” she said. “Where does all of the money come from to pay these people more than a cook.”

“Ummm,” Mike said uncomfortably, “the vast majority don’t make much more than a cook.”

“But you just said that income is based on importance,” she said “and although you apparently put little importance on having food to eat, you clearly put quite a lot of importance on caring for the ill. How do some of these people make less than others?”

“Doctors make more than nurses…” Mike said

“How much more?” she asked.

“I would guess, I don’t know,” Mike was searching the blank ceiling for a way out of this corner, “five times more.”

“So doctors make five times more than anyone else in the health care profession?” Tawny asked.

Well no,” Mike said.

“But you just said…”

“Doctors make five times more than nurses,” Mike cut her off. “Most of the rest of the health care people make less than nurses, and a number of them make almost half as much.”

“I must admit that I don’t understand the level of importance compared to the compensation,” she said. “But let’s move on.”

“Are there people that don’t have money?” Tawny asked.

“Yes unfortunately, there are people that don’t make enough to sustain any kind of appreciable life.”

“How do they exist in this system then?” Tawny asked.

“A lot of them have to exist on programs that the government sets up to ensure that they have enough to eat from day to day,” Mike said.

“So if you don’t work to make money, then the government gives it to you?”

“After a fashion,” Mike said. “The government is only going to give out enough to get by. If a person can’t work or has personal hardships, they have to go through a pretty lengthy process of filing paper work to receive very little money. They also receive a form of health care.”

“At least they have that,” she said.

“To be fair,” Mike said “any type of ‘free’ services that people receive are not nearly of the same quality of the services that people with money receive. People with money get the best health care, the best legal assistance, and the best housing, food, etcetera.”

“Wouldn’t it be better for everyone on the planet if everyone was healthy and well fed?” she asked.

“There are a number of problems here,” Mike said “quite often people that don’t necessarily have issues that would keep them from working, work very hard to find ways to cheat the government out of free services. Then the rest of society uses these people as an example of why those services shouldn’t exist in the first place.”

“Some people are evil, so everyone suffers,” she said. “Is that about right?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Mike said.

“Do all societies on the planet work this way?” She asked.

“No,” Mike said, “there are socialist societies, and communists, dictatorships, and other forms. I would guess that socialism is the closest to what you have here.”

“I assume that doesn’t work because of the problem you mentioned with people cheating the system. So that’s not very popular,” she said.

“Yes,” Mike answered. “But there’s more to it than that. Let’s say that Serilda was a horrible facilitator. She’s not, but let’s assume she is. A lot of people are hurt because of her self-serving practices. On Earth if a form of government is corrupt like that, no matter if it’s a good idea or not, then the people that stand to lose the most from that form of government will constantly bombard the public with fearmongering tactic that show what a horrible system it was, and not what a horrible person Serilda was. They would push a form of government that was best for them and remind everyone how they suffered under the last system.”

“Communism is like that,” Mike went on. “Communism is a pretty good idea on paper. Everyone works for the common good and everyone shares in the good times as well as the bad. Unfortunately, the communist system was run by corrupt people that weren’t willing to actually make everything equal. They still expected the top tiers of government to receive more than the people. In the end people in other countries that would have less under this system convinced the masses that life would be horrible under that system by pointing out what the corrupt rulers did to hurt their own people.

“You see,” Said Mike “it wasn’t the system, it was the people that ran the system that were bad. But people are pretty easily swayed, and more importantly, are extremely easily scared. And a scared public will do some of the most amazing things that are definitely not in their own best interest, in order to have the idea of security.”

“How do you mean that last part?” Tawny asked.

“We had a situation in my country that happened almost 20 years ago,” Mike said “everything on the planet changed after that because people were scared.”

“How did one thing change all of that?”

“It’s extremely complicated and will take some time to explain,” Mike said.

“Take all of the time you need,” Tawny encouraged him.

“As a point of history,” he started “my country was involved in a war when I was a teenager. It was a horrible war, as they all are, and it stemmed from decisions that were made following wars that had come before it. As they all do, no war happens in a vacuum. During this war the people of my country grew tired of the death, and the government that kept perpetuating that destruction for unclear reasons. After a few years of this the public started to direct quite a lot of anger at the common solders that were forced to fight it in the first place. These men and women were spit on, and called baby killers, and worse.”

“Didn’t these people go to fight willingly?” She asked.

“Some did,” Mike said sadly, “but quite a few others were forced to go against their will through something called a draft. They were notified by the government that they would be inducted into the military and be sent to fight the war.”

“That had to be horrible,” she said.

“You have no idea,” Mike said. “Anyway, the next major war to come along happened around 20 years later. People still remembered the abuse that the solders took during the last war, and there was a ground swell of emotion to make sure that the solders that fought this new war weren’t treated the same way. That war only lasted about four days. But the patriotic fervor that the American people had whipped up for the military continued to grow.