“The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices. The physician does not preach repentance; he offers absolution.”
— H. L. Mencken
One of my favorite comic strips is from Bill Watterson’s “Calvin and Hobbes,” wherein young Calvin sets up a roadside stand to sell his wares to the neighborhood. Instead of selling sugary sweets such as lemonade or cookies, Calvin decides to hang out a shingle for a different product: “A Swift Kick in the Butt, $1.00”
“How’s business?” Hobbes asks him.
“Terrible,” says Calvin.
“That’s hard to believe,” says Hobbes.
“I can’t understand it,” says Calvin. “Everybody I know needs what I’m selling!”
The average American has become addicted to getting what he thinks he wants while putting off what he really needs, all as the authoritative institutions surrounding him promise protection from the very vices they hooked him on yesterday.
There are far too few Calvins in the world ready to sell swift kicks in the rear. Indeed, such an approach doesn’t pay the mortgage nor boost quarterly GDP. It is much more profitable to sell sin, only to then sell absolution without repentance. Yet, Americans need repentance more than ever on many fronts, especially when it comes to their health and well-being. American health care must repent.
Seventy-four percent of American adults now are overweight or obese. Close to 50% of children are overweight or obese. [A] hundred and twenty years ago, when someone was obese, there were case reports written about it…. It was so unusual. It is now 74% of our country; 77% of young adults are unfit to serve in the military because of these issues, like obesity.
Those are the words of Dr. Casey Means in her recent interview with Tucker Carlson.
Asked by Carlson to give the baseline condition of health in the United States, Means continues:
A full 50% of American adults have prediabetes or type two diabetes, which is a fundamental issue in – half the country, Tucker, have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, and 30% of teens now have prediabetes. This was a condition that no pediatrician would have seen in their lifetime 50 years ago, 1% of Americans in 1950 had type 2 diabetes. We have 18% of teens with fatty liver disease, a disease that used to be in late-stage alcoholics.
Cancer rates are skyrocketing in the young and the elderly. Young adult cancers are up 79%, and this is the first year in American history we're estimated to have over 2 million cases of cancer.
Twenty-five percent of American women are on an antidepressant medication, 40% of 18-year-olds have a mental health diagnosis. We have the highest infant and maternal mortality rate in the entire developed world despite spending 2x on infant/maternal care than any other country. So you have a higher risk of dying as a woman giving birth in America than any other developed country in the world.
Autism rates in kids are 1 in 36 nationally. This was 1 in 1,500 in the year 2000....
Autoimmune diseases, infertility is at peak rates. I mean, I don't know how this is not front-page news. Infertility is going up 1% per year, sperm counts are going down 1% per year since the 1970s. Sperm counts are down … 26% of women have polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Now, the thing that people need to understand is that all of these conditions are caused or driven by the exact same thing, which is metabolic dysfunction. This core foundational issue of how our body on the cellular level function, which is driven by our toxic food system and our toxic environment, these subtle, insidious forces that are creating slow, progressive illness, starting now in fetal life that allow patients to be profitable and on the pharma treadmill for their entire lives. They make us sick, but they don't kill us, and then we are drugged for life.
Shocking stuff, no doubt. I encourage everyone to watch the full interview. But the question remains – will Americans truly buy what the good doctor is selling?
Though her book “Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health” has become a #1 New York Times bestseller, I suspect Means’ true goal of making Americans healthier will remain elusive for a time. If only preaching repentance was as easy as selling books!
Again, Americans are much too addicted to being rescued from the consequences of their vices – whether in medicine, economics, religion or politics – to readily give up their vices any time soon, especially when government and corporations, with billions of dollars at stake, are more than happy to encourage, enable and manage Americans’ many addictions all in the name of protecting the citizen from himself. In order to keep buying and selling the cure, we’ll keep buying and selling the disease. Absolution after absolution will continue to be sold like papal indulgences even if repentance is what everybody really needs.
Sadly, it’s almost impossible to sell repentance to American institutions and individuals – almost as impossible as selling swift kicks in the butt for a dollar a pop to the neighborhood.
True repentance is only found when a sick man (or society), by the grace of God, takes his virtue seriously enough to kick his own butt for free.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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