Playing on Sympathies

President Obama's announcement earlier this week that he supported legalizing gay marriage has caused quite a stir, as I'm sure his campaign intended it to. Though he believes "marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman" he is still coming our in support of gay marriage. Overall his speech is full of mixed messages.

One one hand, he believes "marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman."

On the other hand he says that "it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

But then again "I was sensitive to the fact that -- for a lot of people -- that the word marriage is something that provokes very powerful traditions and religious beliefs."

He also played up how he was effected by same sex couples in the military who were "not able to commit themselves in a marriage."

I am a full supporter of same sex couples, though generally I believe that marriage of any type should not be recognized by the government. Obama's comments seem like nothing more than trying to play both sides of the table to win support for himself in the upcoming election. The president has had 4 years of increasingly intense interest in same sex marriage and yet he waits until 6 months before a major election to speak out. In my mind, he is playing the American public and trying to draw attention away from the many ways that he has reduced American freedoms, failed to improve the economy, or reduce the national debt and government spending.

I just find it unfortunate that the American public have latched onto the idea "Obama supports gay marriage" without seeing the many undertones of the statement.

A New Adversary: AJ

I have a new adversary in the world of Facebook. This person is the friend of a friend I posted about previously when discussing vaccines and autism. She seems to have a general disapproval of the medical profession at the same time doing nothing to educate herself about the facts (when I pointed out her friend's math errors, numbers she was also toting as truth, she just told me to go to her friend, didn't bother to check it herself, and continued claiming they were right) I shall dub this friend AJ for Autism Junkie as she seems to have a compulsive need to rant against how the health care industry is causing autism in the giant conspiracy that includes everyone from the government, pharmaceutical companies, the media, and even your own pediatrician.

Today I would like to share a photo that AJ put up on her Facebook page:



This particular tidbit is not about autism specifically, but takes the more general approach of attacking the health care industry with several of them applying to the autism arguments I see her propose. I agree that several of these are lies but with a minor adjustment we find the truth...

- Vaccines can keep you healthy (notice that I say "can" and not "will". In addition, they "keep" you healthy by reducing your chance of getting a disease/illness but they do not "make" you healthy)

- Pharmaceuticals treat disease (the key word here is "treat". Vaccines are designed to prevent disease but are no guarantee. The pharmaceutical industry is primarily focused on treating and curing illness through medications)
- Doctors are knowledgeable about health (true there are specialists who know more about one area of the body than others, but we still know shockingly little about how the body works, so much of what goes on is best guesses so no doctor can truly be considered an expert)
- You have as much of a role as you choose to take in your own healing (some people are content to sit back and let doctors and drugs do the work, others proactively seek answers for their own well being. To say you have no role is not a lie from the health care industry, it is a lie we tell ourselves)
- Disease is caused by many things (environmental, genetic, bad luck, sometimes we just don't know. We should never stop looking for the truth, but when it's staring us in the face we should not insist that it's not there.)
- Screening = A better shot at life (screening is designed to catch illnesses early, before the most devastating and debilitating symptoms take effect. It doesn't stop you from getting the illness, but it can mean the difference between an operable and inoperable tumor)
- Health insurance is out to make money (like any private company, the bottom line is the bottom dollar)
- Hospitals are places of healing (healing is the intent, even if it does not always occur)
- Conventional medicine is advancing (unlike some homeopathic techniques that have been around for centuries without change, modern medicine is bent on advancing the human condition which means growth and progress, even if it often seems slow)
- More research equates to more and better cures (this one was already true but I had to add a bit extra. Just because a miracle cure hasn't dropped out of heaven doesn't mean one will never be found)

AJ is so intent on seeing lies she can not see the real truth resting just beneath these intentionally misleading statements. To everyone out there: Educate yourself. Question the world. Do not let anger and personal injury get in the way of clear-headed thinking.