L.B.: Why doctors hate healthy people

Left Behind, pp. 265-268

Have you seen that bit with the offering plate? They pass this thing around in church and people fill it up with money. Clearly, that's what this whole "church" thing is really about. Money. All those priests, pastors, ministers, chaplains, friars, missionaries, etc. -- they're all just in it for the money.

That's one theory, anyway, albeit a ridiculous one I've never heard anyone seriously advocating. But I've heard theories like it. Such theories always tell you much more about the theorists themselves than about the supposed subject of their theories.

If some hypothetical anti-clerical zealot were actually to make the argument above, you would have to conclude one of the following things about them:

1. They might be attacking a straw man they know to be false. Unable or unwilling to engage the reality of what churches actually are, they've decided instead to sketch a ridiculous caricatured version and then attack their own creation as though it were the thing itself. The anti-church critic, in other words, might be a dishonest hack.

2. They might not know any better. Perhaps, somehow, they've never encountered anyone who worked at or even attended a church, and so they have no idea what churches actually do or how or why they do it. In other words, the critic might be well-intentioned but massively ignorant. (At some point, of course, such utter ignorance can only be maintained willfully -- thus ceasing to be well-intentioned.)

3. They might think this is how everything works. They may subscribe to some materialistic grand scheme or ideology (Marxism or laissez-faire anarcho-libertarianism perhaps). or they may be, themselves, primarily driven by this kind of motivation, so they just assume that no one else has any other motive either.

None of these options paints a very favorable picture of our hypothetical critic, but then it would be difficult to imagine any way of favorably viewing anyone who would seriously put forward such a stupid argument.

Which brings us to today's section in Left Behind, wherein we encounter something very similar to the hypothetical critique above. This is a dazzlingly awful passage, almost Bushian in its ability to combine pedantic smugness with a near-total misapprehension of reality. It's a bit like the song "Little Known Facts" in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown -- with LaHaye and Jenkins in the role of Lucy, taking the readers by the hand and, with grating condescension, explaining how snow comes up "out of the ground -- like grass."

Rayford drives to the church to pick up a replacement copy of the ICR video. Chloe tags along because she's afraid to be home alone in case the robbers come back for the rest of Raymie's toys.

The Rev. Bruce Barnes is saddened, but not surprised by the news of the break-in. "It's as if the inner-city has moved to the suburbs," he says.

You know, the "inner-city" -- nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Not that that's a code word or anything. Not at all. And the New Jerusalem will be a glorious suburb.

Rayford leaves the church and becomes a whirlwind of activity:

While they were out, Rayford bought items that needed to be replaced right away, including a TV and VCR. He arranged to have the front door fixed and got the insurance paperwork started.

Because the insurance companies, like the police, aren't busy with anything else. While Rayford attends to all of this, Chloe apparently goes back into the state of suspended animation in which she seems to spend all of her time apart from her father. (Again, she has no job and she's not in school -- what is she doing all day? She's like Carol Brady.)

And then, inevitably, the phone rings. It's Hattie. Rayford tells her about the robbery, and Hattie provides the awkward segue into the heart of this section of the book:

"Things are getting so strange," she said. "You know I have a sister who works in a pregnancy clinic."

"Uh-huh," Rayford said. "You've mentioned it."

"They do family planning and counseling and referrals for terminating pregnancies."

"Right."

"And they're set up to do abortions right there."

Hattie seemed to be waiting for some signal of affirmation or acknowledgment that he was listening. Rayford grew impatient and remained silent.

Hattie apparently listened politely while Rayford told his story, but that was different because it was his story. Hattie mistakenly thinks she's due the same courtesy. Her misunderstanding is all part of that wacky battle of the sexes -- it's just like that book, Women Are From Venus, Men Are From the Planet of Impatient, Misogynist Jackasses.

"Anyway," she said, "I won't keep you. But my sister told me they have zero business."

"Well, that would make sense, given the disappearances of unborn babies."

"My sister didn't sound too happy about that."

"Hattie, I imagine everyone's horrified by that. Parents are grieving all over the world."

There, at last, is the sentence we should have been reading over and over again for the last 250 pages: "Parents are grieving all over the world." Every child on the planet disappeared on page 15 of this book and here, on page 266, is the very first mention of Rachel crying for her children. Oddly though, Rayford's comment doesn't seem to refer to all parents -- just to those of "unborn babies."

"But the women my sister and her people were counseling wanted abortions."

Rayford groped for a pertinent response. "Yes, so maybe those women are grateful they didn't have to go through the abortion itself."

"Maybe, but my sister and her bosses and the rest of the staff are out of work now until people start getting pregnant again."

You can see where they're trying to go here, but what on earth is she talking about?

Hattie's sister works in reproductive health, at a pregnancy clinic. Last Monday, every child on earth disappeared and every pregnant woman on the planet became instantaneously unpregnant. This development raises some rather urgent questions about, you know, the future of the human race. The idea that Hattie's sister and her coworkers would be sitting around idle is inconceivable -- conceivability being the key word here. All of those formerly pregnant women are going to need medical examinations to confirm that the Divine Abortionist didn't create complications. The still unresolved question of future fertility -- for those women, for all women and for all men too -- would need to be explored. Hattie's sister wouldn't be out of work, she'd be working 18-hour shifts.

"... my sister and her bosses and the rest of the staff are out of work now until people start getting pregnant again."

"I get it. It's a money thing."

"They have to work. They have expenses and families."

"And aside from abortion counseling and abortions, they have nothing to do?"

"Nothing. Isn't that awful? I mean, whatever happened put my sister and a lot of people like her out of business, and nobody really knows yet whether anyone will be able to get pregnant again."

I am not up to the task here. I cannot begin to catalog all that is wrong with this bizarre straw-man. Do L&J really think that places like Planned Parenthood "have nothing to do" apart from "abortion counseling and abortions"?

But buckle up, it gets worse, with Rayford rolling his eyes and silently mocking Hattie all along:

Rayford had to admit he had never found Hattie guilty of brilliance, but now he wished he could look into her eyes. "Hattie, um, I don't know how to ask this. But are you saying your sister is hoping women can get pregnant again so they'll need abortions and she can keep working?"

"Well, sure. What is she going to do otherwise? Counseling jobs in other fields are pretty hard to come by, you know."

Wait, didn't we just say that parents are grieving all over the world? I'm thinking the grief counseling centers might be hiring. Then again, those grief counselors are a bunch of evil bastards. It's a money thing. They want there to be more grief just so they can keep working.

The good news, at least, is that those sick monsters running the orphanage industry are out of work too, so maybe now they'll finally stop going around killing parents just so they have work to do.

He nodded, feeling stupid, knowing she couldn't see him. What kind of lunacy was this? He shouldn't waste his energy arguing with someone who clearly didn't have a clue, but he couldn't help himself.

"I guess I always thought clinics like the one where your sister works considered these unwanted pregnancies a nuisance. Shouldn't they be glad if such problems disappear, and even happier -- except for the small complication that the human race will eventually cease to exist -- if pregnancies never happen again?"

Silly Hattie. Silly, foolish, female Hattie just doesn't have a clue. She doesn't realize that the ultimate goal of abortion rights advocates is universal forced sterilization. After all, what else could "pro-choice" possibly mean?

The irony was lost on her. "But Rayford, that's her job. That's what the center is all about. It's sort of like owning a gas station and nobody needs gas or oil or tires anymore."

"Supply and demand."

"Exactly! See? They need unwanted pregnancies because that's their business."

"Sort of like doctors wanting people to be sick or injured so they have something to do?"

"Now you've got it, Rayford."

...

... I ...

...

I give up. If the authors can't be bothered to forge a trail through the twists and turns of their logic here, then I can't be expected to map it out it for them.

Just go back to the beginning of this post and re-read my hypothetical critique of the church. It is, as I said, massively and pervasively inaccurate -- a dismissive straw man that corresponds to nothing in the actual world. Re-read the possible reasons someone might advocate such a theory: intentional dishonesty, ignorance, ideological myopia, projection. (Am I missing something? Are there other possible explanations?)

So, then, two questions: 1) Which of these do you think explains this passage in Left Behind? And 2) Does it really matter?

Comments

[cjmr's husband]

Not really, there'd still be Linux and PC

/ducks for cover

[Todd Larason]

For reasons I don't fully understand myself, I've been keeping up with the various goings-on at Conservapedia. The Planned Parenthood page there is a study of all this and more -- they're in it for the money, yes, but not _only_ for the money. They're also in it because they're racists and want to abort _black_ babies.

And they're not just against abstinence-only education, they're against abstinence. Okay, that last bit isn't in the current version of the page, but was there until I edited it. (And it was added by Andy Schlafly, Phyllis's son and the founder of the project.)

The page is now locked, like many of the pages on topics which can, with the right point of view, be seen as political.

not-a-link-because-they-don't-need-the-googlejuice:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Planned_Parenthood

Andy's also got a bee in his bonnet about the possible (my word, not his -- he's sure it's real, and I really don't know) link between abortion and breast cancer. The link is being covered up by the massive abortion lobby to protect their billion-dollar-industry, y'know.

[Jon H]

" I'm thinking the grief counseling centers might be hiring."

Or counseling for the women who will never have children, and can't even find any Asian babies to adopt.

And they could surely find some way to prosper in a world where nobody can get pregnant.

Perhaps they could offer re-virginizing plastic surgery procedures, or if rape becomes more common, they could counsel women on the use of those South African female condoms with teeth.

[David]

Well thank goodness there's at least there are abortionists and various flavours of oh-so-stubborn non-believers out there. If everyone got saved and became RTC's, who could LaHaye and Jenkins villify in literature? They'd be out of a job. Wait a minute...I think they wrote LB for the money...

[Doctor Science]

There is another reason: anachronism, or "not realizing that the thing you're talking about isn't done the same way it was a hundred years ago, no thanks to you." When abortion was a crime, abortionists *were* specialists, because illegality & ordinary doctoring don't go together very well. It's the legality of abortion that has made it part of the mainstream of medical practice and made abortionists anachronistic. So one of the goals of the anti-abortion movement is to bring back abortionists, because they want to remove abortion from the repertoire of regular gynecologists.

[Bugmaster]

I don't think you can generalize churches to say, "none of them are in it for the money". Scientology, mega-churches, faith healers, and various other cults are clearly in it for the money. Don't get me wrong, LH&J are still insane, though.

[Consumer Unit 5012]

After looking around Conservapedia, I've come up with a new theory about the Rapture: It's what will occur when the alternate reality the Bush Adminstration and its supporters have been construction out of pure bullshit for the last decade or so finally becomes big enough for them to move there physically.

My only worry about this is that they may decide to nuke the Reality-Based Community on the way out, for sheer spite.

[Dean Booth]

Finally L&J mention grieving parents, but then they immediately forget about them:

"They have to work. They have expenses and families."

Huh? They don't have families anymore -- all the children are gone, remember?

Jebus this book is horrible. And your analysis is exceptional.

[Jake]

Daniel Martin: not just you. It's striking how selective L&J's view of the obvious dysfunctions of a post-Rapture world is. People out of jobs? Well, nobody would be going to work and punching their timecards anyways, but if we suspend disbelief long enough to believe people bounce back from the trauma really quickly, then, even so, abortion providers wouldn't be the most conspicuously unemployed group. Lots of people who don't do The Devil's Work (TM) would find their jobs at best meaningless, at worst gone completely. Daycare workers, teachers, pediatricians, anyone involved in the manufacture or design of children's media or toys... and that's just off the top of my head, without thinking too hard.

[ako]

Am I the only who read this, agreed with essentially everything, and then thought "Well, ok, but day care providers really would be totally SOL post-Rapture" ?

Elementary school teachers. That's fairly specific skills and training, doesn't transfer readily to other jobs, and there wouldn't be another class ready to start even first grade until the very tail end of the tribulation. Day care providers would be out of work right away, and for at least a year (if not a couple), but someone who spent all that time, effort, and money, to get certfied to teach elementary school would be definitively screwed.

Middle-school teachers wouldn't all be thrown out of work (given the slightly variable age of reason the authors suggest, there'd be some kids left in the 12-14 range) but a big percentage would be, and the rest would watch their jobs slip away withing a couple years. High school teachers would be in a better situation, with a decent share of hellbound teenagers to educate, and the (illusory) belief that they'd only be temporarily unemployed once they ran out, because there was a new batch opening up. Plus, Carpathia would probably have a program in place by that poing, if he was anything like a decent politician, to keep the teachers reassured and make everyone think that he was planning for a temporary situation.

But teachers aren't "evil" so the only point in bringing up their unemployment would be to create a well-thought-out fictional world, not to Teach An Important Lesson. Like I said, these books are pure propaganda. Artistic touches that don't sell this world view are a waste.

[Jeff]

I vote #4: L&J are in the "writing" gig for the money. Therefor, everyone else just does their job for the money. No-one could actually enjoy their job -- that's lunacy!

Conversation substitutes for actual action, and takes place over the phone.

These aren't even "conversations". They're "plot points" delivered with no sense of how people really talk.

sit on their laurels.

"Abortion Doctors" put their laurels in a strange place! Maybe their head is up their ass after all! [/snark]

[Reverend Ref]

1. "Maybe, but my sister and her bosses and the rest of the staff are out of work now until people start getting pregnant again."

You know, we hear about people losing their jobs and sliding off the deep end. Since these people are evil anyway, I'm thinking that a life of crime is in their immediate future. You know, by breaking into people's houses while they are at work (because they've carefully cased the joint to find out when the house would be empty) and stealing all of their toys and stuff.

2. I have refrained from making any comments in the past along the lines of "this is the worst passage ever," but I will now: This is the worst example of words on paper (I can't call it 'writing'), and a sorry excuse for the depletion of trees to generate enough paper for this crap, that I can think of.

As proof, I offer this quote from our esteemed host himself: "...

... I ...

..."

When Fred is rendered speechless, what more proof do we need?

[The Cynic Sage]

Now, first of all I just want to mention that I am pro-life, but damn, that LB passage makes me wanna wretch! They don't just sling mud at abortionists, but doctors in general. I'm gonna be sick! >:(

[Kalessin]

This whole scenario makes no sense.

The "abortionists" aren't out of work at all. Even if there existed doctors who did nothing else, they would be busier than ever in a few weeks.

Conception is still possible, and now that all law and order has broken down, there are probably rapes occuring left and right among suburban women who know about their options and can afford abortions. Now, some may want to keep their fetuses to replace their missing children, but more are going to want to get rid of them for just that reason. Or others- who wants to bring a child into a world when it can disappear at any time? Even factoring in the new black market baby scams, abortions are going to be in more demand than ever.

And all the rabid pro-lifers have vanished, so there's nothing to stop them.

Hell, Nicky is probably going to make abortion mandatory in his new world order, because it's Evil, just like world peace.

What about this situation suggests that Hattie's sister will be out of a job?

It's the school teachers who should be worried. They're probably being punished for teaching the kids that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

[abba-dingo]

I'll put in a vote for "you're missing something." It's close to your version of ideological myopia, but not quite.

From what I've observed and read, there is a phenomenon in some (but not all) persons who strongly hold some ideology. In the US at this time, it occurs mostly among conservatives, but I've seen it across the political spectrum (and I think it may have been fairly common among communists). These people think that they've found The Truth, and that Truth is so True and Right (and obvious) that they cannot understand how anybody could honestly disagree with their Truth. Therefore, anyone who disagrees must be evil in some fashion, even if it's only in greed. For LaJenkins, their Truth is PMD Christianity in general, with "abortion is killing a baby" being the specific doctrine in this case.

[X]

How long it would take before someone started figuring out the REALLY creepy implications. Like if babies are now worth black market zillions, some pimp is gonna figure out that he can turn his "girls" into highly profitable involuntary baby farms. In fact, for flat out nightmare mode, you could see fit young women being kidnapped for the black market baby producing value. Human baby factory farms, it's way worse than fire and brimstone.. You could even have them stealing toys to decorate their nursery sales rooms <shudder>

Actually, y'know what, I bet L&J wouldn't used this idea even if they HAD thought of it (and had better than a fifth grade writing level). You can't freak people out too much or the mass market won't shell out the dinaros.

[Wednesday White]

In retrospect (have read books 1-12), and without spoilers... this is Jenkins' idea of clever foreshadowing for Hattie's character arc, isn't it?

Guh.

[parodie]

I do think that you missed one potential explanation - limited previous experience. If my only experience with churches was with a church where the minister _was_ in it for the money, and (for example) ran off with the money he'd collected after 6 months, this straw man, though unfortunate, would not be inaccurate.

How to extend that to the book though ... the mind boggles.

[PerfectBlue]

I really really hate this part in a kind of awesome way. Worst scene. Easily. It's so very bad. I just couldn't quite believe how awful it was when I hit on it, and it really is my very favorite moment in the book. It's still bookmarked with the receipt I got when I bought it to read-along to LB Fridays. The thing that makes me the most aggravated isn't L&J nudging you and saying, "Aren't pro-aborts just the worst people ever?" I've heard it all before. Blah. The part that gets me is Rayford's impatience and mentally calling Hattie stupid, only getting to because the writers are MAKING Hattie be stupid. I have this mental image of Hattie locked up somewhere, trussed with tape over her mouth in the closet while L&J giggle with their hands over the receiver between saying these incredibly inane things to Rayford in Hattie's voice so he can get his jollies feeling superior. Rayford is so pathetic he can only fight characters with both hands tied behind THEIR backs. It's just like him silently cheering on as Bruce Barnes shuts down all of Chloe's craptastic arguments on theology, except now even that isn't enough, he has to BULLY his already-incapacitated opponent. No coincidence that the oppoenent is Hattie. It's almost an act of punishment for Hattie being a hottie and tempting poor unsaved Rayford, who is now, he repeatedly assures us, so pure he is utterly immune to her heathen charms...in fact, he's so saved that he can suddenly see what a vapid, evil twit she is. It accomplishes so much in terms of Rayford's character and what a small, mean, miserable, weak little creep he is, and the authors totally oblivious to what seeps out between the lines. It is a perfect storm of Mary Sue, really.

On the rest, I'm voting for #1. It's intentionally disengenuous, and with reason: mostly to enable Rayford to kick Hattie around a little, but also to teach the audience about how pro-aborts are just the worst people ever, and it's okay to treat women like non-quite-human creatures, naive and often annoying little pets lacking any moral center because, duh, they ARE, just look at Hattie here. This is a Strawman with a Serious Mission, my friend.

[Erick Oppeen]

I should also point out that even us hard-core laissez-faire libertarians don't believe that people do things only for money. While I understand that you don't share my views, the casual side-zings at them get to be a bit wearing, and remind me strangely of L+J's attitude toward everybody who's not their idea of a RTC. Considering how many people there are who already think L+J are True Prophets, why go out of your way to insult people who would, otherwise, be your allies? I don't know of any libertarians who're also pre-millenial dispensationalists, although such may exist.

[telesilla]

I already actively disliked L&J just based on what I've read on the blog here, but now I really really loathe them. The idea that pregnancy counseling service employees and OB/GYNs who perform abortions would only be upset because they lost their jobs is just monstrous.

One of the things that I find terribly ironic about the way they deal with the disappearance of the world's children is that their readers are some of the same people who are so quick to yell "but think of the children" when, for example, tighter content controls on the internet are proposed. Over a billion departed children and the only time it comes up is when a point needs to be made about those evil people who condone abortion. How repulsively cynical.

[Jeff]

I don't know of any libertarians who're also pre-millenial dispensationalists, although such may exist.

Fair enough.

the casual side-zings at them get to be a bit wearing

Thank Grover Norquist. Do you think he found Katrina to be a large enough bath-tub?

[Hasimir_Fenring]

'...until people start getting pregnant again.'

Until?

Until?!

Who told Hottie people would be able to get pregnant again? It's been what, a week since The Rapture? There couldn't have been a reported conception yet. The zygote would only just be reaching the uterus and attempting to implant. That's even assuming people would be trying, so soon after The Event. Is anyone in any condition to attempt to have a child during this week? Wouldn't people be wrapped up in the children they or their loved ones lost, or worry that even if they succeeded in conceiving, the zygote would simply vanish?

Looks like Hottie has read the book's jacket, too.

--Slightly off-topic-- Jos said: 'I sometimes suspect that in the truly wacky fundamentalist mind an incredibly solid wall disconnects their own beliefs from what they actually do in reality.'

For a most egregious example of this, check out this link about a certain Marcus Ross, a Young Earth Creationist who received a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. The subject of his dissertation: 'the abundance and spread of mosasaurs, marine reptiles that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era about 65 million years ago.' No, he didn't do real science and then fall into the nonsense of YEC. He was a Young Earth Creationist before, during, and after his doctoral studies. Dr Ross has an explanation though: '...I am separating the different paradigms [of science and Scripture].” Well, I'm convinced.

[Spherical Time]

Jonathan Edelstein: Generalization. A person might encounter a church where it is all about the money, or at least appears that way based on how he is treated, and become sufficiently disillusioned never to seek out the churches where it isn't.

I have to agree with this criticism/suggestion. While I certainly don't believe that wealth is the only reason for the existence of the church, there are certainly specific clergy that appear to be in it for the money. Jim Bakker, Benny Hinn, Robert Tilton, and Peter Popoff all come to mind. In fact, I tend to think that any minister that is involved with prosperity theology is a Christian due to financial gain more than actual faith.

Again, most Christian clergy seem to be contentious and devoted ministers that care about their congregations. However, Fred's first few paragraphs seem to dismiss the notion that any preacher could be in it for the money, and I think that is a disservice. Christians are human, and some humans are motivated by money rather than faith.

[Izunya]

I can think of another possible reason, although I doubt it's the only motivation for writing this . . . er . . . extraordinary passage. I think L&J are writing what they think their audience wants to hear.

I mean, IIRC, we've already established that Left Behind isn't much of a conversion tool. It's largely written for people who already consider themselves Real True Christians and expect the Rapture any day now. It's a gloat-fest. You could replace every page with copy-and-pasted repetition of, "Neener neener neener, you were wrong and we were right," and you wouldn't change the overall message or the intelligence level of the book. Right?

This would tend to mean that L&J's market is overwhelmingly anti-abortion and probably anti-contraception. They're not trying to change minds with this little conversation-shaped screed. They're preaching to the choir.

I think L&J have a low enough opinion of their audience---of humanity, really---that they figure the way to sell books is to cut out every possible trace of nuance. Us good. Abortion bad. (Tree pretty.) Abortion providers *have* to be mercenary, evil, and too one-dimensional to even appear "onscreen," because that's what they think their readers want. It's just a theory, but you have to admit that if you started with the notion that every potential reader was a gibbering moron and you had to write at their level, you might get something like _Left Behind._

Izunya

[Jesurgislac]

Well, I just couldn't resist doing a Right Behind version of how that phone conversation really went... which isn't exactly how Rayford recalls it for the book.

Right Behind: Zero Business

[mcc]

I should also point out that even us hard-core laissez-faire libertarians don't believe that people do things only for money.

Nobody said you did. Fred's comment pretty clearly I think was to be taken as a "some laissez-faire libertarians do this", not a "all libertarians do this". (Fred also used the small but crucial anarcho- prefix; I think this could be said to imply certain things, but don't want to start an argument about semantics...)

I for one have never encountered a libertarian in the real world who thinks this way; actually all the libertarians I've personally met have been reasoned and rational in their views, even though I may not have agreed with them personally. On the internet, on the other hand, I've encountered a surprising number of "libertarians" for whom this description does apply, mostly on skeezy message boards. I don't really think of these people as mainstream libertarians; I mostly think they're just people who got so wrapped up in fundamentals that they missed the overall point. But they're there, they self-identify as libertarian, and they usually don't seem to be aware there's any difference between them and any other self-identifying "libertarian". What should one do about such people?

While I understand that you don't share my views, the casual side-zings at them get to be a bit wearing

Of course, Fred side-zinged marxists in the same sentence, in exactly the same way-- implying that a marxist mindset might lead someone to view everything that happens in the world in the frame of material transactions. No one seems to be complaining there, though... hm.

and remind me strangely of L+J's attitude toward everybody who's not their idea of a RTC.

Sure, whatever. The comparison that would come more immediately to mind to me is this-- there's this one guy I know who's a Christian, and we wind up occasionally discussing extremist Christian fundamentalists while he's in earshot-- complaining, for example, about L+J and the Left Behind series. Whenever this subject comes up he gets very defensive and takes it as a personal slight, because he somehow jumps to the conclusion that in complaining about and discussing extremists such as Tim LaHaye we are in fact actually trying to cast aspersions on all of Christianity.

*shrug*

[Bugmaster]

I for one have never encountered a libertarian in the real world who thinks this way...

I have, believe it or not, though he seems to have recanted somewhat since last I saw him.

[Jeff]

actually all the libertarians I've personally met have been reasoned and rational in their views.

I've worked in the "hive" (Orange County, CA) and have met a great number of libertarians throughout the US, and I have met exactly one who was "reasoned and rational" in his views. And he converted when his girl-friend needed meds they could only get through the County.

I've not seen or heard anything to convince me it's not a silly, selfish and self-serving way of saying "It's all about ME!" There was a web-site that asked libertarians to show otherwise -- I wish I could still find that discussion. The article here (warning: text and ads are not always Safe For Work) is similar, though. Read the 2 paras right after the graph.

[Sue W]

I think PerfectBlue hit the nail on the head (well, a lot of people did because there are so many nails in this scene you could hardly miss one).

One can't rule out the possibility that the authors are gibbering morons themselves, and believe that their strawman is the real thing. I've never found them guilty of brilliance, or even average intelligence.

[mcc]

On the rest, I'm voting for #1. It's intentionally disengenuous, and with reason: mostly to enable Rayford to kick Hattie around a little, but also to teach the audience about how pro-aborts are just the worst people ever, and it's okay to treat women like non-quite-human creatures, naive and often annoying little pets lacking any moral center because, duh, they ARE, just look at Hattie here. This is a Strawman with a Serious Mission, my friend.

Just out of curiosity, does a woman ever win an argument in this entire series, anywhere?

(Irene being right about the Rapture doesn't count.)

[the opoponax]

implying that a marxist mindset might lead someone to view everything that happens in the world in the frame of material transactions. No one seems to be complaining there, though...

which is funny, because the sort of worldview Fred was describing has about as much to do with Marxism as it does with libertarianism. i'm sure there are some people out there who call themselves Marxists who see the world this way -- EVERYONE who is in any way successful must, of course, be "in it for the money". it's especially reminiscent of a certain brand of Stalinist policy during the 30's, when any farmer who was nominally successful and didn't want to collectivize was branded a "kulik", AKA a bougeois farmer only in it for the money, bent on preventing true socialism out of pure self-interest.

but outside of the marxist understanding that the world pretty much centers on capital and who controls it, what fred is talking about has virtually nothing to do with marxism as most people who know something about marxism understand it.

i've just stopped saying it because it's clear to me that Fred knows little of marxism other than that it's critical of capitalism and also "bad". and as i'm not necessarily a marxist myself, i'm sorta over his occasional ribbing -- most americans know nothing about marxism other than that it was the inspiration for the soviet system, and therefore bad, oh, and also isn't there something about hating capitalism?

[Scott]

Have you seen that bit with the offering plate? They pass this thing around in church and people fill it up with money. Clearly, that's what this whole "church" thing is really about. Money. All those priests, pastors, ministers, chaplains, friars, missionaries, etc. -- they're all just in it for the money.

No, they're also in it to beat people into psychological submission to meet their needs for control of others. "Jesus Christ" is nothing but a rhetorical bludgeon.

[Scott]

Well, just recently, SCOTUS declared the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act constitutional. What this means is not that late-term abortions have been banned: it doesn't mean any abortions have been banned. It means that a procedure which has been developed as the safest method to carry out a late-term abortion (or any abortion where the fetus's skull is too large to pass the woman's cervix intact) has been banned: doctors will have to use a less-safe method instead. Some women will die as a result, and more women will have their cervix permanently damaged, meaning that they cannot have any more children.

Which is a good argument that it's a stupid law, not one that it's unconstitutional. Believe it or not, there is a difference between what the constitution allows and disallows and what laws you want passed or rejected.

I've not seen or heard anything to convince me it's not a silly, selfish and self-serving way of saying "It's all about ME!"

I love it. Fred's original post is about assuming nothing but the worst motives to your 'opponents'. In the midst of the "hell, yea!!" comments, the progressives start happily assuming the worst motives to their opponents. That's right, it's OK because the usual standards don't apply to 'progressives' due to their moral wonderfulness. Nobody has to prove to your personal satisfaction that you lack the right to be our divinely appointed Philosopher King with our bank accounts. Go away.

(The woman above being stopped from getting the "partial birth abortion" doesn't have to prove anything to the religious right either, IMHO. A bad law and an unconstitutional law AREN'T THE SAME THING).

[Richard Hershberger]

Part of the problem is that "marxism" and "libertarianism" (lassez-faire and/or anarcho- or not) are both used so many ways as to be meaningless. We don't see this with marxism nowadays because hardly anyone self-identifies as marxist, but the range of beliefs among self-identified libertarians is so wide that when someone tells me he is libertarian the only information I get from this is the he probably thinks his taxes should be lower.

(Side story: I was once called a "crypto-communist" by one of these people because I suggested that there could be some area of human activity where a free market model would not be most efficient. I take this "crypto-communist" as a badge of honor.)

As for Fred's comment, I think the relevant bit is "some materialistic grand scheme or ideology" Marxism and lassez-faire anarcho-libertarism, in some forms at least, are grand schemes to explain human society in economic terms. In ideologically pure forms this doesn't work once the real world intervenes of course, so you get either less pure, practical forms or you get great whackiness.

[bulbul]

Doctor Science,
So one of the goals of the anti-abortion movement is to bring back abortionists, because they want to remove abortion from the repertoire of regular gynecologists.
What if it's the other way around? What if the "pro-life" crowd are actually just pawns to the United Abortionist Alliance, the world organization of abortionists who were forced out of their jobs by doctors and now plot revenge and a triumphant return once abortion is outlawed again? That would explain a lot...

Jesu,
My brother's a doctor. He rides to work on a very expensive 10-speed bicycle. He doesn't own a car.
Does he work in the US? If he doesn't, he doesn't count. US doctors are a special breed.

Notebook updated.

[Jesurgislac]

Does he work in the US? If he doesn't, he doesn't count. US doctors are a special breed.

Oh, okay. No, he doesn't work in the US. ("Special breed" makes me think that US doctors have long, soft fur with a certain kind of marking, and kinky tails.)

[AKMA]

Parents are grieving all over the world

Apparently, except Rayford himself. He doesn't identify as a grieving parent, nor does Hattie (in a flash of inadvertent insight) expect him to feel a flash of pain as she tells him what should have been a matter of immediate experience to him.

[Jesurgislac]

Oooh, AKMA, very insightful.

Then again, Rayford knows they're all in heaven.

Also, he thought Raymie was a wimp.

[Zzyzx]

I've encountered the uberlibertarians quite a few times in my net surfing day. I got in an argument with someone from the Free State Projects because he couldn't understand why someone who have the right to complain if their neighbor was working on a nuclear weapon. We should just trust that people would know their own needs and abilities perfectly well so there's absolutely no reason to expect that they could be putting you in danger through incompetence or trying to start a feud with the guy a few towns over.

The problem with extreme libertarianism isn't the frustration with dealing with people (again in my experience) who don't understand that other people can, in fact, work hard but due to health issues or a bad choice or two in their teens, can't ever get ahead. Rather it's that that form of libertarianism would result in significantly less freedom.

Free speech? Right to assemble? Only if you own the property. Without public spaces, those rights don't exist unless you have money. Without any sort of safety net, people would lose their homes due to short term issues; the economy works largely because there's financial stability. Desperate people in a time with reduced police forces would be more likely to resort to activities like kidnapping - after all, it's not like the people without job skills are going to voluntarily die in order to make life easier for the well off - making it much less safe to ever go outside and enjoy this exciting freedom.

Moreover, all it would take is one ruthless businessman and a society that assumes that any contract is an agreement between two people who knew what they were doing when they made it so it should be enforced, to destroy all freedom. Draft up a non-compete clause written in such a way that it's confusing to the average citizen. Throw it in the middle of a long agreement clause for something seemingly unrelated to getting a job - say a mortgage contract or a car leasing deal. Wait a few years to enforce it so people aren't warned off, and you could have an entire workforce of people who aren't technically slaves, but who are obligated to only work for one company, have a long lease for a shack in a certain town, and agreed to work for the company until their debt was paid off, which of course could never happen since their wages won't pay for their debt.

Sure eventually people would catch on, but a rogue businessman would put it everywhere. He'd run bars and try to trap people into signing away their lives after they were drunk. He'd hire hot women to get teenaged boys to stop thinking with their brains and be willing to sign anything to get some. The contract would be buried everywhere, would be perfectly legal, and would mean that any agreement you ever make would have to be examined by a team of lawyers to make sure that nothing was smuggled in. Now that's what I call freedom!

Our society functions because we know that any deal like that will be struck down. Once you remove restrictions like that - and read slashdot or the freestateproject boards and you'll encounter plenty of people who don't believe in any restrictions in the kinds of contracts people should be allowed to engage in - the world would become a rather bleak place to live in.

[the opoponax]

for both the notebook and the tangential discussion of doctors and conspicuous wealth, i would just like to note that my father is a doctor (a small-town pediatrician, no less) and drives a jaguar. which i hate and feel sort of guilty about. he's such a freakin' cliche. a good person and all, but omg could you have picked a more conspicuous way to say "hi, i have a lot more money than you"? especially in light of the fact that you practice in a small town where most of your patients live in trailers and are lucky to even have a car at all? no wonder his patients think everything he does is motivated by money (even though it's not), and then extrapolate that to people like Dr. Steve, above.

[stinger]

Even if it were a few weeks before the "abortion clinic" employees would have work again, so what? Right now, they're at home grieving for their own lost children. And trying to figure out how to go on living in a world gone mad. Of course, L&J not only don't consider most other people to be RTCs, they don't consider most other people to be fully human. Except fetuses, of course.

It's hard to come in as the 85th-or-so commenter and say anything new. But I just HAD to say something. This is indeed, except for the lack of travel logistics, the quintessential LB passage. (Which may be the word Hibryd was looking for upthread.)

[ako]

Right now, they're at home grieving for their own lost children. And trying to figure out how to go on living in a world gone mad.

To be fair, the authors have everyone returning to work within a few days. Even Our Hero, who's an airline pilot during what would be by far the worst disaster in aviation history. So L&J don't see people working at a clinic that provides abortions as uniquely soulless and so lacking in human compassion that they're eager to get back to work within a week of all the children being gone. They see everyone in the world as naturally that soulless and lacking in human compassion.

[yesteray]

I suppose I'm a whack job too, but I have no trouble believing that large numbers of doctors are motivated in the main by monetary incentives. There is an even larger group whose practices are shaped - to varying degrees of consciousness - by financial self interest. I have seen abundant evidence of this in my life.

This is less prevalent now, but when I was in college in the 70s medicine was the only socially acceptable profession that guaranteed a large salary and a comfortable life style. Business in general and corporations in particular were regarded as too much a part of the establishment. At that time my fellow students who were pre-med were often transparently motivated by greed. Since then greed has become more socially acceptable, and the rewards in other areas have become greater, so those students have gone into other areas. Possibly they are less harmful in those settings.

In any case, the financial motivations of medicine have not disappeared. A medical education costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and involves significant personal sacrifices for the uncertain benefits of dealing with life and death and negotiating with insurance companies. These costs must be justified in some way; medical students are rational economic actors after all. In short, you can still make a boat load of money as a doctor. It isn't what you can make in a successful dot com start up, or as a CEO, but then the risks of failure aren't as great. It is much more than you can make as a teacher, journalist or other middle class professional. I don't know about you, but the doctors that I have run across in my everyday experience makes it clear that these people aren't uniformly any more able or intelligent than any other group of similarly educated, but more poorly compensated, individuals.

With all due respect to Dr. Steve, his patients are right to question the tests he prescribes. There are medically necessary tests and there are unnecessary tests. The line between the two is in many cases subjective. To the extent that it is subjective, his financial incentives and his patient's financial incentives may not be aligned. It is right and proper that his patients would question his judgment. He is not impartial and he is not God. As an aside, my rule of thumb for finding a good doctor is to question everything that he or she says. If the doctor cannot or will not answer your questions, and especially if he (it's usually a he in such cases) gets impatient or offended with you for asking, find another doctor.

One of the many things that LaHaye & Jenkins get wrong is that Planned Parenthood doctors aren't the ones who are raking in the large sums. As ob/gyns they are among the more poorly paid medical specialists (if you can say poorly about six-figure salaries). Since they work, at least part time, in non-profit medicine, they are going to be on the low side of the average. Plus, their practice doesn't call for many extra tests or procedures and even if they did, their clients would not be able to afford them. If they were only motivated by greed they would have a different type of practice.

[JessicaR]

It's just depressing that our "heroes" are going to prove just a soulless and lacking in human compassion throughout the entire series. Worse even because they believe they follow Christ. I'm still stuck on the "it's like the inner city has moved to the suburbs". It's LB and the modern religious right in a nutshell, worshiping a being who cared for the least and downtrodden and one of his few direct orders was to look out for the needy and each other gets translated into "ewwwwwwwww, brown people in my neighborhood, who are taking my things...."

[Nick Lamb]

The only mistake I see in the opening characterisation is an over-generalisation. Yes, the priest sat at a dying mans bed at four in the morning and worrying about all those lost souls he can't reach - he isn't in it for the money. The monk spending his life in quiet contemplation of God's greatness and perhaps helping to making communion wine in the pleasant but ultimately not exactly luxurious surroundings of the monastery - not in it for the money. But the televangelist, buying $500 bottles of wine in a fine restaurant trying to get his new assistant drunk so that he can sleep with her and then pray for forgiveness - are you sure he isn't in it for the money? We know that the Church of England itself confiscated property and taxed the poor, for a while it was richer and more powerful than the crown. Did it do that purely for the glory of god? Better that the money belongs "to God" than it corrupts the King? I'm sure some of the priestly administrators managed to rationalise it that way. Meanwhile its bishops lived very well indeed.

A large institution that is undirected (ie members and officials aren't sure what its purpose is exactly) is likely to be taken over by parasites who desire money above all things. A church is more vulnerable because many of its members believe that it IS directed, by God, and any such parasites can simply claim to be doing His work. Pretty much everyone suspects that Scientology is now run entirely by the law firms that control its day-to-day business, are the lawyers believers? No, they're in it for the money. If you think Scientology ridiculous, make sure you check the personal accounts of your own religious leaders before laughing too loudly.

Similarly, I'm sure my doctors put me, as a patient, before distant goals of personal wealth. Happily I live in a country where medical care is free at the point of need, and when I was poor, and sick, they were able to help me without checking if I had good credit, or asking to see insurance documents. But still, my consultant has a boss, and his boss is responsible to a board of directors. The board don't see individual patients, just statistics, and if the statistics for the board's hospitals are good they'll receive a financial incentive. There's a temptation to game the system, to make the numbers better without actually improving things for the patients. So even though they'd be uncomfortable expressing the idea, the board may just be in it for the money.

[ Just to avoid any doubt, I agree with the thrust of today's commentary, I just think it's easy to fall into opposite trap, of thinking that because you've met an honest and hard working priest, therefore the Church is an incorruptible organisation, and we need never ask how it spends our money ]

[DonBoy]

By the way, we should note that there's a strain in the RTL movement that would put "Jewish" before "money-grubbing abortionists". That's been scrubbed from the public display here, but it's part of it. See this -- from 1998 but not irrelevant.

[the opoponax]

oh, i certainly think it's true that a lot of people major in pre-med as 18 year olds because they think it's the easy way to a lot of money. the question is, are those the people who get into med school and ultimately become practicing physicians? and stay in the field for 20, 30, 40 years? because a medical liscense is not a lottery ticket or a free lunch, and this becomes apparent after your first flip through the MCAT study guide. much easier to become an investment banker or a stock broker, even if your friends will think you're horrible "establishment" for it.

and even if one could posit that most, or many, people who ultimately become doctors are in it for financial reasons, the bottom line is that ordering an extra round of tests or the like is not what puts money in their pocket. doctors don't work on commission. they're getting that paycheck either way, whether you get a flu shot or not.

[the opoponax]

"It is much more than you can make as a teacher, journalist or other middle class professional."

i'm actually not sure this is true, at all. maybe the comparison to teachers is apt, but teachers make FAR less than most other middle class professionals. and you're right that doctors make more money than people in blue collar fields, even comfy middle class blue collar jobs (shop foreman, contractor, etc).

but unless you're comparing, say, a cardiologist who is a partner in a large urban practice to a pencil pushing shmoe out in corporate exurbia, i'd guess most doctors make similar amounts of money to their peers in other fields. doctors certainly make no more money than lawyers, CPA's, tenured university professors, corporate managers, and the like, as a group.

[Jeff Weskamp]

"Like if babies are now worth black market zillions, some pimp is gonna figure out that he can turn his 'girls' into highly profitable involuntary baby farms. In fact, for flat out nightmare mode, you could see fit young women being kidnapped for the black market baby producing value. Human baby factory farms, it's way worse than fire and brimstone.. "

Sounds just like the baby ring Connie and Raymond Marble were running in Pink Flamingoes. They would kidnap hippie girls, chloroform them, and have their butler Channing impregnate them. Then the girls were chained up in the basement till they gave birth. After they died in childbirth the Marbles would sell the babies to lesbian couples. They then invested the money in pornography shops, and fronted cash to heroin pushers in elementary schools.