Is it your home 10/11/07.
Well I am back on my soapbox. This morning in my morning ritual of watching Fox news. While, I have my coffee and contemplate the day. Another story from California, the land of many rules. This story pertains to smoking, and I know many people believe that no one should smoke. In fact, I wish I didn't, but I do. I have recently changed from cigarettes to a pipe, which I hope is a little better for me. After seeing a program on the history Channel, where they actually had a still where they cooked up tobacco juice and different chemicals. I felt like a pipe might at least have natural tobacco without all the additives.
Anyway, this story on Fox news was about a smaller town in California, where they had just outlawed smoking in your own home. Now being a property rights advocate. I have long railed against a number of things that I find offensive. There are property taxes, which in my opinion are the most egregious type of tax, because if you somehow in this world, you managed to pay your home off. You should not have to worry about having it sold for taxes, if you're not fortunate enough to have the money necessary to pay these taxes in your old age. Of course, as you probably have seen in my previous blogs with people being commonly forced into subdivisions with an H. O. A., you would probably have the same problem, even without property taxes. But now these busy bodies are to determine what you can do in your own home to your own body. Wouldn't their efforts be much better spent finding alternative energy? Breathing the smog in California is probably the equivalent of a three pack a day habit.
When I see these kinds of things I am always reminded of what my father used to say to me. He would tell me in this life, there are sheep and shepherds, which do you want to be? What makes me think of this is the fact that we seem to have so many sheep that are so easily herded. When it comes to California, I always marvel at the fact that those in charge of government today. Most probably are the Berkeley hippies or a least from that generation. It's funny, those who railed against the man, have become the man, and even worse. Are these people not from the generation of LSD, free love, live and let live?
I have heard for years that to quit smoking will add 10 years to your life. My question is are these the 10 years that your in a nursing home with bedsores and lousy care, while spending your children's inheritance for the privilege of ten more years living a very poor quality of life?
Our society puts so much stock in keeping people alive longer. I'm never quite understood what the purpose of those acclimating us to this mindset really is. A couple years ago, my aunt was in the hospital in Phoenix. My brother and I traveled there to see her. While there we were surprised to have my aunt tell us that my 93-year-old uncle was in the same hospital. Of course, we ask why? She said he was being circumcised! Which was even more surprising, considering he was 93 years old. Two years later, he passed away. He and his wife had been married 74 years. Obviously from a generation were marrying earlier was not uncommon. The point being, the doctors made money the hospitals made money and my poor 93-year-old uncle got circumcised. Now this poor man had suffered from debilitating headaches for 40 years and had not been unable to see for five years. And we were doing him a great favor by keeping him alive. My aunt survived him and is still alive.
Back to the question of why we want to extend someone's life, to 100 years or more. I have not figured that out yet. Number one, can we not encounter enough struggle in eighty years? Number two brings me back to the reason for my story in the previous paragraph. My cousin and his wife are now in their mid-70s. He has had his own medical problems losing part of his intestine, making it very difficult to get far from a home. Yet they have just spent several years, taking care of my uncle who died at 95 and are now visiting my aunt on a daily basis in an assisted care facility. I would say, at 75. This is a little more difficult then it would've been at 55 or 60. At 75 I will probably be lucky to have the energy to live independently. How very difficult it must be for my cousins to care for their elderly parents at their advanced age. Now you consider that you worked and saved so that your children would not have to bear the expense of supporting you in your later years. But now, you must work and save to have enough money to support yourself in later years and probably your parents who have outlived their retirement income.
So those of you in the land of many rules there is still hope. You can leave California, and all the rules behind and if you don't live more than 20 years, they may not catch up to you. Unfortunately, many of the egregious rules, regulations and poor court decisions start in California, and soon spread like a cancer to the rest of the country.
So don't waste your life depriving yourself of the things you enjoy, so that you can find yourself at 103. Never having enjoyed life, but having outlived your retirement income, while being sad, lonely and poorly cared for in those extra 20 years, you wanted so badly.
Comments(0)