Chile Party / Commentary

Last Saturday one of my fellow South Carolinians with definite plans to relocate to Chile hosted a get-together at his house in one of the neighborhoods between Greenville and Spartanburg. He showed us pictures of various cities and other points of interest in Chile. I was particularly interested in Santiago, of course - definitely a first world city, largest in the region, where it is cheaper to live than any equivalent city in the U.S. I wonder, though, if the pro-Chile crowd is underestimating the crime rate in Chile. The rate of violent crime appears to be low, but there is a lot of theft and one must watch one's valuables with great care.

I learned that other possible ex-patriates are also looking at Uruguay, on the other side of Argentina from Chile. I hadn't looked at Uruguay, but the country could have some plusses.

In the meantime, my father is back in the hospital following a serious bout of internal bleeding. A colonoscopy was done yesterday. As of this writing, I still don't have the results. The doctor who performed the procedure had explicit instructions to call me with the results, but has not done so, and one of the nurses snapped over the phone at me, "He does have other patients up here!" Yes, I'm sure he does, and neither of them will win any customer-service awards this year.

I understand that the infamous "stimulus" bill Obama just signed includes a strong potential for health care rationing. Health care must be "cost effective," and federal standards for such will be imposed on doctors by force and carefully monitored by a new cadre of federal bureaucrats. Which means that the reduction of the value of human life to dollars and sense will grow more pronounced under this new administration. The grip of hard materialism on U.S. society will grow even greater, even as the federal government grows larger and more intrusive. People like my parents may not even be able to get health care when their nest egg is destroyed and they can no longer consume. As for my generation ... ?

I'm thinking that for thinking people, this society is going to be unlivable before too much longer. Whatever jobs are created are going to be federal government jobs. The economic roof might not cave in, but the oppressiveness of the federal regime will grow intolerable. Yes, we might get some "tax breaks" or what-have-you from the "stimulus," but there will be strings attached, and to accept the "breaks" will be to accept enslavement.