Kaiser denied me health insurance. Bring on the cascading bummers!

They sent me a very nice letter explaining that they don't insure anyone that actually might get sick someday. This means that in addition to being unemployed, homeless, and unloved, I am one of the proverbial seventy zillion Americans living without health insurance.

I thought about moving to Canadia or some other socialist country where health coverage is provided by the government. I've heard that Cuba has some kick-ass hospitals, for example, and they're famous for cigars, so maybe I could take up smoking. But I was brought up better than that. I am a red-blooded American boy and I understand that when the government provides basic neccessities to the populace, it's saying that there's no need for individual achievement. And that's a load of horsepucky! Why, it's part of our national heritage that in a free-market capitalist system, each individual gets the rewards that he or she deserves. If you don't put in to society, you don't get back. If the government were to start handing out free health care, that would be like saying that each individual human being has intrinsic value. Then they'd have to start making killing people illegal and make all sorts of draconian laws protecting our so-called "rights." And we can't have that, now can we?

But I digress. See the bottom line is not whether the government needs to take care of my needs, but whether I refuse to. I've tried to come up with all the rationalizations in the world to cover my lame-ass behavior: I'm an alcoholic, or depressed, or have ADHD. I've tried blaming it all on my mother, or my father, but none of that works like the plain and simple truth:

I am a loser.

What a relief to put it out there as refreshingly and cleanly as that! It sums it up so nicely. I mean, I could try blaming my unemployment on the sluggish economy, but that doesn't have nearly the emotional punch and resonance as facing up to the fact that I have no marketable skills! I mean, maybe in the Clinton years a blind felon could get a job as a security guard, but today we have George Bush in office, and the economy reflects those good old American values. If I don't have skills, I don't deserve a job!

Since I don't deserve a job, I don't deserve money. Since I don't deserve money, I don't deserve food, a place to live, or medical attention either. See? It's so simple and brilliant! Yay America!

But I have to admit that it's not always so clear to me. Sometimes I get tempted by fallacies about self-esteem and so-called mental disorders. I'm someone that sometimes can't get out of bed in the morning and has trouble accomplishing even small tasks. Calling that a "mental disorder" or "depression" is like calling a garbage man a "sanitation engineer." Ha! Must be some Marxist made that one up! Every schoolchild knows that we're masters of our own destiny here in America!

But even that begs the question: if I had some debilitating illness that prevented me from being productive to society, then why waste society's time and resources trying to make me well? That seems stupid. I mean, it's not like I have any marketable skills or anything.

See, and here's the best part: I don't really believe any of this. I'm just looking for tons of fan mail to splicer@pigdog.org telling me, "No, d00d, you're not a loser! You're s00per-speshul and we love yu!"

I can't think of anything more pathetic than asking for validation from Pigdog Journal readers. Can you?

My Loser-Fu is Unstoppable!

oarsman@pigdog.org