BUREAUCRATIC AMBILATERAL ANOSOGNOSIA (C)1995 Alan M. Schwartz Cerebrovascular accidents - strokes, if you lack health insurance - kill portions of a brain by ischemia, anoxia, and neurotoxic reaction to re-established blood circulation. Paralysis is infrequently escorted by bizarre behavior called anosognosia. The subject honestly denies any physical disability, attributes inert limbs (often "left behind!") to relatives or the doctor, and weaves elaborate excuses to justify not using the affected anatomy. This baffling world view is passionately embraced. How does this differ from social engineering and Welfare legislation? Anosognosia mysteriously abates if cold water is poured into the affected side's ear. Cold water lopsidedly cools the inner ear to launch convection currents throughout the fluid filling its vestibular canals. Massive data flow therefrom is interpreted as continuous violent head movement by the brain's parietal cortices. Feedback triggers eye compensation called nystagmus - they wildly oscillate in their sockets for up to two hours. An ordinary person would be scourged by motion sickness. The anosognosiac returns to behavioral normalcy, acknowledging both current and past paralysis as an unfortunate but unexceptional event. When the eyes settle down anosognosia returns, complete with a sincere denial of the preceding period of normal cognition. Government performs admirably during periods of national disaster or crisis, then returns to snafu-as-usual and denies the everyday pertinence of its prior actions. Has Washington suffered the bureaucratic analog and corollary of severe organic brain damage? America was founded upon self-reliance. The absence of a hereditary nobility and other traditions of protected or enforced class ascendancy denied a place to hide from the vicissitudes of physical reality and social Darwinism. Forced to stand upon their own two legs, and often to run at full speed, the citizenry accomplished some impressive deeds: Steel, oil, railroads; Wall Street, Detroit, Hollywood; the stable national consolidation of most of a continent. One need only compare the United States to Canada to appreciate the dangers of centralized authority unshackled by liability. As we exited the first quarter of the 20th century we suffered a massive stroke called the Great Depression. Government policy was reformulated to deny fundamental shortcomings. President Roosevelt created legislative seed crystals which began transforming personal responsibility and individual rights to government administration and group rights. As the damage spread the denials escalated. President Johnson ameliorated the catastrophe of government incursion into everyday life with his Great Society - bureaucratic ambilateral anosognosia - wherein every aspect of personal financial input and outflow became a government prerogative. If you were able, you were penalized with taxes and regulation obstructing your abilities. If you were disabled, a golden cornucopia was shoved into your lap. The Protestant Reformation decried Roman Catholic nepotism (inheritance of office) and sales of indulgences (pre-paid sins). Today we suffer a powerful and unaccountable, self-perpetuating bureaucracy and its Welfare State. The solution to the calamities of government oversight is the installation of more government oversight. Welfare creates more Welfare recipients, so we need more social legislation. National health care creates insurmountable fiscal burdens, so we need more health care legislation. Social Security will be bankrupt within a decade, the national debt is monstrous, Federal regulation has suffocated manufacture, international trade is hogtied. How much more government in pursuit of remedying the evils of government can we endure? After public life is plundered, private life is plundered. Multiculturalism denies national identity. Social engineering has given us the TV SAP channel in any language for English programs, but never in English for foreign language programs. Ballots in Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean, and Chinese ridicule the concept of a citizenry imbued with civic ambience. Our most stupid students are celebrated to encourage their self- esteem; our most able students are punished for their abilities. What few scholarships are awarded for demonstrated scholarship? Is our society crippled? No! We are helping victims to lead more meaningful lives. Unlike a brain victim to irreversible biological catastrophe, the vital members of a damaged society can reconstruct it back to health. Coercive government is a metastatic, invasive cancer. It denies its blunders with spin, smoke and mirrors - administrative anosognosia. Elections are buckets of cold water poured in government's ear. Watch those eyes twitch! A tale is told of an anosognosiac finding somebody else's leg in bed with him one morning. He tossed it away in horror, and found himself thrown to the floor! I love my country, but I fear my government as it prepares to discard the foreign object that was America.