By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.
Intrusive gropes of traveler’s private parts by TSA’s government employees is just the latest overreach of this administration to “grope and grab” every aspect of our lives.
Here are some examples:
- Grope our bodies, literally or by x-ray, treating everyone as an equal threat to safety, and grab harmless items.
- Grope our medical privacy in the electronic records the government wants for every medical visit.
- Grab our right to choose our medical treatment with our physician, rather than the government panels now being created.
- Grope our financial records in the new “reform” act.
- Grab our money for higher health insurance premiums to cover new Obamacare mandates.
- Grope and grab our paycheck with more reporting and higher taxes.
- Grab our liberty to choose how we pay for medical care.
- Grope and grab our food choices with a food bill being rammed through in the lame duck Congress: as with “healthcare reform it has to be passed into law before we can see what’s in it.
- Grope and grab our CO2 emissions–from traveling, from heating and cooling our homes, even from eating high-fat foods—in a vast new EPA power grab.
- Grab our energy sources with drilling bans onshore and offshore.
- Grope and grab our 401k and IRA plans in a proposed mandate to buy Treasury bills.
- Grope and grab 30% of all personal and business international wire transfers of money beginning 1-1-2013, buried in the “Jobs” bill.
- Grab added 3.8% tax on the gain over $250,000 on sale of our homes
- Grab our kids’ toys, mandating removal from Happy Meals, starting in San Francisco.
The TSA indiscriminate body scans and intrusive gropes are a good example of what Benjamin Franklin warned against when he said in 1755 that “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” His statement is often misquoted to omit the key adjectives essential liberty and a little temporary safety, which then changes the meaning significantly. He recognized that we always have to make tradeoffs.
In the name of airline safety, millions of Americans are being deprived of their fundamental, essential 4th Amendment liberty and have not really gained any greater safety than we had with the walk-through magnet and targeted pat-downs. Body cavities can still be used by suicide bombers to carry explosives. And cargo is incredibly still not being adequately screened for explosives. So it is only the illusion of “enhanced security” that is being offered in exchange for gross violations of our bodies and our liberty—and without the basic safety precautions required in medical x-ray facilities, or the infection control precautions demanded of medical personnel. This grope-and-grab policy, like the others, is about control and subjugation of the public, not security. What price are we willing to pay in dignity and privacy for the illusion of more safety?
The government pretends it is all “for our own good.” Anybody could be a potential terrorist, and we as consumers and patients are too stupid to know how to manage our own lives. Dr. Donald Berwick, recess appointed head of Medicare and Medicaid even said it directly in July 2008 as he celebrated the 60th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service: “I cannot believe that the individual health consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as healthcare. That is for leaders to do.”
Based on 30 years of medical practice, I disagree vehemently. Patients and physicians acting as partners make far better medical decisions than any government bureaucrat I have ever encountered.
We are being incrementally stripped of our liberties at an alarming rate, like the proverbial frog in a pot of gradually warming water. Once we have lost all, it is too late to jump out of the boiling water, back to our essential liberty our Founders fought to achieve.
The fundamental question is this: Do you want the government groping and grabbing all these aspects of your life, or do you feel YOU should make the choices that are best for you? It really isn’t a dispute over whether changes need to occur – it is whether the changes should be planned centrally by Washington to control and direct your life, or whether YOU are empowered to make the changes that are best for you, the individual.
I think it is high time we demand that our new Congressional representatives start off the New Year with a bold halt to the federal government “grope and grab.” That’s a New Year’s Resolution for change we can live with.
©Elizabeth Lee Vliet, MD 11-30-2010
Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.
http://www.aapsonline.org/ AAPS – The Voice for YOU, Not The Government!
Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. is a women’s health specialist and the Founder of HER Place: Health Enhancement Renewal for Women, Inc. with medical practices in Tucson AZ and Dallas TX.
Dr. Vliet is President of International Health Strategies, Ltd., a global healthcare and education service company whose mission is twofold: liberty in the choice of treatment options and preservation of the Hippocratic tradition of focus on the individual patient.
Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women in recognition of her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. She is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and member of The International Menopause Society, The International Society of Gynecological Endocrinology, American Society of Reproductive Medicine, The Heritage Foundation, and The Freedom Alliance.
Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She received B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from The College of William and Mary in Virginia.
Dr. Vliet’s books include: It’s My Ovaries, Stupid!; Screaming To Be Heard: Hormonal Connections Women Suspect– And Doctors STILL Ignore; Women, Weight and Hormones; The Savvy Woman’s Guide to PCOS, The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Testosterone.
Dr. Vliet has appeared on FOX NEWS, Cavuto, Stuart Varney Show, Fox and Friends and syndicated radio shows across the country addressing these critical issues. She has been an invited speaker for numerous healthcare Town Hall presentations, and guest speaker on how healthcare regulation changes will not only physical but also financial health.
Dr. Vliet’s medical and educational website is www.HerPlace.com.
Good points! All physicians should refuse any Medicare payments (and support dismantling the program). Pure socialism, and an attempt by the government to control the health care given to our senior citizens. Also, doctors who accept Medicare become wage slaves of the federal government. And you are right-on about the TSA (and Homeland Security). The Bush administration created two huge new police agencies without debate that now spy on me, and strip me down at airports. The old, pre 9/11 metal detectors were fine. If I don’t want to risk the dangers of flying, I have the right to drive or take a ship. There is no need for “enhanced” airport security that clearly is against the 4th amendment.
And, as you pointed out, an attack on our right to McDonald’s happy meals is an attack on our basic freedoms. I’m tired of the federal government forcing people to be healthy. Adults have the right to make decisions for themselves and their children (with the good advice of their personal physician) The tobacco industry was the first victim of the government attack on our freedoms- they were forced to stop advertising a legal product on TV, and the average adult smoker no longer has the right to smoke in restaurants and bars if they feel it is safe for their own health. I understand that some women have been prosecuted for smoking in the car if their children are in the back seat. (Stalin would be approve!) Smoking cessation should be a private matter between a doctor and their patient. Same with nutrition in general, why should the government tell people to lose weight and exercise. Clearly, this is pure communistic “health of the state” behavior!
Don’t even get me started about forcing insurance companies to pay for mammograms, pap smears and colonoscopies. Insurance companies should be free to cover what they want (and is profitable), not be forced to act as agents of the state.
Thank you for your work on this, the freedoms of the American people depend on it!
I agree with Dr. Vliet. We need to stop our government before it is too late. We are loosing all of our freedoms and I for one am tired of hearing how much more we will be giving up. No one should have the authority to tell us what Doctor to use and how much our doctor should be paid. Our Government should begin the cut-backs within it’s own office, instead of hiring more people to keep watch over our health care. A person in Washington has no idea what is good for my health, only my physician knows that. We need to stand firm against these issues and stop this socialism at once.
Not overly concerned about screening at airports, because of national security. Can avoid it by not flying. It’s the other snatch and grab stiff I’m pissed about. All started with that atrocious health care bill Obama signed, w/o conscious. Inside the 2000 pages, includes how to fleece taxpayers for financing. Some facets are glaringly unconstitutional, eliminating freedom of choice! There are enemies among us. We have the right to privacy, and it shall not be infringed upon by the government. Obama took an oath to support and abide by the constitution, but apparently he hasn’t studied that either. Seems his puppeteers ate the pages also. Government overspending and allowances, needs to be amended ASAP. Increased taxes as suggested, will only lead to more foreclosures, bankruptcies, and cripple the economy even more. Then we have higher education, which most people can’t afford. Even graduates find themselves in an unemployment line! So much to fix, in so little time. The beginning will be in 2012, ousting the problems outright!
“HELP!” I had a horrible nightmare last night and am looking for suggestions as to how I can forget it. I dreamed I was checking people at our small airport via pat down as we have no electronic equipment. Everything was going very smoothly as I used the pat down procedure a small line of boarding passengers. Then the nightmare really hit me:
THERE STOOD “NANCY PELOSI”, SMILING!!! Suggestions for my recovery?
I agree with everything you said. But, we can’t change a thing until we get Obama, Pelosi, Reid (and their shady friends ) out of the White House. They are all puppets of Soros. Soros seems to be running the show…and it’s a dangerous show. Everything he has touched as failed and our Country is next. We shouldn’t wait until January or 2012 to get these people out….it should be done now. Every day our Country is being eaten away by these traitors of the American People. This is what they believe in and they will not budge! They are good at talking and convincing people they care…but they really don’t care ….while they are planning their next attack on America. You want the real truth about these people…watch Fox News…you will be shocked at what they’ve investigated and found. Call your Congressman and Senators and ask them to start the process today. Get them out of our WH!
I’m real sick and tired of the government doing everyting to try and keep me safe. The government can screw up a sunny day! I haven’t been on a plane in 20 years and I don’t plan to fly now that the TSA is around. The TSA needs to start profiling and targeting suspicious persons instead of harassing the flying public. There’s no need for flyers to go through this nonsense just to get on a plane. Oh but the Muslim women get a pass because it goes against their culture. Give me a break! This is happenng on Barack Hussein Obama’s watch. I want him and his miserable wife to go through the same crap everyone else is going through. Put him in a scanner and make him go through an enhanced pat-down. Then maybe he’ll get the message. Ann Coulter’s right. Get these devices out of the airports and put them in the buildings where Congress works. Stop assuming average citizens are terrorists. If the TSA doesn’t have a valid reason to search someone, THEN DON’T DO IT!!
Thanks to all the government meddling going on, I have nothing to look forward to in my senior years. Hey Feds, contrary to your opinion, the American people are a lot smarter than you are. They know how to live right and they don’t need your help!