Privacy (Part II): Secrecy and Responsibility

Feature Article

Privacy (Part II): Secrecy and Responsibility

Thomas Dorman, MD

Secrecy

You have probably been wondering what the banner at the head of this essay is doing; I am coming to it. The production of new goods or services is dependent (as Karl Marx correctly learnt from David Ricardo) on labor, but he systematically suppressed the more important contribution --- that of the inventor and the entrepreneur. This intentional neglect has been amplified by the propaganda machine, I have alluded to, for the purpose of creating a new religion, albeit an atheist religion(1) in which catechisms are repeated, facts are ignored, logic is dismissed, and repetition, threats and inducements are combined in the brainwashing technique that has been so successful in diverting the attention of most of our youth away from the success, and the tools of success in our civilization, to the tools of destruction.(2,3) What is the essence of entrepreneurship? It is the development of a new idea the entrepreneur will try out for his own profit. It is true that Ludwig von Mises and the other important economists have ascribed the main, and frequently the only, motive of innovation and development to the profit motive. For myself, I beg to differ. I have known a number of entrepreneurs. Myself, I have discovered, invented, and published. It is my belief that it is one characteristic of what I shall call western man that discovery and creation is in itself a motive and a source of gratification. The establishment of a successful farm, industry, enterprise, or the development of new scientific ideas and methods are a source of immense gratification to their creators. One must acknowledge, however, that absent economic viability, new ideas will go nowhere; at least not in the free market. On the other hand, when initiated by dictators, plans may go a long way before they are seen to be futile, as most turn out to be. Absent the discipline of the marketplace, they can be immensely destructive. We have seen this in the withering economies of the communist countries in our own century. It is, therefore, an idea in the mind of a man which is the seed-source of all the good things which come to us. New ideas need to grow in a sheltered environment, usually the environment of the mind of the inventor. So do his first experimentation before innovations can be launched into the economy. From the point of view of the public good, this is the reason for secrecy. It is in our interest, we the consumers, that inventors and entrepreneurs have complete privacy in the developmental phase of their ideas, just as it is in our interest that the patent law will preserve their benefits to enhance the motive to invent and create for all of us consumers.(4) If all thoughts, all new ideas and all inventions, were broadcast widely at the instant of their formation in the mind of an inventor, would we have a society which has developed as it has? Of course we would not. New ideas have great difficulties in our civilization, even with the protections we afford them now. It is salutary to read the history of Galileo Galilei(5) and the well known analysis of the birth pangs of new ideas by Thomas Kuhn.(6) It is, therefore, important to recognize that when we observe the piracy of privacy we are looking into the eyes of the enemy of the essence of our civilization through the destruction of the intelligentsia and the destruction of the middle class, its twin. One of the first novels to ridicule the destructiveness of envy, the Luddite attitude was Erewhon by Samuel Butler. His insights into the mind set of a decaying civilization are more than apropos in our time, though he wrote this work in 1872.(7)

Work Force Development (H.R. 1385)

It is therefore with great sadness that I will reveal to you what your Congress has wrought in the month of September 1998. Those of you who have access to the web will want to verify this for yourselves.(8) An excellent analysis of the specific destruction of privacy rent by this legislation can be found on the website of Berit Kjos.(9,10) Savvy readers will want to peruse this for themselves. However, by the time you read these lines it is likely that the freight-train of legislation and executive orders will have taken us further down this destructive road. This essay is intended as a beacon on principle. This particular legislative assault is but one battle in a war we are loosing.

Trust and Individual Responsibility

Social habits develop in childhood and are based on familial and tribal patterns. We behave as is expected of us. This is one of the reasons we speak of a civilization as a collection of people who share values. The values of the middle class are essentially those of individual responsibility and trust. "Do to others as you would have done unto you." A citizen who has a responsible and reciprocal relationship with his peers lives on his reputation. In private, he might have all manner of weaknesses. In middle class society, he sets out to appear and function as a responsible citizen/participant in society for his benefit, as well as the benefit of all who trade with him. If he has a track record of honor and responsibility --- trust him. This is the essence of middle class ethics. If you invade his privacy, you destroy the responsibility and initiative. This is a delicate balance. When there is no shame and no pride, when man is socially naked, he will function as an animal, or as a slave, at best. You see, there is, in middle class mentality, a psychological need for privacy. Symbolically, this is the fig leaf Adam and Eve donned when they left the Garden of Eden. Wrench away the leaf and you destroy pride, (prejudice) and individuality and with it the engine of entrepreneurship and innovation. The utility reason we need privacy in society is, therefore, to preserve the font of enterprise which has been the engine of development and our standard of living. Of greater significance philosophically is that respect for privacy represents respect for the individual. The individual human is a rational being.(11) There is no conflict between rational men. Middle class society is, therefore, one in which there is true cooperation between peers based on the profit motive for the mutual benefit of all. What is more, the cooperation and benefit to each is proportionate to his contribution. The ethics of the society have to be, however, those of the middle class, the bourgeoisie ethics which Karl Marx ridiculed vituperatively. Only in a society in which this is the standard of ethics, the unspoken, yet taken-for-granted norm will Western civilization flourish. You can understand how it is, therefore, that for the destruction of middle class ethics it is a necessary prerequisite to destroy individuality and its handmaiden privacy. The false psychology of our time, the pretense that diversity is more important than morals and discarding the idea of absolute standards are all part of this destruction. Is it not an irony that the slogan of communism --- "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs" --- is, in fact, met best by laissez faire economies, freedom, and individual responsibility? No, it is not an irony. We have been imprinted with the notion that communism brings these things. The opposite is the truth. This is one of the many examples of newthink, the result of brainwashing.

Medical Privacy

Okay, you might say, there is need for secrecy in business affairs. There is probably need for secrecy in diplomacy(12) but that does not necessarily translate into the need for secrecy about our health. One might argue that the promise each doctor takes, the Oath of Hippocrates, not to broadcast that which he hears from his patient, or which pertains to them, abroad is redundant; do you mind if the public at large, and the government in particular, knows that you have heart disease? Cancer? Or perhaps you consulted your doctor for a panic attack? Perhaps you have recovered from an attack of syphilis; perhaps you are concerned that you have acquired herpes from infidelity; perhaps your gene pool is poor, your health and longevity in doubt; perhaps you are susceptible to dehydration because of the sickle cell trait? Any or all of these items of information might be used against you directly through imposition of restrictions in your workplace or subjecting you to circumstances which will harm you. Do you think it is possible you might be blackmailed? Above all, suppose there was a force out there which thought it necessary to cull the herd; in other words, reduce the world population from six billion to half a billion, as we have heard it declared public policy by the erstwhile Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Henry Kissinger.(13) These are not new plans,(14) and they have been revived in our own time.(15) With the new legislation which compels every so-called "health care provider" to report all medical interactions to a central government database, now not only with an ICD-9 code, but also with complete text. Your medical privacy is going, going... The proposed National Health Identification Number, defeated in Hillary Clinton's plan in 1993, is being reintroduced through the backdoor in several proposed laws.(16) It is self-evident that absent secrecy with your doctor, you will not tell him the most private matters; and, from this state of ignorance, can he give you his best advice? Of course not. It is my opinion, however, that more important than the destruction of your healthcare and the doctor's judgment, is the alienation of patients from their doctors for its own sake. You see, a person's relationship with his private physician, this relationship which Hippocrates described as a holy responsibility of the physician to his client/patient, has been with us for these last two and a half millennia. It represents a business and professional relationship where an individual, a lay person, can come to the halls of science and medicine for a consultation privately and exclusively for his own benefit and use. You see, this is an essential point where the individual citizen has control and, through the process of commercial exchange with his physician, has access to the acme of scientific knowledge which is of interest to him for his own health, for his own benefit. Fracture this relationship, and you are destroying a major pillar of the individual's independence. In years gone by, when Medicine had very little to offer and was even somewhat destructive (think, for instance of blood letting and leeches) there was no great harm in the public deluding themselves that they have this supposed connection with wisdom, but in modern times, when Medicine has so much to offer, is it surprising that the Satanic snake wants to sever this relationship? Your government wants to destroy the privacy of this relationship and any control you might think you have over your own care. We shall take a look at the issue of vaccination, as a case in point.(17)

Vaccination

Control, destruction and harm, when introduced by the enemy, is never introduced in the name of evil; it is always introduced in the name of good.(18) Biblical scholars express this with the term Satan uses dissimulation. Vaccination is a potent tool and, in recent times, we have learnt about its force, for good and evil, more and more. The horrors of the Gulf War syndrome are probably due to an experiment in vaccination or, at best, to an error. There have been strong suspicions that the spread of the HIV infection has been mediated through vaccination.(19,20) Much of this has been summarized in a recent book which you will not find in bookstores.(21) The compulsory tracking of every child, and soon to be every individual in our society, in the name of promoting their health with the process of vaccination is, in my opinion, ominous. I was a little hesitant to express this view for fear of being considered irrationally fearful, i.e., paranoid; however, as I have been investigating this issue (yes, secretly until I made-up my mind [here is an instance of the use of secrecy]) I have found alarming confirmatory echoes in the publications of others.(22,23) Readers might like to peruse these websites, as there is not enough room to include all the information here.

Summary

In conclusion, it is the thesis of this article that privacy is an inherent property right and should be maintained in a civilized society to support the intelligentsia and the middle class as a matter of principle and for the benefit of all. Privacy in medical matters is a special case of this principle. It is not surprising, therefore, that it was enshrined in the Oath of Hippocrates.

This physician promises his patients to abide by the Oath of Hippocrates. This promise has an importance to our civilization which exceeds that of expediency in complying with government regulations or abiding by insurance company demands. To a responsible physician, it has the significance of a holy oath just as Hippocrates defined it.

References/Notes

1. Gramsci A. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York, International Publishers, 1971.
2. Schwarzschild L. The Red Prussian. New York, Chas. Scribner & Sons, 1947.
3. Wurmbrand R. Marx and Satan. Westchester, IL, Crossway Books, 1986.
4. An assault on patent rights is also in progress. Please see this website for information on this part of the assault on private property and our civilization: [email protected].
5. Geymonat L. Galileo Galilei: A biography and enquiry into his philosophy of science. 1957. First published in Italian, recently republished by The Easton Press, Norwalk, CT, 1990.
6. Kuhn TS. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962.
7. Butler S. Erewhon., London, Grant Richards, 1872.
8. H.R. 1385 www.thomas.loc.gov.
9. "WORK FORCE DEVELOPMENT" means life-long indoctrination; a critique of H.R. 1385 by Kjos, Barrett; http://www.crossroad.to
10. Work Force Investment Act of 1998; analysis by Holgate, Karen; Parents National Network, P.O. Box 428, Palm Desert, CA 92271-0428, Phone: 760-360-9949; Fax 760-360-8949; e-mail: [email protected]
11. Rand A. The intellectual bankruptcy of our age. In The voice of reason: Essays in objectivist thought. A Penguin Meridian Book, New York, 1990. p. 85.
12. Nicolson H. Diaries and Letters, 1930-1962. New York, Atheneum, 1968.
13. National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). Implications of worldwide population growth for U.S. security and overseas interests. U.S. National Security Council Report, December 10, 1974. [I have not read this document myself, but have referenced it based on others' reports.]
14. Malthus TR. An Essay on the Principle of Population. First published anonymously, 1798.
15. Report from Iron Mountain on the possibility and desirability of peace with introductory material by Leonard C. Lewin, available from Emissary Pub., 9205 SE Clackamas Rd #1776; Clackamas, OR 97015, 1995.
16. Statement to the Senate, Labor & Human Resources Committee concerning the Bennett-Jeffords Medical Information Protection Act of 1998, submitted by the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc; 1601 N. Tucson Blvd., Suite 9; Tucson, AZ 85716 (800-635-1196); March 9, 1998.
17. Vaccination: 100 years of orthodox research shows that vaccines present a medical assault on the immune system by Viera Scheibner Ph.D. New Atlantean Press, P.O.Box 9628 Santa Fe NM 87504 Phone: 505-983-1856.
18. http://www.cdc.gov/nip/registry/
19. Strecker R. The Strecker Report is no longer available, but an account of the material can be found as in reference 34.
20. Pascal L. Science & Technology Analysis, Working paper No 9. December 1991. University of Wollangong ISBN 0 86418 199 X; from the Dept of Science and Technology Studies, University of Wollangong, P.O.Box 1144, Wollongong NSW Australia 2500.
21. Horwitz L. Emerging Viruses, AIDS and Ebola. 1996. Tetrahedron Pub. Group; 20 Drumlin Rd.; Rockport, MA 01966 (800-336-9266; fax 508-546-226; e-mail Tetrahedron.org; Website http://www.Tetrahedron.org).
22. Written public testimony for the Sunset Review of The Texas Dept. of Health July 1, 1998, submitted by Dawn Richardson and Alison Mullins; P.O. Box 1076; Cedar Park, TX 78630-1071 (512-918-8760).[Much of this legislation is still piecemeal and in progress. This is an example of the situation in the State of Texas.]
23. http://www.privacy.org/pi/reports/biometric.html.

Dr. Dorman is a practicing physician in Washington state. E-mail: [email protected].