Picturing preventative measures and addressing a problem's roots

I've decided to learn more about HTML code relating to posting images so that my blog can be as fancy as BK Marcus's. More specifically, I wanted to be able to post images and have text appear to the left or to the right of them instead of just posting an image and having text below it. The picture that I'm experimenting with here is one of pianist Brian Haas of the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. In addition to having text appear to the right of the image, the image itself should be a link to a larger version of the picture that'll allow you to notice that the sticker on the side of his Fender Rhodes piano says "A True Patriot Questions Our Lying Government".

That sticker happens to be one of two stickers that the band gives out to audience members for free at their live gigs. The other sticker says "Doctors Should Teach Nutrition Not Pharmaceutical Addiction". Wise words coming from a group of 20-something jazz virtuosos. The idea behind that commentary on doctors seems to be rooted in the idea that the modern medical profession focuses almost exclusively on treating patient symptoms, often with drugs that can be addictive and/or harmful, rather than teaching preventative measures such as nutrition. Such preventative measures, if absorbed and implemented by people, would increase one's sense of self-responsibility and initiative in the face of a culture increasingly identified with traits such as dependancy on institutions for one's well-being. Then again, a healthy populace would endanger both the profitability of the medical profession and the fate of a government system determined to promote dependancy and increase it's scope of power.

Despite the radical messages promoted by Jacob Fred, I'm disappointed to announce that they're thinking is not as libertarian as you might think. I've read various interviews with band members where they will state the importance of cutting military spending so that the government can spend more money on education, health care and other social services instead. They were also enthusiastic supporters of Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who remained in the Presidential campaign right up until John Kerry's official claim to the Democratic nomination. Kucinich may have an anti-authoritarian streak to him on certain selective subjects, but his support for things like nationalized government health care and increased state interference in other realms is disappointing to say the least. I find it troubling that people can condemn the government and accuse it of lying one minute, then hope that the right people can use the same coercive apparatus to alleviate problems that are mere symptoms of a greater affliction the next minute. It reminds me of Albert Jay Nock's declaration that sending in good people to reform the state is like sending in virgins to reform the whorehouse.

I think the members of JFJO have the right idea by calling upon doctors to teach self-responsibility and prevention to improve one's health rather than continue to merely address symptoms caused by a medical affliction that could have been prevented in the first place. If that is an admirable route to take in regards to one's health, why can't the same line of thinking be applied to address societal problems and prevent the types of suffering and injustice that plagues our nation? Whether the problem is foreign conflict, rising health care costs, growing economic inequality, inadequate education for students, or anything else that troubles us, the root cause of these maladies is government intervention which is rooted in limiting peoples' options and protecting the politically privledged by means of aggression. If you like the idea of giving peace a chance, then the consistent thing to do is to not only condemn aggressive measures abroad but also at home, as Roderick Long challenges us to do in his open letter to the peace movement.

Relying on government to address the symptoms of a sick culture can be just as harmful and addictive as popping pills to address the symptoms of a sick body. If preventative measures are as wise as people think they are, then surely such measures should be applied to as many problems as possible. With government itself causing so much suffering, shouldn't limiting it's destructiveness be considered the proper prescription to our problems? As Henry David Thoreau once said: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." We need a few more people willing to strike at the root instead of merely treating symptoms, or as Thoreau would say, swinging at branches.