The Gate Keeper: A Tale of Hope, Change and Unintended Consequences
A Tragi-comedy by Mike Vanderboegh in two scenes, playing soon at a congressional office near you.
(Author's Note: My thanks to Big Mike Barlow for suggesting the idea.)
Scene the First
13 December 2012
Chuck fumbled with the keys, dropped them, snatched them up and, finally, got the door open. The hospice nurse, alerted by the noise, was already up and standing in the middle of the front room. One look at her careworn face told the story.
"I'm sorry Mr. Daniels," she said anyway. "She's gone."
Chuck dropped his keys on the table as he always did, cognizant only of the thought that nothing would ever be the same again.
Theresa was dead, then. Killed by health care rationing.
They had known this was the way it was going to be. Theresa had even stood in the town meeting, oh, how long ago, and told the congressman that if the Health Care Bill passed as written that it would come to this. They never thought it would be her. But she had been right. Government health care killed her. Too late diagnosed. Finally treated, too little, too late. And then, at the last, the "gate keepers" refused to pay for an experimental treatment that had shown great promise. Too "unproven," they said.
Now she was gone.
What was there left to say?
Maybe, just maybe, there was one thing.
Scene the Second
21 December 2012
The congressman was alone as he finished cleaning out the desk drawers in his local office. He'd laid off the rest of his staff, and even his secretary and part-time bed partner had gone, seeking other employment.
He had been defeated last month, by the revulsion and backlash created by the government-run health care system he had worked all his life to pass. Well, there was one thing he could hold onto. Like every other entitlement program ever made into law, they'd never repeal this one. Health care for all, the crown jewel of his legislative record, would never be repealed. The country was stuck with it now, and there was damn all his opponents could do about it.
The congressmen smiled, if bitterly. It was cold comfort for losing all those perks he had for so many years. But it was comfort.
The door to his office opened, and suddenly a man stood there. What the hell? I know I locked the front door.
"Who the hell are you?" the congressman demanded.
The man looked inoffensive enough. He had a beaten air about him. A sadness.
"I'm Theresa's husband."
"Who's Teresa?" The congressman balked, wondering if this was a jealous husband. He never could remember names.
"Not Teresa, The-resa," the man corrected.
"OK, who is she?"
"Just a woman you killed."
"What the hell are you talking about? I never killed anybody. Who the hell are YOU?"
Chuck Daniels smiled then, and it was a smile that frightened the congressman to his core.
"Why, don't you know? I'm your gate keeper."
"Gate keeper? What the he . . ." His voice stopped, as he involuntarily sucked in air at the sight of the pistol.
Where had that come from? the congressman wondered dully. Looking at his death, he could think of nothing to say.
"And congressman?"
The congressman just looked at him.
"Application denied."
The shot seemed impossibly loud, even in the palatial room.
Postscript: This little drama is currently being scripted by Nancy Pelosi and her pals in the Imperial City of DC. The dramatic license taken for its future possible unintended consequences is my own. Feel free to spread this as far and wide as you like. Just do it in its entirety, unedited, with the information below. Oh, and be sure to send one copy to your congresscritter. It is only fiction, after all. Certainly nothing could ever happen like this. You think?
Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Pecenters
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
24 comments:
You STILL seem bound and determined to put that big "SHOOT ME FIRST!" sign out in your front yard!!!
But you know, maybe it is only my typically depressed mental state, but the lesson that I take from this is something I've really known for a long time. Id est:
if a man loses all hope and feels that he has nothing at all left to lose, that man becomes a merciless, implacable and utterly relentless foe. He is the last thing on earth that his enemy will ever see.
People might do well to realize this fact. No one is immune; no one is invincible.
Your tale is why I expect a full court press for confiscation soon.
In fact I'm surprised they didn't do it before trying to ram cap & trade and universal healthcare through.
Thought provoking! Good job Mike.
Pickdog
III
P.S. Posted at http://texaspreppersnetwork.blogspot.com/
"The country was stuck with it now, and there was damn all his opponents could do about it."
Missing word after "damn"?
Loved it though. Absolutely loved it.
As I read this I am 4 hrs. from attending our local Town Hall meeting. Perhaps I should take a copy to my local Congress Critter.
Bob in Oregon
Done!!!!
Copied it to a word document.
Also sent it around in it's entirety to everyone that I know.
Bob
III
I love fiction short stories. But ya know, in a country run by dictators this wouldn't really be fiction would it? Lucky this is the United States and we don't have dictators.
One other thing Mike, if that sign in your front yard gets to be too noticable, we can make room here until they have bigger issues to deal with.
Weaver
I sometimes think you live in my head.
Full Court Press for confiscation after a half-dozen or so of the 635 are subject to the forseeable but unintended consequences of suddenly and greatly increased dot-gov power.
Expect much weeping and gnashing of teeth over the sudden and unrelated loss of "fine men and women with only the future of their country and the world in mind".
Then, scapegoats who "inspired and provided detailed suggestions for the actual killers" would be rounded up and be subject to "the kind of in-terror-gation that they deserve". That would include Mike and a few other Administration-critical bloggers, as well as the usual suspects.
It would be extra-unfortunate for the confiscators if no firearms or edged weapons were used on the subjects. Blunt objects (hands and feet) and gravity are the weapons of choice among most loss of life in the USA.
Since "conservatives" work in singles (lone wolf offenders) and tiny cels, it's difficult to infiltrate them. (start tiny sympathy string music here) The only solution is to make the whole country an armed camp while the whole of the militia is processed through interrogation camps and guilt determined. There might be some friction generated at this stage.
Has anyone considered that the hard-Left might begin a campaign of terror against the 635 ('specially "unreliable" Democrats) who don't vote their platform? Oh, no, they are the peace-and-love folks, like the SEIU enforcers at Town Hall Meetings!
Nobody talks and everybody walks. This is much easier when no one knows anything or even knows anyone who might know something.
Will being a registered Democrat voter make a difference? Naaaa.
Cheers.
They are working on the guns as an international issue instead via the UN and the OAS. The socialists know that the NRA and grassroots organizations have too much influence for a bill brought up by the US govt to pass.
Try a different route. It takes 2/3 of the Senate to ratify a treaty, but it's coming.
"Has anyone considered that the hard-Left might begin a campaign of terror against the 635 ('specially "unreliable" Democrats) who don't vote their platform?"
They have already been caught doing this, the guy with the obama/hitler poster was a plant by the dems. I would not put ANYthing past them to get what they want.
Weaver
Another top notch story.
Have the protagonist use an axe or even a machete. If that story was written as a book, the next chapter would be about gun confiscation.
There are other tools that can be used.
'I stand at the gate, my sword forever unsheathed.'
From The Trip
Well sir, when YOU poke a large burning stick into the entrance of a churning wasp's nest, you really like to "rattle it around a bit", don't you? (chuckle)
This whole scene is becoming rather surreal, and reminds me of the initial few moments from the famous movie car chase sequence in the 1968 movie "Bullitt".
First the hit men's Dodge Charger is slowly stalking Steve McQueen's fastback Mustang....and then with a few deft turns, the bad guys suddenly see Steve McQueen in THEIR review mirror.
Right now everyone is snuggling down their seat belts as tightly as possible. We all know that the traffic light is fixing to change.
Good story. Now what? I hope you don't think that when they make a move on you, that I'm going to just sit here and watch.
"Government health care killed her. Too late diagnosed. Finally treated, too little, too late. And then, at the last, the "gate keepers" refused to pay for an experimental treatment that had shown great promise. Too "unproven," they said."
This happens every day right here and now, no health care bill required. The only difference between your scenario and present day is that an insurance company bureaucrat is the gate keeper. So if you'd written this for present day, you could just have your hero shoot an insurance company executive.
This story gave me a scary thought: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8324481&page=1
Think those powers currently using Obama as a sock puppet might have him taken out to create a crisis too big to waste?
Mike, great story. Its a short version of John Ross's book "Unintended Consequences" which is a great read for any who haven't yet. Keep the faith and keep writing.
"The only difference between your scenario and present day is that an insurance company bureaucrat is the gate keeper. So if you'd written this for present day, you could just have your hero shoot an insurance company executive."
Haha NO. If it had been the present day, she would have lived. The costs would be insane due to the state of the economy, but there would be no story because the protagonist's wife would still be alive due to not being refused care in the first place.
Anonymous @ 8:15
"This happens every day right here and now, no health care bill required. The only difference between your scenario and present day is that an insurance company bureaucrat is the gate keeper."
Pull your head out of your ass. When the insurance company bureaucrat says "no", all that means is that the insurance company will not _pay_ for it. When the government says "no" what they mean is that you WILL NOT GET it. Period. And they are quite willing to kill people to make _their_ "no" stick.
As I mentioned in another comment for another thread, the right false flag attack with the MSM circus to follow, and you can count on the imbeciles and traitors to sign it all away "for the children".
When would it be most advantageous for such a thing to occur, is difficult to say. My feeling is that some future economic low may be such a time.
When the welfare class is even more huge and desperate, when the middle class is squeezed into near nonexistence, when LEO/military particularly cherish their paycheck - in other words, when the unwashed look to the government the most and others have the least financial means to oppose it - that seems like the right context for something such as that.
The next economic low should have already been here, if the game wasn't such a travesty of crony capitalism and welfare as redistributed from the middle class. But it is coming, and the question is how soon.
The economic picture (i.e. the precise dynamics of the decline/collapse) in the short term is unpredictable, given the vast sway the inaccessible unaccountable plutocrats (at home and abroad) have over it. Long term, the country's middle class is declining into the abyss and I am convinced through lengthy research that we have passed the point of no return.
As Claire Wolfe put it, it is too late to work within the system (on the national level). I feel that our best bet is forming enclaves of sanity, concentrated in states that would push back using States' Rights, and to protect ourselves against the coming inflation and the IRS grown many times its current size, its computerized nose in every transaction. And, lastly, to be ready to vote from the rooftops.
To bob-r
Remove your own head from it's favorite spot. If the insurance company says no and it's the vast majority of procedures, you aren't likely to get it anyway because you won't be able to afford it. And it happens every day right here and now. To paraphrase Gandhi, what does it matter if you're killed by government run health care or private health care (or the lack of either), you're still dead.
Folks, if you have not been a veteran, especially a Vietvet, needing health care through the VA, and been a witness to the sprawling displays of ineptitude, bureaucracy instead of medical care, and casual dispensing of incorrect and sometimes therefore lethal medications, topped by being kept in painfully sub-standard housing which is no doubt owned by some politician or bureaucrat and lucratively leased to the VA, then you have not experienced the archetype of nationalized health care which we already have in full operation in this nation.
Check it out: just about the worst nightmare you can imagine, and getting worse for every vet in need of care.
There are no unintended consequences; only earned ones. They are earning theirs by their lies, fraud, theft, force, and deafness.
Be safe, keep your head down, and plan to survive.
feralfae
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