Jeff Crouere, writing at Bayou Buzz, can start a train of thought most normally indicating my pending derailment from sanity. But, I do truly appreciate his ability at expressing a thought. You should check it out. He recently posted an article titled: “Louisiana GOP smoke-filled room is no Tea Party.”

Back in the Neolithic age I sprung from there was an arcane format of curative endeavor requiring any endangered juvenile to ingest a form of poison known as Oil of Ricinus communis or as is known today: Castor Oil. At an early age the child would be miraculously healed of any and all maladies suspected of being fallacious or false, especially the disease known to cause a desire to NOT attend school. Anytime you found a child asking for Castor Oil you knew the illness was real though it’s to be admitted this almost never happened.

Throughout the course of medical history many curative efforts have been developed and some of them fall into the realm of what some refer to as “Cruel Medicine”. This is obviously because the medicine or treatment often was at the least distasteful or as in the case of more advanced medicinal combat such as Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy, the effects of the treatment rival the disease in the severity of post-treatment reactions.

And this is where Crouere’s title could be morphed into: Changing National and Louisiana’s GOP politics requires cruel medicine. It’s distasteful to the patient. It has its own dangers inherent in its usage and it takes suffering through it to see the potential results. Many find this acceptable, those on the outside not taking the Cruel Medicine feel the pain of the treatment as much as the patient at times.

The relevance of the GOP to the Tea Party is marginal at best. The GOP has specifically selected candidates drawn from a pool polluted by dogma and doctrine rather than stand by the original principles of conservativeness and fiscal responsibility. In effect, they’ve chosen to “go-along-to-get-along” in the Progressive’s way. They’ve changed one form of pollutant in the miasma politics has become rather than filter the bad from the good.

Dr. Cassidy is a good man. He’s a man of great intelligence and devotion to his profession and his patients. He’d never knowingly violate the integral statement espoused by the Hippocratic Oath: “First. Do not harm”. He is a man (I believe) would rather cut his arm off than hurt a patient.

But, in a progressively practical manner he and many of his medical and political colleagues have mistaken a treatment effort of expediency for a curative effort exercising the need for Cruel Medicine because it’s easier. The practice of medicine has taken this direction as well as politics. In this misdirection of treatment the program has morphed from “First. Do no harm” to “Try not to make it any worse.” This in effect does do harm because it doesn’t heal; it merely treats. This works for politicians and doctors not wanting to make the patient any worse off and appear to be trying to do something/anything doesn’t make it any worse.

Nobody benefits from this train of thought; least of all the patient or the citizens of America.

People like the good doctor (Cassidy) were endorsed and charged by their more conservative proponents to recognize the problems of a very ill patient they found in America. America is on a fast-track toward social, fiscal and foreign policy ruin fostered by treatments with Snake Oil and Medicine Show performances rather than tested and proven efforts at treatment. The good doctor and his colleagues should prescribe the Cruel Medicines necessary to stop the contagious and infectious growth Big Government has become and kill the irresponsible actions of their adversaries in the Congress and White House. The treatment could cause difficulties but it also could produce good results. With the practitioner exercising proper patient care and being fully involved in advising the patient’s recovery; things may get better.

Trying to balance the treatment so as to look responsive to the patients’ needs while enjoying the benefits of appearing to be mindful of the other practitioners’ suggested treatment regimens violates the concept of professional ethics as well as the Hippocratic Oath.

Sometimes treatment must be aggressive. Sometimes, when the battle with disease is joined the patient and the physician must experience the prospective pain of treatment to finally recover and heal.

Thanks for listening.