The only answers I could come up with is that I was obliged to have faith in the system that gave him his license.
- The relevant Dentist association for accreditation.
- The Government watch dogs.
- The threat of a law suit if he stuffed up.
For all I know he probably was a Russian IT hacker who had a fetish about being a dentist and liked the idea of sticking needles in peoples mouths and inflicting pain.
This is the thing. I believe you should have the freedom to see an unlicensed dentist. And, actually you do, if you have the money. You could go to a different country, and you could see a dentist that isn't licensed in the USA. And believe me, the standard is much lower in some western countries and higher in some others, and some eastern countries. Even within the USA you can see dentists that are qualified, but are next to clueless.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to see a dentist in Brazil - unless they were licensed by the ADA in the USA. Just try and imagine that. If a person in Brazil, wanted to practice dentistry, they had to somehow get into a hundred thousand dollar program in the USA - one that favored US undergraduate students (so, they'd have to attend a US University for undergrad too). Now, imagine if the PTB simply said: This is for your safety. American Universities are better, and so this is the law now.
Would you object? Don't you care about safety?
Of course you would object. There's a magic that happens within the magical boundaries of Nation States. Suddenly, you're part of the team. Or not. Weird huh? That whole in-group out-group thing.
So, again, I have no problem with PRIVATE licencing, so long as there's a free market and people are free to set up their own private schools and set their own standards. Then it's up to you, as a customer, to determine which licence you'd like your dentist to have, if one at all, and then go there. The nice thing is, you could probably just check on your smart phone as to if they were the real deal. And the added competition would see to it that the quality, as well as the reference checks went up. I mean, how often do you accidentally go to a fake Apple Store and buy a fake iPhone7S? It just doesn't normally happen in your own town - you know who's who. You don't buy shit out of the back of a car thinking you're not being ripped off, or doing something semi illegal.
THIS is how we live without fear. In a free society. Not in a Governed society.
I guess the point I am attempting to make is that with out the societal institutions that regulate and manage people's offerings I would have to take out my own teeth.
Sorry to tell you, but you have misplaced a lot of faith in public institutions. I know MD's who don't know the difference between mmol and umol. Imagine that. Or cannot find a liver on an X-ray. Or really don't care one way or the other. Others are very good, but the standard is way out of wack. Thanks to government forced regulatory capture and rent seeking through licencing.
A free market MUST do better - because it'd have to out-compete what is already here, or no one would buy their product. Which is why there isn't a free market.
The USA has a number of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and whilst far from perfect THEY are simply all you have. If people can not trust these agencies to do the job they are paid to do with all the over sight being applied then perhaps a fictional God is all you have left.
Get rid of most of them. For the most part, they're a waste of money and resources. Consolidate at the first opportunity.
So
Michael what allows you the privilege of sleeping at night with some certainty that you wont be nuked, murdered, abducted, tortured etc in your sleep?
You're more likely to be killed in a US city of medical error (480,000 a year) than anything else (assuming you don't smoke). As for being nuked, we're the only nation to have nuked another (well, France nuked a few nations in the pacific, so, there is that).
The only answer is the good will of those with whom you choose to live with or the country you choose to live in.
Which is why I keep pushing for a return to a free society with a limited government. The best way to get the best out of people is to force them to work WITH one another by removing the government option (the option to use violence against morally innocent humans). This cannot happen when the name of the game is political control.
Throw the good will out the window with your paranoia and you have none of that certainty.
I'm no more paranoid than the framers of the US Constitution. They wrote a Constitution to protect the Citizens FROM their own government. The entire thing is about trying to chain and restrain government - yet, here we are, 200 years later with the largest government humankind has ever seen. And that's the cycle. Freedom leads to prosperity, leads to jealousy, leads to government, leads to decline, collapse of government and social services, and freedom again.
Throw the USA intelligence and law enforcement, legislative, judicial services out the window and suddenly you have no civilization beyond some ancient form of tribalism involving over 200 million souls.
I didn't say anything about tossing the judicial services out the window. The one primary role a government has is judicial. Most everything else is a form of socialism. As a matter of fact, there's really little need of government, once common law is in place.
Sound money derived through free exchange with people
Laws that protect private property and uphold contract
Civil liberty and the freedom to trade.
It is so easy to tear something down, to blow it up, to bomb the sh*t out of civilians, but it is damn hard work to create something that works even if far from perfect.
True. I actually think IQ has a huge role to play here actually. It's probably not possibly to maintain society (post-modern) without an average IQ of 95 or greater.
Yet, we seem happy to blow that up together with Western culture.
We'll see how that works out for us.
So the next time you go to the dentist for that urgent dental work remember to ask you self the question "Why do you trust the doctor with your life?"
And next time you walk down the street ask yourself why you trust the intelligence and law enforcement services with your life... because whether you like it or not you are and you do.
Law enforcement is not the same as intelligence services. And, again, if you don't smoke, you're probably going to die of medical error - ironically enough.
Do you trust Wiki Leaks with your life?
Do you think Julian Assange give one hoot about whether you breath or not?
Do you trust Putin with your life?
These sound paranoid.
Yeah even Trump needs and makes use of the protection provided by the very systems he is denigrating.
end of rant
Believe me, the last thing we want, is Trump fixing something. That'll set a very bad example of how to organize society. See, people secretly want a strong alpha male to fix their problems. When they see it happen, they decrease their testosterone production and get a little hit of dopamine. Crazy isn't it? It helps them settle in to the role as a beta.
#notallmales.
Females also have certain biological changes.
This sort of primes society for wanting an alpha. Which is why we have the position POTUS. It's the equivalent of an alpha male in primate social hierarchy.
I was serious about that IQ, there's no fixing that one. Once it's gone, it's gone for good (well, minus some serious technology we're far from ever inventing). I'd be more worried about that, if I were living in the West. That and the undermining of Western culture - which is, IMO, the greatest example of humanity and blossoming of civilization in history. Though, Japan has turned out well - that said, Graeco-Buddhism had a huge impact on the East. And here we are, watching it's utter destruction, right before our eyes.
Fascinating. Thank the Gods for the internet so we can capture some of it before it's gone.
