RE: STC is broken

[Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I found your post especially interesting, as my father
is a retired doctor who practiced medicine in the USA
for more than 45 years.

No, I am not writing to castigate you for insulting my
father's profession. I have no intention of debating
with you the rightness or wrongness of your
statements. My interest is in knowing whether you, a
fellow writer, a presumed professional in the art of
communicating exactly your true meaning, are engaging
in slander by design or by accident. I know that
sometimes, when people are writing on their own and
are not at work, they will use a more personal and
emotive means of expression than they would use in
job-related communications. I am interested in knowing
whether you understand the full awfulness of the
insult and accusation expressed in your post, and the
possibility of you having left yourself open to a
lawsuit. 

For example, you made the following statements which
are characteristic of the entirety of your post:

> Doctors and lawyers don't often work in groups of
> hundreds or thousands,
> but their guilds regulate them (a little) and keep
> their clubs exclusive
> (sorta), and collude with government, thereby
> keeping membership numbers
> controlled and prices up. 


> Between government (that gives them the clout to
> enforce) and the
> medical association that does the enforcing, the
> number of doctors is
> kept artificially low. 


In these lines you have written of doctors engaging in
behind-the-scenes machinations for the purpose of
artificially restricting the availability of medical
services. In your post you are literally accusing the
doctors in your country of engaging in an unethical
greed-based conspiracy to deliberately deny your
countrymen vitally necessary services. 

Are you fully aware of the fact that you are quite
literally publicly accusing an entire class of
professionals of engaging in a conspiracy against the
health and the very lives of their own countrymen?

I admit I am not aware of how Canadian law would
address such a matter. I am not very knowledgeable of
the exact nature of American law in such matters
either, but I do know enough about American law to
make me feel relatively certain that, had you directed
your remarks against American doctors, you probably
would have left yourself wide open to a slander
lawsuit. I imagine that there are similar
possibilities under Canadian law.

I very strongly suggest that, before you make serious
public accusations against the ethics, morals, and
actions of every last practitioners in an entire
professional field, you should amass a huge body of
corroborating evidence to support the charges you
make, and have it ready to present to any lawyers who
may come calling, just in case. If your post ever
comes to the attention of any Canadian doctors, you
may need it. 

If the doctors in Canada really are the underhanded
Machiavellian types that you seem to believe they are,
if they really are the type of people who willingly
abuse the laws of their country and the lives of their
countrymen for their own economic benefit, then they
must be expected to be the types of people who would
have no qualms about using the law to take revenge
against someone whose public expressions displease
them or offer some threat to their prestige or
reputation. In short, if they're really that crooked,
you may have just painted a target on your forehead.

Have any opinions you want; I have no argument against
your way of thinking. But I really, honestly think you
need to be a little more concerned about not leaving
yourself open to legal attack.

In any case, good luck. 



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