When I was early in practice the state organization to which I was a member proposed a law which in essence would outlaw “mixing” by a chiropractor (obviously it was a straight organization) I was an officer and very involved in creating the proposed legislation. A local chiropractor’s wife called me and tearfully questioned why my organization was trying to drive her husband out of business. I gave some smarta** answer which I would not make today. Sadly, today with the CCE, the shoe is on the other foot.They have done it with the schools and likely will do it to individual chiropractors in the future. I was wrong! We should have had no right to force someone else to practice according to our standards or philosophy. I have grown some since that time. Perhaps others need to grow and relate to the standards of a free society and the role of the “marketplace”.
That’s right Joe. Let the free market determine which “chiropractic” survives. Let the consumer determine the fate of either straight chiropractic or evidence-based chiropractic medicine. If, for example, Sherman College wanted to go purely straight and only be a “philosophical” discipline in which there is no basic science or clinical sciences as the other schools have such as National, let the private market determine who survives. As well, the profession will need to uphold the social contract; this is where the straights should form their own profession or that there should be a splitting of the entire profession and let the free market determine who wholly succeeds. It will force both sides to re-invest in their self-determination and probably lower tuition costs of all schools; establish public law in that the straights can only provide “adjustments” for “subluxation” with the sole intent of innate expression while the rest of the profession can compete in the healthcare marketplace. Each side can establish their healthcare regulation. Each side can claim the term “chiropractic” while one is a “straight chiropractor” whereas the other side can claim they are “doctors of chiropractic medicine.” Each state should determine their own practice act in keeping with the state’s right doctrine and not be encumbered by a federal definition of “chiropractic”. Let’s make a clean divorce without waiting for the judge to determine who gets custody of the children and allowing me to have my bass boat back that the new boyfriend is using.
Apparently Tim, the CCE was not satisfied to allow the “free market (to) determine which “chiropractic” survives”. They used the “power politics” which abrogated the U.S. Constitution (and “state’s rights doctrine”) to accomplish their desired objective. What changed your perspective in the last 30 years?
What changed my perspective in the last 30 years? It’s obvious: Nothing is working. Part of the realization has come that my views have changed somewhat over the past several years (which should be allowable) in that the current situation of a large centralized Bureaucracy without elected representation is simply untenable. My discovery of Russell Kirk has really propelled me to think on a different angle than previously. As well as tending to read more on Hayek and Friedman on economics has propelled much of this “change” you have somehow noticed. However, I am still actively opposed to the “straight rhetoric” of “innate intelligence” but it may be high time to separate the professions and let the free market determine the survivability. As Fleetwood Mac argued “you can go your own way.” Let each chiropractor determine which “better deal” will be offered each of them.
I would argue that the CCE was a creation based on the trend to have an accrediting agency that was “federally-approved” in order to receive federal funding thus hence “federal student loans”. And, at the root of all this is, of course, money and a revenue stream.
You have documented your experience and interpretation of events in Refined By Fire. So, I can see your argument as per the federal vs the state regulatory route. I have never really argued from the standpoint of the CCE and accreditation issue(s), just argued from the “chiropractic philosophy as theology” and “subluxation as garbage” viewpoints. So, to ask, what has changed my perspective, is somewhat incorrect as it pertains to a free market ability and association with the CCE. The two never really entered my mind until recently.
For example, I would suggest that the incorporation of pharmaceuticals would allow DC’s to compete in the market yet this will be stymied by efforts by the straight contingent. And plus my small efforts to deconstruct the philosophical basis of chiropractic, along with others, has thus each side essentially performing “mutually assured destruction.” Instead of destroying each other, let each find out the direction they wish to pursue and struggle in each of those directions. You all have provided enough fodder for me to argue with; time to argue from a differing perspective.
Tim, you wrote,”the current situation of a large centralized Bureaucracy without elected representation is simply untenable.” That describes the CCE which as a democratic Bureaucracy will crumble under its own weight or become a dictatorship as has every democracy in history. That ide sure would not be advocated/supported by Kirk or Hayek. You say that you”just argued from the “chiropractic philosophy as theology” and “subluxation as garbage” viewpoints.” You have apparently not been reading this blog or you would know we do not represent chiropractic as theology and disagree with Palmers’ inference.
Most of the profession disagrees with the idea “that the incorporation of pharmaceuticals would allow DC’s to compete in the market…” No…, that would make chiropractic part of the market (medicine), destroy individual’s and state’s right’s freedoms, and either destroy chiropractic as it was created,licensed and intended or cause, as you suggest,“mutually assured destruction.” M.A.D. is what keeps the enemy from attacking. In either case we would be “destroyed” as a profession just as osteopathy is today.