Both the medical profession and the chiropractic profession purport to have the same goal, to enable mankind to experience a longer life and better quality of life. If that is the case, why the extreme and opposing points of view? Why is there a major contrast between what we do and what they do? Of course, they give drugs and we do not. There is however, a more important issue–the whole above-down versus outside-in approach. Not what we do but why we do what we do as opposed to why they do what they do. There are probably many reasons but I think one very important one was best summed up by Thomas Jefferson in The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was speaking to a political adversary and was addressing the topic of opposing political views. He was not talking about health care but since politics also has an ADIO viewpoint, his statement is applicable. The third president wrote, “(B)oth of us act and think from the same motive, we both consider the people as our children and love them with a parental affection. But you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses; and I as adults whom I freely leave to self-government.” I think that sums up our contrasting philosophy. We have confidence in the person laying on our table, at least confidence in the innate intelligence that resides within them. We believe it has great healing ability and the ability to keep the body working as well as it possibly can. The medical profession, on the other hand, appears to have little confidence in the body’s healing ability and believes that they need to educatedly intercede on almost every occasion as would a parent with an infant child.
It goes even further than that. We believe that practice members should be given the right and the freedom to use their own educated brains to determine what they should do about their health, their well being and their very lives. They should not be told by a medical professional or a medically-thinking governmental agency what they should and should not do. This of course involves areas that are not purely chiropractic, areas like vaccination, fluoridation and forced medical procedures. Will people always make the right decisions? No, not any more than our adult children always make the right decisions regarding their lives, their marriages or their financial decisions. Does that mean we do not allow them the freedom to govern their own lives? That is a foolish tact and is worse than allowing them to learn from their experiences and mistakes.
Informed and educate people have the ability to make good decisions with regard to their lives. The country was founded upon that principle. Somehow, many have lost sight of that principle. Whether in government, in the medical community or in our own profession, we need to address it. We need to inform and educate people and then allow them the freedom to make decisions. V23n4