There has been a report that politicians and their minions in distant Ottawa will be discussing what to do for and to citizens with senile dementia. (If, since the last time I looked, the term senile dementia has become politically incorrect, please forgive me.) What I am thinking about, at a basic level, is the old gentleman who constantly neglects to zip up his fly and the old lady who is not aware that she is stabbing herself and others with her overgrown toenails. If these are the citizens the Ottawa think tank will discuss, I - at the age of 87 - don't know whether to rejoice or be fearful. Whatever they will be doing, I doubt that they will cover the subject adequately.
Dementia is defined as a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes. In my experience, it appears in different people in different forms. People with dementia are demented. I have been demented for most of my adult life. I keep my own counsel, love to work with words and create new gardens and I don't gamble, drink cheap wine or play golf. Real he-men consider me to be a nut case. I also have no affection for over-praised teenage celebrities who believe they can compose music and words to a deathless ditty in 15 minutes. (Handel couldn't do it and he was a real musician.) For this failure to appreciate the popular pursuits of the present, young people call me weird - or whatever term they have invented with the same meaning. Living far from the madding crowd is not a dangerous form of dementia. I hope the politicians don't try to fix it.
There are more dangerous forms of dementia, often unrecognized, in the places where governing bodies dwell. Take, for example, the politicians of our southern neighbour, who believe the sexual practices of their citizens should be controlled by their government, but their greed and their guns shouldn't be.
Again in our southern neighbour, observe the dementia of people debating about instituting a scheme of national health care as though such schemes had not been in effect in other countries for decades.
The two examples given are only a small part of the American scene. There are worse forms of dementia elsewhere. There are religious fanatics who kill in the name of God. There are societies that oppress their own women and prevent them from making the full contribution to the nation of which they are capable.
The most dangerous form of dementia affects those people, known and unknown, who would steal the birthright of generations unborn in order to have and enjoy their own obscene wealth now.
Not all demented people are old and useless.
