In 2005, I had my first hip surgery. If you’ve ever had true hip pain, you know how debilitating it is. The week prior to my surgery, the spurs and rough surfaces on my hip joint were awful. Ouch. So, at 54 years old, I decided it was time for a steel hip with smooth surfaces and no pain. In 2011, I had my right hip replaced. Same issues and same result. The pain was eliminated, and I was sold on hip replacements for people in a similar condition. In fact, while I was on the campaign trail going door-to-door in my district and encountered people who were having hip issues, they would frequently tell me they were considering the operation.
That’s when I would swing into advocacy mode, tell them of my experience and suggest that they too might have a similar good result. Little did I know that even while I was preaching the gospel of hip surgery, the prosthesis inserted in my left femur in 2005 was gradually sinking deeper into the bone. That wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did and over time, as it sunk, my left leg was getting shorter. There was no hip pain per se associated with that, but when your legs aren’t the same length, you get misaligned. And because of that, I began to limp because of thigh, lower back, and knee pain. At times my left leg would seem to “give out” or cramp badly. It hurt. It hurt a lot.
Soon sleeping was a problem. Climbing stairs slowly became like climbing Annapurna, not that I ever have. Elevators became my friend. When my doctor showed me x-rays from the last two years the verdict was clear. Time to replace the hip stem prothesis in my left femur with one that would be longer and fix the difference in my leg length. In other words, it was time for realignment.
The actual change in my leg length is small. But when your body gets misaligned, even just a tad so, you begin to subtly compensate for the pain. In the process, things get worse because as you try to adjust for the discomfort, new complications crop up that cause more torment. In time a small thing becomes a big problem.
It seems to me that is a metaphor for life. Neglect a small thing, pay it no mind, gloss over the problem, or wish it away. None of that works. Even in families that are in distress after years of unresolved dysfunction. Want evidence? Ask King Charles III about family struggles. A palace doesn’t shield you from it. A small thing can be a big thing for anyone even for a monarch.
We see it in our communities where crime and homelessness become entrenched. Neighborhoods become beset with drug abuse with used needles in easy reach of a child on a playground. Public streets become community cesspools. Smash and grab robberies become the standard way goods are acquired by lawless thugs. Urban areas have become free fire zones for senseless murders, even the deaths of innocent bystanders whose only sin was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Small problems can become big ones for communities.
And nationally, this is true as well. The multiplicity of social programs did not happen overnight. The do-gooders in government started small and then added to the list over time. It’s a big problem today. Consider one fact. In fiscal year 2022, the government spent $6.27 trillion, which was more than it collected in revenue, resulting in a huge deficit. Our national debt is now $31.7 trillion. It started small. It’s now gargantuan and an obscene threat to the future of our children and grandchildren. That we have permitted this is irresponsible profligate behavior. It was like boiling a frog. Simply turn up the heat slowly and before the toad knows it, it’s cooked. And unfortunately, we have set the conditions for an economic pork roast. But like a bad hip, we cannot neglect it or pretend the problem isn’t there and that printing more money is the answer. British Prime Minister Margret Thatcher summed up excessive spending aptly.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Limitless spending is not a small problem, it’s a big one. But it started small by thinking “surely we can spend a little to help people.” Indeed, when you become a nation that thinks that you have it “coming to you” through government largess, think about this. A government big enough to give you every small thing you want, is big enough to take every big thing you have.
I think America needs hip surgery to deal with its big problems.
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