WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED?

My head is still exploding from last weekend's participation in MEATSTOCK in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Being immersed for a day in 1,500 screaming carnivores was an experience unlike any other.  The parade of testimonials explaining nearly miraculous healings from every chronic disease you can imagine would make a believer out of the most dubious.  Truly powerful.  All the women looked like supermodels.  One hadn't eaten anything but meat for 28 years.  No noodles, chips, vegetables, salads, bread--just meat.

                  But that's not what I want to talk about today.  The Uber driver who picked me up from the Knoxville airport to deliver me to Gatlinburg was a chatty, overweight 50-ish gal who lived in a smaller town east of Knoxville and a bit north of Gatlinburg, where Dolly Parton is deservedly held in reverential status.

                  As we got acquainted with the customary small talk, she said "our town has a Wal Mart and hospital; what else do you need?"

                  She said it so matter-of-factly, like it was some sort of axiom like gravity or centrifugal force that it took me aback.  It's another one of the statements I want to follow up with "and she votes."

                  The pairing of Wal Mart and hospital was beyond profound.  In one phrase, she captured almost everything that's wrong with American agriculture, food, and health.  In nature's ecology, we see symbiosis everywhere.  Recent findings regarding soil quorums is on the cutting edge of symbiotic research.

                  Think about the mentality of someone who nonchalantly says: "We have a Wal Mart and hospital, what else do you need?"  Her vision of life is a disconnected Star Trek existence, where these two entities somehow exist in their own universe.  The "what else do you need?" indicates a worldview that these entities live on their own.  They aren't dependent on energy to truck thing to them, farmland and farmers to grow things for them, utilities to provide power.  

                  No, they're a freestanding entity, requiring no supporting cast.  How absurd.  On the one end of thought, then, is illogical segregated.  On the other hand, the pairing indicates an equally absurd reality based in integrated symbiosis.

                  You go to Wal Mart, then you go the hospital.  You go to the hospital, then you go to Wal Mart's pharmacy.  You eat, get sick, then get drugs.  It's a revolving door and symbiotic pairing like hands in gloves.

                  That a Wal Mart and hospital are "all you need" speaks volumes to the paradigm and thoughtless systemic dependence exhibited by the average person.  It's downright scary.  

                  For all its positive alternatives to Wal Mart and hospitals, MEATSTOCK stood in stark contrast to this Uber driver's reality.  It would almost make a comedy were it not so serious.  Those of us in the MAHA camp have a lot of work to do to touch people like this Uber driver.  I submit way more of this Uber driver thinking permeates our culture than MAHA.

                  I've always coveted the capacity of Jesus to shut up the opposition.  "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone."  "Render to Ceasar that which is Ceasar's."  His one-liners frustrated and shut down opponents.  I lie awake dreaming about effective debate one-liners. In that spirit, I ask a question, seeking good coaching. I could not think of one for the Uber driver in that moment.

                  If you had been in that car, is there a one-liner I could have used to eruditely smack her head?  I want your suggestions.