The Plot that Plotst

I was surprised to find out that -- according to a recent news article -- 30 percent of Americans are still not receiving fluoridated water from public water systems. And here I had assumed that fluoridation had long since become universal! But then I remembered -- vaguely, because it was only a burning issue when I was a kid -- that at one time fluoridation was considered a Communist Plot. Now, what precisely this "plot" involved was never made clear -- I mean, what benefit would accrue to the world-wide communist conspiracy from American children having fewer cavities? Unless the dental benefits were only a cover for something much more sinister -- like, for instance, making people "soft" on communism... or causing them to elect public officials who were... or decreasing their resistance (spiritual, moral, cultural) to the inroads of collectivism and socialism. Well, the funny thing is, all of those things actually happened -- but I have yet to see conclusive evidence that fluoridation was the primary factor. When a culture, or a society, decides to get "soft", nothing can stop it -- and yes, societal softness can, in fact, coexist with hard enamel.

The fluoridation "craze" started, according to the article, right after World War II. And to add to the insult, not only were municipal water supplies all jam-packed with fluorine, but all of us kids got to receive fluoride "treatments" twice a year at the hands of school dental hygienists. I can still remember that tart-tasting blue stuff and those icky cotton "worms" that were soaked in the stuff, and dutifully applied to our teeth. Of course, they were no match for the Jujubes, Good 'n' Plentys, Mars bars, Almond Joys, etc., etc., dispensed with equal fervor at the local movie theater and at all the gas stations and news stands in town. In the long run, cane sugar won out, and I have more "phoney baloney" in my mouth than Barack Obama, although, admittedly, it might have been worse sans fluoride. I know that the next generation -- my own kids, and those of my sister -- by and large avoided all the blessings of tooth decay, so something obviously changed in the intervening years, and it was not, I assure you, the availability of refined carbohydrates.

So -- in any case -- the fight against creeping socialism that reached a crescendo of sorts in the 1950s would certainly have been lost if fluoridation had been the only criterion of success. As it is, the war was lost on other battlegrounds, and fluoridation became, basically, business as usual -- except for the few holdouts reflected in the article. Do you suppose they still see a communist plot in every glass of tap water? If so, they have a much better imagination than I do.