53 replies to this topic

[StillFingers]

E-DOG, on Aug 12 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

Jax, on Aug 12 2009, 12:19 PM, said:

In all honesty, I'm with E-Dog--let's make a freaking sport out of suicide. While we're at it, we could add in the inmates on death row to the mix (Might help solve the overcrowding in jails too. Kill 2 problems in 1 shot.)

"Today, competing for the Death Row Inmates, we have the Steakhouse Killer from Austin, TX!! And on this side, competing for the Suicide Jockeys, we have Whiny William!!" We could put one each into catapults, launch them into a solid concrete wall, and see who makes the biggest splat. Or maybe we drop them from a helicopter onto a snow covered mountain top and see who leaves the biggest crater. Strap the two to those rams used to crash test cars and run the two people head on into each other, or run them into a wall covered with spikes to see who hits the most spikes. To hell with the X-Games, Olympics, and NFL. The next big sport could be the 'Deathgames!' We could even get sponsors like Prozac and Glock in on the deal.

I do believe I like the cut of your jib there, young Jaxteroo!

E

What about truck/tractor pullin...who needs a rope when u got a live screaming body

[edlee]

There was a movie quite a while back,, Swartzeneger pre Governor. I liked the concept the minute I saw it. (PSST,, Arnie gets away at the end)

And Gordon,,, I have no fear of your trying to control me,,,, my wife's been at that for 35 years and still only scores occasionally.


My fear is more in the slobbering masses that hear something and take it to be true, without finding out for themselves. It's amazing how many of them vote. Proof of that is in one of the two preceding elections,,, lot of differing views on which one it was that proved it.

I mentioned in another post, but I'd like to repeat it here, if I may. My thought on laws,, the ones that tell us what we CAN"T do,,, is that it should take a 90% vote to pass them,, and a 10% vote to repeal them. If you can't get 90% of the congress to agree it's wrong,,, how wrong can it be,, conversely,, if 10% think it's a bad law,,, it probably is.

Save on paper, too.
ed

[gordonr]

Dear Sam,

Of all the responses, yours showed the most attention to the distinction I was trying to make.

Gordon Said:

Quote

Ethics and Morality are no longer standards imposed by society, but chosen by individuals.

This notion deserves a little more attention than has usually been given it. For instance, it is sometimes assumed that even though the Pope (or Mulah, or whatever religious authority) is no longer laying down the (moral) law on the infallible grounds of divine revelation, that we still are collectively defining moral truth--the distinction between Right and Wrong—through the action of our Secular Law. But this is an illusion.

Sam replied:

Quote

I personally believe that morality originally stemmed from evolutionary ques to further our species, and then as society grew more and more, and we developed an imagination, religion spawned and added damnation and good/evil to the mix. Murder, incest, thievery.. all originally bad things in a society where you'd either reduce the amount of genetic participants in reproduction (incest) thus reducing offspring's survival chances, or be destroyed yourself as a murderer. It's strange how moral belief also seems to line up with the animal kingdom's actions. It's obvious that most pack animals have no religion or society to speak of, however they actively try to find mates that are of a different family, and most do not participate in cannibalism.

Your observation--that the history of moral speculation has been full of references to our biological and social evolution--is right on the money. Unfortunately, the train track stops there. A lot of very smart people have tried to show that human ethics could be rigorously derived from our evolutionary nature, but that has proved impossible.


Gordon said:

Quote

Here is the test: Do you personally believe that all that is permitted by the Law is Good? And similarly, do you personally believe that all that is forbidden by the Law is, in all cases, Bad? I know of very few people who would answer either of these questions in the affirmative. There are some of course, who simply repeat that public morality is defined by law, and thus refuse the distinction between them. But in the real world, of real people, it is usual to meet with a belief that the law often permits things which are Wrong, and just as often denies us the legitimate enjoyment of what we consider to be Right

I obviously didn't make myself clear at this point, because your reply doesn't follow:

Quote

The real test should be finding a system other than our own to completely emulate societies views on morality whilst keeping itself 100 percent fair. You won't pass it.

I wasn't promising to present a legal framework superior to the present one. We (that is, all the participants to this conversation) may one day, but for now we are just doing some preliminary spade work. All I was saying is that the current system does not appear moral in all its details to anybody. And I do not believe that any other system ever would either.

Quote

The original ideas behind law did closely follow morality, however it was soon found out that morality is subjective from person to person.

That is exactly right. People made the attempt to build law on morality, but found they could not agree on what was moral. They avoided the problem with divine authority, but competing authorities were similarly incompatible.

Quote

That is why our laws in this current society are usually extremely vague and generalized, because they must be for widespread compliance and fairness.

That's it. And to be a little difficult, even the idea of what constitutes "fairness" is just as hotly contested as the notion of what is moral.

Quote

I don't believe that law formed morality, much more the other way around

chicken and egg. a feedback loop of some kind


,

Quote

however I also do not believe that there will ever be a system, in the long term, that everyone is happy with. People are far too varied.

Ok. this is exactly my point

Gordon said:
quote]....we do not agree on what these things are. And this is precisely why the Law cannot satisfy us as a general, collective, one-size-fits-all system of Ethical Truth. In the end, we must accept that we, and we alone are responsible for deciding on our own standards of Right and Wrong. Individually. One by one. And Law can be seen only as a set of rules designed to facilitate our living side by side.[/quote

If I am not deluding myself, this is exactly your point in different words.

Gordon said:
quote]Moreover, this set of legal rules will be based upon whatever philosophical fashion is presently in favor with with the chattering classes, and will change significantly over time. The latest fashion, appears to be the « minimization of harm ». One excellent example would concern the status of recreational drugs. If we could establish that legalizing drugs would create a situation of Less Harm then drugs would (and in the current philosophical climate very likely will) be legalized. And this perfectly illustrates our distinction between Legal and Right, because many reasonable people would agree that legalizing drugs might produce less harm, but those same people would never admit that legally providing future generations of innocent victims with free and legal access to the crippling dangers of drugs like cocaine and heroin and crystal meth, could ever be considered Good[/quote

Sam replied:
quote]What about the greater problem? "What I do with my body is my own business, and if you don't like it don't do it to yourself." It's all in the wording. People will never agree with providing future generations with crippling drugs, however ask the same group of people "Do you believe in the personal right for individual freedom of action?" and they will all wholeheartedly agree. Personally I think that rather than outlaw every drug, the people should just be more informed, from a non-partisan standpoint and be allowed to make the decision, personally, on how to treat their own bodies. I'm not a dreamer, and I know it won't work, but if we are going to bench-race our law/morality philosophy, that's where i'd want to start.[/quote

This is a very interesting statement. Because you are choosing a fixed point, that is personal freedom, to begin your proccess of deriving morality and law. And that is what has to happen if you want to have a coherent system. The problem, though, as you have already pointed out, is that there are plenty of starting points. "Fairness" "The greater good" "natural order" "personal realization" "virtue as an end in itself" "Beauty" "utility" All of these have been used, and are used and all of them lead in different directions. Not to mention that different people disagree on their meanings. It's like hundreds of engineers trying to set up a road system, just by starting out each from his own one point. Obviously the result will be a patchwork of accidental meetings.

And that is what the Law is. Just such a patchwork.

Gordon said:
quote]Therefore, we have two different things :

1. the Laws that we agree to live with, which may include the acceptance of drug addiction as a Lawful condition, including the unstoppable junkie tendency to initiate new addicts.
2. The moral standards which we personally live by which, hopefully, do not include smoking meth or teaching our friends to do so.[/quote

I wonder now what you think of personal morality? I believe we all have ideas about what is right or wrong. My point is that these ideas are our own, and there is no reason why they should neccesarily line up with what is "legal" and "illegal"

Gordon:
quote]And the point here, is to understand that when we talk about Euthanasia and Right-to-Die, the conversation has two very different, though both equally legitimate dimensions. When we begin to passionately talk about what we consider to be Right and Wrong, we are not addressing the question of a practical set of rules to govern individual behaviors in our society. And when we talk about those rules, that is the Law concerning End-of Life, we are similarly NOT talking about what is Right or Wrong.

We have been through this all before with abortion. First people travel to foreign jurisdictions to get the service. Then access is provided at home with exceptions (remember when abortion had to be justified by the health of the mother?), then those exceptions are expanded way beyond what anybody would have believed possible when they voted for the thing in the first place (the mothers health was deemed by judges to include psychological wellbeing, and this was in turn largely interpreted to include any situation at all where the mother said she was uncomfortable with her pregnancy) and finally, we woke up to understand that Free Abortion on Demand meant exactly what it advertised : unlimited access to abortion (a million a year in the USA alone and even higher propotional figures in other civilized nations) paid for (in the social medicine countries absolutely, and in most cases in the States as well) out of the public purse. We can therefore logically assume that before this is over, within our own lifetimes (abortion took thirty years), suicide, including assisted suicide, will be legally available without restriciton to desirous individuals, and that, at public expense.

I assure you, it is not my intention to stand in front of an avalanche with my hands out, in an attempt to stop the inevitable. However, if we agree that the future is moving Law in the direction I have indicated, then we have the duty, a duty to our own moral compass of Right and Wrong, to look closely at the details of exactly how such a thing will be implemented[/quote

Sam:
quote]The "slippy-slope" argument is getting really out of hand now-a-days. If a depression leads to the seeking of suicide, then it is considered a terminal or life-threatening illness. The rugby player who decided to end his life had tried before to kill himself after his injury, repeatedly and unsuccessfully. If we changed the wording to "Only those whom are terminally ill, or those of which a quality of life is too low to necessitate the will to live..." would it work better for you?[/quote

No. As my further posts show I am against any kind of a test concerning what lives are worth living. That puts too much of a coercive burden on those who, while in the defined group, still wish to have their lives and their desire to live respected. It would be far better to have unlimited legal access to legal suicide for no reason at all, just as we (now) have no justification to make for divorce or abortion.

Sam:
quote]The real question stops exactly where you said it's irrefutable. And that's it.

Who exactly do you, being society, think you are to tell me if I am capable of continuing to live? The argument ends at "My personal right to end my life." We aren't given much when we start in life, but we should retain the right to our life, that's why in some instances it's, in my opinion, an imperative to facilitate the needs of the unable.[/quote

My current position is that Society has no right to tell you what to do. On the other hand, I, and every other man jack on the planet, has the right to tell anybody who will listen what he personally believes to be right (in general). And as Jerry tells us, it is through the exchange of these ideas that our own personal ethics and worldview evolve. Ant the same applies to our collective culture. It is ultimately a reflection of all of that. Moreover, whereas a hundred years ago only a handful of people were involved in the conversation, today that number, thanks to the internet, is in the millions.

Gordon:
quote]For example, some questions I am currently struggling with are those conerning WHO will be doing the killing? And WHERE will that killing be done?

Perhaps some of those most enthusiastic about the RIGHT to die will be ready to help me with their thoughts on where and how that dying should be (legally) tolerated within our society[/quote

Sam:
quote]Another clever wording. I guess you couldn't figure out how to slip murder into it?[/quote

Murder is unavoidable. Named or unnamed. Obviously we must try to limit it. But this is not just a "clever wording". These are serious questions. Who. Where. How. These things can be defined as we wish. They can be used to make us more or less human, and our humanity better or worse. Every legal comma will be debated, or should be. Don't worry. We have time to go to the bathroom and buy popcorn. This debate will go on for hundreds of years.

Sam:
quote]I hate to sound stubborn, but the moral and lawful issue, in my mind, ends with personal right. The consequences of NOT stopping it should not be considered, as the consequences of society being in charge of personal life are far greater regardless.[/quote

I have come to accept this premiss. However, a legal framework will evolve regardless. "Personal Freedom" will inevitably encounter narratives beginning with "utility" the greater good" etc. etc. It is therefore important to look at the details, because we must live with them whether we pay attention or not. I might, as you say, be ready to risk everything, but that does not mean I am ready to just throw everything away.

Best Regards,

Gordon

[Jax]

StillFingers, on Aug 12 2009, 04:31 PM, said:

E-DOG, on Aug 12 2009, 01:48 PM, said:

Jax, on Aug 12 2009, 12:19 PM, said:

In all honesty, I'm with E-Dog--let's make a freaking sport out of suicide. While we're at it, we could add in the inmates on death row to the mix (Might help solve the overcrowding in jails too. Kill 2 problems in 1 shot.)

"Today, competing for the Death Row Inmates, we have the Steakhouse Killer from Austin, TX!! And on this side, competing for the Suicide Jockeys, we have Whiny William!!" We could put one each into catapults, launch them into a solid concrete wall, and see who makes the biggest splat. Or maybe we drop them from a helicopter onto a snow covered mountain top and see who leaves the biggest crater. Strap the two to those rams used to crash test cars and run the two people head on into each other, or run them into a wall covered with spikes to see who hits the most spikes. To hell with the X-Games, Olympics, and NFL. The next big sport could be the 'Deathgames!' We could even get sponsors like Prozac and Glock in on the deal.

I do believe I like the cut of your jib there, young Jaxteroo!

E

What about truck/tractor pullin...who needs a rope when u got a live screaming body

Maybe we could take the suicide jockeys and the serial killers and put them all on an island together... Or maybe use the suicide jockeys as suicide bombers of our own in the "war on terror." Plant bombs inside them and let them get captured. Then detonate the bombs via satellite. Hmmm....

[edlee]

Gordan,,, WTF,,, another three screen post,,, and mos of it was quotes from previous posts.

If someone were to get interested in this debate,,, your total disregard for one of the key principles of debate,,, brevity,,, would surely put them off.

If you need to quote that many times to remember what you wanted to talk about,,, how on earth do you suppose others will be able to keep up? Or is that your plan? If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, you can baffle them with,,,, well ,, you know.

Is the idea to get people to tune out? Are you sure you don't work in government information services??? It seems they follow you path as much as they can.

I ,, truly,, do not wish to seem insulting,,, you seem like an intelligent, thoughtful person. Is there some reason you can't write short,, concise,, posts? One can make a point and be remembered for it, with only a few well chosen words,, while at the same time noone remembers the merits of long winded speech,, no matter how apt and truthful it was.

Case in point,,, Gettysburg,,,, two men spoke,,, only one speech is remembered. There are other reasons it is remember, besides it's content,, but I still think it illuminates a useful tenet.

ed

[gordonr]

edlee, on Aug 14 2009, 01:17 AM, said:

Gordan,,, WTF,,, another three screen post,,, and mos of it was quotes from previous posts.

ed

Ed,
I apologize, I usually don't do interlineal. But that is the format that Sam answered my original post, so I responded in kind.

I'll try to do something better now.

Best Regards,

Gordon

[gordonr]

E-DOG, on Aug 11 2009, 08:45 PM, said:

Quote

P.S. The shallow, self-indulgent little prick of an actor Richard Dreyfus, Dreyfu*ck

I was at Pink's Famous Chilidogs, West Hollywood about 4-5 years ago.
In comes Mr. Dryf**k and his two little daughters.
As they sat down to eat I walked over to their table, bitch slapped him AND both his irritating lil' mealy mouthed offspring, grabbed a couple of their dogs and sauntered on out the door letting him know in no uncertain terms that his shallow, self-indulgence was the cause of most of the word's problems.

There WILL repercussions.

E

Dog,

I didn't realize he had kids. I think you should have asked hime what he meant to do about that. I mean, there is a possibility that they have some sort of defective genes which could interfere with their quality of life. I'm not saying that they do, but it is at least possible.

The safe thing to do would have been to have them aborted to begin with, and then we wouldn't have these issues to grapple with now. But as things stand, I hope he is making plans to have them put down, or at the very least spayed, to prevent heaven knows what problems that might show up down the line.

Better safe than sorry, I always say.

Waste 'em all.

Let God sort 'em out!

Best Regards,

Gordon

[E-DOG]

edlee, on Aug 13 2009, 06:17 PM, said:

, but I still think it illuminates a useful tenet.
ed

Reminds me of a funny story.

Back a few years ago a buddy of mine was renting one of the bedrooms in his house to some guy. Can't remember the guy's name, Bob or Bill, some shit like that.......
Well anyway, this guy was an unbelievable flake. Degenerate gambler. Crack addict. Always late with the rent and it used to piss me off.

Hell, get high an' play tiddly winks all day long if that's yer thing. But pay yer friggin' rent first. My pal had obligations too ya know.
(We were using the money generated by the occupied room to get out own selves loaded.)

So I go up to the dude and tell him right off, "Yo pecker breath, my friend needs his money. As in right the f**k now! So how 'bout you start shitting hundred dollar bills or I'm gonna douse your greasy ass in gasoline and LIGHT YOU ON FIRE!"

Well needless to say, bills a plenty didn't start popping out of his asshole. But then again, I didn't think they would.

"illuminates a useful tenet" I like that. Just sorta rolls right off the tongue.

E-dog

[gordonr]

edlee, on Aug 11 2009, 10:09 PM, said:

Gotta tell ya, Gordie,,, I like Dickie's work,, always did. As for choices,,,, you chose to watch it, right,,, or are you telling us something you have no first hand knowledge of???

If you watched it,, and were moved in any way,, good or bad,, by the story or the acting,,, then those responsible did their jobs,,, just as you do your's when you say something in a way that's unpopular with someone else.

By the way,,, good post,,, the one before the Dreyfus BS, I mean. I liked both the sentiments expressed and the brevity with which you expressed them,,,,,, well done.
ed

Ok, Ed, I will lay of Mr. Drefass. After all he is only an Actor (at once the most influencial and air-headed class of society). In fact I must admit that he had a couple of very good comic successes, such as Stakeout, before he inexplicably decided to expose himself to ridicule by tackling Serious Subjects.

But I still have a few things to say about the play/film itself.

First:

Any story which portrays suicide as the elevated work of a Noble Mind is fundamentally mischevious and cannot fail, to work its mischief, in direct proportion to the skill of the author.


The archetypical case is the Goethe classic “The Sorrows of Young Werner” from the 1770’s. Werner, naturally kills himself at the end. On the first level it is a story about unrequited love, but there is much more about alienation from a rigid society into which the passionate artistic, hyper-sensitive Werner could not possibly fit, with or without the operation of love. The story is largely auto-biographical, Goethe too was at odds with his epoch, too sensitive, too passionate. Goethe also loved a married woman. But Goethe did not kill himself. On the other hand, his book, is credited with setting off an epidemic of bourgeois and aristocratic suicide among young men who began by taking the style of Werner’s dress (described in the novel) and finished by reproducing his suicide. We are perhaps lucky that the punk and goth styles never had a literary standard bearer as eloquent as Goethe. And it is a fact that as he got older Goeth became very embarassed about this work, which through his whole career remained the most widely read and praised.

Brian Clark probably does not rise to this standard. However, if he did, a work like Whose Life is it, Anyways..? could pile up a lot of copycat corpses.

But let us shrug our shoulders and look past the workings of dark literature upon frankly unstable minds. Authors write about what matters to them. This play is ultimately about freedom. Right-to-die is a pretext. Clark, faithful to his generation, has likely told a lot of people to f*ck off in his time. The play is carefully built to provide a case where there is no reasonable answer to that affirmation of personal freedom. The audience gets a vicarious kick out of that. Without being disabled, or suicidal, they get a chance to vibrate with the affirmation of personal power over their own ultimate destiny. Any aging teenager from the sixties, in particular anybody who has ever been nagged by another about his or her drinking and whoring will find a special vindication in works like these. As Billy holiday so famously says, “Its nobody’s business if I do!”.

So why should I take offense at this innocent pleasure among the non-suicidal, able-bodied patrons of “Whose Life”? Simply because the arguments Clark uses to convince his audience that there are cases where a perfectly lucid and unsufferring individual is, at least from a perspective of romantic idealism, better off dead, are drawn from my own personal reality and the conclusions of the play strike a certainly unintended, but nonetheless heavy blow against the positive perception which all of us would like to foster among those with no personal knowledge of the case.

You see, I would have preferred that Clark’s fantasies should be played out in a sphere he knows something about. A suicidal playwright for instance would have fit the bill. But that has already been done. Young Werner has come and gone. Alienated artistic sensibility is now discounted as brattish self-absorbtion. So Clark goes beyond, to the New Frontier, to that for which he really has no personal credential to justify the undertaking.

In fact, the work is grossly offensive in its discriminatory stereotyping.

It is usual for non-discriminatory mission-statements to begin with the equal consideration of all persons “regardless of race, religion, gender, abilities, and sexual orientation”.

Let us take the central proposition of “Whose Life?”:

People with extreme disability such as SCI have a quality of life so diminished that it is reasonable, and even noble in such an individual to refuse to live any further.

And then let us substitute the words, females, or jews, or lesbians for the the phrase “People with extreme disability” and let us see what sort of reception a play like that would have.

There is probably even a case for labelling this, in the new fashion, Hate Speech. It is unintended of course. But the grossness of the ignorance of the author does not atone for the grossness of the mistake. The play provides an enabling logic for direct ideological attack upon the physical security of real people. That is not trivial.

Here is a link to a portrait of the artist. Looks like typical pre-hippie wino.


http://www.tomphilli...bcla/index.html

Best Regards,

Gordon

P.S. I know. Still multi screen.

[Bevan-L]

FFS i cant read this much....

[Jax]

Bevan-L, on Aug 14 2009, 01:32 AM, said:

FFS i cant read this much....

No shit! And people say my posts are long. I know they are, but this is beyond me.

[chickadee]

I feel less intelligent by hitting page down... but yeah. This is too much guys, you've gotta keep it short and sweet! This is the internet - our attention spans have slipped somewhat since its inception!

[edlee]

And ,, here I was,, about to thank you for the "short post",,, it's all about persception, then,, isn't it.

Condemning an artist, an actor, an author,,, or anyone with an idea that they produce or display,, because you disagree,,, doesn't strike me as proper in an otherwise free society. Saying you disagree with it, then telling why, on the other hand, is what discussion is all about.

While I agree, the belief that diminished abilities should not condemn anyone to death,,,, that doesn't mean that a great many of the AB population doesn't actually believe the opposite.

My thought,, using the same storyline,,, is that being disabled shouldn't deprive us of the same right to self elimination that the AB world has. It's an ADA thing,,, a ramp of sorts.

I think I've solved the riddle of your long posts,,, The hint was in you knowledgable description of Goethe's work. You've an 18th century sensability trapped in a 20th century world. To you,, words are like music,, and the flow from you like a melody. Once,, before electricity,, many became enrapt with the flow and rhythm of the lines in the books they read. Now most rely on music for that feeling.

In a way,, I envy you that,,, but mostly,, I don't. I would rather listen to a news broadcast than a musical one. I like my facts like I like my bacon,, fresh and crisp. A concept that can stand most anywhere, has but three legs,,, less it's certainly faulty,,, more are irelevant.

I guess what it boils down to is this,,, sing it to others,, say it to me.

Hey, look,, I think I filled a screen.
ed

[gordonr]

Dear Friends,

This is a fairly long thread to date, and I thought it would be useful to provide a condensed version of what has been said so far.

First, the most vigorous block of opinion favors free personal choice.

Poking around this and other threads for posts by the same people, I think there is a broad profile for free-choicers, which some of these may care to correct or comment upon :

These are not people who are suicidal themselves, they rather show a strong attachment to life.

These are not people who show a lot of sympathy for the suicidal, more often than not describing these as whiners and a general drag on the entourage.

The sympathy of free-choicers goes out more to the family and loved ones of the suicide.

Free-choicers have litle patience for discussion of the details of assisted suicide.

The drive wheel of the free-choice psyche, is an unwillingness to give up any possible freedom in their own lives. They are more willing to accept tragic, stupid, perhaps ridiculous behavior in others, than to envisage any volontary giving up of their own freedoms.

*N.B. I would like to stipulate that, by nature, I largely share this profile myself. *

Next, there is a second block of opinion which is less colorful, less Badass if you will, but even though the opinion is usually less vocal it has the weight of established legal tradition and probably a solid majority of passive consent.

This opinion attaches much more importance to the suicidal individual. That individual should, in this view, be protected from himself.

In this group we hear much about how a rewarding life can be found in circumstances which appear impossible, at least at first.

Preventing suicide is seen as preventing impulsive and tragic mistakes, by strangers, yes, but also perhaps by loved ones, and even by ourselves.

Preventing suicide prevents to some extent the abuse of the vulnerable by those who would be done with them.

*N.B. I must equally stipulate that I am sensile to these arguments, particularly as they would affect me personally *

Finally, in the area of compromise, we seem to agree that there is a huge difference between what we think of the terminally ill, and what we think of those who have only to adapt to new but mostly stable circumstances. This is the difference between cancer and sci. Many of the pro-life crowd are willing to accept the logic of putting an end to a terminal and desperate situation.

The problem is, that people differ on what they think to be a terminal and desperate situation. It is a sure bet that an AB court will eventually decide that SCI fits the bill. In fact, this is not theory, some civilized nations have already done so. And that, my friends reflects very badly on all of us, and the perception that others will have of us.


And this is the one other point that I think everybody does agree with :

It is a good thing to protect people, particularly disabled people , from bullying and coercion towards taking a quick exit.

Unfortunately, then, there seems to be a conflict between the idea of permitting suicide, and the long term protection of all other people with difficult lives.

The suggestion has been made, in this thread, and heavily seconded by those favoring free choice, that the best way to protect the vulnerable is to completely separate the (postulated) right to commit suicide from any notion we may have about the quality of people’s lives. That is, there is no category of people (sci for example) for whom suicide is to be considered appropriate or normal. The sci contemplating suicide should be in the same case as any plump, rich and healthy AB with vague existential dissatisfactions in life. Both would have the (proposed) RIGHT to die. But their REASONS are ignored as totally personal and irrelevent to anybody else’s case. Above all, with regards to protection of the vulnerable, neither is admitted to have any objective reason for suicide that can be logically transferred to another.

This suggestion would do a lot to protect the vulnerable from negative perceptions. But to get it past the courts (and the natural pool of passive resistance to radical change among the larger population), it will absolutely be neccesary to address the idea of temporary and punctual protection of people from their own hasty impulses.

In other words, we see the danger that a bit by bit approach (where the category of permitted suicide is slowly expanded), would soon throw most chronic disabilities right under the bus of public perception. But if we want to avoid this situation, by opting for a generalized right-to-die, no strings attached, we would have to come up with some regulations which would prevent the new quad or para from exercising his right-to-die before he learns, through personal experience whether he can or can not love his new life in his new body sufficiently to choose survival.

Does that sound like a fair summary?

Best Regards,

Gordon

P.S. Yes. I know. There are a few screens here. But it is the reduction of over forty posts.

[E-DOG]

Gordie, you've done a beautiful job here.

Have a cookie!

[nomis]

That may be a fair summary of what has been posted but by focussing on the rights and wrongs of suicide it has probably not paid enough attention to the way society is dealing with it. What it's coming to is state sanctioned/or not suicides which I think is obscene.

There's no problem with people who are capable of carrying out their own suicide independently. If they want it enough it will happen when no else is involved.

It's involving others that is the problem.

In the past medical people the world over have been willing to assist people to die. No one says anything about it and that casual arrangement has worked very well - maybe there have been some mistakes but we didn't hear about them. Now regulations, accountabilities, responsibilities, etc are being more carefully watched and monitored. Doctors no longer have the freedoms of past years.

All that was needed was a helping hand for someone who couldn't use their hands. But now it's become a state intervention and the simple request which started as "Pass me the cyanide, please" has first to go to a committee and maybe a national debate with raging tv and newspaper coverage not to mention the exclusive magazine article before coming down with a refusal or the message: Yes, you can now die in dignity and privacy.

We are stuck with an obsene process cos we can't turn the clock back and rely on the causual arrangement that worked for so long.

[edlee]

Bravo, Gordan,,, Probably your most concise posts, to date. You started to sing, there at the end,, but not out of key.

Nomis,, that attitude is okay for those who are about to kick off on their own, soon,,,, but what about the rest of us? That is really what the debate is about. Everyone knows that a little extra morphine,, that is already prescribed for pain,, will do the trick very peacefully,,, if you are at that point. The discussion is about those of us who CHOOSE to die,,, now.

By the way Nomis,,, where ya been?? Haven't seen many posts by you, lately,,, been a bit worried.
ed

[Scribbler]

This is all too much for me, I've just slashed my wrists!!!

[edlee]

Was just at the "afraid to die" thread,, talking about heaven,,, a thought came to mind.

If you kill yourself,, do you still get to go to heaven? Is it a sin? Little sin,, big sin?? Even for the ones already dying?
ed

[Apparelyzed]

Noooo!

Maybe another thread might be in order for religious answers.

Simon

[E-DOG]

WHEW! Thank you Simon.

[Jax]

Yes, THANK YOU SIMON!!

[gordonr]

Jax, on Aug 12 2009, 07:19 PM, said:

If you aren't physically able, endorse this release in front of the lawyers, and after 12 hrs, the doc will put you down like a puppy. Hell, we could even give veterinarians the release forms and let them do it. They do it to animals all the time, so it shouldn't be much different to do it to humans (after all, we are mammals). There's your 'who' answer and possibly your 'where' and 'when' answers.

Jax,

I think we would be better to get the whole medical profession out of the killing business.

Your mention of Veterinarians hints at why. The Vet is a general purpose animal guy. He foals and calfs, patches wounds, treats sickness, castrates and puts down. That is not the sort of mentality you want in a doctor. You want him working to save you, not hesitating between treatment and a lethal dose. If it comes to that, because that is what you want, then he should pass you off to someone else.

I once worked in a chicken packing plant. The first day I found it kind of gross to be shovelling guts up off the floor. But I soon got used to it, and as I looked around, I saw that the only thing people were thinking about was working fast enough, not what they were doing. And I remember having the distinct notion that if the chickens were replaced with human beings it would only take a few shifts to get the line back up to speed. This is the secret of slave camps and death camps. People just get used to it.

I don`t think it is in our interests to get doctors and nurses used to performing that kind of proceedure.

In any case, there is no reason why they should. Killing is not a medical act. It is not a treatment.

The same ideas cropped up with abortion. Doctors did not want to do abortions for personal ethical reasons. In private practice that was ok, but in the public clinics of the social medicine countries, it has become impossible to do Obstetrics without doing abortion. I once talked about this with an abortion doctor in one of their forums. He tried to impress me with his knowledge, two years pre-med, four years of medical school, a year of internship, a year as a resident, two more years to specialize. I told him that I thought that was a really long time to spend learning how to operate a vacuum cleaner...

And yet there is a rationale for abortion in a medical setting. There are things that can go wrong. The health of the mother must be protected. That takes medical professionals.

But euthanasia? What the hell? Nothing can go wrong. There is no situation in which a doctor could be required to SAVE anybody.

I believe there should be a completely different technician responsible for whatever acts are required. And there is no reason for this to happen at a MEDICAL clinic or hospital. Any office would do. It might sound gross, but such a facility might most naturally be integrated in the funeral home/crematorium complexes. One stop shopping. Full service. Package deal.

While researching this, I found an interesting article about the way things are done at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Actually there is no clinic. Just an apartment apparently. Law requires that the lethal prescription be written by a doctor, but no doctor is present at the scene. A Dignitas employee of unspecified duties does the honors of putting the spiked drink on the table, filming the proceedings and calling the cops when all is done.

This is an interesting read. It puts the thing in perspective. The client here, shows up with an expectation of special effects, music, a sense of mystery, a meaningful experience. And there is none of that, she just ends up a stiff in very short order. Moreover, you realize that whatever the stagecraft, and it might be exceedingly elaborate, for the client it all boils down to the same bottom line.

So lets keep our doctors out of it. Let them be eager and keen to keep us alive as long as we are willing to let them. That is their job. Very few want any other role. Let us not force it on them.

http://www.dailymail...ortionists.html


Best Regards,

Gordon

[wheeliebear75]

I think that last line is one of the best I've read for a while.