If ya' arrived heah from the Front Porch I hope ya looked first at the Mute Monday archive post. It were a good laugh....but, the reason comedy is comedy is exactly on account of it havin' a grain of truth, ain't that so?
Whar' will government health care take us? Especially wif' lots of nations wrangling wif' the issue of medical suicide:
Mah idea heah ain't to spark no debate on "physician assisted suicide." The direction I mean to point toward is jes' this:
A nation whar'
legalized killin' under the guise of "mercy killing," in an official,
clinical, "caring" setting (insert dreamy music), is a nation ripe for killing citizens who are merely a drag on the rest of us.
Once we's accustomed to dispatchin' Uncle Harry because he done went
blind from diabetes an wuz depressed, an' muttered that life din't have
the same pleasures...well, ya' see whar' this leads. Once assisted suicide is legalized, how do ya' throw on the brakes? WHO can decide what is a reasonable reason to resort to the happy bye-bye juice? If a person is "in their right mind" (what does THAT mean? Are progressives in their right mind??) can they choose the death stick? If not, why not? How do we measure "emotional pain" since it is jes' that--emotional not rational?
" This (euthanasia) is a taboo subject but it really should and needs to be legalised,
it would cut a lot of problems. Maybe i would do it cause I dont think I
have the guts to top myself. If it did get legalized the rules would
have to be more lenient, anyone
who doesnt want to live anymore regardless of their sex, age etc should
be granted it even if they are perfectly healthy and it should be free, I don't have to tell you the
appalling treatment the elderly have been getting and this would solve
the problem, although it is sad but when you've got severe alzheimers or
whatever, who wouldn't wanna be 10ft under? It'd be used by so many
people it's crazy and a nicer way to go. It would benefit so many
people, especially in the year 2012. "
How clever of proponents of "death with dignity" to couch it as a perk, a freedom, a choice. Because, heaven forbid that you should be deprived of an early death? Right? What skew of mind perceives being deprived of LIFE as a "right." Ain't anybody read Tom Saywer?
ooops...sorry. No rant on the issue of assisted suicide--but a warning of whar' that path takes us as a nation--when we's all comfy wif' dispatchin' folks afore nature takes 'em, then those folks who cost the most on the gubmint health mill scale will be pressured to "choose" the legal option of suicide --wif all the trimmings, of course. They'll be given a visit to the departure spa: radiant exfoliated skin, dreamy tinted eye shadow, hair augmentation for the thin pates, chin-lift, oh, toss in a pedicure too.
All jestin' aside, when we, as a society, rule life to be something of limited value that we can dispose of when it pains our collective pockets...well, thar' t'is. We'll accept it. It'll be familiar. It 'll be "compassionate" and oh-so-tender.
Hmmmnnn....Flannery O'Connor said, "Tenderness leads to the gas chamber."
* * * * * * * * *
( most of y'all might want to click to the next blog--from this point on this heah post might be uncomfortable)
Today we've perverted the meaning of the word compassion. Today that word is a cue to whose life has value or power. When we use that word in public discourse it is code-speak for "our lives are pained by your life and we want relief. You have to go--gently, tenderly--but, go you must so that our pain will be relieved."
Here is how the verbiage of compassion is employed in public commentary: "Better a wanted child than an unwanted child."
"Nobody should have to bear such disabilities." "Compassion for the terminally ill should include death with dignity."
But in all these examples "compassion" leads to death--of the other person, not us. We dispatch them out of concern for our own comfort. An unborn baby never lives to become a poet, a disabled baby is neglected by "compassionate" nurses until it dies, an' Granny, in daily pain from arthritis, is subtly plied wif' lists of her expenses until she "chooses" to die a'fore she uses up all her money that could go to pay fer the grandchillen's collich years.
But compassion has the Latin root co/ com, it means "with," as in companion. Ideally, the compassionate person is one who comes along side an' makes that journey wif' ya', bearing wif' ya' yore pain' yore sorrow.
Assisted suicide is an oxymoron, like "only choice," "clearly confused" or "open secret." Suicide is self inflicted death, it needs no assistance.
If it is assisted, thas' ....murder. Mebbe second degree, but it is murder. Shocking sentence, ain't it? Why do it shock us? Because our society is a master at living the lie--we hide our hard truths under fuzzy euphemisms, like "assisted suicide," "compassionate care" "death with dignity."
I know that some folks struggle mightily wif' these concepts--an' they's good folks too. Trouble is that, as a culture, we's shifted toward the expedient framework--life is not the high value any longer. Rather expediency is. This coarsens our society, it leads to a lot of hopeless feeling days (because if life has less value it has less meaning, then what's the point of anything? ).We think we's bein' compassionate, but we's destroying ourselves.
Let's rethink it.
