Christian Kerr has a magnificent piece in the Australian on the nanny state.
THE cigarette companies, public health activists believe, will slowly bleed to death thanks to tobacco plain packaging. Now they are going in search of other beasts to slay. But threats may not be as fearsome as they say.
“Tobacco,” Nicola Roxon, who indulged the activist brigade with a bureaucracy all of their very own during her time as health minister, the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, said back then, “is the only legal product sold in Australia which if used as intended will kill you. No other product is in that category.”
Her words have not discouraged the public health lobby. Alcohol — and food — are in their sights. And they are moving.
He also has great coverage of Eric Crampton – I discovered yesterday that some Cats were unfamiliar with this freedom fighter.
Last November University of Canterbury economist Eric Crampton dissected in Australasian Science Magazine a 2008 study commissioned by our Department of Health and Ageing that estimated the social costs of alcohol abuse in Australia at $15 billion.
Crampton began with a joke. “A mathematician, an accountant and an economist are bidding for a bit of consulting work,” he said. “The sponsor wants to know what two plus two yields. The mathematician says it’s four. The accountant says it’s four, give-or-take 10 per cent. The economist closes the door and whispers to the sponsor: ‘What do you want it to be?’ ”
Crampton also made it clear that the set of costs the report’s authors had counted as “social” was also a joke. It even included “the now superfluous cooking and cleaning that a regrettably deceased bachelor had performed for himself, which was valued at the cost of hiring in the services. Excising double-counting and focusing on the costs that drinkers impose upon others yielded a more plausible $3.8bn in social costs from harmful alcohol use.”
Why do the activists play this game? There is considerable public funding and academic prestige at stake. Small and often overlapping teams of researchers at the University of Sydney received well over $2 million for projects beginning between 2009 and last year looking at smoking, “What is influential public health research” and “Corporate influences on media reporting of health”.
He blogs at Offsetting Behaviour – see the blog roll – and tweets @EricCrampton. Eric will be in Sydney for the Australian Libertarian Conference in April.
Wowsers are nothing new. They get their pleasure from denying other people pleasure. And now there is a quid in it.
What about my rights? I used to enjoy a bit of passive smoking, especially when having a bet. My harmless pleasure is now denied me.
Rodney
22 Jan 13 at 8:36 am
Once they have finished with alcohol ,eating, contact sport and public opinions, they will move into the bedroom.
“The social cost of procreation is enourmous when you consider the burden of health care, education, and supervision” they will say. “Not to mention enviromental impacts”.
Expect a one child policy or sex tax. We may be able to offset our destructive fornicating by buying copulation credits. That is where you pay a politician money to screw you over in other areas of your now so very public and controlled life.
Splatacrobat
22 Jan 13 at 8:48 am
An anti-alcohol campaign would be the final proof that the ALP has had a total brain transplant!
blogstrop
22 Jan 13 at 8:54 am
The crony capitalist progressive movement is just staying true to its roots in the late 19th century,
1. surpressing free thought and free speech so the progressive movement may…
2. provide the benefits of economic protection to the lucky few who are clients of the progressive political machine.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 9:04 am
Truly insidious, but who didn’t see this coming? These people seem to get off on attacking our personal freedoms and liberties. Smoking was just the first step, they didn’t care that it only hurts the person that smoke, nor that the additional taxes they pay more than covers the health costs, they care only about their own grants and their own power and influence over the ‘plebs’.
They have won, so far, against tobacco (thanks to easily the worst PM in the history of this nation), they will focus on Alcohol and Food, then they will go to fast cars, FWD’s, team sports, clothing and on and on.
The left do not care one iota for the liberties of their fellow men, they care only about their own greed and power at the EXPENSE of others. We really do need to say enough is enough.
MattR
22 Jan 13 at 9:07 am
Roxon has a scarey resemblance to this character from Steven Kings Misery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDoUpcOI-T8
Rod Clarke
22 Jan 13 at 9:10 am
I’m just wondering when Nanny will begin book censorship, for the good of all, natch. Perhaps the announcement will come with the time-honoured book burning event.
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 9:20 am
The Australian National Preventative Health Agency is just another vehicle designed to cart patronage about for fellow travellers. If and when Bolshevism is swept from this wide brown land there is some deep digging to be done to root it out.
Pickles
22 Jan 13 at 9:21 am
From the article:
Ugh, he should be calling these nanny-state fools the ‘warmists of the health sector’ because that’s what they actually are.
MattR
22 Jan 13 at 9:23 am
I would call them ‘health alarmists’.
ad
22 Jan 13 at 9:34 am
First they came for the smokers …
We will know the nanny brigade are in earnest when the term “Big Alcohol” begins to be relentlessly pushed by the ABC/Fairfax media.
Matt
22 Jan 13 at 9:37 am
And will Abbott and the coalition do anything about shutting down these self important, sanctimonious, meddling, tax eating tossers?
Of course not.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 9:42 am
How long will it be before the Nanny State makes it compulsory to wear floaties at the beach? Research somewhere will prove it will reduce the risk of drowning.
On the positive side, I’m seeing positive signs of resistance – here in Perth cyclists getting around without helmets are now commonplace.
Ubique
22 Jan 13 at 9:43 am
I’m surprise the nanny brigade has time to think about Big Alcohol as so many of them have joined the David Koch luvvie pile on…
Token
22 Jan 13 at 9:43 am
The ALP are willfully blind to the law of unintended consequences:
Good luck with your crusade Nicola. Uh oh I shouldn’t have mentioned that word crusade.
Bruce
22 Jan 13 at 9:46 am
Burqinis will be mandatory as well, so as to prevent skin cancer.
You’ll need to remove your mandatory outdoor helmet (can’t risk being hit by falling objects anywhere, anytime) and high visibility olive drab overalls first.
These people are insane.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 9:49 am
As always, keep an eye on who’s making a fuss.
For example:
According to the 2011 books Alcohol Concern wouldn’t have been much of a lobby group solely on the £4,729 in private donations.
Thank goodness for the £802,243 in government largesse.
lotocoti
22 Jan 13 at 9:51 am
There is a vast chort of the half-educated bohemian bourgeoisie out there that can’t make anything, create anything, add value to anything or come up with any decent thought. This is because they have beeen told since they were young that politics is all.
They can’t do anything useful, so they batten on to the public purse as academics, quango staffers and other otiose riff-raff.
Unfortunately theses people have become the new clerisy of our age. Like the Church in the middle ages we now have a group of preachers tellin us all how to live. But wheras the Church gave us a good creed some beuatiful architecture and inspired the greatest art and music of its time, the new clerisy gives us nothing but grief.
The Hoiward Government was so hated by these people because it reduced their opportunities to rip off the taxpayer to almost nil.
I ssupect that a new Abbott Government will also ignotre much of the clerisy’s ranting. get ready, therefore, for a relentless campaign in the media excoriating the Abbbot government as philistines.
What can we do? keep pressuring the Coalition to remeber that it is right wing and has the support of the vast majority of those who aren’t in the clerisy, whose bleating is just noise that can be safely ignored.
Sinistra delenda est!
Rococo Liberal
22 Jan 13 at 9:56 am
Bruce
Thanks for the info, don’t you just love unintended consequences? Chance of nanny statists actually paying attention? May as well be zero.
MattR
22 Jan 13 at 9:58 am
Ahh, that explains it all. It’s nanny von Roxon’s very own Ministry of Plenty.
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 9:58 am
Nanny Roxon considers white paper recomendations on minimum stardards of attire for fancy dress parties .
Splatacrobat
22 Jan 13 at 9:59 am
Isn’t is it ironic that many of the lefties who want plain packaging for cigarettes to lead to an eventual banning of them are the same people who want other drugs legalised? Their hypocritical position on drugs is similar to their positions on abortion and how a women should be able to choose what they do with their baby/foetus but then they can choose what to say or what to put into their bodies, the government makes that choice for you.
Andrew
22 Jan 13 at 10:00 am
The focus is now moving onto Big Sugar – the latest corporate killer villain.
The Heart Foundation is calling for a tax on ‘sugary drinks’ as a strategy to ward off obesity.
Unlikely to ever happen under a government interested in self preservation – but a nice illustration of the direction of debate on social issues.
Dr Faustus
22 Jan 13 at 10:00 am
Andrew, YES to all.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 10:04 am
Sorry, my last sentence should have read
I agree Token. I don’t have any problem people choosing to do what they want to their bodies, as long as they have the ability to know the consequences of what they are doing. It annoys me when people use the rationale that they can choose to do what they want with their body for one thing, but not a comparably similar option for another thing.
Andrew
22 Jan 13 at 10:15 am
I doubt he would get many of these draconian laws but I doubt he would introduce any more. If Turnbull was at the throne, that would be another story.
Andrew
22 Jan 13 at 10:21 am
…and that is the reason why the Liberals In Name Only like Peter van Onselen luuuuuvvvvveeeee Turnbull.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 10:29 am
Tobacco smoke, Sugar and Grains are the worst things you can stick in your body. Your family, close friends and church may feel a responsibility to point you in the right direction and your health insurance company will charge you more, but it’s none of the Government’s business.
Forester
22 Jan 13 at 10:29 am
Some people are quite hysterical about the effects of consuming sugar. When I watched 60 minutes last year (god knows why), this scientist compared taking cocaine with eating sugar. Unbelievable…
Andrew
22 Jan 13 at 10:37 am
This agenda is being pushed by Roxon’s health department, to justify their taxpayer funded existence, based on any amount of alcohol consumption causes cancer. Where is the evidence?
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 10:40 am
The CEO of the ANPHA is one Louise Sylvan, described on its website as:
“Formerly the Chief Executive of the Australian Consumers’ Association (ACA) and President of Consumers International, Louise is well known for enhancing consumer rights across a range of areas including health, food safety, financial services, and in competition and consumer policy.”
She’s a university administrator turned consumer activists. There is lots of fawning over her on various Fairfax and/or feminist web sites, and while it may be a harsh and unfair judgement, her profile suggests a typical inner city dinner party networker.
Des Deskperson
22 Jan 13 at 10:45 am
Tobacco is getting uglier and more expensive, but $15 Bil a year for the joy of getting pissed is a bargain, discounted to 3.8 bil, well thats just change for the Salvoes. We are clearly not drinking enough.
Money well spent in my mind, a lot more productive than say, unknown squillions for the NBN.
Jannie
22 Jan 13 at 10:57 am
If you want to see where the nanny state can lead, Ken McLeod has a great book out about a distopian future Britain, called ‘Intervention’, where, for just one example, the Labour Government is putting women out of factory work, because individuals are making choices on imperfect knowledge, but the government claims to have more knowledge than you do, and so can come to the choices you would have made if you’d known more! Let’s hope socialists don’t read that book- they’d use that excuse as soon as they could!
Nuke Gray
22 Jan 13 at 10:58 am
There isn’t any.
But then there isn’t any evidence of catastrophic yuman induced climate change, either – and we all know how relevant that fact has been in determining ‘sound public policy’.
If you don’t have any evidence, simply fabricate some. It’s never stopped these meddling sanctimonious twats before.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 11:01 am
Sorry – ‘evidence’ in the last sentence above should be in scare quotes…
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 11:03 am
If public health advocates are truly interested in the welfare of Australians then they should address the issue of suicide.
The rate of suicide went down remarkably in the Soviet Union with the collapse of the communist regime.
Perhaps the utopians want to turn a blind eye to rates of suicide and depression in regimes that curtail freedom, because it doesn’t suit their ideological beliefs
ella
22 Jan 13 at 11:04 am
—————-
What MattR said.
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 11:12 am
Yes. Back when things were simple, the “left” supported lifestyle freedom supported by economic repression, while the “right” supported economic freedom with the penalty of social repression.
Now, we have the ALP/Greens working together to enforce both lifestyle and economic repression… but at these early stages they are cautious about who they repress.
Tel
22 Jan 13 at 11:12 am
Time the bloody govt stopped worrying about tobacco, alcohol, sugar and fat, and start looking at the ever increasing cost of old age dementia. I watched a show on Agenda before Xmas, which featured Ita, and the projections of increasing dementia, and the economic and social costs are going to be crippling for most western countries.
We simply dont have the facilities, health care professionals, carers or will to tackle this problem head on. The problem is going to be left to a coalition govt, and state govts to tackle, most likely after the system suffers terminal overload.
But typical of this frigging govt that they concentrate on the anything other than the real problems of the country.
dianeh
22 Jan 13 at 11:17 am
Hilarious for all sorts of reasons.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 11:34 am
dianeh,
That’s why we have the big ‘progressive’ push for euthanasia!
If old people don’t know who they are, or what they’re supposed to be doing here, then it’s best they made an equally informed decision (via pushy relatives, who only want what’s best, of course) to bring their obviously pointless lives to a long overdue end.
You know it makes sense.
This message endorsed by nanny von roxon.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 11:37 am
Note again that there is never a Fred Nile policy push from the left that fundamentalist Monty doesn’t support.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 11:38 am
Such as?
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 11:39 am
We’re listening Monst. “such as?”
JC
22 Jan 13 at 11:47 am
m0nty earns his Chucklehead stripes once again.
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 11:49 am
They aren’t earned, Dog. Nothing Monst does is ever earned. We, the people, bestow these stripes on the asshat.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 11:58 am
Yes, things are often funny, simply because they are true.
MattR
22 Jan 13 at 11:58 am
It has been estimated that 80% of people suffering from schizophrenia smoke. Researchers don’t know why such a high percentage, but it has been suggested that nicotine may act on the brain’s receptors and have a calming effect for sufferers.
The Australian government has banned smoking anywhere in mental institutions including the gardens.
The mentally insane are denied any relief they may gain from nicotine on the basis that they may die from a smoking related disease.
This leads us to wonder who is insane.
ella
22 Jan 13 at 12:02 pm
If we relabel ciggies and grog as abortifacients no one will be able to question our choices and the taxpayer will subisidise our poison.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 12:03 pm
If they were at all rational, the first thing they’d ban would be motorbikes – interesting to see the reaction from the Hells Angels….
MACK1
22 Jan 13 at 12:07 pm
You just know she’d ban underarm razors, deodorant & reverse balayages if she got another term.
Rousie
22 Jan 13 at 12:18 pm
It appears she’s already banned shampoo.
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 12:19 pm
No the smoking ban is there so the staff who work there don’t die from smoking related diseases.
The push is primarily for voluntary euthanasia which I would have thought most libertarians would heartily support. The right to kill yourself and seek help doing so if you want/need assistance.
Chris
22 Jan 13 at 12:21 pm
W
Weally?
Stop leading with your fucking chin all the time as it isn’t a competition any more.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 12:25 pm
Rabz
Thank you for reminding me about the euthanasia aspect. I completely forgot about it, dont know what I was thinking. We obviously dont need to increase services for dementia patients, as we can just put them down instead.
Chris, the problem with voluntary euthanasia is that it requires the cognitive ability to make the choice. Dementia patients are not able to make that choice. The ability to make logical choices disappears very early in many dementia patients. ‘Caring’ relatives would be making the decision for them. Some ‘caring’ relatives also would force people to do it, just as some steal their elderly relative’s money, house etc.
While I support the free choice aspect there is no way to guarantee that a person’s choice to live is not removed by others under the banner of ‘voluntary’ euthenasia.
dianeh
22 Jan 13 at 12:34 pm
Lol… Yea, I’d really support euthasasia when the state pays the medical bills and would legislate such laws.
No conflict of interest there, right?
Look doofus, unless you haven’t noticed. Laws against suicide these days are not policed in the sense that no one is charged with a suicide attempt.
So to all intents and purposes we have no real restrictions on suicide. If you really want to pull the plug I would imagine there are lots of websites that will explain to people how they can do it.
In the current setup, this is the best of all worlds because you don’t want the fucking state meddling around euthanasia laws when they also pay medical bills.
FFS, would you really want Tubbsie Milne, the sanctimonious “plibsek” (married to a convicted drug dealer), Fraulein Von Roxon, the Lying slapper and Shane Wand with a budget problem legislating on euthanasia laws.
Chris, are you out of your fucking mind?
JC
22 Jan 13 at 12:34 pm
Passive smoking related illness is complete junk science.
The ban is complete fascism designed to further humiliate and degrade sick people. The Nazis would have loved it.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 12:35 pm
People have the right now if they choose. It is no longer a criminal offense to commit suicide.
Chris, what we oppose is the state provide means (and funds) for amoral arsehats like you to slyly kill off family members who don’t want to be a burden.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 12:36 pm
Australians can already kill themselves if they want to. Go for it. I understand guns are pretty quick & painless.
Australians don’t have the right to kill other people. We call that murder. Even if you claim afterwards that your victim might have wanted it.
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 12:36 pm
Chris:
are you competing with Monst and stepford for the asshat of the week award?
You own it and you don;t have to try very hard.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 12:39 pm
Of course, abortion on demand has already set the stage whereby people can legally hire a third party to kill the unwanted & inconvenient. So there’s that.
Think of the lobbying efforts: “It’ll stop messy dangerous illegal backyard senior-killings!”
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 12:41 pm
Smoking and drinking are versions of euthanasia – very slow acting. The left hate them with a passion.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 12:43 pm
Lol…i’m sure someone will advocate that on Q&A.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 12:48 pm
Yeah … but have you tried sniffing sugar?
Leigh Lowe
22 Jan 13 at 12:57 pm
And that’s supposed to make it look bad? Really?
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:01 pm
In Australia that’s true. Our cocaine is of a very poor standard.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 1:02 pm
Havn’t see that yet, but I’ve seen quite a few references to ‘Big Food’.
It’s consistent when you understand their real motives – anti-capitalism. If dope was legalised and sold mainly by Big Marijuana you bet they’d push for plain packaged spliffs, carry on about the ‘cost to society’ of stoners, and probably push for a re-banning.
papachango
22 Jan 13 at 1:04 pm
I think in cases if dementia it should require the person to have signed a declaration while they still had the cognitive ability to make the decision that if they get into such a state they wish to be euthanised. No prior declaration, no euthanasia. In the case of say terminal cancer or diseases which severely affect physical ability but leave a persons mind intact I think it’s much more straightforward.
What about cases where they are not physically capable of doing that?
People do get charged for assisting suicide – eg setting up a machine where all the patient had to do is press a button to kill themself. Not everyone is physically capable of killing themself due to disability but wants to. What’s wrong with allowing someone to help in cases where the person has a genuine desire to do so and has a terminal disease which may also be painful?
Chris
22 Jan 13 at 1:04 pm
…and this one compared using electricity from coal-fired power stations to using heroin.
sugar = cocaine
coal = heroin
what next, full-cream milk = crystal meth?
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 1:05 pm
When it comes to the death penalty, we always hear that it is better for 9 guilt men to live rather than have 1 innocent man die (i.e. don’t take a chance as you can not guaranty 100% certainty).
Yet, when it comes to euthanisia, we assume 100% of people who assist have purely noble intentions.
Another example of the arbitrary way lefties pick and choose what they like and don’t like.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 1:09 pm
I’d argue that sugar is more dangerous than pure cocaine.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 1:09 pm
No it’s not. Especially in a country where the government funds and controls the entire healthcare system.
In the case of cancer patients, all you have to do is rip the guts out of funding for treatment of advanced stages of cancer, and you will make life so fucking miserable for people (when it doesn’t HAVE to be) that you will have them begging you to kill them.
So you save money, AND you get to off the useless eaters. #WIN, right?
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 1:10 pm
Euthanasia is the classic “slippery slope” scenario, especially for the oldies.
Anyone advocating it (and let’s not mince words here) is an amoral monster.
The state enables ‘involuntary euthanasia’ through the ‘rationing’ (i.e. withholding) of medical care to old people, ‘vegetables’, etc.
It is an abomination.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 1:11 pm
Dismantle government funded medical program first and then we talk.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:12 pm
Please note the ruling class never will have to suffer that indignity in the lefty public health utopia.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 1:12 pm
Hungry Jack’s, McDonald’s, etc = LSD
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 1:12 pm
It’s different with alcohol: alcohol can be made at home. (stills, home brew)
The more expensive the store variety the greater the incentive to make your own.
Harold
22 Jan 13 at 1:16 pm
Agreed on the subject of consultants producing wildly inflated economic impact reports to firstly winn the brief, and secondly, generate gumment funding for the particular gouging foundation/entity who commissions the report. A recent example was the Butterfly Foundation report prepared by Access Economics claiming that eating disorders cost $69.7 bn per annum.
Yep …. that’s right …. $70 billion.
The report is an absolute joke.
They make huge leaps in the deriving base data, starting with a reported number of 23,000 sufferers in 2003 to a current “estimate” of 913,000. They take a reported number of deaths of 14 and somehow “tweak” this to 1,829 deaths.
Their costs are heavy on “indirect” costs and, I suspect, double counts.
One of their “costs” is listed as “housework and yardwork”
What?
Don’t people with eating disorders mow the fucking lawn or vacuum the carpet until they get sick, and then it suddenly becomes a “cost”?
What horsehit.
Perhaps we should just euthenise anyone with an eating disorder as soon as it is diagnosed.
They are simply too much of a burden.
Leigh Lowe
22 Jan 13 at 1:18 pm
This must be the most disrespectful blog in the country. No one is spared.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:19 pm
It’s like Animal House in certain ways,
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:19 pm
No fucking way. How easy would it be to forge the declarations? Unless you then had a whole fucking bureaucracy spring up to act as a registry for euthanasia declarations – e.g. “Chris Numpty submitted his signed declaration on 22 January 2013 that he be euthanased immediately should he ever be diagnosed with dementia”
Let’s then say that at some point in the future you found yourself in care, weren’t suffering from dementia, but a pushy relative/’friend’ colluded with a quacktor to see to it that you were?
Bye, Bye, Mr C Numpty.
On the tombstone:
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 1:22 pm
I’d say about one hundred good vines would make a reasonable home vineyard. The manufacturing process just requires some stainless steel vats, and some temperature control, (oak chips optional) unless you want to go all traditional and use open vats or barrels, plunging the cap regularly for maximum colour extraction.
You should be able to produce enough for yourself and some to give away to friends.
blogstrop
22 Jan 13 at 1:30 pm
Ms. Roxon, you are wrong.
Abortion is a procedure which if done as intended results in the death of a baby.
So that makes two…
JohnA
22 Jan 13 at 1:34 pm
A couple of rich kids I went to college with used to get drunk and play “pull the plug & slice the pie.” It was all about imagining their parents were dead, and how much money, insurance, real estate etc they’d get.
Looking back, I’m pretty sure they were budding sociopaths.
I’m also pretty sure that their parents, who’d now be in their 70s and perhaps suffering from any number of infirmities, would be glad their kids can’t hire someone to kill them on the basis of “but it’s what they would have wanted!“.
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 1:35 pm
LOL.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 1:37 pm
No one heas pleasured Dean Wormer’s wife with a cucurbit yet JC.
Pickles
22 Jan 13 at 1:38 pm
reverse balayages?
What’s that?
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:38 pm
Where did m0nty get to, anyway?
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 1:39 pm
I just can’t wait for November.
Tom
22 Jan 13 at 1:39 pm
Give it time, Pickles. Give it time. We’ll invariably get there.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:40 pm
I’d argue that sugar is more dangerous than pure cocaine.
I use this analogy. There is a hunter gatherer group in some SE Asian jungle whose only saw of high content sugar is honey found in beehives high in the forest canopy. So they climb holding a smoking firestick to obtain this honey and it is one of the most dangerous undertakings resulting in frequent injury, much moreso than hunting.
Now if you saw a people doing that to get cocaine you think they were stark raving mad junkies and you’d be right.
But the bastards want to regulate everything. The bastards are now suggesting obesity is an addiction. If you have a problem with eating then stop eating. What is so bloody hard about going hungry? We are in the process of spending a fortune in medical costs because people can’t control their eating. Stark raving mad.
The medical profession is driving this medicalising everything that we think is not how you should behave. Take it up with those bastards.
John H.
22 Jan 13 at 1:40 pm
The story is partly based on Galaxy polling. The Herald Sun ran a more interesting take on the same story, and got some other views:
PSC
22 Jan 13 at 1:51 pm
It’s a curious Australian phenomenon.
I think Hitler was actually born in a small town in Australia.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 1:53 pm
The Australian left would love Hitler. An anti-semite, environmentalist, animal lover, teetotaler, vegetarian, public works Keynesian and anti-smoking fanatic.
He ticks all of their boxes.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 1:56 pm
The problem of assisted suicide is the same problem as the death penalty, it seems like a good idea until you realise things fuck up and a person might die wrongly.
The idea of pre-dementia instructions for assisted suicide is demented. How would you know the poor old loony didn’t change his or her mind after signing the thing?
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 1:56 pm
“The medical profession is driving this medicalising everything that we think is not how you should behave.”
Not to forget the contribution of the welfare state. You need to be controlled in case your bad habits lead you to become a burden on society.
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 1:58 pm
The current Caucus would love him.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 1:58 pm
Sinc
That’s a liberty quote. For sure.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 2:00 pm
And like most lefties Hitler was always banging on about “think of the children” without ever wanting his own.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 2:00 pm
CL, where does Hitler’s rumored love of scat fit into the equation?
Huckleberry Chunkwot
22 Jan 13 at 2:02 pm
Don’t forget euthanasia. He was quite fond of encouraging it within certain communities, and eventually opted to practice it himself.
BM
22 Jan 13 at 2:15 pm
Yep, and it was witnessed by Julia Gillard the week before!
BM
22 Jan 13 at 2:17 pm
BOOM!
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 2:19 pm
As is mentioned above, the chance for fraud relating to the documents is a real threat. With regard to voter fraud it is a serious issue that active strategies have been put in place to avoid:
Token
22 Jan 13 at 2:22 pm
Maybe I’m a little obtuse.
The Herald Sun ran a piece about the same opinion poll Sinc/Christian Kerr referred to, and the Herald Sun piece said in essence that Australians want liberty/no-nanny state for themselves, but they love rules and the nanny state for other people.
What precisely has this got to do with anti-semitism and Hitler?
PSC
22 Jan 13 at 2:27 pm
Don’t forget euthanasia. He was quite fond of encouraging it within certain communities, and eventually opted to practice it himself.
euthanasia and population control. He was quite the enthusiast.
entropy
22 Jan 13 at 2:27 pm
That’s what I love about it.
Megan
22 Jan 13 at 2:28 pm
nothing PSC. It’s just amusing and anyway, this thread has been going so long it was time to invoke Godwin’s Law.
entropy
22 Jan 13 at 2:29 pm
Freaky:
Morals campaigner Nicola Roxon.
Bergen-Belsen guard Irma Grese.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 2:32 pm
Meanwhile, in NSW:
Bolt likens BOF to both Lenin and Stalin.
Yet no mention of this here, to compare and contrast with Roxon. Funny, that.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:37 pm
You know, you really are very dense. First, we the people here don’t give a toss which party implements these draconian laws, both get skewered and many here have no illusions as to whether the Libs will pare back s.18c. So don’t make this issue of free speech/expression a partisan event here. That’s your bag as i notice the only time you speak up against it is when a Lib toes the totalitarian Labor line.
Second, apart from you, whoTF reads the Newcastle Herald?
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 2:42 pm
If you weren’t such s morbidly obese slow coach mOnty you would realise we’ve already given that fascist cnut O’Farrell both barrels in previous threads.
Roxon is also the Federal Minister for Spreading Fascism and Ugliness, so her disgusting shadow is cast longer than the coiffured Nazi, calorie vacuuming poonce from NSW.
Keep up and get off the carbs.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 2:42 pm
Yes there has been dickhead. There’s been plenty of talk on the open thread about that moron.
Here’s a challenge for you, asshat. Point to one thread since you’ve been here that you’ve agreed with that has been against the Liars Party talking points of the day.
One will do.
Go!
JC
22 Jan 13 at 2:42 pm
JC: the shale oil thread.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:44 pm
Super off topic now, but I’ve often thought that Libertarian blogs should have a Godwin’s-type law for the first troll in any given thread to snark, “Well why don’t you just move to SOMALIA then, huh? Huh?” The Somalia Corollary.
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 2:46 pm
Link it
JC
22 Jan 13 at 2:46 pm
Link (IIRC, direct internal links to the Cat don’t work).
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:48 pm
We bashed O’Farrell a week ago, Monty, you block head.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 2:50 pm
Okay
Give me another one. One more Monst.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 2:51 pm
And so where was the big thread on it, CL? Not important enough, as opposed to yet another Roxonpile?
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:52 pm
LOL JC, you’re a clown.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:52 pm
does anyone know if Nicoli Von Roxon is due to loose her seat at the next election?
Max
22 Jan 13 at 2:54 pm
It’s a hairstyle JC. The wife can explain
Rousie
22 Jan 13 at 2:55 pm
Not as important, no. O’Farrell isn’t the Commonwealth Attorney-General.
But look, I encourage a dedicated thread to O’Farrell and Ballieu bashing.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 2:55 pm
Monty, if everyone agreed BoF was being a fuckwit then the thread wouldn’t be very long. I remember it.
I’ll say it again, he’s being a fuckwit and a dope. Those laws should be abolished. There were already sufficient actual crimes without the anti-discrimination nonsense.
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 2:55 pm
Welcome back, chucklehead. You’ve returned to try & explain this one, have you?
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 2:56 pm
Look at what being a lefty has done to this former high achieving hotty.
http://www.news.com.au/national/former-olympian-nova-peris-to-seek-preselection-for-the-federal-senate/story-fncynjr2-1226559073672
Max
22 Jan 13 at 2:57 pm
You’ve all agreed about Roxon for 100 posts so far.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 2:59 pm
Here, have a tissue, monst. Dry those eyes.
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 3:00 pm
She’s the most despicable person in Australian history. I think she deserves a daily thread of scorn.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 3:00 pm
Gee, monty, was that the best you could do? Endorse it because you don’t want to run out of evil oyle until there’s some “funded” magic mushroom extract to use instead?
blogstrop
22 Jan 13 at 3:00 pm
What are you looking for M0nty? Diversity of ideas like you find in a US College? Nanny Roxon would love to impose those rules.
Penn & Teller discuss that topic too
Token
22 Jan 13 at 3:01 pm
“You’ve all agreed about Roxon for 100 posts so far.”
When you’re really good at something a lot of recognition is to be expected.
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 3:02 pm
I started the Baillieu bashing before he was elected and when he was. I always had him pegged as a not very bright patrician douchebag and Victoria would have been better going with Brumby whom i thought was actually better value and wouldn’t spoil the Lib brand.
STFU monst.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 3:02 pm
Hell no, she reflects the values of the luvvies who all want to be different and avoid conforming by all living in the inner city luvvie suburb to the north of Melbourne city.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 3:04 pm
Yes, but O’Barrell is not in her league as evil and grotesque. However he’s trying desperately to head in that direction.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 3:04 pm
Leave Olive ALOOOOONE!!11!eleventy!!!
~sob~
sdog
22 Jan 13 at 3:05 pm
You want some Abbott bashing too? Here’s Sinodinos warning us that the change in govt might not be all you’d wish for:
“He is committed to strong economic management, but his passions are the social outcomes that a growing economy makes possible.
He is intensely interested in those on the margins of society and how we bring them back into the mainstream with meaningful employment and the self-esteem and purpose that go with it.”
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 3:07 pm
mUttley, if it’s any consolation I’ve already stated previously on this blog that I will not be voting the for liberals in NSW in recognition of O’Barrell’s infuriating fascist idiocy.
They drop this bullshit, or it’s no dice.
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 3:09 pm
Typically sane, composed contribution from IT as always.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 3:10 pm
Yeah, Abbott – don’t forget – is Mr Plain Packaging.
Or, as I call him – Jim Trott (Vicar of Dibley): “No-no-no-no-no – yes.”
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 3:11 pm
LOL
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 3:12 pm
Congrats Rabs, so the Right loses again, as it did in the NSW Liberals last month.
m0nty
22 Jan 13 at 3:12 pm
When an Aboriginal is installed to replace a non-Aboriginal not on merit but just on being an Aboriginal, does that constitute racial discrimination?
Sandra
22 Jan 13 at 3:13 pm
He’s a treasure to the site. A cat living treasure.
Fat boy, don’t try this pox on both houses routine here because it doesn’t work. There’s no leftwing trick that’s ever been tried we don’t see through. Now fuck off.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 3:13 pm
It’s hard to find any pollie you can feel comfortable about at the moment. I’m looking forward to voting out gillard, but not so sure about voting in abbott. I put it in the same category as the one labor vote in my life, the 1989 Qld state election.
Pedro
22 Jan 13 at 3:15 pm
That’s positive discrimination… as it’s called in leftist circles. That’s supposed to be a good thing I think.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 3:16 pm
Novas Peris achieved something far more remarkable than being the first Aborigine that the ALP would let indoors. She is the first Australian women’s hockey player not to be a lezzo.
Quite amazing.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 3:19 pm
I’m gone if they do a study on the cost to society osteo arthritis sufferers.
kae
22 Jan 13 at 3:38 pm
1:19 pm
Equal opportunity insulters/offence-givers.
kae
22 Jan 13 at 3:41 pm
He didn’t have much time for homosexuals though he was a deft hand at organising the outcome of leadership spills. Just ask Ernst Rohm
Splatacrobat
22 Jan 13 at 3:48 pm
I suspect the short answer is “yes” while the long answer is, “hell yes!”
nilk
22 Jan 13 at 3:49 pm
Apparently, Crossin lost her job has something to do with Rudd
Sandra
22 Jan 13 at 4:03 pm
What a disgraceful way to treat Ms Crossin, she’s only found out yesterday what had been planned for weeks behind her back.
candy
22 Jan 13 at 4:06 pm
JC we need to call the left out on their bullshit spin a bit more. Let’s start with this. There’s no such thing as ‘positive’ discrimination, by it’s very definition is positive for some parties and negative for others. Next time they try to pull that crap, just reply that South Africa under apartheid was just well-implemented positive discrimination or affirmative action. It had a range of policies designed to favour one ethnic minority.
papachango
22 Jan 13 at 4:13 pm
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H. L. Mencken
Abu Chowdah
22 Jan 13 at 4:19 pm
If we must reduce everything to the might dollar, how’s about we work out the ‘cost to society’ of leftism? We can start with:
• lost productivity through labour market inflexibility,
• lost entrepreneurship (and hence jobs not created) because of ridiculous taxes and regulations,
• money wasted on welfare where people would otherwise have ben incentivised to get a job
• money down the drain spent on useless green schemens, government subsidies of all kinds, the NBN etc.
• money blown on stimulus packages that didn’t really do much
• the cost to scoiety of dead pink batt installers and dead asylum seekers not being able to cook and clean
• etc etc
Feel free to use the same dodgy assumptions that the nanny staters do. I’m sure the number would be in the hundreds of billions if not trillions.
Anyone want to have a crack?
papachango
22 Jan 13 at 4:20 pm
Imagine going from 30% to 40% of kids going to uni!
A third of the students at present don’t know why they are there.
Rafe
22 Jan 13 at 4:34 pm
You really have to be a first rate dickhead to be a leftist.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 4:35 pm
My policy would be that only 2% need uni. All the other dummies can get proper jobs and become adults.
Infidel Tiger
22 Jan 13 at 4:53 pm
Sandra:
If the Liberal Party pre-selected a black female former athlete, it would be tokenism of the most rancid 1950s sort.
When the ALP do it, it’s progressive.
You must try harder to grasp that all-important double standard. I recommend a week’s uninterrupted viewing of the ABC to correct your foolish tendency to ask such trivial and biased questions.
http://philippamartyr.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/tokenism-gillard-style-today-julia.html
Philippa Martyr
22 Jan 13 at 4:55 pm
Gawd, that’s harsh Philippa. Not even murderers get so severe punishment.
Gab
22 Jan 13 at 4:57 pm
In case you don’t find the whole process disgusting enough,
Windsor and Oakeshott are going to use the passage of this disgusting tripe as a means to hussle a few more dollars for their electorates:
Oh yes, I truly believe those two will consider the merits of the case, like they did when deciding between Gillard & Abbott.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 5:05 pm
It is real positive.
Our country is the beneficiary of the policy. We’ve received a steady supply of highly educated, extremely well motivated SAFs which has made Australia richer as we can free ride off their education system.
Token
22 Jan 13 at 5:07 pm
Phillipa,
Sorry I was young and naive.
If Tony Abbott parachutes in an Aboriginal woman, it just means he has a problem with women.
Sandra
22 Jan 13 at 5:17 pm
Not under labor. Their proposed mods to the discrimination laws say its legal to discriminate if you are doing so to promote ‘equality’. So it’s legal to descriminate in favour of any minority.
Mundi
22 Jan 13 at 5:35 pm
Nonsense. How else will people LEARN what is GOOD for them?
Interestingly – and back on topic – La Roxon seems to have overlooked the fact that quite a lot of people who smoke don’t actually die of it.
Philippa Martyr
22 Jan 13 at 5:44 pm
Yep,
the only way the ALP works is on patronage and bonded loyalty based on common misdeeds or knowledge of such. Otherwise they need a list to achieve parity.
But I guess this really tells us that Julia and the ALP is shit scared that they will lose Warren Snowdon’s NT seat to a CLP indigenous candidate just like they lost all those seats in the NT election. That would leave an all white ALP ticket in winnable positions (Lingiari Snowdon and Crossin in the Senate) whilst the CLP list will almost certainly field an indigenous candidate for Lingiari to unseat Snowdon. They truly are hopeless – although the media will gush over this.
Hopefully all those Republicans who were anti direct election for the President will complain. After all they kept telling us that the great unwashed would just pick a famous sporting personality. Looks like Gillard is the elector the smart people fear. She truly is trash.
John Comnenus
22 Jan 13 at 5:55 pm
There was a study a few years ago of people who tried to commit suicide by jumping from a great height but accidently survived.
They found that half of them changed their minds on the way down !
Le Chiffre
22 Jan 13 at 6:02 pm
And Hitler was the leader of the National SOCIALIST party.
face ache
22 Jan 13 at 6:29 pm
Voluntary Euthanasia and assisted suicide happens now. For example, its well documented how people go to Mexico on holiday to collect the necessary drugs and have get togethers create the poison they want to make. And I think you’re being naive if you think members of the medical profession are not sometimes involved. Voluntary Euthanasia in practice is available for those who have money or connections and for those who are physically too disabled those who have close friends or family who are willing to take a risk on their behalf.
In Australia it happens out of any regulation at all and people do it in relative secrecy because of the illegality of voluntary euthanasia. Thus we end up with court cases which are not only expensive but there may be a lack of traceability of consent because people – even the person who wants to die – does not want any proof around which would get the people helping them into legal trouble.
Regulated schemes overseas have safeguards which our unregulated scheme does not. For example, multiple psychiatric reports from different doctors, medical proof of severe ongoing pain or a terminal disease. Australia could select a pretty high threshold for approval.
At the moment we have the situation where it is legal for the terminally ill or severely injured to decide to refuse food and water meaning they will die over a relatively long period of time in discomfort or pain. But it is not legal to request to be given drugs which will kill them quickly and without pain. Thats an absurd restriction in those sorts of circumstances.
Chris
22 Jan 13 at 6:47 pm
So Chris, if it is happening now why the need for formal government recognition?
Boy you fuckers can’t live without the state can you?
JC
22 Jan 13 at 6:49 pm
Sigh. This misunderstanding keeps raising its silly little head.
It goes something like this:
Only white people can be racists
Only males can be sexist
Only heterosexuals can be homophobic
There are exceptions to this rule, eg anybody can be anti semite except Muslims, but the general rule is isms and ists are objected to specifically nominated offender classes.
Jannie
22 Jan 13 at 6:57 pm
There was a study a few years ago of people who tried to commit suicide by jumping from a great height but accidently survived.
They found that half of them changed their minds on the way down !
If you jump from a high enough building you will never experience hitting the pavement because our conscious apprehension is circa .5 sec behind what happens so your last conscious apprehension is about 2 metres from the ground.
At the moment we have the situation where it is legal for the terminally ill or severely injured to decide to refuse food and water meaning they will die over a relatively long period of time in discomfort or pain. But it is not legal to request to be given drugs which will kill them quickly and without pain. Thats an absurd restriction in those sorts of circumstances.
It is ridiculous and extremely expensive. But if we have a situation were so-called libertarians oppose voluntary e then we’re fucked. I have to wonder if this comes back to that religious motif that committing suicide is a mortal sin, a trip to hell. The govt has no right in any way to prevent me from committing suicide for whatever reason. But when libertarians oppose voluntary e. I think we’re already in hell.
John H.
22 Jan 13 at 7:03 pm
If I was on the way out and in severe pain that medication could not still, I’d pull the plug on myself. People who say they wouldn’t are just lying to themselves.
candy
22 Jan 13 at 7:25 pm
John
I think there’s a qualitative aspect to this. There’s no way in hell that i would support or lend support for say a young person to commit suicide. It’s a terrible tragedy. I would do almost anything to talk the person out of it. The same would apply for healthy older people.
I’m would really be concerned though if a government set up a program because i don’t want the same entity that pays the cost of healthcare deciding on euthanasia laws. I can though, understand how people with seriously debilitating diseases would want to end it.
Having said that, we probably are close to a libertarian position on suicide as suicide is no longer condemned either through the law or social stigma (the latter not as much).
JC
22 Jan 13 at 7:29 pm
Killing yourself by your own actions fair enough, good on you. What I do not support is some sort of organised, government sanctioned process for euthanasia. Do you think clowns like the current mob in power wouldn’t abuse such a process?
entropy
22 Jan 13 at 7:30 pm
There is euthanasia being practiced right now in our hospitals anyway. Doctors keep increasing the level of opiates as the level of pain increases until the point where the person is unconscious.
JC
22 Jan 13 at 7:30 pm
That’s what I’ve been saying all the way up the thread.
Here:
JC
22 Jan 13 at 7:32 pm
What it does reek of is condescension (or racism in the nicest possible way) and I’m guessing that Aborigines in the NT have had a bellyful of that by now.
manalive
22 Jan 13 at 7:46 pm
As for government sanctioned killing of useless mouths, “Involuntary Euthanasia” is a bit clunky, innit?
“Retrospective Abortion” sounds far more palatable.
Another possible tombstone valediction:
Rabz
22 Jan 13 at 7:48 pm
Eric Crampton? I think I have his “unplugged” album.
blogstrop
22 Jan 13 at 7:59 pm
Except for Greens. For them, euthanasia should be compulsory. The only good Greens are Soylent Greens … euthanased and recycled.
Septimus
22 Jan 13 at 8:10 pm
Philosopher, Roger Scuton.
ella
22 Jan 13 at 8:12 pm
Unfortunately if you suffer from a degenerative disease you may not be able to pull the plug on yourself and will rely on the kindness of someone else willing to risk jail to help you.
What about making it legal for someone else to provide a lethal dose for you, but requiring that you pick up the glass and drink it yourself? Or even further attach say an IV line with lethal drugs, but require you to press a button to activate the machine?
Both are are currently illegal even though the person helping doesn’t actually kill you, just allow you to kill yourself. It means that those who want to kill themselves are afraid to have the comfort of friends or family around when they die for fear they may be prosecuted afterwards.
Chris
22 Jan 13 at 8:46 pm
But it will also change our collective perception of death. It will lessen the awe with which the deliberate killing of human beings is viewed; it will instil a habit of calculation where only absolutes guided our conduct; and in general it will make death and dying both easier to deal with and easier to bring about.
Slippery slope argument. Those are everywhere and often silly. It is like saying hey everyone should have a weapon and someone objects: but then people will think guns are cool, then they will be tempted to find out how really cool guns are so they will go out and start shooting people. Slippery slope arguments are too often thinly disguised alarmism predicated on the idea that once on the slope you can’t stop yourself. Sure, we’re just blind automatons.
And what is so wrong with changing our perception of death? Why presume that way our so called collective perception of death(Ha!) is currently optimal?
John H.
22 Jan 13 at 8:53 pm
No, slippery slope arguments in bio-ethical matters are ALWAYS proven correct.
Always.
C.L.
22 Jan 13 at 8:55 pm
I support voluntary euthanasia in theory, but it is one of those things that works in a perfect world. What makes it imperfect in this case is left-wingers who are almost certainly going to use it as a justification that someone is costing too much to keep alive, and should have had the choice to end their life made for them This has been mentioned in passing by both Obama, the Labor Party (Plibersek) and the Greens (Brown). Frankly, I’d rather people have the means to do it (i.e. firearms are certainly an option in most cases) and it still be firmly illegal so these debates about the cost of life can never be had in the political sphere. The government’s job is only ever to keep you alive and maximise your choices of what you can do with your life (while respecting the rights of other people).
John Mc
22 Jan 13 at 9:18 pm
The means can be taken from you very quickly – eg in a car accident leaving you unable to hold a gun. Interestingly one of the observations of voluntary euthanasia program’s overseas where the applicant has suffered from a degenerative disease is that some who apply for euthanasia approval don’t actually go through with it. But they have said that they would have killed themselves prior to the disease reaching the point where the point where there were unable to do it themself. Knowing that they had approval for voluntary euthanasia and could ask for it made coping with the disease easier.
That’s the theory. In practice it’s a fine line between keeping the pain under control (and this does not mean pain free) and not unduly hastening death. I’ve seen first hand a couple of times doctors struggle to get this right. And I find it rather sad that its likely that for a couple of loved ones that their last experiences of life were one of pain as they drifted in and out of consciousness rather than being able to die at a time of their choosing with a lot less pain.
I think you’re missing the voluntary part of voluntary euthanasia? And what do you think happens to those who can’t afford private healthcare in the US, don’t get private charity but suffer from illnesses like cancer? Deciding not to fund treatment for treatable illnesses that can cause death is a form of involuntary euthanasia.
Chris
22 Jan 13 at 10:04 pm
So, once everyone is not smoking, not drinking, eating the precise amount of authorised food, and exercising according to the regulations, what then?
Samuel J
22 Jan 13 at 10:07 pm
ut they have said that they would have killed themselves prior to the disease reaching the point where the point where there were unable to do it themself. Knowing that they had approval for voluntary euthanasia and could ask for it made coping with the disease easier.
I’m not denying it, and I would have once supported it. After hearing it suggested in passing so often by politicians of the left of centre, I now suspect the costs outweigh the benefits.
I think you’re missing the voluntary part of voluntary euthanasia?
Have you heard left-wing politicians interpret the Second Amendment?
John Mc
22 Jan 13 at 10:21 pm
The fact that lefties bring up gun suicides as an issue but generally support the sick and fucked up Belgian euthenasia system just shows they don’t care about issues, it is merely about posturing and wrecking any good ideas or arguments conservatives or libertarians have.
Again it goes down to two defects in their belief set: i) they wish to humiliate the culture of their opponents for no good reason other than pure bigotry ii) they are reliant on the state for their sense of self worth.
If we are to have euthenasia, let’s have the Swiss model, or allow doctors more freedom to administer analgesic and other pain ameliorating drugs.
As I understand, it is difficult even for a doctor to prescribe or administer very high levels of pain killers to even terminally ill, suffering, actually dying patients.
.
22 Jan 13 at 10:22 pm
Indeed Sam J
That’s what I’m getting to.
Smoking is viewed as sinful, pariah like activity – so much as the radical leftist AG who married a former drug dealer bullied tobacco industry since she was a Minister in 2007.
Yet a socialist Govt. in Belgium has basically taken up the legacy of the T4 programme.
Sick, brain dead, idiotic fucks.
.
22 Jan 13 at 10:30 pm
“On the positive side, I’m seeing positive signs of resistance – here in Perth cyclists getting around without helmets are now commonplace.”
Careful – they’ll have cyclists helmet-free, but car drivers and passengers wearing them with the full fireproof suits, just to go to the shops and buy a loaf of bread.
The Beer Whisperer
22 Jan 13 at 11:18 pm
“It annoys me when people use the rationale that they can choose to do what they want with their body for one thing, but not a comparably similar option for another thing.”
They’re not interested in moral consistency. You think they hate paedophile priests because they find paedophilia repugnant? UK Labour has dozens of elected representatives convicted on peadophilia, and the BBC is an historical hotbed of paedophilia.
The hate paedophile prists because they are priests. Or more particularly, because hypocrisy is their territory, and they want it all to themselves.
The left – monopolising hypocrisy since 1917
The Beer Whisperer
22 Jan 13 at 11:38 pm
“The push is primarily for voluntary euthanasia which I would have thought most libertarians would heartily support. The right to kill yourself and seek help doing so if you want/need assistance.”
Voluntary, you mean, like this?
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 12:00 am
Needless to say, it’s only a matter of time before The Beer Whisperer is forced underground, once they render fermentation illegal. Not such a bad thing really, underground is a perfect environment for fermentation, providing a constant temperature, providing business certainty for yeast.
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 12:07 am
See, that’s the thing.
All the State (who controls the entire health system and holds the purse-strings and wants to see ‘useless eaters’ snuffed out) has to do is limit the supply of painkillers & anti-emetics, say, to cancer sufferers who could well survive their current crisis but who will beg to be exterminated NOW if they are denied access to pain-killers and anti-emetics.
See how that works?
sdog
23 Jan 13 at 12:44 am
John H, have you demonstrated this? No. The interesting thing in debates like this is that those couching the change never really appreciate the implications of such a change, or the changes implied on related ideas. We’ve already seen euthanasia extended to persons not suffering a terminal illness or any pain in a jurisdiction in which euthanasia is practiced. So there can be no reason in such jurisdictions why hospitals should not be able to admit for the purposes of ‘a good death’ suicidal patients. If bowing to the will of those concerned is paramount, ambulance officers attending the scene of a failed apparent suicide should be simply holding the nose and covering the mouth of the patient rather than administering life saving measures. And on and on. So, no, this isn’t a slippery slope argument so much as a reductio ad absurdum; we are simply showing that the logical implications of voluntary euthanasia are morally untenable/ incoherent.
Indeed. But we or the government are not legally or morally obliged to assist you.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 3:11 am
Last year I attended the annual Life Dinner down here in Vic. The theme was euthanasia, so to speak, and there was a lot of interesting information out there. I’ve got a 6-disk dvd of a symposium held in Canada on the subject.
Anyway, I’m digressing as usual, but studies over in the US have shown that one of the indicators for someone professing a desire to kill themselves is mental state. People who are depressed or have other mental issues are more likely to want to top themeselves.
While this would be a no-brainer to most of us here (and having been suicidal a long time ago I can attest to being a loooong way from in my usual headspace), the recommendations from the study I’m thinking of involved referral to mental health specialists for evaluation and treatment before any further action be taken.
Needless to say, the person who carried out the study is a proponent of voluntary euthanasia – not sure if that makes her a euthanasian wench or not – and her recommendations have pretty much been ignored anyway. I think it was in Colorado.
I’ll have to find the reference.
nilk
23 Jan 13 at 7:18 am
Here we go. Alex Schadenberg was the keynote speaker. Here’s part 1 of 10 on youtube of his talk to the University of Toronto Students for Life.
It’s interesting that abortion and euthanasia are so closely linked, and a lot of people who support those are dead set against the death penalty.
nilk
23 Jan 13 at 7:21 am
There is another issue which relates to the right of care providers to refuse to allow assisted suicide.
What will happen in hospitals/institutions where nuns and similar people of faith care for palliative patients?
Far fetched? We’ve alreday seen this occur under Obama in the US.
It has been a theme over the past year where we discuss the way Obamacare was designed in the US so the “rights” of the receiver of the care automatically over-rides any ethical concerns of the care giver.
You can bet the athiest left who develop legislation for Nanny Roxon will be keen to copy the “success” of the re-elected Obama and would enjoy creating a divisive political argument in order to turn the care of such patients into a political football.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 8:19 am
I repeat the challenge which I posed to Chris and the amoral arsehat chose to dodge:
Token
23 Jan 13 at 8:20 am
Indeed nilk, hence my favoured term for euthanaisia, “retrospective abortion”.
It’s all about ‘choice’, people.
Rabz
23 Jan 13 at 8:39 am
“Gay marriage”, euthanasia, the “right” not to be “offended” – in the greater scheme of things these “issues” are all utterly insulting trivialities, desperately pursued by the left to both divert and divide.
Quite frankly, I am utterly fucking sick of hearing about it.
Rabz
23 Jan 13 at 8:44 am
Not really, it’s a matter of checks and balances and who you can trust. I don’t have a problem if a woman genuinely wants an abortion, knows her own mind, and gets in early before the baby is properly formed. I do have a problem if a woman gets pressured into having an abortion and wastes time undecided and panics at the last minute. I really don’t like the sort of stories you hear about forced abortions in China.
Essentially, it’s all the same thing, but when you think about it there’s a big difference depending on circumstance.
So with some old guy who has terminal cancer, nothing to look forward to, is suffering pain, etc. I’m not bothered by euthanasia in principle. The point is, who do you trust with power to kill people? We have enough problem finding someone who can be trusted with basic financial regulations, or keeping up maintenance on a nuclear reactor (remembering to shut it down at the end of the design life). I’d say our society is facing some fundamental trust and credibility problems, which make other things difficult.
Tel
23 Jan 13 at 8:53 am
Tel, you do know you contradicted your opening statement in the nuance in the text of your statement (which I though was thoughtful and well put).
The point Nilk was making (which I highlighted above) is that there is no allowance for nuance on their pet issues, only when confronting those with different opinions.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 9:27 am
Normal people are pro death penalty in the worst cases, the use of abortion sparingly (and early on) and euthenasia when there is no hope but insufferable pain, and the choice is made freely by the terminally ill.
(There a quite a few reasonable people who make good pragmatic arguments against the latter two and academic arguments against the former).
Don’t believe me? Look at decades of polling data.
We’re sick to the guts having bizzare left wing activists pretending they represent everyone trying to save the lives of Tookie Williams et. al., making any argument for abortion look silly because they want Government (taxpayer subsidised) abortion on demand and now this Belgian shit about offing a couple of twins who went blind…FFS.
.
23 Jan 13 at 9:38 am
No I didn’t, I’m dead set against the death penalty precisely because it just becomes too damn tempting in the hands of political operatives to knock off their opponents. Doubly so when I hear some of the radical greens calling out what they would like to do with unbelievers.
It all comes down the the same basic trust issue, and the consequence of accepting that some powers are just really difficult to trust people with. I don’t personally see any contradiction.
Tel
23 Jan 13 at 9:47 am
That has never happened in a liberal, democratic country.
The US and Japan have never had such an incident whilst they were democracies.
.
23 Jan 13 at 10:09 am
Token, I had thought of that but left it alone.
The reasonableness of this depends upon the ambiguity of ‘properly formed’(it suggests ‘just a clump of cells’ argument). The unborn child in Week 3 is no different to the child in week 6, 12, 24, 48 and so on in the relevant sense of having the power of reason and intellect; does s/he enjoy theses powers yet? No, but neither does a child to any significant degree until sometime in primary school. Once that is clarified I suggest the reasonableness slips away.
I think they are similar, but more importantly, in another a sense. Both the unborn child and the terminally ill patient, patient in permanently vegetative state, or Alzheimer’s patient, for instance, are dependent; dependent in ways that make it difficult for contractarian, utilitarian, and Kantian moral theories to fully consider their situation adequately. They fail to do this by beginning and ending with a human being as a rational autonomous individual, ignoring the fact that we begin, end, and may accidentally spend a portion of our lives, as dependent rational animals.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 10:27 am
And normal people favour Blue Nun over Chateau Latour.
Morality isn’t based on what ‘normal’ people feel or tell pollsters in an opinion poll, but by carefully considered ratiocination.
Have you ever done one of those polls. The interviewer asks you a lot of rapid fire questions and gives you no time to think and no chance to qualify your answers. No opinion poll could really give such qualitative answers as you suggest.
Rococo Liberal
23 Jan 13 at 10:30 am
But they made a good pragmatic argument, dot?
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 10:31 am
I find that situation pretty sad. They were already deaf so I can understand why they found the prospect of also going blind terrifying – I think most people would be very fearful of being both blind and deaf where the only communication you would have with the outside world is touch.
I hope they got a lot of counselling before they were given approval of euthanasia – and remember it is still *voluntary* euthanasia. And at least they didn’t have to go through (and put others through) the trauma of say shooting themselves or try a suicide method that failed and simply left them blind, deaf and further disabled.
IMO ideally if a woman does not want to continue to carry a foetus and it is old enough to survive outside the womb then the foetus should simply be delivered (assuming this is does not put the woman’s health more at risk). The government would have to pick up the medical costs. Admittedly there’s a lot of quality of life issues around the 25-30 week mark but removes a lot of the controversy around late term abortions. Better government support for severely disabled children and their carers would probably reduce the number of abortions related to disability too but the community has to be willing to pay the money.
I think in practice locking them in jail is just as effective and doesn’t create a martyr (look at Singapore/Malaysia for example where they don’t execute political opponents, but they do lock them up or prosecute them at politically convenient times).
The track record of the death penalty in the US isn’t so good. Its very expensive in an effort to avoid errors, but mistakes still occur.
Its possible errors could occur with voluntary euthanasia – someone mentally ill for example who volunteers and gets through the screening process. But making it dependent on having a terminal disease, especially if you say had to have a life expectancy of less than a year reduces both the probability of that occuring (people can’t simply volunteer because they are depressed) and the impact – they were going to die very soon regardless.
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 11:02 am
Asinine shit, DB and R.L.
.
23 Jan 13 at 11:12 am
You know what I find sad?
No one bothered to try to give them a cochlear implant, give them vision saving surgery or teach them braille.
.
23 Jan 13 at 11:15 am
“and now this Belgian shit about offing a couple of twins who went blind…FFS.”
Can we have a show of hands among blind people who think their lives are not worth living?
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 11:18 am
Helen Keller seemed to thrive.
Gab
23 Jan 13 at 11:19 am
Yes. By participating in a detailed poll I’ve now got myself on the “friendly” list with one of the big polling companies and get phone calls / emails to participate on polls every couple of weeks.
In November I was asked a bunch of specific questions on foreign aid & immigration policy. It had a number of questions which I refused to answer as I would not accept the 2 options. Both were based upon vacuous green/left assumptions.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 11:20 am
Great to see Dot in full debating mode
Rococo Liberal
23 Jan 13 at 11:25 am
Good to see you think what plebs drink justifies your contrarian political views.
.
23 Jan 13 at 11:52 am
“Lets begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet today”
You mean those traditional internet lands of aboriginal folklore? Yes, let’s.
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 11:54 am
How the hell did that happen? Wrong thread…
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 11:55 am
True, some people certainly can. But that doesn’t mean everyone is capable and ultimately I think we need to accept the decision that the person who has the illness or disease makes as long as they are mentally capable of making that decision. And pretty obviously the amount of support they are given is going to influence how they feel. Living in poverty on a disability pension whilst deaf and blind isn’t going to be much fun.
Do you know that or just assume that? Medical technology can’t fix all cases of deafness or blindness. But I agree they should have been offered these options if they were not.
Also they didn’t just suffer from deafness and blindness. One of them could only sleep upright because of a respiratory problem. The other had spinal damage and had a lot of difficulty walking. All these problems individually are not that unusual, but all of them together and permanent and I can understand why someone would feel that their quality of life is so low that they don’t want to live.
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 11:56 am
How the hell did that happen? Wrong thread…
Too much beer, not enough whispering.
Nanny will be onto you soon.
Gab
23 Jan 13 at 11:57 am
Aaaaaand… there it is. The “It’ll put an end to messy dangerous backyard homicides!” argument.
Medicalising murder and suicide – making it just another nice neat clean & friendly “procedure” (with the requisite Medicare forms and such to fill in, no doubt) sickens and scares me.
No. If you want to kill yourself, you do it yourself. If you want to kill your Mom or your wife or your Nanna, do it yourself. Do this one fucking last thing you’re ever going to do on earth yourself. Don’t co-opt the medical profession and society at large into it.
There is no good to be had from giving the State the right – nay, the responsibility – to calmly and bureaucratically kill its own citizens – especially when that State also controls the entire health system.
As I pointed out a few times above, it would just be way too easy for the State which controls the healthcare purse-strings to deny any kind of meaningful care to the ill, the infirm, the disabled, the depressed, with the excuse of “cost-cutting” but knowing full well that they can cause those peoples’ lives to become so pain-filled and miserable that they’ll “voluntarily” ask to be killed.
sdog
23 Jan 13 at 11:57 am
Yes, always with the but.
But how long before the example set by the brothers will society deem it normal and acceptable to kill off all the deafblind people in this world. For thier own good, of course.
Gab
23 Jan 13 at 11:59 am
Fine. Let them kill themselves. But don’t make it a valid “medical” option or the State will start using it as such.
Parkinson’s patient needs a $50,000 brain implant to still his quaking and make the next 30 years of his life worth living? Naw, deny him that but offer to kill him, nice and clean and gentle-like. Believe me, when he gets to the point where he cannot lift a glass to is own lips or even toilet himself, he will consider it.
We will become a disposable society, never making any new medical advances because instead of feeling moved to discover a way to make sick and disabled peoples’ lives more bearable we’ll just kill them instead.
sdog
23 Jan 13 at 12:05 pm
Teh Belgian twins clearly could make an informed decision, but still people will worry that they weren’t quite in a rational state, perhaps depressed or such. This leads me to think that it is difficult to avoid the central argument for Nanny, which is that each of us think that people making decisions we think wrong must be fucked in the head and so in need of supervision or help.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 12:22 pm
The Belgian twins were probably everything to each and scared witless about being separated. Being separtaed from each other would be same as death.
Their glaucoma must have been untreatable for some reason. Maybe no family members offered to take them in.
candy
23 Jan 13 at 12:26 pm
Do YOU know the counterfactuals or are YOU just assuming?
True. Why get a doctor involved though?
Why? Probably because of regulation – they couldn’t buy the materials required to off themselves.
Choice is good, it minimises the occurrence of dubious “medical” decision making.
.
23 Jan 13 at 12:39 pm
You’re missing the voluntary bit of voluntary euthanasia.
And because they want it to be done right. Not end up further disabled to the point where they are physically unable to finish the job.
Why shouldn’t you be able to ask for help if you want or need it? And even if you do it yourself why should you be prevented from having friends or family around while you die for fear of them being prosecuted for assisting your suicide?
So you believe it should be legal to buy the required materials prepared correctly? Without any regulation?
We (both in the US and Australia health insurance systems – private and public) already deny funding in those sorts of circumstances. Both private and public insurance commonly have limits especially when it comes to quality of life rather than a more direct life/death. But both restrict for example the funding of expensive experimental drugs for cancer treatment.
Yes this is a case where many here actually want the Nanny state to intervene. To make it illegal to seek help to suicide rather than leave it up to the individual to make that decision
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 12:56 pm
While deaf activists shit me like you wouldn’t believe, I certainly wouldn’t want to see them euthanaised.
entropy
23 Jan 13 at 12:58 pm
Sure, that’s what it’s called today. But that wasn’t what I stated; the societal norms are being pushed further and further, as has been the pattern in society for eons. At one time, suicide was consider, by society at large, as aberrational. Today it is tolerated as a norm with much clicking of the tongue as a sad event. So let’s stretch that out to government-sanctioned, by society, to kill off deafblinds out of compassion. It’s the norm, so who would object? Who would, by then, remark that it is no longer voluntary? Hey, it’s the norm.
Gab
23 Jan 13 at 1:02 pm
Yes.
How else can you have an assisted suicide anyway?
.
23 Jan 13 at 1:09 pm
Gab – suicide still is seen as bad. For example there’s a lot resources put into mental health services in an effort to reduce the suicide rate. But the view is more nuanced now when it comes to terminal illnesses which are painful or where the quality of life is very low.
I don’t think there are many people that are happy about suicide in these circumstances, but accept that it can be the least worst option for some. There’s a huge gap between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia.
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 1:10 pm
Same goes for little Stella.
It’s amazing that Gillard bandies her about like a magical leprechaun to bash Abbot over the head to silence the debate on her fiscal profligacy (because the NDIS is “beyond issues of cost”) and yet believes in a designer baby rationaled, taxpayer funded, abortion on demand.
.
23 Jan 13 at 1:14 pm
Still not getting it, I see.
Rabz
23 Jan 13 at 1:18 pm
And there’s a huge gap between killing yourself and killing someone else.
Suicide, go for it. Millions of people do. Turning doctors or other “approved” persons into State-sanctioned murderers? No.
sdog
23 Jan 13 at 1:25 pm
And you are missing the point that choice is not made in a social vacuum. The twins were in an environment where euthanasia is considered acceptable. Some people are quite open with their belief that the disabled should not exist. Would this toxic environment influence a decision?
ella
23 Jan 13 at 1:29 pm
It shouldn’t be about approval – it should be about the state getting out of the way.
Let’s say you’re a terminally ill cancer patient in unbearable, constant pain and your family is with you and you’ve said your goodbyes.
If you consent to radical treatment for pain management which has a risk of asphyxia, and a doctor prescribes you “too much” morphine in a graduated, progressive therapy for the pain and you stop breathing, what’s the problem?
.
23 Jan 13 at 1:33 pm
Are you really trying to tell us that mental health services should stop being focused to discourage people from committing suicide?
I trust you have never had to encounter the consequence of a young person committing suicide, nor that of a parent who leaves their children behind.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 1:33 pm
No, not at all. I was pointing out that in general society still sees suicide as a bad thing and puts effort into minimising it. But the public view is a lot more nuanced when it comes to terminally ill patients.
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 1:47 pm
Wow. Just wow.
sdog, well said.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 3:19 pm
FFS, that is the biggest load of politically correct wankspeak that I have ever read.
There can be no such thing as involuntary euthanasia. If the euthanased person is being euthanased involuntarily, the correct term is murder.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
23 Jan 13 at 3:31 pm
I was just using the terminology that others have used here. Other people here have been talking about euthanasia where there is no consent. Which is why I keep reminding people of the “voluntary” component of the proposals.
Chris
23 Jan 13 at 3:37 pm
Which is why people keep reminding you of the fallacy that one can be assured the act is “voluntary”.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 3:46 pm
“If the euthanased person is being euthanased involuntarily, the correct term is murder.”
Depends on your definition of murder. The problem here is that a general principal of right and wrong cannot be easily distilled from the various circumstances.
If a competent adult is indisputably shown to be asking for help to die then I can’t think of a moral basis to argue that the helper is a criminal. Equally, if it is indisputable that a person committed a terrible murder then I have no problem with the death penalty for him or her. My worry is that there will be cases in which indisputability is wrongly determined.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 3:47 pm
“Which is why people keep reminding you of the fallacy that one can be assured the act is “voluntary”.”
Funny how a post against the nanny state ends up with the discussion in favour of the nanny state.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 3:49 pm
Need we remind the reader of the case of Terri Schiavo?
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 3:52 pm
Pedro, maybe I didn’t make my sarcasm clear enough.
The terms euthanasia and involuntary must be mutually exclusive.
Huckleberry Chunkwot
23 Jan 13 at 4:02 pm
Are you working of the small government = no government fallacy?
Read the full thread Pedro. It has been noted many times that suicide has been decriminalised.
The role of the state is to discourage it, help rehabilitate the poor soul if the suicide fails and to help dispose of the body if the event is successful.
Token
23 Jan 13 at 4:03 pm
Because it would, despite consent, count as murder. BTW, do you remember that case in which a man placed an advert in the paper or the like looking for another man that would have sex with him and then eat him. Do you think that there is no moral basis, even here, to argue that the murderer/ cannibal is not a criminal? If not, there is something wrong with what you believe counts as a moral basis.
Not at all. The apparatus required to actually administer and manage the arrangements of ‘a good death’ for those of this inclination would actually involve and further the nanny state.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 4:06 pm
Token and huckleberry, various people, me included, have commented that one of the arguments againt voluntary euthanasia is that we can’t be sure it’s really voluntary because people might be depressed, or subject to outside influence or whatever. Isn’t that a bit of nannying?
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 4:07 pm
Are you arguing about the pure and the perfect here?
Token
23 Jan 13 at 4:09 pm
If worrying about people being coerced into euthanasia constitutes ‘nannying’, we are in trouble, given that these people are likely to be genuinely vulnerable.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 4:12 pm
“Because it would, despite consent, count as murder.”
But that is because of our current definition of murder. A law does not make a thing moral or immoral. I don’t remember that particularly gruesome request for assisted suicide. But at a moral level, if you are a competent adult and really want to die, how is somebody killing you immoral?
“The apparatus required to actually administer and manage the arrangements of ‘a good death’ for those of this inclination would actually involve and further the nanny state.”
Hmmm, it’s not the nanny state if we ban assisting suicide on the grounds that people can’t be trusted to competently decide for themselves, but it would be the nanny state if we let people make those decisions and legislated a sign-off process to make sure there really was a competent decision.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 4:15 pm
Not at all. The apparatus required to actually administer and manage the arrangements of ‘a good death’ for those of this inclination would actually involve and further the nanny state.
Not really, it is not that hard to commit suicide. Some sleepers and a plastic bag, or just keep upping the morphine. BTW, *too* easy to argue that a person seeking death is depressed. Of course a person facing a long, painful death is bloody depressed but that doesn’t mean they are incapable of informed decision making. I’ve known people who have refused further chemo because of the side effects. These people are in effect committing suicide. They would rather die prematurely than go through that hell again. It is easy to think that life must be preserved at all costs when we are healthy but enough years of pain and disability will welcome death for a great many. The prohibition against euthanasia makes people suffer for the sake of the State or the greater good. You can shove that where the sun don’t shine.
John H.
23 Jan 13 at 4:22 pm
“If worrying about people being coerced into euthanasia constitutes ‘nannying’, we are in trouble, given that these people are likely to be genuinely vulnerable.”
But all nannying is justified on the basis of vulnerability. Smokers are victims of evil big tobacco. I have to wear a bike helmet because not doing so is apparently stupid. What is nannying if it is not making decisions for people or limiting their right to make those decisions. It doesn’t stop being nannying because it is a good idea for once.
Token, I’m doing the opposite of arguing for the pure and the perfect. I’m a pragmatist and largely a libertarian. So I like the state to not interfere, but when the stakes are so high, it really is a good idea.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 4:22 pm
The ‘If’.
DriftForge
23 Jan 13 at 4:26 pm
LOL
JamesK
23 Jan 13 at 4:32 pm
“LOL”
Oh look, a stupid person has arrived.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 4:33 pm
True, but this law accurately reflects our moral tradition.
Because consent doesn’t exhaust what counts as moral or immoral, just as the consent given in the example I provided above, doesn’t extinguish the moral enormity of the acts involved.
Notice the difference? In the first instance, you have a simple law, in the latter instance you have an apparatus of administration and management.
I never said it was; it is even legal.
No, they are simply denying themselves burdensome medical treatment. People are perfectly entitled to do this. To suggest that this is ‘in effect’ to kill oneself is to fail to notice the difference between an act of omission and an act of commission.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 5:05 pm
Why? It was not euthenasia. She had her life support switched off.
Totally different.
.
23 Jan 13 at 5:08 pm
To which she didn’t consent to, dot. But, yes, apart from that the matters were ‘totally different’. Dear oh dear.
dover_beach
23 Jan 13 at 5:13 pm
“True, but this law accurately reflects our moral tradition.”
Sure, but I’m asking whether it should be reconsidered. If it is now legal to commit suicide and that was once a crime then how does one justify prosecuting a helper?
“Notice the difference? In the first instance, you have a simple law, in the latter instance you have an apparatus of administration and management.”
But that difference is irrelevant to the question of which is nannying, the essence of which is the imposition of decisions. A simple law prohibiting you from asking to be euthanised is the universal imposition of a decision to not be euthanised. If the justification for that universal decision is concerns about decision making capacity then that is nannying. Now, I acknowledge some people might have a religious justification for such a law, but the nonreligious justifications were given in various comments, including by me, and that’s what I’m talking about.
I don’t think this is so hard. Is it just that you don’t want to agree that something you favour might be nannying?
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 5:17 pm
I don’t think Schiavo’s case has any relationship to voluntary euthanasia, but it does raise interesting moral questions about who should make the decision for an incompetent.
Unless you think a life of unbearable suffering is necessarily better than death because that is god’s will, I think you have to acknowledge that there are two ends of the spectrum and the argument is about the grey area.
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 5:21 pm
“To suggest that this is ‘in effect’ to kill oneself is to fail to notice the difference between an act of omission and an act of commission.”
And a plastic bag over the head is the omission of air or the commission of self-suffocation? What about a hunger strike, or fluid strike? What about a simple blood transfusion?
Pedro
23 Jan 13 at 5:23 pm
“No, they are simply denying themselves burdensome medical treatment. People are perfectly entitled to do this.”
It can be the only way someone can end their suffering, in jurisdictions without voluntary euthanasia and in situations where other people won’t help. Sometimes people starve themselves to death because they don’t have the physical capacity to kill themselves in any other way, and the law prevents anyone helping.
Jarrah
23 Jan 13 at 6:18 pm
“Too much beer, not enough whispering. Nanny will be onto you soon.”
She doesn’t know my secret weapon….beer breath.
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 7:07 pm
“She doesn’t know my secret weapon….beer breath”
That reminds me of this
The Beer Whisperer
23 Jan 13 at 7:10 pm
What a load of nonsense. I don’t consent to mortality either, but tough shit.
.
23 Jan 13 at 8:45 pm
I think, but I may be mistaken, it is because the former has been made legal out of compassion for those that fail in their object while the latter remains illegal in order to not encourage those who would assist in the commission of such wrongdoing.
Not really. A law which prohibits euthanasia is a law which prohibits persons from actively and deliberately taking lives even where the person concerned may have consented to the taking. The law also prohibits persons from amputating perfectly good limbs even where they consent to such enormities and it does this by prohibiting doctors from acceding to the prospective amputees wishes. I don’t think this is ‘nannying’. Nannying involves the government insinuating itself into the mundane aspects of my life even where I am perfectly able to look after myself. Now in the situation concerned, where I am terminally ill, or suffering from Alzheimer’s, that is in situations where I am actually quite vulnerable; I don’t think a simple law which prevents me from procuring assistance to die, or one which prohibits persons from touting their services as ‘angels of death’, is in fact ‘nannying’, but if it is, it is really ‘nannying’ of a homeopathic variety. It is the qualified ‘nannying’ which exhorts that we care for the orphan, the stranger, and the widow; I have no problem at all with this.
The case is of course related to voluntary euthanasia by the word euthanasia.
What? Look, I’m not inventing an original distinction here. If someone refuses a second bout of chemotherapy which is judged as unlikely to succeed, they haven’t killed themselves, the cancer has done that.
There is the principle of double effect that can avoid this situation.
I love it when you lose it.
dover_beach
24 Jan 13 at 8:41 am
Another word for euthanasia is mercy killing.
We do it to animals all the time, because death is inevitable, and getting it over quickly reduces the suffering.
It’s kind of sad that we require humans to suffer through pain that we wouldn’t inflict on animals.
Of course there are also plenty of cases of animals that are euthanised simply because they have no economic value, or the cost of the treatment isn’t worth it.
That’s the trick when trying to apply this to humans. How can you minimise suffering while still ensuring that people who want to keep living are not euthanised against their will?
As for the people saying that killing yourself is easy because you can just buy a gun, take loads of morphine or a bunch of sleeping tablets….When was the last time you tried to buy a gun, or a lot of morphine, or a lethal dose of sleeping tablets? It’s not as easy as you seem to think. You can’t even buy Sudafed easily in Australia any more, because someone might use it to get high.
I think at the very least that people who wish to kill themselves should be allowed to buy the stuff that would allow them to do it. At present, if you were laying dying in a hospital bed, and asked the doctor to bring you a bottle of liquid morphine so you could drink it and die, that doctor would be committing a crime even by putting the bottle beside your bed. That needs to change.
Yobbo
24 Jan 13 at 9:22 am
Really Yobs, you’re asking this.
I could buy a hand gun in about 30 minutes. The Greek hardware store owner a couple of burbs down the road would sell me one.
As for buying sleeping pills. Here’s what you would do. Arrange an appointment at several docs offices, tell them you can’t sleep because… I dunno, there was a death in the family or lost your job and need a prescription of sleeping pills to tide you over. Collect four or so prescriptions and you’re off to the races.
I don’t think it’s as hard you you think either.
But that takes away from the story.
I don’t want a government that also pays for the pills deciding on life and death stuff. You’re putting the cart before the horse here. Privatize the medical system first and then talk about it.
Jc
24 Jan 13 at 9:43 am
I’m not saying that the government should be deciding. I’m saying that it shouldn’t be a criminal offense to offer someone help in killing themselves. People with advanced terminal diseases don’t have a lot of options. It’s not like they can go for a drive and steal a gun somewhere if they have been bedridden for 6 months.
Yobbo
24 Jan 13 at 9:48 pm
DB’s argument goes down to writing more than everyone else and using scare quotes.
We won, Yobbo.
I don’t want a government that also pays for the pills deciding on life and death stuff. You’re putting the cart before the horse here. Privatize the medical system first and then talk about it.
We have a semi privatised system. Private hospitals largely won’t do it because it is against their beliefs (ask them about why Jesus was speared through the side though).
All you need do is decriminalise the actions of a doctor to allow/enable someone of a sound mind and in suffering and who is dying to kill themselves.
Currently, that stupidly stands as murder.
Even if a doctor humanely finishes someone off simply by gradually upping their morphine to relieve pain, it can be argued they “murdered” the patient.
This is the second kind of subtle euthenasia you and I endorse JC.
All you need to do is change the criminal law. In a public system, if you changed the health laws other than abolishing regulation, you’d go down the wrong path.
.
24 Jan 13 at 10:07 pm
I don’t disagree Dot.
My problem though is that we’re not going to end up with a libertarian version of youth in Asia. We’re going to possibly end up with Tubbsie Milne’s , the Emily list nazi pack and Shane Wand’s who is trying to close the deficit gap.
Seriously, would you want any of these raving lunatics near a switch?
Re the other issue you mentioned.
My understanding is that docs can prescribe an amount of opiates that won’t terminate an individual but it will be enough to put them in a medically induced coma. Isn’t that right?
Jc
24 Jan 13 at 10:18 pm
They can even prescribe pain medication if they know it will hasten death as long as hastening death is not the purpose of the high dosage and instead to relieve pain. At the point a terminally ill patient needs that sort of medication its probably more up to the doctor than the patient though.
So if you want to minimise pain at the end you want to choose your doctors very carefully and know what their moral stance on the subject is in the hope of getting one that will be willing to veer on the pain relief side rather than the “keep alive as long as possible” side.
I’ve spent substantial time with a couple of relatives at the end of a terminal illness and neither was put in a medically induced coma. Rather at the end they were coming in and out of conciousness depending on the level of pain relief at the time. As the level of pain relief increased their breathing became increasingly laboured. My understanding is the morphine suppresses the breathing so eventually the dose gets so high people just stop breathing – or the disease itself kills them – probably a combination of the two.
Chris
24 Jan 13 at 10:39 pm
Are you sure? I’ll find out tonight or tomorrow as we have a 5th year med student relative with us for a a few months.
(Don’t ask. It’s one of wifey’s enormous family entourage that I have to either support financially or give them temporary shelter. I married all 97 of them including their kids).
That’s how I understand it too. It’s a fine balance, but the medication can be the factor causing death. However most of these terminal patients, as far as I know are not in a great deal of pain towards the end.
Jc
24 Jan 13 at 10:47 pm
I would be very interested to hear what they are taught they are allowed to do and where the line is for them in terms of legal risk.
Chris
25 Jan 13 at 10:38 am