Doctor-Assisted Suicide May Soon Be Legal in California

That's a win for personal freedom.

A bill legalizing doctor-assisted suicide, or aid-in-dying as proponents prefer to call it, passed the California state assembly and senate this week and is headed to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown. If he signs the End of Life Option Act into law, California will become by far the largest state to legalize the practice of prescribing medication to end a patient's life.

As is the norm in this particular debate, California assembly members on both sides of the issue made personal, emotional arguments in favor of their position, as the Los Angeles Times reported:

Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville) said the bill would allow a peaceful and dignified end to suffering. Alejo choked with emotion as he talked about his father, a Vietnam veteran who is in pain from terminal bone cancer and wants to make his own decisions about the end of his life.

"Respect his choices," Alejo said.

…

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-Rialto) opposed the measure, arguing that doctors may be too hasty in declaring patients terminal. She told lawmakers about her son, who was near death with an infection. Physicians urged her to let him go, and she refused. Nineteen days later, he came off life support and is now a husband and father.

"Doctors don't know everything," Brown said.

Reason TV covered a similar legislative—and moral—clash in Montanain 2013. Watch that video below and prepare for more of this discussion in the coming months as at least five other states consider legalizing the choice to end your life as you see fit.

Download Video as MP4

Comments

[__Warren__]

Does Baleen Lincoln not post food freedom articles here anymore?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I can sub in.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Today, I had to be at soccer by 730, so I left without eating breakfast. By 930, I was starving, so I went to the Golden Arches. Normally, I get a Sausage McMuffin with egg. It's routine, I don't even look at the menu. But today, something was different. I looked at the menu, and saw something called a McGriddle. Similar to a Mcmuffin, but it really caught my eye. I gave it a shot, since, for now, I'm free to do so.

Now here's the best part: The bun is made of pancake, and the SYRUP IS ALREADY BAKED IN.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, AND GOD BLESS YOU.

[pan fried wylie]

2003 called....

[lap83]

Wait till he finds out about the McRib

[sarcasmic]

*barf*

[Robert]

When Barfman barfs, it's a barf. When Sarcasmic barfs, is that a sarcastic barf, sarcasm for saying it's a barf, or what?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I hit that pretty hard in the winter. It's one of their worst sandwiches from a health standpoint, so I only have one. As a growing kid, I could eat 3.

[sarcasmic]

Last time I had one there was a fair amount of bone bits in the patty. Haven't had one since.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

See? Added nutrition.

[Rhywun]

I'm not in any way anti-fast food but I am hesitant to try a "McRib".

[Robert]

Would you be less hesitant about a McSternum?

[pan fried wylie]

Last time I had one there was a fair amount of bone bits in the patty.

This an unfortunate risk in any sausage product. well, any ground meat product. can always pick bacon instead.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I made a fair amount of sausage. Never got any bonesherds in it.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I made even more ground meats of the unsausage variety of various varieties and never got ne bonesherds there neither. And I used to just have them take the muttons straight to the butcher and get them cut up bulk-rate. Even then, wi a professional butcher in charge of it, no bonesherds. This ain't fucking Nafplio nor Thessaloniki. No excuse for bonesherds in the motherfucking USA.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I really haven't looked at the menu since college. They must have added it sometime after.

[pan fried wylie]

Don't feel bad, I didn't try one till sometime after 2010 myself.

[F. Stand By Ion Control, Jr.]

since, for now, I'm free to do so.

Breaking from a diet or something?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

No. I've never dieted.

I just assume that the lovely state of CA will find some way to put McDonalds out of business eventually. They're already banned from opening new locations in Los Angeles.

[Rhywun]

They're already banned from opening new locations in Los Angeles.

I thought that was just South Central, because they're too stupid to choose for themselves?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

De facto. I can't remember the exact parameters, but South LA was really the only market for expansion. The Valley, the Westside, and Harbor are already saturated.

[Rhywun]

Yeah, it's only "South Los Angeles" - I assume that means South Central? And it was explicitly done because "those people" make "poor food choices". Er, I mean, "food deserts".

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

South Central was re-branded after the riots. It really spurred a lot of investment.

[sarcasmic]

Yeah, those things are pretty good, aren't they?

I found something at McD's the other day that I hadn't seen since I moved to Maine twenty years ago: Hot picante sauce. Finally enough wimpy Maine pallets asked for it that a store finally ordered it. Maybe there is hope...

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I downloaded their nutrition info a few months ago. They're really not that bad. I don't get all the hate from the lefties.

[Rhywun]

Last year I tried a Big Mac for the first time in like 20 years and I actually rather enjoyed it. I swore off Burger King, though - man, have they dropped the ball.

[PapayaSF]

Really? BK is OK by me. It helps that the freebie paper often includes BK coupons, and there's one within walking distance.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Burger King is hurting. I know a guy who owned 30 of them in CA, and all of them in Hawaii. He read the writing on the wall and sold. Best decision of his life.

[Rhywun]

They did something with the Whopper that tastes off. Like some fake "grill" flavor. It's disgusting. And every damn time I was getting the ass-end of a head of lettuce on it and I would have to toss that and the heaping gobs of mayo that it was overloaded with.

I do like the "chicken fries" though.

[Suthenboy]

The hate comes from their success. It has nothing to do with their food.

[pan fried wylie]

Affordable, palatable, non-poisonous food, with locations, like, everywhere? BURN THEM TO THE GROUND!!111oneoneone

/progderp

[Win Bear]

They hate it because it's a corporation, not for its food

[Suthenboy]

*winces*

I am sorry you had to eat that shit Playa. I truly am.

This morning I cooked two plates of aged sirloin steaks, over-medium eggs, english muffins with cream cheese and sliced up tomatoes fresh from the garden sprinkled with salt, pepper and fresh basil.

My wife was very appreciative.

[Heroic Mulatto]

What the hell? You work on a far....oh, wait. Nevermind.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Over medium? Rocks in a glass house. Pot, kettle.

I'm not saying it was a meal I'd choose, but in this case, I had about 7 minutes to eat, so it was perfect.

It it makes you feel better, for lunch I had a potato machaca burrito with lime and white pepper crema topped with hatch chile salsa. And 2 Lagunitas. So far.

I might go big for dinner, if I have time. I have 4 prime top sirloin in the fridge that need a nice home. They might make their way into the smoker for a few minutes.

[Hyperion]

My wife made her caldo verde last night, a big old pot and it's already gone. I love that stuff.

I do eggs every morning, fry them, break the yokes and cook for a few seconds more and that's it, perfect. I hate slimey eggs, ugh. Then a glass of milk, one cup of coffee and my arsenal of supplements.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

You don't like eggs cooked french style?
Julia Child's scrambled eggs are one of the best foods in the world. Fact.

[Hyperion]

I got burnt on scrambled. Ate them all my life, many different styles. Now I just want fried in olive oil with broken yoke so they're not slimy. Salt and pepper. Yum.

[pan fried wylie]

I had the same experience with scrambled eggs, now I eat most of mine "poached" in a pot of soup: crack into pot, wait a min to turn off the heat, wait like 5mins to start eating. works in ramen, chickarina/chickenoodle, or just some boullion with celery/carrot slices. leave the heat on just a scooch longer for hardboiled instead of soft. i usually end up with hard- anyway, softboiled eggs continue to elude me after years of half-assed trying. even Alton Brown's instructions don't work for me.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

poached wylie

[Win Bear]

break the yokes

Libertarianism encourages that practice

[Hyperion]

Soccer, vile commie sport!

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Not me. The kids. I coach.

[Hyperion]

Stop teaching your kids to be commies! (:

I'm just joking. My family down in the southern hemisphere calls it futebol, pronounced 'foo'-'chee'-baw'. I watch it occasionally with wifey, have watched the world cup last couple of times and I still don't understand all the rules. Wife thinks American football is too violent, like us crazy Murikans.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Football (the real kind) is mock war. That's why it's cool.

[Robert]

You don't understand all the rules to soccer?! All the significant ones fit on a single page of not very fine print.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I'll translate:
I don't want to understand the rules of soccer

[commodious spittoon]

McGriddle is the shit. Unfortunately, it's also the diet killer.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Just the one. I'm not going to be in a time crunch again for a while.

[Meriwether3]

Sure, so it will be legal for your doctor, but if your girlfriend texts you telling you to kill yourself, it's manslaughter charges all around.

[Brochettaward]

The girlfriend isn't licensed by the state.

[Notorious UGCC]

It's totally different...this girl pressured someone who trusted her to take his own life.

Whereas Dr. Feelbad will simply "start a conversation" to remind the patient about how expensive his care is...but there won't be any pressure at all.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

f you're the sort that lets yourself be pressured by docs, we'd all be better off if you just wnet and kilt yourself. People that let docs run all over them is why the rest of us got to fight like the dickens for every inch with those asshole dicks.

[Notorious UGCC]

Well, thank you for that.

[gaoxiaen]

They already have a monopoly on legally dealing hard drugs. What's the problem?

[Notorious UGCC]

I'm against legalizing suicide, but...

If you're going to legalize assisted suicide, instead of saying *only* a medical professional can kill you, they should say that *anyone but a medical professional* can kill you.

Far better to hire Bob the Strangler off the street than to add killing to the responsibilities of physicians.

FFS, physicians aren't even supposed to assist at the executions of convicted murderers - not because the medical profession has a fixed position on the death penalty but because a healing professional shouldn't contaminate him/herself with killing.

(I won't mention the a-word, but that's an unfortunate exception).

Let physicians focus solely on curing people. If assisted suicide is legalized, let the patient sign some forms authorizing Sam the Strangler to kill him, and then let all the doctors and nurses leave the room as Sam does his business. Just as physicians are supposed to stay out of the execution chamber.

Do you want your doctor to be accustomed to killing patients? "Let's see, this one I help, this one I snuff..."

[Notorious UGCC]

Bob, not Sam.

[Agammamon]

"Bob called in sick, I'm his replacement, Sam."

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Bob called in dead. Suicide.

[lap83]

"I'm against legalizing suicide, but..."

Do you mean legalizing assisted suicide? It's kind of hard to punish people for killing themselves

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

While this is true, oddly enough, it hasn't prevented the state from criminalizing suicide. I believe it's illegal in all 50 states.

[tarran]

I looked; I couldn't find it in the MA criminal code. This surprised me because it's pretty comprehensive; it even has a section devoted to organlegging.

[pan fried wylie]

organlegging? I thought the peddles were integral to playing an organ, or is that just pipe organs?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Is it possible that Mass., like Virginia, as an old and hoary 13 original colonies state, has suicide as a common law crime, as per Wackwitz v. Roy?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

If only there were a Justice of the Peace here who could tell us.

[Agammamon]

Its a capital crime. Especially if the police are called in to 'help'.

[Rhywun]

It's kind of hard to punish people for killing themselves

ORLY?

/God

[Wasteland Wanderer]

You're dead!

/Nietzsche

[Win Bear]

Morality is if you do the right thing despite the threat of punishment. If you do the right thing because some evil deity promises you rich rewards or a perpetual high, as Christians advocate, you're merely an opportunist and utilitarian.

[Don'tTreadOnMeChipper]

It is unethical for physicians to participate and any medical board would revoke their license and their specialty would likely attempt to revoke their membership and possibly their certification. That said, every day physicians have the morphine drip turned up on critically ill dying patients knowing full well that it will hasten the end. It's a fine gray line.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

I may be wrong about this, I hope I am, but it is my impression that Doctors in Sweden have had this "responsibility"for a while, and haven't done too well with it. Indeed, it is my impression that Sweden has been suffering from an episodic euthanasia scandal for a couple of decades or more. Every time they think they have stamped it out, it flares up somewhere else.

I am against giving doctors this authority, not because doctors carry enough woe as matters stand, but because doctors, as a class, are arrogant jerks who think they know far more than they actually do. There are exceptions, but not enough.

I'm leery of this whole issue. I don't like it that we seem to have gone from "Maybe it would be alright to allow you to die, if you expressed yourself with unquestionable clarity beforehand" to "It's fine to starve you to death on the word of somebody with a financial interest in your death that you said something about it in passing that nobody else remembers". Yes, Terry Schaivo's autopsy showed she had the neurons of an eggplant. That doesn't affect his the decision to starve her was made, and it still bothers me.

REason has problems with the State killing people for committing violent crimes. As well Reason should, considering how slovenly the State appears to be about making sure they have the guilty party. I would like to see an little more appreciation of the possibility that "Doctor Assisted Suicide" is another way for Top Men to kill the inconvenient.

[F. Stand By Ion Control, Jr.]

I'm against legalizing suicide, but...

Why?

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

You know why.

[F. Stand By Ion Control, Jr.]

I know he's a Catholic In Good Standing and all that, but I'm hoping that maybe that's not the entire argument...?

[Sevo]

Ha, ha!

[Notorious UGCC]

No, the fact that we have government-controlled health care which will try desperately to cut costs by having "conversations" with sick and elderly patients about offing themselves to save money for the state...that patients in a debilitated condition may have some difficulty resisting the constant importunities of physicians, nurses and relatives...that the record of assisted suicide in the Netherlands is far from encouraging...

Only a bigoted Sky-Daddy worshipping Papist could possibly have a problem with any of that.

Only libertarians with a bizarre faith in the goodness of the government-dominated health care system can possibly consider the matter rationally, since the only possible solution is to let people off themselves. Any other conclusion would show a lack of faith in our benevolent government, and that would surely be irrational.

[Notorious UGCC]

/sarc

[pan fried wylie]

govt provided healthcare trying to save costs aside, I'd be more worried about someone's chart getting fucked up.

"Huh, deathjob for this guy? I thought he was being released tomorrow." *shrug* *murder*

[pan fried wylie]

IOW, I recommend that the proposed legislation also mandate suicidebooths as the sole providers.

[Homple]

Nancy McLuhan, call your office

[Agammamon]

"Hey, we got a big backlog of admittances - we need to clear out some beds or our numbers will look bad this quarter."

*Picks up box of plastic trash bags* "No problem Chief, we're on it."

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It turns out that accidentally murdering people is quite expensive.

[pan fried wylie]

You gotta spend money to make money?

[Win Bear]

If health care is government controlled and you are seriously sick, then, in particular, suicide becomes a rational and logical option. While such a system might encourage you to kill yourself in order to save costs, that is still preferable for you than to remain a costly and seriously ill patient in a system that has no interest in caring for you. Or do you really want to spend several more years of your life suffering in a lousy public institution, cared for by nurses who don't give a shit about you, in a system that minimizes care for cost reasons and withholds pain treatments for political reasons? See, survival is not enough.

You need to seriously examine your own thinking, because your religious views have seriously clouded your ability to reason rationally. Of course, a basic question that you ought to answer is why someone who believes in a glorious afterlife clings so much to having his life extended by any means possible in the first place. I mean, there is nothing "natural" about costly medical treatments. But we know the answer already: your religion promotes human suffering, because that's what gives it power.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

So, Win Bear, what you are saying is that only a religious nut would object to the State encouraging the inconvenient to kill themselves. And, knowing the State as we de, to maybe "help" those who seem to be clinging irrationally to live stye State has decided have poor quality?

I'm an agnostic, but I'm with the bible thumpers on this one.

[Win Bear]

So, Win Bear, what you are saying is that only a religious nut would object to the State encouraging the inconvenient to kill themselves.

Not at all. First of all, I was only responding to the issue of government-assisted suicide in a government-controlled health care system. Second, Notorious is reasoning from the "life is sacred no matter how much suffering that entails" point of view; you may well be reasoning from the "I don't understand how government healthcare works and am afraid to die" point of view.

And, knowing the State as we de, to maybe "help" those who seem to be clinging irrationally to live stye State has decided have poor quality?

You don't seem to understand the situation. If you are sufficiently well to commit suicide yourself, you don't need the doctors. If you are so ill that you need the help of a government doctor to commit suicide and he advises you to commit suicide, you should seriously consider it, because if you don't take his advice, you're likely going to suffer for your choice.

[Paul.]

but I'm hoping that maybe that's not the entire argument...?

I'm no Catholic (or Doctor or Lawer), but there are a whole subset of reasons underneath "I'm Catholic" that constitute the argument.

[Notorious UGCC]

"We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life." - Leon Trotsky

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky

[Suthenboy]

Y'know Eddie, every time I hear the commie pope excrete more pinko horseshit I cringe for you.

[Notorious UGCC]

Not to worry, we've had lots of...interesting Popes.

Sure, as a right-wing reactionary theocrat I preferred his predecessor, but it's probably a good thing that the right-wing Catholics have to endure a leftist Pope. It's one thing to criticize leftist dissenters for preaching disobedience to the Pope, noe it's time for the Catholic Right to set an example of loyalty and obedience for the edification of the Catholic Left, just to show we're willing to practice what we preached to the Left and show loyalty and obedience precisely when it's difficult.

[Notorious UGCC]

*now* it's time for the Catholic Right etc.

[Notorious UGCC]

I would just as soon not become one of those annoying dissenters who keeps explaining how this or that Papal action isn't binding on the faithful, etc. I'll just have to take the risk of annoying the H&R crowd, but to be fair, there's nothing the H&R crowd likes better than being annoyed.

Well, being annoyed, and beer.

Actually, it's being annoyed, beer, and guns.

Wow, that's a fun combination!

[Limpee Wiltstock]

That's some pretty fucked up rationalising of the shoddiness of your so-called popes. Almost terrifying.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

I forgot... your personal integrity would dissolve without your spiritual communion with the power and authority of the high seat in Rome.

[Suthenboy]

"...no(w) it's time for the Catholic Right to set an example of loyalty and obedience..."

*double cringe*

I am big on loyalty, but obedience? No. Just no. I think for myself.

Also, if you think setting a good example will usher in good will from the left you are sorely mistaken. The left is all about ends justifying means. You are just going to end up with a knife in your back. Look at every deal between the right and left in history. The left gets what they want and then reneges on the deal. Every. Fucking. Time.

[Notorious UGCC]

Sorry, Suthen, if the Catholic Left chooses to go into dissent that's no excuse for me to do so.

I know the Church's social doctrine, more or less - everything the Pope does I presume is in line with that doctrine - and unlike the doctrine on, say, abortion, the Catechism and the *Pope's own words* allow laypeople a leading role in applying the doctrine to concrete circumstances. So there is room for reactionaries like me to emphasize the role of free enterprise as a *means* in achieving the *ends* laid down by the Pope.

And some of the Pope's "commie" pronouncements can be applied without government aid - such as rejecting the culture of waste and greed. You can do that without the government telling you not to be greedy. Likewise with exploitative *attitudes* toward the environment. The government can't legislate attitudes.

Some problems identified by the Pope need government action, like sewage pouring into the sea, or climate change. To the extent these are problems, the Pope urges the moral necessity of dealing with them.

[Notorious UGCC]

If the Pope were the Emperor, he'd take a command-and-control approach which I'd reject. But strictly speaking, he hasn't told the faithful "thou shalt support command-and-control economics."

He hasn't stripped the laity - policymakers, intellectuals, etc. - of their responsibility to come up with concrete policies to attain the ends the Pope identified. What the laity *can't* do is ignore the issues, or put them on a back burner, or wait until the government acts to stop the culture of waste, etc. Also, the laity aren't allowed to worship the state *or* the market. But to the extent that relying on the market can attain the social-justice goal of improving the lot of hard-working, thrifty, male heads of families (with working wives or not), then so much the better for the market, and since I believe the market does have this beneficial effect, I can support it.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

'I am big on loyalty, but obedience?'

I'd put the other way round. Obedience may be observed as a matter of principle. Loyalty, however, can not be so done, as it implies fealty as a matter of custom with no regard to principle. Nevertheless, there are relations where loyalty is unescapable for any self-respecting man, but towards anything as monstrous as the United States or the Church of Rome, I can't follow it. Whatever principles originally underlay one's allegiance get repeatedly ignored or violatded by the organism, yet "loyalty" somehow remains. Loyalty to what, then? Don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Notorious UGCC]

"anything as monstrous as the United States or the Church of Rome"

Well, as a matter of fact, I also believe I ought to be loyal to the United States of America, which is my country.

While the two situations are not exactly fully parallel, yes, many Catholics like myself are happy to avow their loyalty to both our Church and out country.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
-Sir Walter Scott

[C. S. P. Schofield]

One of the classic "letter to the editor and reply" cases;

1980's letter to The National Review, buy a "Modern" Catholic saying, in essence, "Hey, I'm a Catholic, and I don't have to do what the Pope say!"

editor; "Congratulations, you are a Protestant."

[Win Bear]

What the quote actually seems to be saying is not that human life isn't valuable, it is that when Catholics talk about the "sanctity of human life", they are "babbling"; that is, they unthinkingly repeat the self-serving propaganda handed to them by their ideological masters, but what they say is unrelated to how they act.

(It's hard to tell what the quote actually means because the context is unknown; the quote doesn't actually seem to appear in the source given for it, so it may even be a fabrication.)

It takes one to know one. In fact, Catholicism and communism suffer from the same problem when it comes to "the sanctity of human life": because each believes itself to be the arbiter of ultimate truth and justice and to have a natural right to impose itself on all of humanity, both ideologies are willing to walk over the corposes of their enemies to achieve that

[Notorious UGCC]

I don't know what a "corpose" is, but I don't recall walking on one.

[Notorious UGCC]

Hmmm...wikiquote says this quotation is from Trotsky's 1930 history of the Russian Revolution, but now that I looked in an online edition I couldn't find it:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/

Perhaps I have been unfair to Mr. Trotsky. This quote is widely attributed to him, including by respectable scholars - maybe they've all embraced the equivalent of an urban myth.

[Win Bear]

This quote is widely attributed to him, including by respectable scholars

The entire phrase "Quaker-Papist babble" occurs four times in all of Google Books. The first appearance in print is in 2003 in the New Oxford Review, a Catholic publication.

Where it comes from is a quote by Trotsky about "Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle". But that quote refers to radical protestant forms of pacifism and has nothing to do with Catholicism.

In fact, Trotsky's justification for violence during the Russian Revolution is pretty much identical to the Catholic position (Just War Theory), illustrating again how similar communism and Catholicism actually are.

[Mickey Rat]

Life is an inalienable right.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

"Doctors don't know everything," [Assemblywoman Cheryl] Brown [(D-Rialto)] said.

Legislators of course know everything, but it's all wrong.

[Brian]

Yeah. Perhaps a doctor thinks I shouldn't pull the plug, but, really, knowing the patient as well as I do, I should.

Oh, whoops! California legislature made it illegal! Thanks, bitch!

[GILMORE?]

I assume this will be a complement to the Pension-Obligation-Assisted-Suicide?

[CatoTheChipper]

A medical practitioner should never, ever counsel a patient to commit suicide, or even offer suicide as an option.

That said, a truly free person would be able to simply go to a willing pharmacist, ask for a dozen Secanol, buy them with his own money, go home, and wash them down with a pint of gin. If he's incapacitated, he would be able to instruct a willing agent to arrange for delivery. Of course, a truly free pharmacist would also be able to refuse to serve the would-be purchaser if he does not have a note from a psychiatrist that indicates that the purchaser is sane, acting on his own volition, and fully knowledgeable of what Secanol can do.

Sure, it sounds ... well, it is disturbing. But it's a damn sight less disturbing than the State's status quo, which forces the unfree person to do it with a gun or a noose or a razor blade.X

[CatoTheChipper]

As the State becomes more and more involved in health care, and picks up more and more of the tab, it will exert more and more control on the medical profession. Under the influence of the State, medical ethics will eventually evolve to recognize that suicide is not just a right, but an option that should be recommended when it is in the State's interest: that is, when the cost of medical intervention exceed the value of the patient's life to the State. Ezekiel Emmanuel has already written about his concept of "complete lives" allocation of medical interventions. It is really a short step for the State to recognize that the withholding intervention to a suffering patient makes suicide the preferred option in extreme cases.

[Win Bear]

So what? If a state run medical system wants you to off yourself, you should seriously consider following its recommendation, because if you don't, your life will be a living hell.

In fact, we really have the opposite problem right now: in our system with privatized care and socialized costs, physicians have a strong incentive to keep you alive and suffering long after it makes any medical sense.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

"So what? If a state run medical system wants you to off yourself, you should seriously consider following its recommendation, because if you don't, your life will be a living hell."

I dearly hope you are being sarcastic. If you aren't, I have to wonder at your attitude.

[Win Bear]

I dearly hope you are being sarcastic. If you aren't, I have to wonder at your attitude.

No, I'm not being sarcastic, you are just being naive. What exactly do you expect to happen when you like helplessly in a hospital bed, being cared for by doctors and nurses that think you are better off dead?

[C. S. P. Schofield]

It is important to keep in mind at all times that the government is a criminal enterprise, tolerable only to the degree that if those it battens on overthrew it it would likely be replaced by something worse.

Government health care has always been a lousy idea, because adding government to pretty much anything is like adding botulism. There are a few, a very few, areas where history seems to suggest that government management of an enterprise is marginally preferable to the alternative. I find it hard to imagine that health care was ever going to be one of them.

I'm sorry, but so long as doctors are licensed by the State, and subject to massive State oversight, I can't think that doctor assisted suicide all not lead inevitably to State approved murder of the inconvenient.

[Rhywun]

There is already a solution to this mess... well, there will be.

[Paul.]

You can't really blame Californians for wanting to escape...

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Tell me more about the suicide rate in Seattle....

[Paul.]

Oh, you think when I make fun of California politics, I'm giving my town a pass?

California is in catch-up mode in relation to Seattle.

[Paul.]

By the way, has anyone noticed that the more progressive a government is, the more likely to legalize suicide they are? Coincidence?

[lap83]

My concern with that is, since progressives consider healthcare to be a positive right, are physicians going to be sued if they're morally opposed to providing "suicide assistance".

[commodious spittoon]

Once the industry is fully nationalized they'll be jailed for contempt.

[Trials and Trippelations]

Nurses in most (all?) states can conscientiously opt out of helping with abortions. One would hope physicians would have the same right in regards to assisted suicide

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes, hopefully. But we're jumping the gun here.

[Win Bear]

I hope so. Physicians are licensed, and licensing is supposed to assure patients that physicians are capable of providing a full range of services and do not impose their own beliefs on their paients. A physician who finds some medical procedures incompatible with his faith should stop practicing medicine.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Why would you assume that licensing is supposed to keep doctors from imosing their beliefs on their patients. I mean, as opposed to making sure the doctors DO impose the beliefs of the Ruling Authority.

[Win Bear]

Why would you assume that licensing is supposed to keep doctors from imosing their beliefs on their patients.

Licensing is intended to guarantee that doctors are able to perform a well-defined range of medical procedures and deal professionally with their patients. Imposing their own religious preferences on their patients is incompatible with both guarantees.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Of course. In the Progressives' philistine religion, the primary purpose of Government is to force everybody to do what the Progressives think they should. They are, at base, theocrats.

[DEG]

OT: There's no sugar coating it, James Blake says the outcome for him could have been worse

What if he hadn't been so passive, he says, with the stranger who rushed him without saying a word?

"I think about how scary it would have been had I put my arms up and done the normal reaction ... to defend myself," Blake told CNN's Don Lemon on Saturday.

"If I had any sort of resistance, I wonder what could have happened. I could have broken bones, a concussion or worse."

[GILMORE?]

"When in doubt, submit meekly to attacker, else you risk provoking them further or incurring potential liability"

/Government funded rape-counselors

[FreeOne Michael]

Yep, I'm still plugging my store of libertarian themed stuff. New today, not even showing up in the store front page yet, a black shirt sporting my version of the Gadsden rattlesnake.

http://www.zazzle.com/freeone_.....5513435332

[Paul.]

Libertarians: Keeping Republicans out of your Bedroom and Democrats out of your entire house (bedroom included), wallet and bank accounts.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Do you have a Fuck You That's Why shirt?

[Wasteland Wanderer]

That gave me a vision of the Uncle Sam "We want YOU" poster, except for with "Fuck you, that's why!" under it instead...

Time to fire up photoshop.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I'll be waiting with my printer.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

Boom.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Thank you. That's my new wallpaper. I'll be dropping that link periodically, with your permission of course.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

Thank you. That's my new wallpaper. I'll be dropping that link periodically, with your permission of course.

Go right ahead, though it may be better if you rehost it; I'm not sure how long I'm going to continue using Photobucket.

[Mr Lizard]

Look do you want with your pathetic existence. But please arrange your assisted suicides in the meat freezer. Waste not want not and all that.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'll just lay this here. Years ago my father fell into a coma after complications in the aftermath for aortic surgery.

He was out for five months. Three months in the ICU doctors wanted to pull the plug. We fought like animals just to keep him alive. Four months in, they read us the 'he'll be a vegetable' act.

Now I was pissed. I summoned the two doctors and read my riot act. Lemme tell ya, the looks on their fucken faces was priceless. I was so on my game they asked me what I did for a living. They thought I was some sort of public speaker or some shit.

My father came out of it soon after - yada, yada, yada - he's still with us ten years later.

It's sad really when you think about how quickly we're ready to write humans off. I remember seeing an old man in the ICU and wondered who would speak or fight for him should doctors have made the 'rationally' decision to end his life.

I'm not particularly moved either way (there are valid concerns and arguments to be made on both sides. My father in law certainly didn't want to live as the cancer slowly killed him; luckily it took him fast enough so he or we didn't have to make a decision) in this debate but, man, I just don't trust doctors or politicians.

In the end, I trust me. And when the government and law get involved, 'me' may be squeezed right out of the equation if my choice does not comply.

What happens when you deal with doctors who won't respect your wishes?

[Rhywun]

The final decision should never be with the doctor - I think that is an easy answer to this dilemma.

[Notorious UGCC]

Yeah, and why can't we all have rainbow-flavored unicorns while we're at it?

[Rhywun]

If I'm of sound mind I want that option - who are you to deny that to me?

[Agammamon]

If you're of sound mind - you likely don't need the doctor to assist.

Its the marginal cases - the comas, those with dementia, etc that are most at risk. Along with the feeble who don't have a family who will fight them. Simply stop the delivery of food and water to their beds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient

". . . allowing patients to suffer days of dehyration, or to be sedated, leaving them unable to even ask for food or drink."

[Rhywun]

Yeah, I'm very much against it in those cases.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

"Simply stop the delivery of food and water to their beds."

This is far worse than giving them too much morphine. It's evil.

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

God no. That's what happened to my mother. She couldn't swallow, so she didn't just starve to death, she died from lack of water. We show more pity for cats and dogs.

[Rhywun]

OMG that's awful. Sorry.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

"If I'm of sound mind I want that option - who are you to deny that to me?"

Hey, I didn't ask to be appointed God's personal representative on earth's local representative in your case. I'm too concerned with carrying out an ideal of obedience to fuck around concerning myself with respecting anyone else' property.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

The manticores ate them all.

[Paul.]

It should be with the government.

[Win Bear]

Of course! The final choice should be with family members making emotionally selfish decisions and having the rest of society pay for their inability to deal with loss! /sarc

[C. S. P. Schofield]

And yet, somehow, you know it will be. And then with a judge. Amd when the judges get tire of it, it will be passwd down to some faceless bureaucrat. A finctionary whose name you won't even be able to discover without filing a Freedom Of Information request...and that you will have to fight for.

If we were talking about doctors as they existed at the end of the Victorian era - largely independent of the State - I would feel better babout this. Not GOOD, but better. As matters stand, I fully expect this to become a mechanism for the State to rid itself of the inconvenient.

[Suthenboy]

When someone does you a favor it is customary to return it.

[DEG]

I'm glad your father pulled through.

In the end, I trust me. And when the government and law get involved, 'me' may be squeezed right out of the equation if my choice does not comply.

Exactly. When the government gets involved, you don't matter.

[Win Bear]

In the end, I trust me. And when the government and law get involved, 'me' may be squeezed right out of the equation if my choice does not comply.

The government was already involved, namely by forcing everybody else to pay for cost of your choice.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Which is, and always has been, my number one reason for thinking Government subsudized health care a lousey idea.

[Suthenboy]

If only someone had been down this road before. We would be able to see how things turned out for them and we would be better able to decide how to handle this. If only.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....-year.html

[Heroic Mulatto]

That lead me to this:

Anti-monarchy, anti-austerity and a defender of Putin, ISIS and Palestinian terrorists: The extraordinary views of Labour's VERY radical new leader

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Left-wingers are miscreants.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few in the NDP agree with this POS.

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

The veteran left-winger does not merely advocate a return to 1970s-style socialism, the re-opening of the mines and nationalisation of all public utilities.
Mr Corbyn also opposes Nato, Britain's nuclear deterrent and any controls on immigration.

Hmmmm, not sure this is gonna work.

I agree with him about NATO though. The US should pull out.

[PapayaSF]

Mr Corbyn also opposes Nato, Britain's nuclear deterrent and any controls on immigration.

Well, if you're going to be overrun by Muslims, then yes, I would prefer if you got rid of your nukes first.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

*snort*

[Scarecrow & WoodChipper Repair]

NATO should have been dissolved after the USSR broke up and eastern Europe democratized.

[Hyperion]

So, do the left in Europe, whatever that means... Ok, the socialists in Europe, do they consider themselves 'liberal' like American leftists do?

[MJGreen - Docile Citizen]

I believe "liberal" in Europe still means what it meant in the 19th century, so leftists/socialists are against it.

[Win Bear]

No. The parties that call themselves "liberal" tend slightly in the direction of classical liberalism. What we call "liberal" in the US is generally labeled "socialist" or "green" in Europe (all of them, in fact, progressives). And the political right is dominated by Christian parties.

[Rhywun]

we would be better able to decide how to handle this

How about: doctors who do this against their patient's or the patient's caregiver's wishes go to jail. You know, like they do now.

[Agammamon]

Sure - except the reason they don't in the UK is that the state has given them that authority.

Like cops.

[Rhywun]

There's probably a slippery-slope argument to be made that the same would happen here. Especially under O'care.

[Agammamon]

Hmm, I thought I *was* making that slippery-slope argument here.

[Rhywun]

Slippery slopes aren't inevitable.

[pan fried wylie]

Slippery slopes aren't inevitable.

I'm going to put forth the argument that the Thermodynamic Arrow makes Slope Slip inevitable. Aside from the graph of entropy over time, all other slopes will trend downwards, because of that inescapable increase in entropy.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I'd argue it's pretty much a certainty.

[Rhywun]

Sadly, I think y'all are right.

[Notorious UGCC]

So, now the Daily Mail has been taken over by Opus Dei?

This Papist propaganda makes me sick.

/sarc

[Win Bear]

The Daily Mail tends to be right wing and populist. The relationship between right wing populism and Catholicism today is not much different than in the 1930s in Germany: symbiotic.

[Notorious UGCC]

Yup, the Daily Mail is just like the National *Socialist* German *Workers* Party.

[Win Bear]

Well, just like "liberals" in the US doesn't actually mean "liberal", the "socialist" in "NSDAP" doesn't actually mean "socialist".

In fact, the NSDAP was staunchly anti-communist and anti-socialist. It ran on a platform of Christian values. And it was supported by the Catholic Center Party in key parliamentary votes, while being strongly opposed by the socialist and communist party.

[Rufus J. Firefly]

I've come across similar stories from Holland and Belgium.

Not surprising.

And with public health, the temptation to treat patients as 'cost-centric' leading to *killing* them off is too great.

[Suthenboy]

And yet the pinko fucks here in the states are still making fun of Sarah Palin. I think the hatred they have for her is the same brand as they have for Ayn Rand, Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas and others like them. She nailed them, called them out for what they are.

They hate that. They are like vampires, nothing is worse to a progressive than having a mirror held up in front of them.

[Jayburd]

Suicide is a right, just like abortion, and should be covered in Obamacare. "Aid in Dying" seems harsh, and the word Aid has negative connotations (as well "Dying". We need a better term. Any suggestions?

[Jayburd]

Final Choice

[commodious spittoon]

Final Solution?

[Agammamon]

There's no need to cover suicide - its about as cheap as you can get.

Plastic bag, roll of duct tape, tube, bottle of inert gas.

[pan fried wylie]

inert gas? nitrous, man!

lrn2suffocateproperly

[Mrs. Lemuel Struthers]

Quietus?

[Suthenboy]

Sorry Jayburd, when you have to start inventing code words to soft-pedal what you are doing then it is time to take a second look at what you are doing.

If you can't stand up straight and look people in the eye and call things what they are then you are doing something wrong. It is as simple as that.

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Suicide is not prohibitively difficult. All we need is for folks to not fucking interfere. A suicide doesn't need anyone else' help.

[Agammamon]

A very real problem with legalizing *doctor-assisted* suicide is that doctor's will be under pressure to declare a patient hopeless and push the suicide option.

NHS (that 'wonder' of the world) has had *multiple* scandals regarding the Liverpool Pathway.

This is a very real danger now that we has 'universal' coverage and are just one step away from socialized medical care.

[Agammamon]

'Cradle to Grave' care sounds good - until you realize who gets to decide when you go into the grave.

[Notorious UGCC]

...or into the cradle.

[Notorious UGCC]

(sorry to bring it up, but the setup was so perfect)

[Agammamon]

I appreciate the joke - but the doctor (abortionist) doesn't get to decide, the majority of the time he's not even consulted for his opinion until the decision is already made.

[Napoleon Bonaparte]

Damn, for people who claim to want government to butt out of our private lives, libertarians sure seem to be anxious to have a law for everything.

Doctors have been tacitly giving terminal patients the "hot shot" for time immemorable. It seems to me that it might be best if marginal cases continue to be handled quietly and informally by the affected parties. Then you don't have the problem of worrying about who's going to be deciding about when it's time for you to make that appointment with a grave.

[Agammamon]

So - the status quo then? Where the government is butting into our private lives (which is why it has to be handled quietly and informally)?

[Suthenboy]

I am not advocating for any law. I am arguing against socialized medicine as murder is baked into it.

[pan fried wylie]

libertarians sure seem to be anxious to have a law for everything.

Mis-characterization. I'd say libertarians are anxious for the repeal of laws prohibiting any action that doesn't violate the rights of others. Baring that, legalizing said action is a baby step in the right direction that doesn't deserve to be sneezed at, perfectenemyofgoodwhateveretc.

[pan fried wylie]

also, keep in mind that the authors at reason do not represent 100% of True Libertarian Dogma 100% of The Time. I don't keep score, or keep track of who writes what even, when I bother to read an article at all (DNRThisFA either), but I think some of them aren't, and have never professed to be, libertarians at all.

[GILMORE?]

"The last 2 months of patient lives cost Medicare $50billion"

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-cost-of-dying/

[Win Bear]

If I'm seriously ill and the doctor is under pressure to kill me due to cost savings, I think I'm actually better off dead than continue in his "care".

Furthermore, under a fully private system, you face the same issues: if your care costs, say, $20000/month, are you going to continue to impose that cost on your children and family? Or are you going to choose to die quickly because it means that your kids can pay for college and your wife can retire comfortably? The only reason "conservatives" can pretend that money shouldn't be a consideration in whether to commit suicide is that they are already buying into the notion of socialized medical costs.

But, in fact, in the US, the real danger right now is the opposite: physicians still make tons of money by keeping you alive and suffering long after it makes any medical sense.

[Jayburd]

And be careful if you notice Cliff Bars tasting funny-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4

[Jayburd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IKVj4l5GU4

[PapayaSF]

I'm waiting for doctor-assisted homicide.

[Notorious UGCC]

You won't have to wait long if this passes.

[DEG]

Quite a while ago, someone (not me) posted Terry Pratchett's "Choosing to Die" here. Here it is again.

[DEG]

Link to the full documentary.

[Hyperion]

You know, I'm thinking this could be good for the planet. If all the greenies will now just off themselves to save the planet, we'll all be better off.

[Hyperion]

So I found out yesterday that my mom has cancer, metastasis from breast cancer they are saying, that she had recovered from 7 years ago. My sister called me and told me about this and we talked about treatment options.

She said she doesn't know if mom will opt for treatment or not, she's 76. And I said, well, I will talk to her. If it's me I will try everything, I don't want to die. I would never do suicide, not a religious thing, I'm not religious. But I would fight to the last.

Then we were talking about pain treatment because mom is in some pain, this stuff is in her bones. So I said, get her some weed. So my sister tells me, no way your mom will take it, it's like a sin or something, you know she's never even touched alcohol in her life. I said I know, we won't tell her what it is, maybe she'll like it. But I guess that's one of the states that still does not even have legal medical.

[DEG]

Sorry to hear.

[Notorious UGCC]

I'm very sorry to hear this.

[Hyperion]

Well, they said it's not a fast spreading type and gave her 2-3 years before things get critical, unless we find a good treatment that works. I'm an optimist about all things except for politics.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Sorry. Make sure you find a doctor with the balls to treat the pain appropriately. I learned this the hard way.

[Suthenboy]

I am very sorry to hear that Hyperion.

[PapayaSF]

Sorry to hear that, Hyperion. Cancer treatments are really hard on the body, especially at that age. I respect the people who choose to refuse treatment, because often it doesn't mean a cure, just means X months of extra pain. Interesting, among the people who refuse treatment for terminal cancer: oncologists. They know what the process is like, and often refuse it for themselves.

A friend of mine just found out she has pretty advanced cancer....

[Limpee Wiltstock]

Get some cannabidiol. It kills the pain, at least some kinds, as well as recreational cannabis, but it doesn't fuck up your mind. It also impedes the growth and spread of cancer.

I'd also recommend it as the number one treatment for neuropathy.

Bear in mind that some people are much more sensitive to the psychedelic effects of recreational cannabis. I've found that most people experience very little or no psychedelic effect from it and that they then tend to discount the claims of anybody who gets blasted beyond the crystal spheres by a small dose. From a neuropsychiatric perspective, it would be expected to have some psychedelic function; the only peculiarity is that it is attenuated to nothingness for most people and like an ergot and coffee enema for a very few.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

I don't know why people keep bringing up death panels and healthcare costs. That's not what this is about.

Is it or is it not OK to lock someone in a cage for helping another person die? Simple as that.

Hint: It's not fucking OK.

[Hyperion]

Nope. And it's perfectly ok if someone wants to end it all. I think the NAP covers this, no explanations needed.

[SIV]

Is that the law in question? The newspaper says it allows Drs. to "prescribe" but I'm willing to wager that means "administer". That's where issues begin to arise.

[Hyperion]

Well, it might seem to go against their oath. Killing someone, I would consider that harmful. I mean really, you can't get any more harmful than that. But the fact the patient is asking for it, then I myself am ok with it. I think that anyone should be able to buy and consume any drug they want, even if it kills them. Here, you're just going through a middle man to get what you want.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

It's not a question of: Should they or shouldn't they?

They question is: should they be locked in a cage if they do?

No.

[Suthenboy]

People keep bringing it up because there is a very real slippery slope here. We have seen the slide in every country that has done this.

I agree that every individual has the right to decide for themselves and that doctors have a moral obligation to help their patients in whatever way they can but the state has no role to play in this. Getting the state involved in this when the state has a financial stake in it is the sticking point.

[Pl?ya Manhattan.]

Yes. They are 2 separate questions, but unfortunately, they are hopelessly intermingled.

I believe in the self ownership, which includes the right to die, and free association, which means you are allowed to ask others for assistance in dying.

With Obamacare, this question is now largely academic, because of course there is going to be government influence one way or the other.

But, with socialized medicine, if the bureaucrats decide your time is up, the doctors will find a way for you die, regardless of what they call it. So fuck it.

[SIV]

I believe in the self ownership, which includes the right to die, and free association, which means you are allowed to ask others for assistance in dying.

I'm with you on self-ownership. I believe in the right to property, which includes the right to obtain drugs. I believe in free association. The reality of the relationship between Doctor, patient and the state doesn't respect those rights and principles now and there is good reason to fear the actual implementation of this type of legislation will make it worse.

[CatoTheChipper]

It depends. If the person assisting engaged in some fraud, or acting as medical practitioner failed to render necessary treatment or palliative care, to promote the option of suicide, the son of a bitch should be locked up in a cage. If those charged with the care of a patient intentionally deprive him of nutrition and hydration to bring about death, they should be locked up in a cage.

[Notorious UGCC]

On a somewhat lighter note...guess who was born on this day 135 years ago?

http://www.biography.com/people/hl-mencken-37299

[Hyperion]

Some commie from Murland?

Guy lived for part of his childhood, in short walking distance from where I am sitting right now typing this. I still have not read any of his stuff. I guess I should.

[Notorious UGCC]

Speaking *only* of his writing style, I'd say he's very good.

[Hyperion]

I've came really close to downloading something by him on a few occasions. I think after I finish the novel I'm reading now, I will.

Do you recommend anything by him to start with?

[Notorious UGCC]

For purposes of style only (you won't find me endorsing most of the content), I'd say either go for one of the Prejudices series.

Or *A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing* - since it has excerpts from a wide variety of works, selected for the reader's benefit.

[Notorious UGCC]

As with any book, I'd recommend looking at the excerpts on Amazon, the modern equivalent of thumbing through it at the bookstore:

http://ow.ly/S8dzP

[Notorious UGCC]

PS - I'd get the Kindle because I don't think the paperback is very sturdy - mine fell apart.

[Hyperion]

I only read on my Kindle. Hard copy books are a pain in the arse. They look good on shelves.

[pan fried wylie]

The kindle is a fraction of the weight of even the lightest books in the Dune series. My hands used to get tired holding those fuckers open, and repeating what NUGCC said about durability. My kindle is going on 4yrsold, minor scratching on the chassis from tossing it on various porch/step (read: abrasive) surfaces, otherwise good as new.

[Wasteland Wanderer]

My kindle is going on 4yrsold, minor scratching on the chassis from tossing it on various porch/step (read: abrasive) surfaces, otherwise good as new.

Really? I got a Kindle several years ago. Screen died, a month or so out of warranty.

Got another one. Same thing. I love using the little bastards, but I'm not sure I want to take a risk on a third one.

[Hyperion]

Thanks.

[PapayaSF]

It's an atypical Mencken, but my favorite book of his is Happy Days, his memoir of growing up in Baltimore in the 1880s. Fascinating and often hilariously funny. I practically forced it on a friend when I was done, and he had the same reaction I did: he got about 3/4 of the way through and thought: "Oh, no! This book is going to end soon! I want there to be more!"

[PapayaSF]

An excerpt:

[?] F. Knapp's Institute, a seminary that catered to the boys and girls of the Baltimore middle-class for more than sixty years. It was already beginning, in 1886, to feel the competition of the public schools, but Professor Knapp was not alarmed, for he firmly believed, and often predicted, that the public schools would collapse soon or late under the weight of their own inherent and incurable infamy. They were fit, he argued freely, only for dealing with boys too stupid, too lazy, too sassy or too dirty to be admitted to such academies as his own. As for sending girls to them, he simply could not imagine it; as well shame and degrade the poor angels by cutting off their pigtails or putting them into pants.

[PapayaSF]

The professor discoursed on the obscene subject very often, and with special heat whenever another boy left him to tackle the new and cheaper learning. He always hinted that he had really kicked the traitor out, and sometimes he followed with a homily on parents who neglect the upbringing of their children, and so bred forgers, footpads and assassins. The worst punishment he ever threatened against a boy who came to school with his hair uncombed, or supernormal shadows behind his ears, was expulsion with a certificate so unfavorable that only the pubic schools would take him. Every time there was a hanging at the city jail (which was pretty often in those days when psychiatrists still confined themselves to running madhouses), he referred to the departed, not by his crime but by his education, which was invariably in the public schools. No authentic graduate of F. Knapp's Institute, he let it be known, had ever finished on the gallows.

[GILMORE?]

"Some commie from Murland?'

no no no... *Fascist* who supported the Kaiser. god. get it straight people.

". I still have not read any of his stuff. I guess I should.'

It can be easy to overdose on him. He's good to read in small-medium bites, frequently.

Gutenberg has a stash of his stuff

Try "Damn! a book of Calumny". Its sort of like his version of "Devil's Dictionary". Probably better than book-length essays on neitzche

[Hyperion]

Oh, you took it seriously when I said a 'commie from Murland'? No, sorry, I was making a sarcastic jab at Murland, everyone from there is a commie. I don't really know anything about Mencken's politics, but I was listening to a sort of radio documentary about him on a local Balmer station and it sounded like he was a thorn in the side of most politicians and always getting a lot of people riled up over the type of stuff he would publish locally. From what I heard, I think I actually would have liked him.

[GILMORE?]

"you took it seriously when I said a 'commie from Murland'?'

I thought you were referencing Winston's repeated-griping about Mencken's pro-German ideological impurity.

"I don't really know anything about Mencken's politics'

Iconoclastic-American-Skeptical; shitting on everything - the church, faux-science, populist democracy, politicians, sports, self-styled intellectuals, etc.

He seemed to like hard-science, philosophy, Alcohol & Cigars, and some literature. As noted by Winston, he would on occasion show a fondness for Strong-Man, Charismatic government a la Kaiser's Germany.... and was probably slightly more racist than average even by contemporary standards

You'd almost call him libertarian, but not really. He seemed more 'intellectual gadfly'

he was a great prose writer. a bit like hitchens, but more American.

[Hyperion]

Iconoclastic-American-Skeptical; shitting on everything - the church, faux-science, populist democracy, politicians, sports, self-styled intellectuals, etc.

Yes, this is what I got from that radio program about him. Yeah, I think I like him.

[Notorious UGCC]

"probably slightly more racist than average even by contemporary standards"

In the sense that he had a strong prejudice against certain whites - I guess you'd say good old boys or rednecks - which made his remarks about blacks and Jews look like Miss Manners.

And for that matter, most human beings he dismissed as stupid. Apart from elites like himself, his buddies, scientists, his favorite authors, etc., people were imbeciles and retards.

At least in theory.

Because when these flawed human beings got on juries, Mencken would suddenly sing praises of their wisdom and virtue. He would denounce restrictions on the right to trial by jury, praising the good old common-sense of these jurors vis-a-vis judges and prosecutors.

The reason for this seems obvious - during Prohibition, juries often set bootleggers free, when judges and prosecutors would have had them locked up. Mencken appreciated this and responded by getting as close as he ever got to genuine populism.

[GILMORE?]

I am sure your view is in no way colored by his view of the church.

[Notorious UGCC]

"I am sure your view is in no way colored by his view of the church."

And my view differes from yours (except in being more generous to Mencken)...ow?

[Notorious UGCC]

how

[Notorious UGCC]

Mencken admired the Church on aesthetic grounds...the Church didn't disgust him the way the low-church people (eg. Methodists) did.

http://richleonardi.blogspot.c.....-bach.html

[GILMORE?]

Maybe i misread your pre-emptive statement ("you won't find me endorsing most of the content")

re: his race views, i don't know if i was being generous or ingenerous... i just think his sneering view of a lot of things is a turnoff to some people if they don't accept it out of the gate (i did; i'm not picky)

[Win Bear]

Great hats, reprehensible morality.

[PapayaSF]

probably slightly more racist than average even by contemporary standards

I strongly disagree. I'd consider him "liberal" for his day. He despised the Klan and I have not encountered any of the sweeping generalizations that I consider racism. He sometimes wrote what could be fairly called stereotypes, but they always seemed based on his own experience. At worst he would generalize about the bad characteristics of some Jews and blacks ("Aframericans"), in the sense of "bad blacks/Jews are like this," but he never applied the negative characteristics to everyone, he had black and Jewish friends, often helped them, and opposed segregation.

[GILMORE?]

"I admit freely enough that, by careful breeding, supervision of environment and education, extending over many generations, it might be possible to make an appreciable improvement in the stock of the American negro, for example, but I must maintain that this enterprise would be a ridiculous waste of energy, for there is a high-caste white stock ready at hand, and it is inconceivable that the negro stock, however carefully it might be nurtured, could ever even remotely approach it. The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him." [34]',

Credit him for being generous?

[PapayaSF]

Well, that is pretty bad. I haven't read the diaries.

[GILMORE?]

(Puts on Shocked and Surprised Face)

"Hey Look What We Found! All The Uranium We'll Ever Need? What a Weird Coincidence"

its possible Iran as actually had plenty in reserve for a while, and are using the cover of this "discovery" to account for the gradual disclosures to IAEA / others about stuff they'd never mentioned before.

[Hyperion]

Murika: Hey, let's be friends, we'll make a deal and trade and for a bonus, we'll just give you billions of dollars! All you have to do is agree to not make any nuclear weapons.

Iran: Fuck you, we hate you and we're going to kill you, great Satan! And your little toady Israel too!

Murika: Ok, I think you're saying it's a deal then? Ok, here's your money.

[Suthenboy]

M-u-r-i-k-a is a funny way to spell Obumbles.

Last poll I saw had only 6% supporting the Iran deal. When he said the Republicans can go along for the ride but they have to sit in the back and keep their mouths shut the idiots who voted for him didn't realize he was talking about them as well. His smarminess sure turned into arrogance in a hurry after he was elected.

[Hyperion]

So, during this time, where were those Republicans who were going to save us from this tyrant when they took Congress? Oh yeah, Boehner and McConnell were down on their knees licking der fuehrers boots.

[Rhywun]

I honestly don't understand the Iran deal but given its origin I'm instinctively against it. There's also the fact you can't "deal" with Iran...

[Hyperion]

I'm sure you could deal with the people. But the psychotic caliphate that is holding the country hostage, no, you can't.

[GILMORE?]

"I honestly don't understand the Iran deal

On one hand, sanctions are stupid and not accomplishing anything.

On the other hand, if they'd been unilaterally repealed during the "green revolution" in 2009-2010, it would have been a huge show of support for the opposition in the general public, and probably doomed the regime. We'd have pumped billions into their economy at a point when most of the country was sick of the regime's failures to deliver better relations.

Instead, repealing them now gives the mullahs effective "normalized relations", and validates their existence. It says, "We'll do business with you" after 30+ years of saying we'd never do that.

the implication of the deal is that there are probably "side deals" as well regarding the status of Iraq and Syria that will guarantee some cooperation between Iran and US in how these places evolve. That needed to happen. However, it shouldn't necessarily have been handed to them on a silver platter.

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-Rialto) opposed the measure, arguing that doctors may be too hasty in declaring patients terminal. She told lawmakers about her son, who was near death with an infection. Physicians urged her to let him go, and she refused. Nineteen days later, he came off life support and is now a husband and father.

Does she think legalizing doctor assisted suicide will somehow make it illegal for next-of-kin to refuse to pull the plug on someone?

[Suthenboy]

No, she rightly thinks that once it is legal combined with a financial incentive for docs to get rid of expensive patients, they will. Because they will. They won't ask.

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

I'm pretty sure a doctor deciding to kill someone without either the patient or someone with power of attourney over the patient consenting will still be murder.

[Suthenboy]

Oh? Read up on the NHS.

[B. Woodrow Chippenhaus]

Oh, well then, I guess that means we cannot allow anyone who wants to die with dignity under their own terms to do so if they have to ask for help from someone else. Instead we'll chain them in the cage of their own paralytic, deteriorating bodies with tubes and wires going in and out of them for as long as possible and call it mercy.

[SamDod598]

Sometimes you jsut have to roll with the punches.

http://www.Full-Anon.tk

[TimothyZ]

Each one of us has the opportunity to kill ourselves throught the course of our shitty, hobbsean lives. But if you're in it to win it, you don't yield, you go for the count of the darwinian trait of staying the fuck alive.

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