Brickbat: Watch What You Say

Viorel Dudau / Dreamstime.com

Police in Merseyside, England, warned the public they were monitoring social media for threatening or "malicious" comments regarding the case of Alfie Evans, the toddler who died as his parents were fighting the government and a local hospital to take him to Italy for treatment.

Comments

[Harvard]

Death cult alive and well. Reason #1743 why I shan't be visiting anywhere in Europe.

[Illocust]

So did the government end up killing him through neglect or did they opt for the poison? I know they kept trying to starve the kid at one point, but that was too much of a bad image.

[Illocust]

"But Mr Evans was today accused of showing "hostility" towards the NHS when it was revealed he had tried to prosecute three doctors for conspiring to murder his son.

During the Court of Appeal hearing, Lord Justice McFarlane told Mr Evans' barrister: "Your client purported to take out a private prosecution to have three named doctors charged with the criminal offence of conspiracy to murder.

"Those summonses were served on the doctors and I hear you say that there is no hostility to the NHS.""

Holy shit, they never stood a chance of getting their kid treatment. Court and NHS are firmly on the same side, and no way are they going to let the kid go somewhere else where his life might be saved and make them look bad.

[Illocust]

According to the hill " During his final ordeal, Alfie was deprived of food for approximately 28 consecutive hours."

So looks like they went down the starve the brat route, when he refused to die off life support.

http://thehill.com/opinion/civ.....death-with

[Cynical Asshole]

Christ, what a bunch of assholes. I hope there's a giant woodchipper in hell for them to be fed through, feet first, for all eternity.

[Eidde]

Why is it shocking if a father shows hostility to the institution which is killing his son?

[Mickey Rat]

The NHS is Mother, the NHS is Father.

[Cynical Asshole]

no way are they going to let the kid go somewhere else where his life might be saved and make them look bad.

It's not just that, the parents were wanting to take the kid to Italy on their own dime to get him treatment that wasn't available in the UK, but they couldn't allow that because that would be unfair to all the people who can't afford to pay out of pocket to save their child. Better that the kid be killed in the name of equality.

Of course, had his parents been high ranking government officials or members of the royal family... well, some animals are more equal than others.

[Mickey Rat]

There also may have been a bit of anti-Catholic bigotry thrown into the mix, as the family are Catholics and the Italuan hospital is associated with the Vatican.

[Cynical Asshole]

There's few things that Anglicans hate more than Catholics. If they also hated blacks and Jews, they'd be the Klan minus the hoods.

[ace_m82]

^Worst kind of tribalist.

[Rhywun]

Ah, the plot thickens.

[Shirley Knott]

Britain thought it had eliminated chattel slavery in the 19th century.
Yet here in the 21st, we see it in action.

[Bubba Jones]

Subjects. Not citizens.

[Longtobefree]

Absolutely correct.
How dare you say we murdered that child when all we did was murder that child?

Now where are all the liberals crying out for boycotts and the like?
NC just passes a law saying men are men and women are women and the hysteria and boycotts and shaming run wild; Liberal policies kill kids, and not a murmur.

[Harvard]

This would be Tony's America.

[Zebra Jr.]

America would be a far nicer place to live if we could swap out Alabama for England.

[Harvard]

Ah, but Alfie would still be pumping had he been in 'Bama. Even if still in the womb in 'Bama. Roll Tide!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Brickbats about speech rights in England is the third lowest hanging fruit.

[Jerryskids]

I would ask what the first two low-hanging fruit are, but I'm afraid you're either going to say OMWC's balls or Matthew Shepard and Michael George Smith.

[Conchfritters]

It is refreshing to wake up and not read a story about a police officer shooting a barking Boston Terrier who was looking at them funny, or crooked police officers who crack peoples heads open and break their cameras for recording them beating people up or shooting dogs.

[Mickey Rat]

The fruit is five days overripe though.

[Mock-star]

Who is Alfie Evans? I would have no idea if I relied on Reason's coverage. Must not be in their wheelhouse.

[MatthewSlyfield]

A young boy in England, who was suffering a terminal illness. The UK government run healthcare system decided his case was hopeless and unplugged him from life support. The parents wanted to take him to Italy either for treatment or better hospice care, the UK government refused to allow the parents to take the child out of the country or even out of the hospital.

The story has been all over the news for at least the last week, how have you not seen it?

[Zebra Jr.]

So the parents wanted to pay to bring the child to Italy or home but the state determined that it was not in the best interest of the child to do that? On what basis did the govt base it's belief on?

[Citizen X - #6]

On the basis of that's how tax-supported bureaucracies inevitably operate. Or, in less polite terms: Fuck You, That's Why.

[Seamus]

On the basis of fuck you, that's what.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

The NHS runs an algorithym when a person requires expensive health care; they consider your age, your potential productivity, the cost of the treatment vs. the benefits to society at large. If you do not make the cut you don't get the care. Another cautionary tale for us from the mother country.

[Zebra Jr.]

Why would the state object to allowing the child to die somewhere else if as you claim they had washed their hands of it by determining there was no hope?

[Citizen X - #6]

Bureaucracy, holmes. There did not exist a standardized process for allowing the family to remove the kid from the hospital, therefore the kid could not be removed from the hospital.

[Zebra Jr.]

No fucking way. If that's true then that's a terrible injustice.

[Seamus]

No shit, Sherlock.

[loveconstitution1789]

If they got to do then every Brit could do it. Then Brits have specific examples of why the NHS is not the best system.

Currently, Brits can just dismiss the American fairly private health system as cruel greedy Yanks leaving people to die in the streets.

Now Brits have a specific example of their health providers not only refusing to do everything they can to save a child or make it more comfortable when it dies but then government cronies refuse to allow the parents to take the child to another country and get medical care there.

[MichaeI Hihn]

Two examples. They did it to Charlie Gard too.

[Mickey Rat]

The problem is that the NHS is an even more dangerous third rail in British politics than Social Security is in the USA. Pols get pilloried for direct criticism of the NHS, any reform has to be couched in terms that the idea of the NHS is a noble one that only could stand some tweaking around the edges. Therefore it cannot be dealt with any honesty.

[Illocust]

Yeah, they've pulled quite an amazing PR campaign on the British. Every single one seems convinced their horrible healthcare is the best they could ever receive.
Sometimes I think the fact it has so many obvious and provable flaws, is why the brits cling to it so strongly.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

The NHS runs an algorithym when a person requires expensive health care; they consider your age, your potential productivity, the cost of the treatment vs. the benefits to society at large

In other words, they run an algorithm that tries to guess what the free market provides for free.

[Mock-star]

"The story has been all over the news for at least the last week, how have you not seen it?"

But not here at Reason, for some reason. That was my point. If ever there were a story with a built in Libertarian angle, this would be it.

[DenverJ]

I thought they covered it months ago when it first made news.

[Conchfritters]

Actually, the instant that Alfie was born he signed a medical directive that said: "do not resuscitate". In fact, I think all Englanders sign the same one.

[loveconstitution1789]

1984

[Citizen X - #6]

Garbage island is garbage; no film at 11 because the British government confiscated it.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Was not the mayor of London just recently extolling Britain's freedom of speech in encouraging his subjects to protest Trump's visit? And yet you dare not criticize the government there for refusing treatment to a critically ill child. Or post a rap song on your Facebook account. Or call anyone an ugly name.

[Zebra Jr.]

Why didn't a British charity step in to pay for treatment? I understand ending treatment but I cannot understand refusing to allow others to pay for treatment unless there's some credible determination that further treatment would only prolong suffering.

[Rhywun]

Because that kid was inevitably going to be a drain on the Treasury.

[Mickey Rat]

Cost was not the issue. It was an exercise of power. The government's medical experts had made their decision and the parents had the gall to refuse to submit to their wisdom.

[Rhywun]

Cost was not the issue.

I think future cost was an issue, as it always is with socialized medicine.

[Mickey Rat]

The court apparently feared that the child would not survive the trip and feared he could feel pain. Then it ordered that he should be starved and dehydrated. Internal consistency was not in abundance.

[Cynical Asshole]

Why didn't a British charity step in to pay for treatment?

I don't think there are British charities for medical care (although I could be wrong). All medical care goes through the NHS, which is 100% government funded. That's what single payer means. My understanding is that the parents even offered to pay to transport the child to Italy and pay for medical care there out of their own pocket. The State still wouldn't allow them.

Up thread you made what you thought to be a pithy comment about how "America would be a far nicer place to live if we could swap out Alabama for England." Perhaps you should rethink that. I'm not sure how America would be improved by trading uber conservative AL for the uber Progressive UK. Seems like just going from one extreme to another. Also, say what you will about those Bible thumpiing bitter clingers in AL, I'm pretty sure their state government wouldn't demand that a child be allowed to die an agonizing death from starvation and dehydration in the name of "equality" or some such horseshit.

[I am the 0.000000013%]

Based on this story, I'd guess public proclamations on the NHS are univerally positive.

[Woodchipper of the Apocalypse]

This whole story is possibly the most awful thing I can remember being aware of.

Stupidly, I decided to read the comment section on an article on The Hill about Alfie's death, thinking that no human being who isn't an insane sociopath could possibly not be pissed beyond belief that something like this could happen. But low and behold, the comments were filled with statist bootlickers giving the NHS a "hear, hear", as they courageously stepped in to prevent those malicious, ill-informed, icky-lower-class parents from trying to save their child from a disease that their betters know is 100% fatal even though no one has any clue what the disease actually is.

Fuck all of these people. There aren't many non-self-defense scenarios where I could possibly imagine arming up and getting violent, but if I had a kid who was sick and had literally been kidnapped by the state so that the bureaucrats could wave their dicks around and show how powerful they are, I'm pretty sure I'd be dying shortly after in a hail of gunfire.

[Cynical Asshole]

But low and behold, the comments were filled with statist bootlickers giving the NHS a "hear, hear", as they courageously stepped in to prevent those malicious, ill-informed, icky-lower-class parents from trying to save their child from a disease that their betters know is 100% fatal even though no one has any clue what the disease actually is.

Those same shitheels would have been all in on the Nazi's plan to rid society of undesirables. Alfie, and other children like him, are "defective" you see? The State had to kill him for "the greater good."

if I had a kid who was sick and had literally been kidnapped by the state so that the bureaucrats could wave their dicks around and show how powerful they are, I'm pretty sure I'd be dying shortly after in a hail of gunfire.

Just make sure you take out plenty of those useless twats while you're at it.

[ace_m82]

That's self defense (as the parent still holds most of the rights and responsibilities of the child, including the responsibility to defend the child).

You would be covered by NAP.

[Seamus]

On hearing that the Merseyside Police Department was warning people that they were watching social media to observe mean things we were saying about them, I was about to send them an email inviting them to say hello to my little woodchipper friend. Then I thought that they probably would log in my communication, and the next time I wanted to visit the UK the little inquisitors would either deny me a visa, or else they'd give it to me, thebn arrest me the moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow.

[Seamus]

On hearing that the Merseyside Police Department was warning people that they were watching social media to observe mean things we were saying about them, I was about to send them an email inviting them to say hello to my little woodchipper friend. Then I thought that they probably would log in my communication, and the next time I wanted to visit the UK the little inquisitors would either deny me a visa, or else they'd give it to me, thebn arrest me the moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow.