Ahem. Your pet doesn't choose how it dies.

That said, people want endless do-overs, and just can't imagine making a single, final, irrevocable decision.

Why Can't We Choose To Die Like Our Pets?
- - - -
A title that summarizes the dangerous cluelessness of the libertarian-ghoul position. Thanks! No need to read further. From an opener like that there ain't gonna be any moral or historical nuance...

A friend of mine, call her Jan, had a friend who was brain damaged and had a will saying she was to be taken off life support. Jan went to visit her, and she couldn't speak well, she slurred her words, but told Jan she wanted to live and didn't want to go off life support. Jan conveyed this to the staff and the family to no avail... because she hadn't managed to convey it to them she was taken off life support and died.

Jan's telling me this gave me chills and made me reconsider my position on this.

There was also that case in Belgium of the woman who had been horribly abused and was allowed to kill herself... I dunno, something about the whole "You have been abused and now you are broken beyond repair so can just die" thing rubs me the wrong way.

And I worry about situations were old or sick people don't want to be a burden to their families... or worse, their families don't want to take care of them so guilt trip and pressure them into this...

I don't know.

In theory I want to agree with you, in practice it seems so open to potential abuse...

In theory I want to agree with you, in practice it seems so open to potential abuse... ~ NicoleK at May 20, 2019 5:23 AM

This.

Yeah, I'm with Nicole on this too. Every time something like this is tried, it seems to spin out of control.

"No need to read further."

This is the problem as of late, more than ever. I see all the time as a mediator, talking to P1 (the party who brings us the case) and then P2 that what seems to be the story may not be the story.

Every time something like this is tried, it seems to spin out of control.

That's a feature, not a bug.

Besides, how else will they keep social security and medicaid marginally bankrupt instead of totally bankrupt? by reminding you that it's your patriotic duty to take the blue pill.

For bonus points, you'll have converted every physician - since this will be over seen by physicians - from do no harm to hey, some harm is OK.

I absolutely agree with nicole....but the dark side of me says hey, we cant keep spending this ridiculous amount of money on extending the lives of the elderly and if we could instigate this worldwide itd sure help control the population....

I'm overworked and getting a bit careworn by it. Carry on.

My 94 year old mother has been saying for years, that rather than die in either indignity or agony, she would off herself with a large dose of opioids,

Now that the time has finally come, and she has no real quality of life, she doesn’t have the metal capacity to make that kind of affirmative choice. She is mentally incapable of making rational choices at all anymore although she still can read and recognize family and friends.

So she is terrified, scratching and clawing her way to an extremely messy and expensive end, in the next six months. Nothing dignified about it.

I would have chosen not to replace her pacemaker generator last week, which is what she wanted too, up until the time she was facing death if it wasn’t done.

But I still don’t have a moral right to make that choice for her.

The family will care for her, until the bitter end, because real human beings don’t outsource the job of doing away with the elderly to a disinterested third party.

Sorta on the same topic....

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/20/sexual-autonomy-worth-cost-human-lives/

In the Netherlands, the right to die has been extended to dementia patients and others who are put to death involuntarily because they have no "quality of life" and even to children with bad disability, as if kids could make such decisions.
Slippery slopes gotta slip.

No need to read further."

This is the problem as of late, more than ever. I see all the time as a mediator, talking to P1 (the party who brings us the case) and then P2 that what seems to be the story may not be the story.

Amy Alkon at May 20, 2019 6:34 AM

And the unfortunate thing here, from long experience in the legal realm. Four possibilities with multiple permutations.

Party I is lying, and party II is telling the truth. Party I is telling the truth and Party II is lying. Both parties are lying, Both are telling the truth (as they see it)

and you, as a mediator, have no independent means of determining which variation of this multiple choice scenario is the closest to what actually happened.

"I would have chosen not to replace her pacemaker generator last week, which is what she wanted too, up until the time she was facing death if it wasn’t done. "

I wish you strength and peace as you stay with your mother through this long, last battle. Love stays.

> she slurred her words, but
> told Jan she wanted to live
> and didn't want to go off
> life support.

Did she offer to cover the expenses?

Listen, I don't wanna be cruel. But I detest the popular presumption that because some life-extending technology presumably exists out there in some corner of Christendom, it must provided for everyone on the planet no matter what the expense, whether or not the subject has done anything to create the wealth and goodwill the effort would require.

I've cited this passage from a novel on here before, because the ferocity of the presumption is shown in clear and sarcastic relief. From Tetherballs of Bougainville, a remembrance of carefree teenage days:

I think that we tend to select certain emblematic images to store in our memories as visual icons representing each of the journeys and sojourns in our lives. And when I remember our year in St.-Leonard-de-Noblat, I think of the topless contessa and her boom box.

Every sunny afternoon I'd go down to the lake and watch the contessa, a voluptuous woman from one of the most severely lead-poisoned families, struggle for 45 minutes to mount her chaise longue and then endeavor spastically for another half hour to remove her bikini top. This finally accomplished, she'd pillow an ear against her huge radio, which was turned up so loud that it literally drowned out the dredging equipment that the sanitation department used to remove bodies from the turbid water.

There I'd loiter, leering, until I'd hear my mother's calls--her voice so shrill that it easily pierced the roar of the dredging equipment and the blare of the bare-breasted contessa's ghetto blaster. I'd reluctantly trudge home to find Mom on the veranda, draining her second pitcher of kamikazes.

"Get your steno pad," she'd bark, lighting a cigarette and singeing the ends of a platinum tress that had swung into the flame of her Zippo.

And so each afternoon my mother would dictate yet another revision of her "living will." And although all sorts of frivolous codicils were continuously appended--often to be nullified the following day--the gist of the will remained constant: "In the event that I ever become seriously ill and my ability to communicate is impaired, please honor the following requests. No matter how onerous a financial and emotional burden I become to my family and no matter what extraordinary means are necessary, I want to be kept going. I don't care about mental lucidity, dignity, or quality of life, I don't care how flat my EEG is or for how long, I don't care if I'm just half a lung and a few feet of bowel--I want to be kept alive."

"Do you understand?" she'd snarl.

"Yes, Mom," I'd nod.

I'd file the latest version in a strongbox in her lingerie drawer, and then scamper back to the lake, hoping that I'd hadn't missed the departure of the contessa, a sad and beautiful spectacle. Her lead-suffused flesh luridly burnished in the gloaming, she'd attempt to free herself from her folding chaise, which would have collapsed around her like a Venus' flytrap enclasping some engorged and lustrous bug.

People want to live forever. But they can't, whether or not it's fair. Other people have projects they want to move forward with.

Nature wins. There are no exceptions. If you wanna be healthy, then be healthy— As if you will ever & always have the choice.

"open to potential abuse".

Well!

Listen— If you belief that policy can be composed such that the flow of events need never be "open to potential abuse," the I'd say the richness of your modern life —and perhaps your own provincialism or timidity— has left you blind to the scope & meaning of civilization's project.

And it's left you subject to the petty manipulations of the shittiest people who've ever lived.

Chavez. And on and on and on

Also, I linked this twitter thread in a comment here two days ago "at May 19, 2019 7:35 AM," and nobody said nuthin'.

Where is the love?




(Christ, Hathaway was huge, wuzzinhee?)

> if we could instigate this
> worldwide itd sure help
> control the population....

"Instigate," indeed! And "worldwide!

In which sense do you suppose she means "control the population"?

Doesn't matter. The limitless rhetoric of daydreams twitches & wiggles nakedly.

"Why Can't We Choose To Die Like Our Pets?"

What, you mean flushed down the toilet or abandoned in the woods, that sort of thing?

Back in the 1980s (there was an updated edition in 2003) American journalist/humorist Jane Walmsley wrote in her brilliant book "Brit-Think, Ameri-Think":

"The single most important thing to know about Americans – the attitude which truly distinguishes them from the British, and explains much superficially odd behavior – is that Americans think that death is optional. They may not admit it, and will probably laugh if it’s suggested; but it’s a state of mind – a kind of national leitmotiv if you like – that colors everything they do. There is a nagging suspicion that you can delay death (or who knows? avoid it altogether) if you really try. This explains the common pre-occupation with health, aerobics, prune-juice, plastic surgery and education.

"The idea is that you’re given one life to live, and it’s up to you to get it right. You should:

"use the time to maximize individual potential (have a nose-job, get a college degree) so as to ensure the highest-quality life possible.

"take care of your body so it will last. If extended life-span – or even immortality – proves possible, at least you’re ready.

"That’s the secret of America’s fundamental optimism; but it’s not as cheery as it sounds. It imposes on the individual a whole range of duties and responsibilities. Your life is in your own hands...and the quality of that life as well. You owe it to yourself to be beautiful, clever, skinny, successful, and healthy. If you fail, it’s because you’re not trying enough... (you didn’t jog regularly, you should’ve eaten more bran). Death becomes your fault.

"BRIT-THINK: Brit-think on the subject is fundamentally different, and accounts for the yawning gulf in national attitudes. Brits keep a weather eye on the Sword of Damocles, suspended above their heads. Lives are to be lived with a certain detachment, and a sense of distance preserved. One rolls with the punches. It’s fruitless to try and take control, bad form to get too involved, arrogant and self-important to attempt to outwit destiny.

"Events must be allowed to run their natural course. Stay cool, never be seen to try too hard (Americans are so intense!) since anyone with half-a-brain should recognize the central absurdity of existence (Monty Python was so apt) and accept the inevitable. Success – if it’s to count – must appear effortless. Since nothing matters very much anyway, think twice before making important sacrifices. Never run for a bus. Never skip tea."
___________________________________

To my surprise, I found many chapters from that book just now - at a site for Russian students! (Note the exercises listed at the bottom of each page.)

https://studfiles.net/preview/6313230/page:2/

Great fun. I take it that it's the 2003 edition.

OK let me re-phrase that...

"Very likely to be abused in horrific ways".

"But I still don’t have a moral right to make that choice for her."

From a distance, this looks exactly the same as "I didn't have the courage to do exactly what she wanted."

Nothing is so easy as standing by and doing nothing. Very near to that is doing nothing, but uttering various platitudes, seen on FB and Twitter constantly: "I'm praying for you." "My thoughts are with you."

In a few days, my wife will be at sea spreading the ashes of a friend she cared for dearly, having known him for about 35 years. No one else was there for him at the last - not "family", not so-called "friends". They piled up on the door at the wake, after refusing his company in any way for more than five years.

None of this is easy, unless you pretend it really isn't about you.
Too.

> From a distance, this looks
> exactly the same as
> "I didn't have the courage to
> do exactly what she wanted."

…Which is why only an oblivious, puckering asshole would judge the courage of someone in such a circumstance "from a distance."

Blog comments are one of those things where some people go for it and others are like wut-evar.

To Crid,
Hathaway: brilliant.

Name that novel you quote from above, if you would. Dying to read it.

Thanks.

Crid, Name that novel you quoted, if you please. Thx.

The Tetherballs of Bougainville by Mark Leyner, 1997.

It used to be freely "available" from "sources" online, but not anymore.

In another favorite passage, Our Hero (the Teenager) is smoking weed with an attractive woman while incarcerated:

WARDEN

Now I remember what I was asking you … What kind of sound system do you have? In your room.

MARK

I have a Sherwood RV7050R receiver, a Yamaha CDC-655 CD player, and a pair of Bose speakers.

WARDEN

Which Bose?

MARK

The Acoustimass 5 Series.

WARDEN

Excellent speakers.

MARK

They’re OK … I got them as a gift for acing my Introduction to Recursive Function Theory final. They’re nothing compared to those things, though … (marveling at the suspended Meridians). Those are motherfuckin’ monsters!

CAMERA DOLLIES toward and then CRANES out through window.

VARIOUS ANGLES of honking Canada geese banking in crimson-streaked crepuscular sky over prison.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What are you running from your receiver to your speakers?

MARK (off-screen)

XLO ER-12. Braided construction

WARDEN (off-screen)

Tinned ends?

MARK (off-screen)

Spade banana pin.

WARDEN (off-screen)

Excellent. What do you clean your CDs with?

MARK (off-screen)

Acoustic Research Fiber-Optic Lapping Slurry. And if they’re really scuzzy, I have a Marantz KR-II CD Gamma Irradiation Deck.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What do you use to dust your components?

MARK (off-screen)

For the CD player, I use Phase Technology Electrostatic Gauze, and for the receiver, a Hitachi BPA-500 Isopropyl-Impregnated Cheesecloth.

WARDEN (off-screen)

How about for your hands?

MARK (off-screen)

Klipsch Chlorhexidine Gluconate Audiophile Scrub.

WARDEN (off-screen)

What do you dry them with?

MARK (off-screen)

I’d always used the Polk Audio NS7 Post-Lavage Moisture Management System, but lately I like the Cambridge Soundworks Egyptian Cotton Pile Matrix X-130 Ablution Residue Stanching Shammy.

WARDEN (off-screen)The S Series?

MARK (off-screen)

The SE.

WARDEN (off-screen)

That’s a nice towel.

…And that is what I wanted out of post-coital chit-chat as a high schooler.

"Which is why only an oblivious, puckering asshole would judge the courage of someone in such a circumstance "from a distance.""

Ohh, I hurt your feelings? On behalf of somebody else, or just generally?

Everyone imagines that their circumstances are unique. Only to them. Such have been faced by billions before them, and the subject is so unpleasant that actual plans are set aside - as has been shown.

And a general statement is immediately offensive because it is nearly impossible to set aside the outrage to think clearly.

If you intend to change public policy w/r/t euthanasia, "death with dignity" or any other euphemistic attempt to avoid saying a third party will have the authority to end a life, you must say out loud such an authority will do so "at a distance".

Crid, I fear that I had similar conversations in my misspent youth. Only it was vinyl, and we were discussing the relative merits of elliptical vs. Shibata styli. And there were most assuredly no women present.

Radwaste:
Oooh I hurt your feelings?
-----------
This isn't about cute American can-do optimism or suburban-mom navel-gazing about doing right by dad.

This is about elitist experts and anonymous bureaucratic bean counters deciding the worth of human lives, and killing inconvenient citizens.

With breathtaking speed, the experts and faceless bureaucrats have rolled across every moral tripline. Every concern that was airily waved away has happened - and become policy.

Oh what are you worried about? We'll never allow Our Compassionate Experts to kill:

-Infants and children

-Adults whose wishes can't be determined

-To save money (in fact, elderly have been blackmailed into suicide by national health systems refusing hip replacements and other treatment)

-On the say-so of self-interested children/caretakers

-Anyone the Experts wish, based on their unilateral assessment of "quality of life"

... yet all this has happened - and become standard policy, cloaked in bureaucratic "best practice".

Those concerned about abuse are not voicing some mawkishly sentimental anachronism.

Human beings avoid difficult decisions. Sure.
People who don't pay medical insurance should be turned away. Sure.

But that is no justification for giving medical professionals and gubmint operatives this kind of power over people's lives.

And in many cases these people are not exactly freeloaders: national health systems are reneging on implicit or explicit promises made to citizens-subjects-patients. After these citizen-subjects were forced to accept and fund a monopoly on these services, so they could not even have chosen to pay into a private plan.

In other cases private providers are using this to avoid paying out after patients paid in.

What happens when this new "protocol" is wedded to other developments in "progressive" governance like the Chinese "social index" to identify troublemakers? In the US we've seen how "undesireables" are treated by the elites, and the IRS has already been weaponized.

The legalization of drugs, prostitution, and medical murder is a sort of Holy Trinity for many libertarians: blind faith is unmoved even as actual results overtake these positions.

"Euthanasia will not be abused" is the libertarian version of "That wasn't real socialism"

Sometime this week, I'll be sending Isab an attaboy, but I haven't gotten around to it yet... It's a busy time, since I'm going through almost precisely what she's going through. The differences are incidental, and you wouldn't see them anyway.

Later, I'll list some of the comments I've made in the last fifteen years about pisspants bravado from blog commenters in the face of mortality, but there won't be much point. You didn't read them then, and you won't read them now.

So Radwaste, you should ride your little red trike to the zoo and blow a giraffe... Or as you might put it, blow a giraffe.

Shake your tits at him first to summon his enthusiasm.

Radwaste—

Now do a rhinoceros.

Then read this.

Like in the mouth of a coyote? Twitching along a roadside?

My family is dealing with this with my grandmother. She says she was not supposed to live this long. She is in declining health but not that bad. She has a few memory issues... like she refers to my one Uncle as "The one in Seattle" though he has not lived in Seattle since the eighties. She has not had spectacular life extending things done. The latest is just physical therapy and training on doing things in a safer way.

Couple passages about getting old and dying in this one.

But this one from two days earlier is the one you should read first.

Even more about getting old and dying.

I guess I was lucky in a sense. Both my parents went fast, but not too fast. A fall, followed by hospitalization with symptoms of mild dementia or stroke, and a relatively quick decline. My siblings and I never had to deal with extended dementia; and we had a window in which to prepare ourselves for their deaths - to say good bye, etc.

My mother-in-law had to deal with her mother's dementia. Every visit with her was an object lesson on how horrible Alzheimer's is. We watched as my wife's grandmother, with only enough reason left in her to enable her be vindictive and nasty, made life hell for her daughter. From the stories her family told about her, I gather the old bat was a nasty piece of work when fully functional. The Alzheimer's only seemed to exacerbate her mean streak.

15 years ago I met a woman in a care facility who was always warm-hearted and grateful to talk to visitors. But she'd forget the destination of her sentences halfway through, and you could tell she was desperately disappointed in herself. Nobody cared! It was that kind of place, and no one was ever going to end the conversation because of it, or become annoyed; It was the kind of thing that happened there.

One day I came to visit and didn't see her. I asked, and they said she'd had some behavior problems… Meaning she'd become violently angry and had to be moved into the wing with restraints and sedation. This was someone who'd lived with kindness and gentleness her entire life. (I simultaneously heard stories of people who'd had violence in their lives who let loose as their impairment continued. Having a mean streak is certainly a poor strategy.)

Thunderstorm in L.A. right now. Boom! Very unusual. BOOM! BOOM!

Nobody knows how the dice will fall.

Sincerely grateful to you for that comment. There's much to be grateful for.

Boom! BOOM!

Thx Crid for the book recommendation. I just ordered a copy. The conversation with the teen and the warden remind me of similar tech conversations in Michel Houllebecq's The Map & The Territory. I have a feeling you'd enjoy reading Houllebecq, esp his novel Platform, if you haven't already. Your sense of irony and cultural criticism align. His novel The Possibility of an Island is brilliant.

Thx Crid for the book recommendation. I just ordered a copy. The conversation with the teen and the warden remind me of similar tech conversations in Michel Houllebecq's The Map & The Territory. I have a feeling you'd enjoy reading Houllebecq, esp his novel Platform, if you haven't already. Your sense of irony and cultural criticism align. His novel The Possibility of an Island is brilliant.

"But I still don’t have a moral right to make that choice for her."

That's the key.

Our pets have no say in how they die. They are our chattel, and we make the decision on any basis we like.

If you want to control how and when you die, grow a pair and off yourself while you're still truly in control of the situation, by yourself, without involving anyone else. The news makes it clear that supercharged opiates are easily obtained on the street, so it's not that difficult.

The minute another person is involved in the decision and action, conflicts of interest arise.
It's amazing that some people seem to want a lower standard for establishing consent for killing someone than for sleeping with someone.

We're constantly bombarded with stories about how con artists bilk the elderly and infirm out of their money, and now you want to open the door for them to be bilked out of their very life? What in human history makes anyone believe this won't end up like Logan's Run?

I'm horrified by this idea but even so, I can tell you the criteria I'd advocate if we're going to start culling excess population.

Isab is right. Not only don't I have the right to make that decision for another person, I don't WANT that right, because that's the ultimate power that leads to ultimate corruption.

Thanks for the recommendation, Ally... The name's been kicking around for several years. Send email to cridcomment @ gmail if you want a review/reflection of "Map" (someday).