Onjab,

Yes, you're talking about suicide. Yes. You're not talking about 'assisted' suicide. Don't blur the two very different issues.

Joe

Yuyutsu,

When I say that most of the legal debate about “suicide” and “suicide assistance” as it pertains to legislation and policy is narrow in focus only dealing with old terminal and clear-headed candidates who may wish to artificially through medical means and health professionals make a mortal exit in their own way and before any perceived indignities arise.
That is to say, the “assisted suicides” called “euthanasia” as above are more like a highly organised and supervised medical procedure designed to bring a person of great age and/or severe terminal illness certain to end in extreme pain and indignity, to an early and easy death in a medical or operation type setting . It is actually a health procedure like putting a sick pet to sleep at the vet.
“Suicides” as commonly is the case on the other hand that are not of this type of medical procedure but are rather those tragedies involving severely mentally disordered and distressed individuals who may have chronic mental illness or emotional damage from childhood abuse and neglect, or maybe a person that had extreme misfortune and pressure from relationship loss or financial loss etc.

Thus why is all the debate and focus in law and media entirely on the mere “medical procedure” at the expense and oversight of the issues and realities involving the majority of actual suicides of crazed and sick people who need our help not our blessing?

That is why I feel the euthanasia debate is selfishly conducted since, not that it shouldn’t be delat with and laws set up for those in need [I think so] . . . . but because the agenda of those behind it has the effect of blanketing out the real suicide issues and legal concerns therein.

The result is that vulnerable and irrational "nobodies" continue to die tragically hour after hour

Dear Matthew,

I have no objection for those who want to be protected by the state to continue being protected by it.

I am not making a special case for euthanasia or for suicides or for assisted suicides because it's none of my business what kind of deaths certain people agreed with the state to protect them from - so long of course as they in fact agreed, then the state is allowed to use force to protect them.

However, most of us have never voluntarily agreed to have anything to do with the state. In this situation, while the state may still legitimately protect against myself those who did agree with it, it may not legitimately attempt to protect me against them.

It may be that the euthanasia debate is conducted by some on selfish grounds, but as I explained, I have no selfish motive there because I do not intend to use that "opportunity" whether or not it is legal.

Vulnerable and irrational "nobodies" continue to die, but so do animals in slaughterhouses around Australia and so do many around the world through war, famine, poverty and plagues. Actually, so are whole suns being swallowed by black holes: What makes the "Australian government" of all things responsible for these but not for those? My clear answer is that it's nothing but the consent of "these" to be protected - nothing else allows the government to use force in attempt to protect them from whatever.

Dear Joe,

<<I don't think there is anything divine anywhere in the universe>>

That makes you 'atheist' by name, but not necessarily atheist by heart. Another example would be that believing that Jesus died for us all makes one 'Christian' by name, but not necessarily by heart. Thinking/believing in this-or-that is cheap and superficial, so I find it inadequate to classify people on that basis. Instead, I discovered that one doesn't need to believe in God's existence in order to love Him.

(continued...)

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<<You raise an interesting point: that we can opt out of the protection of the state.>>

It is of course tempting to feel protected by a powerful organisation, but at what cost? I believe that it is too high! One such cost I already mentioned (the karma accrued for making another spend their years in jail). Another cost is to become part of a violent oppressive body. It may well be that I could live comfortably under state protection, but so long as that state attempts to protect others, even one person, against their will, I cannot be part of that.

<<would police have to check their databases before responding to a call-out, and simply driven away if they found that the victims did not come under the state's care? If you were murdered, should the state turn a blind eye? It can get messy, can't it?>>

You raise some interesting practical questions. Let me answer by quoting Jewish law (Halacha):

Say a house collapsed on the Sabbath and it's feared that people are stuck in the rubble and time is of the essence to save them: although it's normally forbidden to dig on the Sabbath, concern for the loss of Jewish life wins and so the injunction is to dig the rubble. So long as it isn't clear whether survivors in the rubble are Jewish or not, Halacha says that a Jew must keep digging, but if it's found that the only survivors are non-Jewish, one must stop digging until the Sabbath ends.

In other words, a state has the duty of care for those who sought its protection, so as long as there is doubt whether or not victims are under state care, police must do it's work - but once there's no longer such doubt, they must stop.

<<And as for standing on our heads - if a government demanded that, they wouldn't get my vote next time.>>

I don't believe that any voting majority has a right to demand that I stand on my head, so I needn't have to wait for the next election.

Thanks Yuyutsu,

I really learn so much on OLO. Thanks god for differences of opinion.

Okay: I've never understood how you can love something, a being, that doesn't exist, i.e. a non-being. Yes, something or someone who once existed, of course. Yes, you can yearn for something that may not exist, the love of another person, or a McMansion, or a world trip. Although I suppose unrequited love is a form of loving what doesn't exist.

Your example of Halacha is most revealing: I was going to suggest that the Fire Department should be made up of goyim, that might get around that problem. When she was young, my grandmother acted in that role in the household of Lord Samuel, former Lord Mayor of London, founder of Shell: great times, she went all over Britain with the family.

But you touch on something fundamental: unless you can opt out, a state has precisely that 'Good Samaritan' obligation, to help those who are not necessarily of the same group as the helpers, to go out of their way and even risk their lives for people they don't know.

Even to this point: imagine that house had collapsed while a bloke was burgling it while everybody was at the synagogue, so that he's the only person trapped inside. The state would still have the obligation - unless he opted out somehow - to rescue him and ensure his care and health. Then throw the book at him.

Thanks again, Yuyutsu.

Joe

Dear Joe,

<<a state has precisely that 'Good Samaritan' obligation>>

But note the very fine line between a Good Samaritan and Don Quixote de la Mancha, who also believed himself to be a good Samaritan as he tried to save his Lady Dulcinea from the evil giants in the shape of windmills.