Hi Iamanoldfrrt,

You may be on to something. If discussions such as this slide towards mention of advanced Alzheimer's, your hypothesis will be confirmed.

Totalitarians use people. People are fodder and/or puppets, and those who can't be used are expendable. For those who can be used, such as innocent teenagers, ways will be found to suck their potential to the last drop. Hence - as you suggest - eliminating the old and useless at one end, and dragging in the very young as foot soldiers, at the other.

Surely, any talk about people having the right to take their own lives (although if one is serious, it's not hard to think of ways) would have to require that they are most lucid, that they are fully aware of all the alternatives and consequences. Maybe I've never been depressed enough, but I cannot agree that that could ever justify suicide.

As it happens, I had to go to hospital a week ago with what is insultingly called 'pseudo-gout', extreme swelling and unbelievable pain in the knee joints. It took about twelve hours for the pain-killers to kick in, and the radiologist took 70 ml of fluid out of one knee. It will probably re-occur occasionally, but that attack certainly encouraged me to reflect on much of life. But I never for a moment considered topping myself - amputations, yes, but not suicide. Mind you, I would have kissed the doctor if he had given me something which worked within seconds. And the nurses too. Yes, indeed, every one of them, such comely angels. All I could think of, every second, was 'Make it stop, for Christ's sake, make it stop,' but at the same time, I was designing some system for installing 30-cm wheels on my stumps, and associated problems, thing like getting on buses, putting in ramps all around the house, etc. And I had to rule out future plans for love-making in my wheels, although I worked on it. The mind is a weird monster.

[TBC]

[continued]

I haven't had red wine or red meat since then: one must make sacrifices until researchers find instant cures for this thing. Thoughts of going without red wine forever did actually set me thinking about suicide, but I'm bargaining with myself that if I don't have another attack within a month .....

As a decrepit atheist, life seems so precious to me, you should measure it in gold bars. You have a chance to do what you can, then pffft ! So I can't understand people whose lives are so barren that they can contemplate ending it. Get out and smell the jasmine, listen to the birds, watch the children frolic, perve on the young women, whatever lifts your spirits. And get over yourself.

Joe

Andrew Denton did a superb job in discussing this very topic on Q&A last night. I hope that he keeps campaigning, until the law is finally changed.

Some of you clearly have a problem in understanding or accepting that others can have a different perspective of a situation. Fair enough, not everyone is empathetic to the pain of others.

A key question asked last night if "when somebody is suffering, how can I ask them to suffer more?" I don't think that you should have that right and that is why I think that the law should be changed, so that we can each make our own decisions, about what is best for us.

Yabby - I also saw Andrew Denton on Q & A and I agree with his campaign. I haven't written more to explain my argument as we have a member on this thread who is currently not well.

Warmair - I will keep you in my prayers, and wish you all the best.