Systemic Euthanasia

[TheRedneck]

...

With all due respect, MaxMars, I do believe you may be misinterpreting my intent. Please allow me to clarify.

Your statements on how the government is supposed to operate are all true. But I was not speaking of how a government is supposed to operate, but how one actually operates in the face of human selfishness and greed. Government is not a business, true enough, but it does have much in common with a business. A business does not, in theory, exist to make money; it exists to exist. That is the single driving factor. In business, money may be the means to continue to exist, but it is actually a tool to allow the business to thrive. The profit motive exists for the benefit of stockholders, who, if profit is not forthcoming, will take their contributions to the business elsewhere and thus cause the business to close down... to cease to exist.

We tend to think of a business as existing to make money... but a business is not a person. It has no needs, no desires, no goals in life, save one: the desire to exist. Profit is simply the means to that end.

In government, the same is true: government exists to exist. However, there is more than a single methodology that enables government to exist. It can exist as the benefactor of the people, at the pleasure of the people, or it can exist as the controlling authority over the people. Profit is not a concern, as there are no stockholders to satisfy; the true stockholders of the government are the common people, and the common people can either be placated or controlled. We can look at history and see this pattern clearly; history is rife with dictatorships and kingdoms that existed, some for hundreds of years, by control of the people under it, not at their pleasure.

Another similarity is the methodology used to enact this goal of existence. Both businesses and governments use goals as their methodology. Indeed, one could summarize that the recent decline in business/employee relations is due to a shifting of goals concerning the employees. The recent change in business attitude toward customers is also attributable to changes in goals concerning customer relations. However, there is a major difference between government and business: the availability of force. All governments have the ability to use force against citizens, by definition. Businesses can evolve to use force, but are not immediately endowed upon creation with that ability.

When one says one thinks the government should be run as a business, it does not follow they intend for the government to make a profit. No government can do so, because no government makes anything of value. That's the purview of business. However, a government can act as a goal setting organization which operates as a whole to achieve their goals instead of a mishmash of separate departments with their own individual goals. A government can thrive by providing value to its shareholders, the people, rather than controlling them.

As to the elderly, I obviously agree that they have paid their share and are now entitled to the promises made to them. After all, don't forget, I is an elderly! However, there was just an arrest made here on a man who took a nearly $4000 deposit on a new driveway from an elderly man and disappeared. The elderly man had every right to the services he paid for; there can be no dispute about that. But the criminal who took his money violated that right. If a criminal posing as a contractor can do so, why cannot a criminal posing as a politician do the same?

Assisted suicide is a precarious subject for me. On one hand, I can understand that a person can be in such pain with such little hope of relief that death can be a blessing. Far be it from me to deny someone that relief. However, I remain concerned about the extent that assistance can go. I cannot trust any profession or any government to always have the best interests of the individual at heart. Too often, people can be talked into things they would not have accepted had they known the full story. In the case of assisted suicide, that error is absolutely irreversible. There must IMO be such safeguards so no one is ever convinced by others to end their own life. Ever. So who do we trust to ensure those safeguards are met? The government? I think not. The medical profession? Possibly, but it too is operated by fallible humans. The next of kin? That sounds good, but the allure of inheritance has been used as an excuse by many already to wish death upon a loved one.

In the end, any such decision is subjective. Even trusting the person themselves is spurious, since people, especially the elderly, are easily convinced to act against their best interests... witness the example on the news I mentioned above.

Still, with all that said, I do believe like you that the subject is one that bears discussion.

TheRedneck