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He who pays the piper says when the tune stops “Canada wrestles with euthanasia for the mentally ill”, reports the BBC. Actually, the headline starts with the question “Who can die?” to which I would have thought the answer was obvious. But while death undoubtedly comes to us all eventually, when the state pays for healthcare it pays the state to make death come sooner:
… last autumn, authorities launched an investigation after at least four veterans were prompted to consider Maid [the acronym for Canada’s medical assistance in dying programme] by a Veterans Affairs case worker, who now no longer works for the department. In one instance, veteran and paralympian Christine Gauthier said she was offered the option by the employee after she asked for a wheelchair ramp to be installed in her home.
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A better question might be ‘Who decides the criteria for mental illness?’.
Two points:
He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune
The state is not your friend
Was the case worker fired BECAUSE of his/her belief that Gauthier should be a candidate for euthanasia, or only because Gauthier complained about it publicly?
On the bright side, the precedent is being established for what to do with these people after the revolution. We won’t need to waste the fuel for the helicopters; simply declare them insane, and then use the rules they’ve established to euthanize the lot of them.
We need to add sarcasm tags here, BTW… The above paragraph is purely sarcastic parody.
Or, is it…?
You would think that after reflecting on the number of things that have come back to haunt them in the past, the idiots on the left would begin to process and recognize the fact that nearly everything they implement to use against their enemies eventually gets used on… Them.
Even some of the international establishment are said to find Mr Trudeau and his totalitarian collectivist “Liberalism” disturbing. He is not a liberal, he has a deep hatred for liberty, he uses the word “Liberal” in the same way that, from the 1920s, American supporters of the Marxist Soviet Union, the most tyrannical regime on the planet at that time, called themselves “liberals” – it is the reverse of the truth.
But Mr Trudeau is going in the same totalitarian collectivist direction as the rest of the international establishment – he is just going faster than some of them and is more clear about the objective (the objective being the wiping out of liberty).
If some of the international establishment really are disturbed by where Mr Trudeau is taking Canada – then they need reconsider their whole position, for they are on the same road.
The proper response to the MAID suggestion is, “F you, you go first.”
Aktion T4 is back. As expected.
And remember the doctors and medical staff fully cooperated with the murder of hundreds of thousands of mentally and physically retarded adults and children. Very few balked. It was push-back from the families of those murdered “sick people” who eventually stopped this. Not the “ethics” of the medical profession.
To paraphrase the old joke 90% of doctors give the other 10% a bad name. And when push comes to shove I would not depended too much on the other 10% either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4
My base assumption is that whenever I see a term used in the media it will be used to denote the term’s opposite.
But then I live in North America.
That statement is not true when the piper is the state. They just take it and you have no say in what happens after that. We don’t even get any input into the tune.
That needs to change.
tr – sadly you are making the correct assumption.
At least in North America (but to some extent in the United Kingdom was well) the terms “liberal” and “liberalism” have been stolen by the supporters of tyranny.
[…] He who pays the piper says when the tune stops ““Canada wrestles with euthanasia for the mentally ill”, reports the BBC. Actually, the headline starts with the question “Who can die?” to which I would have thought the answer was obvious. But while death undoubtedly comes to us all eventually, when the state pays for healthcare it pays the state to make death come sooner” […]
I suspect that if/when medically-assisted euthanasia comes to the US, we’ll see insurance companies mentioning it as an option to the elderly and those with chronic diseases.
I was always amused when one of the arguments against Obamacare was the whole Death Panels rationing out medical care and deciding who lives and who dies as though that doesn’t happen on a daily basis now. Why is it if some bureaucrat in DC says, “no, good luck, ” it’s this horrible thing but if it’s some beancounter working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield who says, “no, good luck,” it’s somehow better?
@Steven R,
All I can say is, good ‘effing luck squaring the circle that’s created by criminalizing a relative holding a pillow over an elderly person’s face vice the state doing that for them, for similar reasons–Money.
The thing that cracks me up about this whole thing is the brazen obliviousness of it all: On the one hand, you’re enjoined by one and all, growing up, to “protect life” to “sacrifice self for others”. Then, the self-same arseholes who spend your childhood brainwashing you into this white-knight insanity expect you to suddenly start ignoring all the convenient moments wherein they’re expected to look the other way when the state or some of the same loud voices that taught them to protect others start killing unborn infants or the elderly.
Can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “Die to protect this life, but if you try to protect that one, we’ll put you in jail…”
But, we do. And, society keeps expecting that this insanity is going to last.
It won’t.
I’ve really got no problem in taking these “euthanasia advocates” out and doing unto them before they get a chance to do unto me. And, it’s rather odd, when you think about it: It’s always the convenience-seekers; the Canadian government that doesn’t want to pay for the health care for a disabled veteran–The selfsame government that created the disability, in the first place. Hmmm.
Dunno about you, but I expect there are some people out there, in the vast Canadian public, who’re taking notes. And, that there’s going to be a certain lack of enthusiasm for signing up for those disability-producing jobs as time progresses.
The people doing this never seem to be able to work out likely consequence “B” or “C” from action “A”. Doesn’t mean that the rest of us are similarly mentally deficient…
For my own sake, for my own liberty’s sake, I want the freedom to decide when it’s time to move on. Whether it’s pancreatic cancer about to worsen or just a decision that it’s my time, that should be my choice, so long as I retain the competency to run my life.
But government (and even organized medical) really needs to step away from the subject. Their involvement doesn’t just add tools to make the process easier. It warps the entire moral suasion scenario, and leaves it always suspect. Did I die because I chose the time, or because my treatment would have been costly to my guarantors, or because I live in a conservative area and federal government doesn’t really mind suicides from those areas?
And government always oversteps. Always. Once there is governmental power involved in the decision, it always ends up being the only power involved in the decision. Because they always know better than me.
Canada has turned into a s###show, and this is only one symptom of that. But it’s a telling one.
My objection to it all isn’t because of government overreach or bureaucracy or cost or any of those things. If you want to do yourself, fine, be my guest. Just don’t take anyone with you. My objection is asking someone, in this case a physician, to do the deed for you. If you want the agency to end your life, then do it but don’t ask your doctor to push the plunger for you. Be a man and push your own plunger, or eat a bullet, or jump off a cliff, or whatever, but do it yourself.
I don’t mind you offing yourself… So long as it’s your choice, freely taken, and with your full faculties present and working.
The part where I object to it all is when someone else starts making decisions for other people. That has never worked out, and never will.
Kirk – none of this, including death, is really going to be the choice of ordinary people.
Mr Trudeau (and people like him) is not interested in the choices of ordinary people (other than to sneer at them) – that, to him, is just the despised “will of all”, not the noble “General Will” that only wise rulers and experts, such as (of course) himself, define and decide.
Rousseau was playing this game long before Karl Marx.
In Canada there is not even Freedom of Speech (even less of it than there is in the United Kingdom – and there is not much of it here), how long do you think there are going to be any other basic liberties?
And, of course, giving up liberty has NOT brought security.
On the streets of Canadian cities such as Vancouver there are homeless people, very many of them, when my Canadian cousin was young – there were, basically, none.
That Big Government road of endless government spending and regulations (endless regulations – depriving Canadians of the natural resources all around them – which must go to the People’s Republic of China instead) has not worked out well – but do not expect the Canadian media to point it out.
Most of the Canadian media (other than True North and Rebel News) kept money from the government.
As the post says “he who pays the piper…”