I’m not quite sure where to stand on the Right to Die (euthanasia) issue. Should a severally suffering individual be allowed to commit suicide with their doctor’s assistance? Should there be a ban on medically assisted suicides?
I was first exposed to the debate about euthanasia in discussions about such matters with my mother when I was growing up. Later in a high school class where the topic came up, I believed that suicide itself was wrong, but I believed in the right of an individual choose for themself. One thang I’m not sure I was clear on was whether euthanasia is the same as suicide.
These days, my opinion is still pretty much the same in context, but the reasoning is much clearer. Of course, this makes it harder to know where to stand exactly on the issue. In principle, I believe that the individual has the right to determine their own life. But morally, I know that killing one’s self is wrong. Violence is allowed to defend one’s own life or the lives of loved ones, but it is not allowed to take one’s own life. Whether in mercy or in despair or in cruelty, one should not act in such a way against themself.
However, under rule of law, the right of the individual to any choices about themself is important to keeping the government from intruding in the lives of its citizens. The principle of keeping the government out of our lives is just as important because so many other morally correct doctrines can be threatened with too much control given to the authorities. If the government is given the right to tell an individual they cannot control when they die, the door may be opened to forcing unnatural methods to keeping people alive well beyond what nature intended.
Does the Right to Die only mean euthanasia, or does it include the right to refuse medical care that may or may not prevent the onset of a life threatening condition? That creates a pretty damn big gray area that brings the whole question of Right to Die into a state of confusion.
Then there’s the biggest problem with euthanasia. How can the government protect its citizens from being victimized by impatient relatives that may have motives for pursuing euthanasia upon their “loved one”? Even with the concept of keeping an intrusive government out of our lives in mind, it’s hard to justify allowing the possibility of such a scenario.
So, for me, right now, I think the best course of action is to not allow euthanasia. However, I think allowing the person to control what treatments they receive (or not) should be protected. This means a person (or that person’s immediate family, with the spouse having the second say, then if no spouse, the parents to have the third say) has the right to determine whether or not to be kept alive by machine, drugs or other treatment, but that the person may not choose to take the actual action to kill themself. Removing life support is OK because it is letting nature take its course. Euthanasia is not OK because it is a violent unnatural action that ends a life before its time.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Sponge know not
Recent myspace.com exchange about labelling sponges (almost realtime to the actual events):
Ok, just to finish this story (see below), Mia literally labelled her new cleaning sponges with the words "Kitchen" and "Bathroom" with a felt tip pen. Ok, so this is like psycho for two reasons. First, SHE LABELLED HER SPONGES WITH A FELT TIP PEN! Second, the germs are killed off by whatever chemicals being used. Trust me, she's having the cleaning people use some pretty toxic products! ::cough:: As long as these sponges aren't being used more than once, there's not going to be any germ or grime issues between the bathroom and kitchen.
And this "special attention" list she left for the cleaners had more hmphadumpfs than actual words, so she had to rewrite it, but she still mentioned mcp's a couple of times! Don't know what I'm talking about? Then it's a pretty good bet the cleaners won't know either. hehe
Sweet dreams my very clean mia
Ya'no the funny thang? I know someone else is going to read this exchange and think to themself that labelling sponges is a great idea and start doing it too! LOL
Here's Miriam's myspace.com original post:
Ok, just to finish this story (see below), Mia literally labelled her new cleaning sponges with the words "Kitchen" and "Bathroom" with a felt tip pen. Ok, so this is like psycho for two reasons. First, SHE LABELLED HER SPONGES WITH A FELT TIP PEN! Second, the germs are killed off by whatever chemicals being used. Trust me, she's having the cleaning people use some pretty toxic products! ::cough:: As long as these sponges aren't being used more than once, there's not going to be any germ or grime issues between the bathroom and kitchen.
And this "special attention" list she left for the cleaners had more hmphadumpfs than actual words, so she had to rewrite it, but she still mentioned mcp's a couple of times! Don't know what I'm talking about? Then it's a pretty good bet the cleaners won't know either. hehe
Sweet dreams my very clean mia
Ya'no the funny thang? I know someone else is going to read this exchange and think to themself that labelling sponges is a great idea and start doing it too! LOL
Here's Miriam's myspace.com original post:
"Ok so the cleaning people are coming tomorrow..They are really good at cleaning...the best help I think... but seriously anyone that knows me knows that cleaning my house was my hobby...im portugues...thats what us portugue women do...but I digress.... So I am making my "SPECIAL ATTENTION" list for the week.... even though they are good cleaning people they still require some guidance...AGain cleaning my house was my hobby so yeah I am anal...
Anywho so I am making my list and then I remembered... I have new sponges... So since they all look alike I labeled them.. One baths and the other kitchen... Matt is watching this and then gets this worried horrified sorta dismayed look on his face and says" You are phsyco...who ever heard of labeling a sponge.".. Mind you his idea of cleaning a cup is rinsing it and his old bathub is more gray than white....but again I digress...So I ask...if you have good cleaning people with an english issues should you not label your sponges??? I mean who wants the same sponge that cleaned the muck off your toilette to clean the sink on your kitchen??? Gross... I think so
Anywho, just a random thought for the nite..."
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Freedom of Religion|Church and State
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;..."
Together with the 14th Amendment, the Freedom of Religion is established in the U.S.A. by the Second Amendment of our Constitution
The two camps, both liberal and conservative, tend to only recognize the virtue of half this clause from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Liberals tend to only accept the first half of the clause. Conservatives tend to only recognize the second half. Yet, Freedom of Religion can only be guaranteed if both halves are equally recognized.
The first half limits government from enforcing religion upon the populous. This means schools cannot institutionalize prayer. They cannot teach religion in any context except where religion itself is objectively studied in terms of history or social science. It means judges, states and any government institutions cannot promote religion, use it in their proceedings or refer to it in its decision making process. It also means that government cannot give preferential treatment to particular religious organizations. That is to say, it’s ok to give all religious organization a tax-exempt status, but it’s not ok to actually give money to particular groups without using some non-religious common criteria.
On the flip side, the other half of the Freedom of Religion clause prevents our governments from stopping someone from practicing their religion. This means that a school cannot tell a student that they cannot pray during school hours. It means that religions that are in the extreme minority may not be transgressed upon for their practices. Now, reason had intervened with the understanding of this clause. If a religion advocates harming others or their property, this is not protected religion activities. What is protected is what the individual does themself with their own property or within their own life, as long as they are not harming others.
An example of both ends of the second half of the Freedom of Religion clause have been tested out in the litigation involving Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses fought for the right to practice their religion within schools. Through the Supreme Court, they have won the right to not salute the flag at school. However, they have also been required to prevent unnecessary harm to their children by being forced to all medical care that involves blood transfusions. As part of their religion, they believe that seeking professional medical care is valuable and important, but have a specific prohibition again the practice of using blood transfusions.
So, the Second Amendment doesn’t allow the government to promote religion, and it does not allow the government from preventing it either. This leads to the contemporary discussion regarding the concept of the separation of church and state. The words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the Second Amendment. Nor do they need to in order to establish such a separation because the words actually used in the Second Amendment establish the even greater and more inclusive principal of Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Religion inherently establishes a de facto separation of church and state, not as a doctrine itself, but as the only practical way to apply the Freedom of Religion principle with the actual wording of the Second Amendment.
Again, the Second Amendment (together with the 14th Amendment) prevents the U.S.A. governments (local, state and national) from promoting, imposing or prohibiting religion on/of its citizens, which creates a de facto separation of church and state.
Together with the 14th Amendment, the Freedom of Religion is established in the U.S.A. by the Second Amendment of our Constitution
The two camps, both liberal and conservative, tend to only recognize the virtue of half this clause from the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Liberals tend to only accept the first half of the clause. Conservatives tend to only recognize the second half. Yet, Freedom of Religion can only be guaranteed if both halves are equally recognized.
The first half limits government from enforcing religion upon the populous. This means schools cannot institutionalize prayer. They cannot teach religion in any context except where religion itself is objectively studied in terms of history or social science. It means judges, states and any government institutions cannot promote religion, use it in their proceedings or refer to it in its decision making process. It also means that government cannot give preferential treatment to particular religious organizations. That is to say, it’s ok to give all religious organization a tax-exempt status, but it’s not ok to actually give money to particular groups without using some non-religious common criteria.
On the flip side, the other half of the Freedom of Religion clause prevents our governments from stopping someone from practicing their religion. This means that a school cannot tell a student that they cannot pray during school hours. It means that religions that are in the extreme minority may not be transgressed upon for their practices. Now, reason had intervened with the understanding of this clause. If a religion advocates harming others or their property, this is not protected religion activities. What is protected is what the individual does themself with their own property or within their own life, as long as they are not harming others.
An example of both ends of the second half of the Freedom of Religion clause have been tested out in the litigation involving Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses fought for the right to practice their religion within schools. Through the Supreme Court, they have won the right to not salute the flag at school. However, they have also been required to prevent unnecessary harm to their children by being forced to all medical care that involves blood transfusions. As part of their religion, they believe that seeking professional medical care is valuable and important, but have a specific prohibition again the practice of using blood transfusions.
So, the Second Amendment doesn’t allow the government to promote religion, and it does not allow the government from preventing it either. This leads to the contemporary discussion regarding the concept of the separation of church and state. The words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the Second Amendment. Nor do they need to in order to establish such a separation because the words actually used in the Second Amendment establish the even greater and more inclusive principal of Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Religion inherently establishes a de facto separation of church and state, not as a doctrine itself, but as the only practical way to apply the Freedom of Religion principle with the actual wording of the Second Amendment.
Again, the Second Amendment (together with the 14th Amendment) prevents the U.S.A. governments (local, state and national) from promoting, imposing or prohibiting religion on/of its citizens, which creates a de facto separation of church and state.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
More and less
It seems like the more busy I get, the less I talk about it. Damn, it's a buzy month though. Well, I moved into my own apt. The neighborhood is a couple steps down from my last, but it's my own place and the bedroom is all hella huge. I already got my car bumped into while it was parked in its spot. That is less annoying that it sounds. I've been hoping for sumfin like that to happen for a long time now so I could at least share the costs of replacing the bumper from previous incidents. This, coupled with a bunch of other items needing attention forced me to take a day off from work last week. I was running all over town taking care of busy that was piling up, including getting the quote estimate for repairing the damage to my car.
In Dec, I had to deal with two drunk asses (that couldn't handle their alcohol in one way or another) on separate nights, ruining two perfectly fun evenings out. Not cool. Well, New Years was laid back and enjoyable, even though everyone was sick.
Last night a group of us got together for a birthday dinner for Ronie and Fernando at House of Genji. Allie and I have had pretty good experiences there recently with fun and talented cooks, so we where a bit underwelmed by last night's cook, but overall we all had a fun time.
What else? Well, there's a bunch of other stuff too, but maybe I'll go into details later.
In Dec, I had to deal with two drunk asses (that couldn't handle their alcohol in one way or another) on separate nights, ruining two perfectly fun evenings out. Not cool. Well, New Years was laid back and enjoyable, even though everyone was sick.
Last night a group of us got together for a birthday dinner for Ronie and Fernando at House of Genji. Allie and I have had pretty good experiences there recently with fun and talented cooks, so we where a bit underwelmed by last night's cook, but overall we all had a fun time.
What else? Well, there's a bunch of other stuff too, but maybe I'll go into details later.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Pat Robertson
The notion that Pat Robertson might be slowing going insane has recently crossed my mind. Over the past couple of years, he has increasingly said some of the most ridiculous things. This isn't like the 19th Century where one could claim not to have said sumfin, so he always has to make some comment the next day to clarify his outragous statement. His clarification normally contains one or more major undeniable lies to try to make his original statement sound more reasonable. These lies have involved his claiming his original statement did not say what it says. lol The good thang is the people are finally starting to take notion and critize him for the ridiculousness and for the subsequent lies to cover over his ridiculousness. However, for some reason, he's still running the 700 Club. Is no one minding the store over there. Do no one at the 700 Club see that he's starting to slip over the deep end? Psst, the 700 Club is a large corporation that this thinnly guised as a nonprofit charity organization. The fact is, it makes more money than most companies in America, and that it spends that money in the effort to big further wealth. This is illegal for a nonprofit corporation. Anyways, I'm getting off topic. Pat Robertson is going insane. One would think that the people running the 700 Club would want to get their number one money maker back in line with reason to prevent the corporation from being taking as seriously. Hmm
Friday, December 30, 2005
House not home
I'm in the process of moving out of a house that I've lived in for over 4.5 years. Although I've lived in that place for longer that I've live most anywhere else, I never viewed it as a home, only as a house where I lived. Even though I moved into that place only 4 years ago, it really does seem like a life time. I'm different now. My group of friends is different. All of this had nufin to do with the house, so maybe that's why I never thought about it before. Wierd.
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