In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
What happens when a Republican President secures a second term and becomes a lame duck? What, then, is the future of the party? As many ask this in anticipation of a second Trump term, let us look back forty years ago when William F. Buckley, Jr., Newt Gingrich, and Bill Green debated the question of just where is the GOP headed?
Until next Friday.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: 9 out of 10 doctors say “KILL ‘EM!”
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Looks like people in Congress want to join in on the medical murder mambo!
“The bill plays the usual euphemism game, pretending that assisted suicide isn’t really suicide. From H.R. 8137:
“‘Medical aid-in-dying, an authorized medical practice, is not euthanasia, mercy killing, or assisted suicide.’
“Sigh. This tactic is as predictable as it is disingenuous. If a bill referred to a dung beetle as a butterfly, it wouldn’t change the reality of the thing. The renamed insect still wouldn’t fly and would roll in feces on the ground. The same is true here. The term ‘assisted suicide’ is accurate and descriptive. ‘Suicide’ means the intentional killing of oneself. To be “assisted” means to be helped in completing an act. Moreover, ‘suicide’ is a ‘what’ that causes death, not a ‘why.’
“‘Medical aid in dying,’ in contrast, is a euphemistic, culture-of-death catchphrase deployed to shroud the reality of what is done. If we care about integrity in legislation, we should recognize that the term ‘assisted suicide’ is apt — let alone that it is used in the current funding ban.
“The new bill, if passed, would make the current federal law inoperative in states where assisted suicide is legal.”
Palliative care has gone from making dying people comfortable to just killing them and getting it over with.
“[There is a] proposed policy around assisted suicide that has been published by the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). It is both abject and a betrayal of Saunders’s humanitarian vision for the care of dying people. And the statement contains not a hint of the many problems and abuses that have been associated with “medical aid in dying” (MAID), reasons why the European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that access to assisted suicide is not a human right.
“First, the proposed policy position embraces the word-engineering tactic of calling assisted suicide MAID. I have repeatedly criticized this euphemistic deflection and won’t repeat those thoughts here.
“Then, the statement calls participation in suicide a form of palliative care. From the proposed “HPNA Position Statement: Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD):”
“‘HPNA acknowledges that some patients with terminal illnesses may seek medical aid in dying (MAiD) as an end-of-life care option where legally available. Although suffering is not a requirement in order to qualify for MAiD in the United States, some patients may utilize this option to relieve their suffering, which is consistent with the ethical principles of palliative nursing care. Suffering at the end of life may be caused by loss of control; death anxiety; feeling like a burden; and refractory physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and existential symptoms. MAiD is consistent with the fundamental ethical principles of patient autonomy and beneficence.’
“It is actually the opposite. As Dame Cecily knew so well, the proper compassionate approach to suicidal ideation — whether in terminally ill people or otherwise — is suicide prevention, not participation and facilitation by medical professionals, of all people. Indeed, when I trained as a hospice volunteer in the 1990s, I was strictly instructed to alert the multidisciplinary team if a patient ever indicated a desire for suicide or immediate death.”
Remember, it’s not malpractice if it’s intentional!
“The myth that legal assisted suicide is about terminal illness is becoming harder to swallow.
“Evidence can be found in a recent survey of doctors, published in the Journal of Cutaneous Oncology, which asked doctors this question: ‘In addition to adults with terminal illnesses, [which] other groups of patients who should be MAID eligible?’
“…
“Majorities of doctors surveyed answered that they would be willing to be present when the deed is done. Here’s the question: “If it were available (or is available), what is your willingness to be present when patients took MAID drugs?” Again, disturbing results, with 61% either probably or definitely, yes:
- Definitely not: 6%
- Probably not: 33%
- Probably yes: 39%
- Definitely yes: 22%
“That’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to willingness to do the deed. And no doctors would definitely refuse to ‘refer for MAID.’”
TTFN.
For centuries now, revolutions—be they violent or be they peaceful—have been the modus operandi of the elite who fancy themselves as benevolent. The dyed-in-the-wool Left have fully adopted this position of noble elites guiding the peasants for their own, greater good in an enlightened new feudalism. Rather than preserve checks and balances and the rights they protect, the new purported rulers sought centralization and rule by the enlightened with power to be wielded like a weapon if need be. In this view, the government is meant to impose the correct thinking and beliefs. And this drive for beneficent overlordship by both technological exploitation and a myriad of hydra heads striking independently, is a culmination of that long march through the institutions that seek to overthrow by through the very institutions that stood against them.
But differences in the methods or the particular eschaton being immanentized do not and can not alter the core problem: The enlightened few, acting for the sake of the greater or common good, seeking not to constrain the exercise of abusive power but to coopt that power to defeat the hated abusers. This is the lure of Tolkien’s One Ring. This is true even in democratic forms.
An existing system implemented imperfectly, as all systems by nature are, is vastly superior to an idealized system. To fight an ideology that exploits and seeks to replace a superlative if imperfect framework responsible for much of America’s greatness by exploiting and replacing it yourself is to become the very threat that you seek to fight.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Fighting wokeness in academia; wokeness fighting back against the military.
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
Turns out that maybe paying for useless bureaucrats who spread division, exclusion, and inequality isn’t the best use of funds…
“The Board of Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Monday slashed funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in next year’s budget, diverting the money to public safety and policing instead.
“The measure, which the board unanimously approved, redirects $2.3 million of diversity funding to campus security, possibly precipitating the collapse of the office of diversity and inclusion. The vote, reported by the local Fox8 station, comes amid disruptive anti-Israel protests that have roiled UNC and other college campuses in recent weeks. The board passed the measure after it first cleared the budget committee.
“Budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement needs more investment to counteract the demonstrations disrupting the functioning and stability of the school.”
Just a week ago, your humble author noted a marked increase in the acceptance of violent rhetoric and and warned of “fringe individuals who live in political echo chambers who are likely to do something stupid”. Less than a week after posting, there was an attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Initial reporting on the shooter suggests that the shooter was a loner of the “school shooter” variety, rather than some dedicated ANTIFA or other Leftwing nutball. The actual reason for the assassination attempt does not, and can not, detract from the very basic fact that that it must be condemned without reservation. Let us also not forget the other victims, either.
There were, unsurprisingly, plenty of anecdotes of “undecideds” or people who were planning to skip the that line on the ballot suddenly coming out as newborn die-hard Trump supporters. However, this was far from a universal observation—both online and in the real world. You humble author previously noted that so many voters are treating the election like a non-event and seem almost indifferent to an extent hitherto not seen in modern era politics. But people are being swamped with more politics than ever by a smaller number of people than ever. They’ve stopped caring, and the people responsible don’t care. This disinterest is real and may not be accurately measurable. Case in point:
What worries me less than the crazy leftists is the lumpen mass of the American people. My apolitical friend was completely disinterested in the assassination attempt on Trump. I suspect she’s not alone.
— Andrea Widburg (@Bookwormroom) July 14, 2024
It’s telling that people are choosing indifference over siding against one side or the other. The “double-haters” are real and it’s a sign of the sad state of politics today that not even an assassination attempt of a former President and current major party Presidential nominee is enough to get them to care. From an electoral standpoint, this assassination attempt will likely help with turning out Trumps voters and push some “double-hater” likely voters to vote for Trump rather than skip the ballot or vote for Biden. But this will be marginal, though margins matter a lot, just as they did in the previous two Presidential elections.
Before the motive of the assassin was even known, rhetoric on social media by the Right placed the blame, not on the shooter, but on Biden and the Democrats in general for hyperbolic rhetoric about how Trump will be a dictator or become the new Hitler. Your humble author yet again notes that less than a week ago condemnation of over the top violent rhetoric and fearmongering would lead to an escalation of violence was made, and a call for people to get out of their bubble fear and vitriol and touch proverbial (or not so proverbial) grass.
And yes, this was a condemnation of the violent rhetoric and violent actions from the fringe of both sides. And for that condemnation, typically sensible people became incensed that the Right was not blameless in the increased ratcheting of fearmongering and violent rhetoric, or that it didn’t matter because the Left started it or was worse.
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
A reminder from forty years ago that Communist China was, as it still is now, dedicated to not only cultural genocide, but outright murder of countless innocents. Let us look back with William F. Buckley, Jr. at the 14th Dalai Lama looking back at a quarter century of his ascension.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: Someone set up us the euthanasia? All your organs are belong to Canada!
First, a little mood sketch:
Carrying on…
Euthanasia has become so normalized that it has ceased to be seen as a sad but “signified” way to end suffering… and become something to boast about in Canada.
“For Wiebe, medical assistance in dying (MAID) is ‘incredibly rewarding’ work. She hasn’t faced nearly the same sort of stigma she once faced as an abortion provider and says that while she and her MAID colleagues ‘all work within the law,’ she’s also not as ‘conservative’ as some.
“What she isn’t prepared to share publicly is how often she has administered a fatal substance upon a patient’s request.
“‘I know the exact number,’ the Vancouver doctor said, ‘but I don’t want to do that, no. It’s become a weird thing, people talking about their numbers, or criticizing people who talk about their numbers.’
“‘Hundreds is good,’ she said. About 430 as of May 2022 alone, as she then testified before a special parliamentary committee on medical assistance in dying, or MAID.”
Whether its a hard Leftist who wants to double down on immanentizing the eschaton, or someone one the post-conservative Right who feels like the country has suddenly gone mad and thinks that no one is trying to bring back normalcy, people on both sides are becoming frustrated and increasingly likely to lash out. Plenty of folks in the middle and myriad moderate voters are also frustrated, but they don’t have the luxury of doing anything except getting by and dealing with more immediate issues in real life. But those proverbial idle hands seem awfully accepting of calls to violence. Case in point:
This shouldn’t be dismissed as mere rhetorical hyperbole. From Black Lives Matter, to “Black Block” anarchists and campus anti-Semites, violence and storming buildings to take control is nothing new. Sadly, the Right demonstrated that they are more than a match to the Left when it comes to violence and force three and a half years ago.
It is not some full scale People’s Revolution or some second Revolutionary War that is a concern, but frustrated fringe individuals who live in political echo chambers who are likely to do something stupid, with or even without prodding from others.
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