Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Dr. Sowell, who is a national treasure at any age:
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die,” rather than become a burden to others.
This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.
Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.
:
Talk about “a duty to die” made me think back to my early childhood in the South, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. One day, I was told that an older lady — a relative of ours — was going to come and stay with us for a while, and I was told how to be polite and considerate towards her.She was called “Aunt Nance Ann,” but I don’t know what her official name was or what her actual biological relationship to us was. Aunt Nance Ann had no home of her own. But she moved around from relative to relative, not spending enough time in any one home to be a real burden.
At that time, we didn’t have things like electricity or central heating or hot running water. But we had a roof over our heads and food on the table — and Aunt Nance Ann was welcome to both.
Poor as we were, I never heard anybody say, or even intimate, that Aunt Nance Ann had “a duty to die.”
:
It is today, in an age when homes have flat-panelled TVs, and most families eat in restaurants regularly or have pizzas and other meals delivered to their homes, that the elites — rather than the masses — have begun talking about “a duty to die.”Back in the days of Aunt Nance Ann, nobody in our family had ever gone to college. Indeed, none had gone beyond elementary school. Apparently you need a lot of expensive education, sometimes including courses on ethics, before you can start talking about “a duty to die.”
Early this morning I posted a list of twenty-five questions that reveal…something. Something about the individuals that answer those questions in one way or another. I boldly asserted that if I knew how a fellow would answer one or two of these questions, I could divine with great certainty how he would respond to the others. Question #11 is “Does the inner decency of a people, or lack thereof, show through in the laws passed by their governments?”
I note, with great interest, that the people who would answer in the affirmative to this particular question — seem to unerringly support new rules for our civilization, that do not manifest or encourage anything close to what I would refer to as “inner decency.”
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Another reason for wanting the elderly to die off is that their memories go back to a time when things were different. What better way to rewrite history than to ensure there is no one there with first hand knowledge to contradict you.
On a related note, I’m not sure I’d agree with you about Question 11. I’d argue that “inner decency” or lack thereof can be seen in the laws that have already been passed.
Show me a place with laws on trivial everything, a place with nanny state laws, and I’ll tell you that I can see a lack of decency in the culture that spawned such awful legislation. I’d certainly not advocate for more of the same. Or am I misunderstanding you and your purpose for the question?
- pdwalker | 05/15/2010 @ 21:48That does it. I simply must find that short story I read in 5th grade, or recreate it. If I concentrate on the details, it comes across as a Russian tale of a young boy burdened with having to put his frail grandfather on a sled and take him to the woods to die in the cold. Of course unwilling to part with his dear grandfather, the boy hides him in the small barn. It comes about that in the direst of straits, the grandfather gives the boy a crucial survival tip for his family and they emerge from their crisis with enough food for another year.
It was a morality tale– in a pubic school!– about the intrinsic worth of our elders, and of all life.
I long ago decided against a living will and it’s adjunct directives about my demise as just so much progressive twaddle. I won’t have the sort of insurance that will pay endlessly for unreasonable or extraordinary support anyway.
I want every last breath, every moment, whatever it takes to redeem my soul into the next life. I want to live, and I want to afford that accommodation as generously as I would wish.
- JoanOfArgghh | 05/16/2010 @ 05:28Or am I misunderstanding you and your purpose for the question?
It’s probably my fault for leaving it too vague.
Conservatives see a cause and effect relationship between laws and inner decency. For examples, oh where to begin…a more rugged social safety net gives people the feeling they “gave at the office” and voluntary contributions to charity go way down. Government remembers too well the “establishment clause” and forgets all about the “free exercise thereof” that goes with it, starts scrubbing God out of everything in public view — you get this cheapening of life Joan was just talking about. Women start acting like men, and men stop opening doors for them or removing their (baseball) hats for them, because why-bother. People become just generally less friendly. You can see this first-hand just by hopping in a car and driving among the red & blue states.
Progressives believe humans, and their laws, are skipping toward this evolutionary zenith hand-in-hand, each being a manifestation of the other. On January 20th 2009 when we got a hopey-changey President, we became a more just and ethical people, right in that instant. Just like the doofus dad in a doofus-dad movie five minutes before closing credits, or The Grinch when his heart grew ten sizes plus two. They believe in an epiphany; an epiphany brought about by our laws. When we invade Iraq or when we execute murderers or when we impose limits on abortion, these things make us into neanderthals. When we make it illegal for kids to do any work until they’re eighteen, that makes us more civilised.
And then there’s Arizona. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s San Francisco which “created a whole new right” in the jovial words of one of the grinning county supes who voted yea on a law to allow transgender employees to use whichever lavatory facilities their little hearts desired.
Conservatives believe laws are primarily cause, and on a secondary level, effect. Progressives believe laws are cause, effect, and incremental stepping in a larger motion.
- mkfreeberg | 05/16/2010 @ 06:59