Just read the article from Drudge's link before seeing your post. This was soooo predictable and is liberalism taken to its logical conclusion. It also shows us graphically what a death spiral Europe is in.

Life has no value...oh, yeah, unless its the lives of rabid criminals and terrorists.
Peg C. | 11.30.04 - 4:50 pm | #

Okay, I'm missing how this is liberalism taken to its logical conclusion. Most of the liberals I know care passionately about human life and social justice. Nonetheless, I think most of us can get on board against so-called "mercy killing."

However, when I was taking a graduate seminar at a very conservative Catholic university, under a VERY conservative Catholic professor who had made biomedical ethics her life work, we differentiated between euthaniasia (actively killing someone) and allowing nature to take its course (not hooking someone who was brain-dead up to an artificial respirator). We're all going to die, and there are times when it is absurd to go to extraordinary lengths to keep a heart beating and force air into lungs when the person there is gone.

The article says that "Measures that might marginally extend a child's life by minutes or hours or days or weeks are stopped." I haven't been in this situation, and my heart goes out to any parent who has been there. But if the choice came down to extending my baby's life for a few hours by painful and invasive procedures or allowing my baby to die naturally, I'd have a hard time saying, "Do whatever it takes to keep her alive for two more hours."

Now, with all that said, note that I am putting the responsibility on the parents. If we're talking about doctors making these decisions instead of loved ones, next-of-kin, then that's an entirely different story.
Amy | Homepage | 11.30.04 - 5:16 pm | #

I believe these verses apply to both abortion and now the practice of baby euthanasia.

Lev 20:1-5
20:1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Say to the Israelites: 'Any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him. 3 I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the people of the community close their eyes when that man gives one of his children to Molech and they fail to put him to death, 5 I will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molech.
(from New International Version)
Jose | 11.30.04 - 5:53 pm | #

I'm amazed that anyone believes that the government can supply the same quality healthcare that the private sector can deliver. One needs only to look at government-supplied housing to see what kind of healthcare the government will supply.
azlibertarian | 11.30.04 - 5:55 pm | #

Agreed, azlibertarian. The same entity that can't figure out how to deliver mail without a legal monopoly and semiannual pay hikes is not going to be making health decisions for my family.
citadelgrad | 11.30.04 - 6:08 pm | #

You realize that advocates of government healthcare look at this issue as a matter of human rights: poor people are entitled to good health care just as rich people are.

If human life is important to you, be that unborn, just born and very ill, Ross Perot, or bum under the bridge, then (the argument goes), you should want good health care for everybody, not just those with the money to pay top dollar for it.

What part of this argument comes down to is very simple: is healthcare a right, or a commodity for purchase?

And of course those in favor of government healthcare obviously think the government can deliver the goods, which is obviously a debatable point.
amy | Homepage | 11.30.04 - 7:29 pm | #

Amy,
You conveniently dodge the issue at hand which is the involuntary euthanization of "incompetent" human beings decided by a 3rd party. The government healthcare angle serves only to add context to the hidden incentives at play with regard to the government appointed medical commission that decides who lives and who dies.

I enjoy your daily attempts to defend your liberal academic beliefs and colleagues, but at some point you need to decide if you are trying to explain yourself to us or trying to make an argument. It is the inherent sense of superiority in the liberal mind that causes it to believe that they are the arbiters of social justice. The incentive issue here is a cornerstone to liberal theology with respect to social issues.

The easiest example is welfare. Liberals have long advocated and still believe (quietly) in a European-style cradle to grave welfare state. Why? Because they say they want everything to be fair so poor people don't slip through the cracks. What does this system produce? Huge Cracks! Most people will gravitate to the path of least resistance while the productive among us work hard only to carry more and more of their neighbor's burden.

Utopia is a place that liberals will never understand doesn't exist. In the real world you have to make your way through life by overcoming the bad and capitalizing on the good. When I was a child and I wanted something my parents couldn't or wouldn't give me they told me that, "life isn't fair." That has been true since the beginning of time and it will always be true no matter how bad you want it to change.
Froggy | Homepage | 11.30.04 - 7:53 pm | #

Matt - amen.
Peg C. | 11.30.04 - 8:49 pm | #

Hey Matt, been trying to track you down for over a year now. I finally heard you on Hugh Hewitt's radio show; I almost crashed trying to write down the website. I've heard you call in quite a few times (both Hewitt' and Medved's shows, though I'm partial to Dennis Prager), and I've been blessed each time as I hear your passion mixed with that pull-no-punches logic I know so well, yet miss so much. Praying all is well with you. E-mail me back your #, I'd love to hear from you.

In Him, Tod

P.S. It appears you have found your calling, yes?
Tod Ferguson | 11.30.04 - 10:14 pm | #

Sorry Matt; the e-mail # I sent was incomplete (computers, some decade I'll get the hang of it)
Tod Ferguson | 11.30.04 - 10:19 pm | #

Here's an example of the IRISH (government run) Health care system:

Article from the "IRISH INDEPENDENT" newspaper....Dec 1, 2004

TOP HOSPITAL RUNS OUT OF TROLLEYS!(GURNIES TO AMERICANS)

JUST when you thought the accident and emergency overcrowding crisis couldn't get any worse . . . one of Dublin's biggest hospitals yesterday ran out of trolleys.

As a result, a traffic accident victim with suspected spinal injuries had to wait in an ambulance outside Tallaght Hospital until a trolley became available.

Patients on trolleys are an all-too-common sight when overcrowded hospitals run out of beds.

But yesterday Tallaght hospital not only ran out of beds - it ran out of trolleys.

A traffic accident victim, with suspected spinal injuries, had to wait in an ambulance because 59 patients were taking up all available trolleys.

The number of trolleys with patients on them at Tallaght (hospital) was later reduced to 29. Last night the nurses' union said there were 175 patients on trolleys in hospitals around the country.
Toejam | 12.01.04 - 2:19 am | #

I think your point that the doctors are essentially government employees is an excellent point, and brings a different aspect to this debate, than the value of human life alone.

I find the concept of euthanasia pretty horrifying just based on the value of human life, but mixing in the government with that decision makes it even more horrifying.
Just Me | 12.01.04 - 8:48 am | #

This may ramble a bit, so please bear with me.

My youngest daughter (a happy little 4 year old perfect angel) is a cancer survivor. In Remission (praise be to God, she LIVES) and over a year off treatment.

Last week, we finally were able to remove her last feeding tube. She is now eating like a pig. The removal and closure of the g-tube was her twentieth surgery.

She was diagnosed on October 8th, 2002 (yes, two years old). During her course of treatment, she had her right kidney removed, chemo and radiation therapy (some of the tumor was in her lungs), spent over a year in the children's cancer ward of the local hospital (off and on - three weeks in the hospital, 2 or 3 days home, back to the hospital, etc.), and was on life support of one form or another for a large portion of that time. She was on an oxygen bottle (24/7) for over 5 months (radiation therapy to the lungs destroys tissue, you see).

Early in her treatment, she was given less than a 15% chance of living until her 6th birthday. At one point, the outlook was so hopeless that we were planning a funeral.

That outlook has considerably improved now, thanks to what can only be desribed as heroic efforts by the most dedicated team of Doctors and Nurses that exist anywhere, prayers, and the blessings of a Merciful God.

By the way, if you have some charity money laying around awaiting a good home, may I respectfully suggest the American Cancer Society and GoldRibbons.com. just a thought...

Total cost of her treatment (so far - still climbing) is north of 3/4 of a million dollars.

Happily, the insurance has covered most of it.

I DO NOT want your pity - I am happier that I ever dreamed possible (SHE LIVES), even though i am bawling like a baby right now. I would like to ask your prayers for Elizabeth's continued health. And the other children in the ward. At 2 years old, at NO TIME was she the youngest baby in the ward. My wife and I spent a lot of time with the other parents just for mutual support.

Ok, where is this ramble leading -

Under a Government Run health care system, she would not now be with us.

Under Hillarycare, she would not have received either the quality or sheer quantity of care that she got.

In the netherlands (pigs!!!!!) she would have "been put out of her misery for her own good" early in the process. I doubt that a hell exists that is deep enough, hot enough or painfull enough for these pieces of shit.

I am unable to ask for God's mercy for some offences. Perhaps someone stronger than I am, but not me.
Bob | 12.01.04 - 10:23 am | #

A ramble: What we are seeing in the Netherlands must become very instructive for us in the USA.
I draw a distinction between people who are liberal from people who are ideologically of the Left.
The decision to euthanize (murder by lethal injection) ill babies is as hellish as the pit from which it crawled once before in Nazi Germany. This may really ramble, but in a literary sense, what we're seeing is right out of the Lord of the Rings, where Sauron's dark and sinister shadow began growing and expanding and reaching to pull new victims in.
A new quest to vanquish evil is being signalled by, not only the advent of Islamo-fascist terror, but now by this atrocity in the ideologically Leftward Netherlands.
It is interesting that the nexus of horror has been rooted there, with the murder of Theo Van Gogh and now the government sanctioned murder of infants.
May God have mercy on us; I quake for our times.
Politickal Animal | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 11:15 am | #

Froggy,

Heard about this issue today, and went back to study eugenics. Wonderful science the Nazis expanded.

I view the rub of the issue in one vision:

Liberals think they are superior in intellect to all, therefore they deserve "special" deference in their decisions.

In other words, they are the only people fit to judge others, due to their vast education and experiance.

Therefore healthcare decisions should be made only by these fair and just people who have all of the wonderful "feeling" qualities.

They know how we should live, act, and die, don't you know? They can't let Pagan religions or laws get in their way. And oh, by the way, if there is a law which prevents an activity, such as euthansia or gay marriage, they have a Right to break it, for the "common good".
Mongo | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 12:15 pm | #

Froggy, let me address a few of your points:
1. "You conveniently dodge the issue at hand which is the involuntary euthanization of "incompetent" human beings decided by a 3rd party."
Okay, let me be clear on my stance here: NO. NO euthanization--no lethal injections, no "accidental" overdoses, no any kind of "mercy killing."
2. "at some point you need to decide if you are trying to explain yourself to us or trying to make an argument." Perhaps what I need here are two screen identities. Hear me out: I provide my blog address in my responses, and I have purposely set up my blog to be fairly neutral on my part--unlike most blogs, I don't view it as a place to write my own essays, but a place to let other people write theirs. Because of that, my responses here--which can be linked to my blog--have been less argumentative than I might otherwise be. Sometimes I'm just trying to raise an opposing view in the interest of discussion, and in what I hope is a manner that works against the idea that academics are the next Great Satan.
3. "It is the inherent sense of superiority in the liberal mind that causes it to believe that they are the arbiters of social justice." I think that is unfair. Most of your conservative respondants seem pretty darn set in knowing exactly what is right and wrong in every situation that arises. If you want to slam liberals for their mindset, it would be more accurate to slam them for considering too many points of view, not for believeing that they are the sole arbiters of social justice.
4. "The incentive issue here is a cornerstone to liberal theology with respect to social issues." I'm sorry, I'm simply not following what you're saying--that liberals want there to be incentives to ration healthcare? Help me out, and I'll respond.
5. "Because they say they want everything to be fair so poor people don't slip through the cracks. What does this system produce? Huge Cracks! Most people will gravitate to the path of least resistance while the productive among us work hard only to carry more and more of their neighbor's burden." Obviously there is truth to this statement--the local paper just ran a story on an unemployed, drop-out single teenage mother, who had quadruplets by an older married scumbag who is not paying child support, and who is now pregnant again with this guy's baby. Stories like this make any sane person want to rip out their hair and gnash their teeth. But those children are here now--four live little human beings, completely innocent of their parents' idiocy. In my book, adoption would have been by far the best path for these kids, but their mother didn't see it that way. She's on welfare, of course--we're paying for this. And perhaps the ease of obtaining welfare may contribute to such irresponsible acts, but it's surely not the whole part--when she was deciding to hook up with this predator whom she considers her "boyfriend," I doubt seriously th
Amy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 1:44 pm | #

cont'd.
that she thought, "Well, if I get pregnant, I can go on welfare." Accordingly to her, like a zillion other teens, she thought "It won't happen to me." You can cut welfare, you can eliminate it, but kids like this are still going to show up. And I think it would be a pitiful society that let them starve because they weren't our responsibility. I don't have the answer, Froggy. I am a huge supporter of personal responsibility (just listen to my kids), but does society truly have no obligation at all to the most defenseless among us?
6. "life isn't fair." That has been true since the beginning of time and it will always be true no matter how bad you want it to change." Absolutely true, this side of heaven. But doesn't Jesus call us to try to make it better? To feed the hungry, visit the sick, take care of the widows and orphans? I'm not saying that is big government's job, but I am saying I believe it to be a command.
I guess what I'm trying overall to do here, Froggy, is to be a real voice for the moderate left--they get vilified here a lot through strawmanning, just as the right does in leftist sites. And perhaps part of the issue here is the definition of a "liberal." That's what I consider myself, so does it seem shocking that I hold the Christian faith, pay my taxes and expect you to, too, teach my kids to work for what they get and to respect authority? But I also teach them that they're danged lucky to live where they do, how they do, and that they have the obligation to help others who have not been so blessed. That's where I stand.
Amy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 1:45 pm | #

Amy,
I am going to jump right in.
3. You might want to read some of the blue state babies crying about how red state "retards" won the election for Bush. If you are trying to say that libs especially in the academy of which you are part do not feel superior and worthy to decide what is fair and what is not in this country then you need to start talking to your fellow professors and read a newspaper. That is the foundation for the class warfare that is the hallmark of liberalism for decades. Conservatives believe that the individual is responsible for his decisions and that individuals ought to be free from govt. interference as much as possible to succeed in life.
4. The incentive issue cuts both ways in the policy arena. Every govt. policy creates an incentive. The question is, "incentive to do what?" When govt. controls healthcare and govt. decides who gets it and govt. decides who lives and who is affirmatively killed in the context of healthcare then a dangerous incentive is present. The incentive to cut costs in the presence of rationing coupled with the willingness to affirmatively destroy "unworthy" human lives is a very dangerous situation.
The rest of your points are either conceded by you or refuted here or in the post.
Just wait until I do my big homelessness post, your'e going to love that.
Froggy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 2:28 pm | #

LOL. I'll look forward to it, Froggy. I guess what I want you (and perhaps the press)to cede is that The Academy is not a homogenous group--it has some far-left weirdos, but the left hardly has a monopoly on those--the right has been known to have some weirdos, itself. (And I agree that the use of "retard" is indefensible.)

Come on, Froggy--I know people in the Academy opposed to birth control because it's messing with God's will, people who would personally have taken a stick to Hillary had they had the chance, people who are deeply involved in studying women who have translated the Psalms. Maybe this stuff doesn't make the MSM, but they're out there just as surely as the "we'll move to Canda" folks.

I like dialogue, as you can tell--I believe the healthy exchange of ideas is better for democracy than immersing yourself only in conversation that repeats what you already believe.
Amy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 3:18 pm | #

Amy, since you like dialogue, I have a couple of questions. First, would you say that the ones in the Academy you know who oppose birth control, or want to take a stick to Hillary, for instance, are equally representative of most in the Academy, or would their viewpoint be something of an exception? And if they are equally representative of Academia, do you have any theories as to why MSM seems determined to present the image of Academia as solidly Left?
Politickal Animal | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 3:41 pm | #

Politickal Animal, good questions. I can't begin to know how most of the Academy feels, because it's huge, and I only know a small part of the whole institution. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that more people lean left there than do right. But it's a continuum, to me, not a polarity; to some, "left" means anyone who disagrees with any of the President's policies, while to others "right" means advocating an AK47 in every living room. Left out of too many discussions is what DEGREE of left/right we are talking about.

In the last few years we've started hearing about fiscal conservatives/social liberals--I guess those are the people who want to pay less taxes but also want the government to stay out of their bedrooms. How do we classify them? And can "compassionate conservatives" be accurately pegged as "right" if they advocate social safety nets such as welfare and food stamps?

Okay, I've rambled on. But here's the deal. You've got UC Berkley, which I think we would probably classify as "left," but you've also got Baylor U, where professors have to pledge their belief in the literal innerancy of the Bible to get or retain their jobs. So why does MSM make us all out to be Patricia Irelands (former head of NOW)? I'm not sure that they always do; however, polemics sell. And in all fairness to the MSM, academics seem to be the convenient strawman for plenty on the right who are not MSM--notice how many blog postings make us out to be the scourge of Western civilization. I can tell you that my current colleagues are very consciously aware of not imposing their own ideology, whatever that is, on their students. We DO encourage critical thinking, because we want students to be actively engaged in the world--the last thing I want is for any of my students to blindly take whatever I say, or the President says, or corporate advertisers say, as the automatic gospel truth.

Okay, a quick side note, and then I'm done. A few years ago I was teaching a Humanities class at a small liberal-arts college. Late in the semester, one of my students stayed after class to talk with me in earnest about whether or not I was an atheist. My mouth fell open--could he possibly have been listening to me all semester and think I was an atheist? It turns out he thought ALL Humanities instructors were atheists, because he'd heard so much about "godless humanists." I informed him that in our department we had one agnostic, but everybody else believed in something.

Thank you for asking.
Amy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 8:34 pm | #

Amy,
While I understand your reticence to cede the point that the Academy is hopelessly liberal, there have been multiple high profile studies commissioned to ascertain whether campus liberalism is a myth or reality. As you well know, these studies, which you as an Academy member ought to readily accept, demonstrate a high propensity for liberal ideals and Democratic party registration among your comrades.

While it may be convenient to throw out examples like Baylor to make exception to the rule, the vast majority of the Academy is inhabited by SELF DESCRIBED liberals. I do not doubt that you may be of a more center-left persuasion, but people in your category hardly compose the "heart and soul" of the Academy as these studies clearly enumerate.

I compare the situation to that of the so called "moderate muslim" society that your colleagues seem to believe is exceedingly vibrant. It's the murderous killers and islamofascists that get all the ink, and the moderates are the "silent majority". Well, they're silent for a reason. The reason? There are more than enough hardcore islamofascists out there to keep the "majority" sufficiently cowed and constrained. Same thing in the Academy. If the Academy were'nt so liberal, then we would see more faculty willing to "come out of the closet" with their pernicious conservative beliefs with no threat of reprisal. Alas, it is not so.

I can already hear you squealing about the comparison with the islamofascists, but then I love nothing more than to hear a good squeal from a professor! Don't take it personal, darling, its just ideology.
Froggy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 9:56 pm | #

Amy, thank you for your ruminations. I notice you are very careful to not be "pinned down" by specifics.

Which leads me to wonder: Is it possible that a person's "leftness" or "rightness" could be more a reflexive response to issues or circumstances than a totally well-defined or well-thought out position in these times in which we live?

Unpacking: Since you view left/rightness as a continuum and not a polarity, could it be that it is neither, or both, something of a sort of default worldview cluster reflex that gathers mass in certain areas of given preferred comfort zones?

Which then might account for why, as you say there is a leftward lean to the Academy, and as I say here, there is a general leftward avalanche to the Academy as presented by the MSM, and obviously not one in Red State America (which may or may not include members of the Academy within Red borders).
Politickal Animal | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 10:04 pm | #

Oh, Froggy, I gave up squealing about ideology differences years ago.

Politickal Animal--maybe. I'd never thought about it that way. Let me make sure I understand what you're saying--that even though there are liberal members of the Academy in red states, that their degree of liberalness (is that a word?) is limited because they are surrounded by conservatives. Did I get that right?
Amy | Homepage | 12.01.04 - 11:59 pm | #

Amy, No, but it doesn't matter. In my very weird model, to simply put it, the liberals in red states may be the random variables in a stable system of thought. Just as conservative Academics in blue states or Ivy League schools might be the same. It was late when I posted that.
Politickal Animal | Homepage | 12.02.04 - 9:58 pm | #

Okay, thanks, Politickal Animal--that makes sense, and I understand completely about late-night brain drain.
Amy | Homepage | 12.04.04 - 11:05 pm | #