Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanana Show,
returning Radical Liberation. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2: Very good?
Speaker 1: All right. This is this is a result of myself
and Charlie doing the episode on the article from nineteen
eighty seven the gay rights activists talking about the plan
to go forward, which I don't know. Some people are like, well,
this is just a couple of people writing articles. It's like,
it seems like a lot of it came true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean the significance is not that like
those two were the key figures, the ones who wrote
that article, right, It's more that here's the plans just
laid out for you, right, step by step, and what
did they do what they said? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think that once you realize is that this
kind of stuff, when people start talking about this kind
of stuff, people catch on a couple of people. Even
if only a couple of people read it, they're going
to talk to about other people. They're going to talk
to other people about it. But not only that, it
seems like it manages to make its way in the
zeitgeist through media, the press, magazines, things. People build upon it.
They read and they're like, okay, let's keep this going.
We get this is the way we can do it.
Even if we don't get all of it, we get
some of it. And I think that led to you
contacted me about a certain subject. But why don't you
start off talking about how you would have even come
upon something like.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, a long time ago. By the way, on
your comments you were just making, I'd say the usual
caveat that that way that those ideas slide out into
the zeitgeist works for one side and not for the other, right,
is a symmetrical idea of battle of ideas. But anyway,
less than anyone had illusions. Yeah, So I remember, I
think I was around fifteen, and I was thinking about
mainstream media, and what bothered me about it was that
it wasn't so much the thing of like I could
blatantly see when they were biased sometimes, you know, because
I was always in one way or another on the outside,
was sort of in a dissonance space all my life,
so I could kind of see their angle on some
things pretty plainly. What bothered me was the frame game.
I didn't have that term for it back then, right,
I could tell that there were times where just what
I was thinking about was being shaped by this ingest
of constant ingest mainstream media. Right, just what even matters
and what doesn't get talked about, what quietly goes down
the memory hole? Right? That really bothered me. I felt manipulated,
right Like, maybe I don't want to be thinking about
the things that they want me to be thinking about.
Maybe I want to think about other things that they
don't want me to be thinking about. Right, So, at
the tender age of fifteen, I decided to just stop.
I didn't watch the news, I didn't read newspapers, even
though I had sort of interests along those lines, and
I never went back. What I did do, though, is
I thought, well, I don't like this pretense to objectivity.
I would like people who lay their cards on the
table at bit more and say this is our ideological goal,
this is what we're driving towards, this is how we're
doing it. That seemed like a certain honesty in it,
you might say. So I stopped reading the mainstream media,
and I decided to read something on the right, don't
laugh at me, pete National Review, and something on the left,
which was The Humanist. I quickly got bored of the
National Review, though it did introduce me to Eric fun
Connult laden for which I'm grateful, who I later got
to meet. But I stopped reading National Review eventually and
sort of went down the rabbit hole, right, But The
Humanist was quite interesting because they were pushing some of
the things that I wouldn't hear about elsewhere for a
long time to come, or wouldn't be big news, particularly
big news. So I remember, and we couldn't find this article.
But I remember, as I recall reading an article probably
in the late eighties, where they said, Okay, it looks
like you know, Roe v. Wade abortions in the bag,
So what's next, and they said infanticide and euthanasia. I
was like, holy crap, they have ambition, I guess you
could say. And so I found that sort of shocking
and it's stuck in my head. And then over time, well,
here's what brought it back to mind is that my
co host black Horse was sharing some stats on euthanasia
in Canada. And you know the way that's framed, right,
people in these very extreme, you know, very unusual, very
rare edge case scenarios, you would understand that you'd want
to do it. You know, I'm seeing the numbers and
I'm like, oh, this is like a lot of the
people dying in Canada are being euthanized. Like this is
not trivial. This isn't like five people. These are bigger
numbers than that, and we've got them Handy might get
into them later. But so that kind of brought it
back to mind that there were people who had been
you know, the article we found is nineteen ninety three,
so that's thirty years ago. Thirty years ago they were like,
we need to push for euthanasia. Now. What I think
is interesting to look back at an article like this
is what why, Like what what was there?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Why were they pushing for it, and what did they
think would persuade people to go in this direction, which
I think back then when I was reading it, it
seemed pretty edgy. It didn't seem like something that most
people would go for, right, But we know the process
of subversion and get the idea out there, put it
into some TV shows, you know, and movies and stuff
like that. That's you know, there's a whole chain of
things they do to roll, slow roll it until suddenly
everybody just thinks it's normal. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And that's exactly what the article on how
they were going to brainwash straight America into Yeah, and
what's I think the most interesting thing about it is
they they weren't concerned about turning straight America into activists
for them, they wanted them. They wanted it to just
be something that was just normal to them, just like
I think they said, just another flavor of ice cream.
It's like, oh, these people just they prefer chocolate instead
of vanilla, or vanilla instead of chocolate. So you're the
attitude is, well, you know, these are We're a free country,
and these people have a right to do what they
want as long as they're not hurting anyone else. And
you can see how that, especially with the absence of faith,
it just goes right over into euthanasia, and it goes
right over into infenoside.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and where does it stop? Right? That's well
as it is, right, but how far can we do?
You know what I haven't seen is the follow up
to okay, abortion and fantaside euthanasia. What's next after that?
I don't know what the next part the next step
in the game is.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so we have this, we have the articles,
I guess, yeah, well, yeah, yeah, you want to pull
up you want me to pull up the article and start,
uh yeah, and start going through this a little bit.
Speaker 2: Right, So this is from a US magazine. There, there's
a British magazine that we stumbled onto called The New Humanist,
I think where it's had various titles. But this is
a magazine called The Humanist. And this is from January
February issue of nineteen ninety three. And I think they
noted that the author had actually he had, yes, died
in August nineteen ninety two, so I guess they were
sitting on the article for a while. I don't know. Yeah,
but he's a sociology. He was a sociologist at City
University of New York Kuney.
Speaker 1: I think they call him Cooney yep, yeah, I remember
so that that was the if you couldn't get into
a good school in New York, like Manhattan College or something,
you'd end up in Cooney. All right, So what we're
gonna do here is the first paragraph is great. Then
there he gives background. They talk about Caroen, Anne Quinland,
they talk about doctor Klevorkian. We're gonna skip over that,
and then we're just gonna jump right to like political
action based upon the doctor Covorkian's name and what he's
doing being out there, what voters in certain states start
to do. So let me. I'll start rooting, and you
stop me. And I know you're going to stop me
after the first sentence, so I'll stop after the first sentence.
All right. This is Death with Dignity by William McCord.
Albert Camu wrote in The Myth of Sisyphice there is
only one truly important philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a heavy statement, and it's in a way,
I guess it's what I've been thinking about a lot
these days. In two senses. One is people, Actually, you know,
what's the what's the drug that everybody's using in the
in the poor white communities? My mind's flatanyl sentinyl. Yeah, yeah,
people slowly killing themselves with fentanyl. Fentanyl, various other deaths
that I might call a sort of a death of
despair or something death of isolation and despair. But also
I was really struck by what I think a shared
it where where a lady was talking about how she
decided to get herself fixed or whatever you call it broken,
so that she could not reproduce in her early twenties,
and that that I from, I'm a sort of traditionalist
or Burkian point of view. I kind of think about
as sort of a form of suicide, if you follow me,
there's killing yourself and ending your line that way, and
there's also just not continuing, not wanting to continue, not
wanting to continue what came down to you from your ancestors,
and continuing it through your children. You're going to be
the stopping point, right. You can do it by killing
yourself or you can do it by not reproducing. Either way,
but in both senses. I think as you see more
and more of that, and I think we are seeing
more of both, it's a form of broad you know,
civilizational suicide. Right. We are not interested in continuing this
thing anymore, which is sad and concerning.
Speaker 1: All right, Continuing the significance of that sentiment forcing each
of us to a heightened awareness of the elements of
human dignity, the sanctity of life, and the very meaning
of existence perhaps never been more explicit than it is today.
For the first time in history, Americans have been asked
to decide the crucial question, is it morally permissible or
even admirable for a human being to end his or
her own life or to assist another in shedding this
mortal coil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little strange that he says that for
the first time in history, because he goes on to
try to pull on precedents from like realm and stuff.
If I remember correctly, he tries to pull up some
historical precedents and say, hey, you know, people have done
this before.
Speaker 1: Well, the interesting thing about this is, and it's not
really interesting, it's the significance of the sentiment forcing each
of us to heightened awareness of the elements of human dignity,
the sanctity of life, and the remania has perhaps never
been more explicit than it is today. For the first
time in history, Americans have been asked, well, who's asking them?
I mean, this.
Speaker 2: Is just.
Speaker 1: It's just academics asking this question. The average ninety nine
point nine percent of the people don't care about this.
They you know, it's just them pushing it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is the the moral equivalent or
the rhetorical equivalent to saying, have you really asked yourself
whether five year olds can consent to sex voluntarily? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I hadn't.
Speaker 2: I hadn't been asking myself that should I be right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's basically like saying, well, a lot
of people Americans are faced with the you know, let's
just change it. For the first time in history, Americans
have been asked to decide the crucial question. A crucial question,
is it morally permissible to have sex with a five
year old? Well? Nobody is who's asking that question?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And it's stated as if this is all
around you. You're not in the conversation yet, what's your opinion?
I mean, we all have opinions. You don't have your
opinion yet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, So this.
Speaker 2: Is why I stopped reading the mainstream media. Now, you know,
I didn't want that. It gets in you, right, You
don't even realize there's.
Speaker 1: So many tricks, right, oh yeah, yeah. So it talks
about a couple cas here, Yeah, I got a background,
and then it jumps into okay, So voters in the
state of Washington decided to put the matter on a
democratic ballot in nineteen ninety one. Citizens of Washington considered
a legislative proposition unlike any other ever debated by Americans
Initiative one nineteen asked shall adult patients who are in
medically terminal condition be permitted to request and receive from
a physician aid in dying. The proposition provided that adults
could execute a medical directive requesting aid in dying only
after two physicians certified that they were mentally competent, terminal
ill and had less than six months to live. Two
independent witnesses had to certify the patient's decision.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing that strikes me here, Pete. Right, and
this is just my big theme of banging on the progressives.
I mean the progressives from you know, one hundred years ago,
like late nineteenth early twentieth century. This is the experts,
not the family. First of all, right, you're gonna have
your experts do this. I'm sorry, what am I saying?
Not just the family. The church is out of the picture.
The family's out of the picture, society's out of the picture.
The experts signed off on this. Hey, we're good, right.
Once the experts sign off, you can do it whatever
you want.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, I mean we see, I mean we see
how the expert class in the last three years has
just i mean jumped right to the front forefront of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not subtle anymore.
Speaker 1: You don't trust the science.
Speaker 2: Steven, Yeah, exactly, trust doctors.
Speaker 1: Although public opinion polls indicated that sixty one percent of
Washingtonians favored the initiative, a majority of voters fifty four
percent opposed the measure when it actually came before them.
Some motivated by religious arguments, feared it would undermine the
sanctity of life. Others favored euthanasia, but question whether this
proposal had too many loopholes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and by the way, this is part of the
reason I liked this article is that, you know, he
does play some tricks, which we're calling out, but he
also says, hey, some people were concerned about sanctity of life.
He doesn't just completely. He does a little bit of
reporting that is, you know fair enough. Right. Yeah, he's
bringing up the concerns. That's why I say I like
this article because this is sort of Steelman. You know,
if you're going to be if you're going to face
somebody arguing for youth in Asia, I think this guy
the best that can be done given his assumptions.
Speaker 1: Among the issues that disturb the opponents of the proposition,
where these can physicians really no patients which wishes? Can
they accurately diagnose and predict how much time is left?
Might not patients mistakenly label this terminal choose to die needlessly?
Would the elderly choose suicide or even be pushed into
death simply to spare their family's energies, emotions, and pocket books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're already making the point. You've already
made the point, Pete. But this is where they call
it in sales. It's talking past the sale. Yeah. Yeah,
we're already past the point of should this even be
on the table, and we're getting into the details, right,
you know, how do how do we how do we
put this into practice? What's what's the prudent way to
kill people?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's begging the question here. He's already got
the he already knows where he's going. The wash Srington
vote hardly ended Americans anguish over the process of dying.
A Boston Globe pole showed that sixty four percent of
the public favors letting doctors give lethal injections to the
terminally ill. Derek Humphrey's Final Exit, a handbook on how
to commit suicide, achieved bestseller status, and other states had
prepared new and improved versions of initiative when nineteen the
first such measure was voted down by Californians in the
nineteen ninety two elections.
Speaker 2: And maybe there's a good time. It seemed like you
knew a little bit about this. What I didn't do
is dig into where has this gone since legislatively, And
you said, it's mostly Oregon where we've seen any kind
of attempts to kind of keep going in this direction strongly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oregon has the Oh I can't remember what it's called.
Let me look at my history real quick. It's right
to die, as you said something like that. Yeah, it's
the Death with Dignity Act.
Speaker 2: Dignity yes, yeah, and so in theory we're holding the
wine in the United States, but in other countries.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting that it's the Death with Dignity Act,
considering that's the name of the title of this this essay.
Speaker 2: Oh I miss that. Yeah, wow, this guy, I introduced
some important rhetoric here right into the name of the bill.
Thank you. I miss that.
Speaker 1: The fact is that the euthanasia issue, the euthanasia issue,
especially when linked to the controversy controversy over abortion has
emerged as one of the great debates in turn of
the century America. The public must choose between the various
rights of life and pro choice arguments as they applied
to death as well as to birth right.
Speaker 2: And remember he's writing in ninety three row versus way.
It is going on twenty years at the point that
battle is done and dusted and they're moving on the
next thing. So in a way, you could read that
paragraph as a bit of a flex like, you know,
this is like abortion, and we already won that one,
So we kind of know where this one's going to,
don't we.
Speaker 1: Right, Because some Western nations, notably the Netherlands, have long
tolerated euthanasia, people on both sides of the issue look
to them for enlightenment. How many people do you think
that is?
Speaker 2: I mean, I knew about it because I have an
interest in this issue, But I would say that's trivia
question in the end of the for an American.
Speaker 1: You know, the Dutch experience is particularly relevant since the
practice of euthanasia is more open and extensive there than
any other place in the world. Although Dutch law formally
forbids assisted suicide, authorities and doctors have long chosen to
ignore the prohibition. According to a government twenty five three
hundred cases of euthanasia, active or passive occur each year
in the Netherlands. This represents nineteen point four percent of
all deaths.
Speaker 2: Okay, Now I fact checked that and I could not
back that up. I don't know why he would do this,
but from a quick googling, I could not see anybody
making such a claim of such high numbers. They did
have numbers for euthanasia and Holland, but it wasn't like that. Canada,
on the other hand, where's that? There we go Canada
twenty sixteen that they have a medical assistant. Sorry, what's
the thing called made? Is the medical assistance in dying? Okay,
that's the thing they call it in Canada. And I'm
looking at the numbers here. Twenty sixteen it gout rolling oney,
eighteen people were euthanized. By twenty twenty one, it's ten
thousand and sixty four. With my Canadian co host black
Horse saying he expects that sort of you know, exponential
growth to spike up once we get the two twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty three numbers. Everything he's seeing everything.
All his indications are this is just getting bigger and bigger.
So it's starting to become not negligible, you know, like
I said, not like yeah, okay, there's a few very
hard cases, you know, and there's five people that this
happened to now, I mean ten thousand people in a year.
This is starting to become a part of how people die, right,
is through this process, right right? All?
Speaker 1: Right. Of that total, there were thirteen six hundred and
ninety one cases in which an overdose of morphine or
the withdrawal of life sustaining treatment brought about death, and
approximately thirty nine percent of those deaths, the physicians and
families reached the decision to practice euthanasia after the patient's
deteriorating state had rendered him or her uncons unconscious and
there was no prospect.
Speaker 2: Of improvement, right, meaning that they unilaterally decided because remember
he was talking about making your own choice. But in
that case, it's the person is not making the choice.
Speaker 1: Right right. In the other case is the patients themselves
reached their decision after rational and prolonged consideration. One study
regulating death by Carlos S. Gomez indicates that there are
no rigid rules governing the Dutch system. Contrary to American
opponents of euthanasia, the Dutch approach has met with wide
public approval and has not led to devaluation of human
life per se.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe should America follow? Should America follow the Dutch example?
In the great debate over this issue, which is not
a great debate. It's a couple of people, a controversy,
controversy which is to inflame the nineteen nineties. Not really, No,
two issues require careful separation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, real quick, real quick. What's your memory? I remember
the Kavorkian stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I do too.
Speaker 2: That was kind of in the news and everything, and
then Karen Anne quinnlin I just the name is about
all I remember. I don't remember the details of the case,
but I don't remember a lot of talk about it
after Kavorkian. Frankly do you. But then, of course I
watched the mainstream media.
Speaker 1: There was in the two thousands, there was Terry Schaibo Okay, yep, yeah, yeah,
that would have that was that was the husband trying
to pull the get the plug pulled, So it would
have been family seeking to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay to two things. Two issues go ahead.
Speaker 1: Okay, First, does the individual human being have the right
to end his or her existence? Second, should society remain
aloof from this decision? Or should policy establish the ground
rules governing the individual, his or her family, and the
medical profession. That seems that's there's more questions that they
can be included in this. Yeah, these aren't the only
two questions.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, And just that second one, what he's
talking about is establishing a whole bureaucratic apparatus around killing people,
just to just to you know, not make too fine
a point on it here, right, I mean, when have
we ever had a problem establishing a big bureaucratic apparatus
of like this, right? What could go wrong?
Speaker 1: People run to that? I mean, I mean the politicians
love that. Oh oh you want to love Okay, you're
going to give us more power? Okay, thank you? All right?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: On the level of the individual, a classic lineage of thinkers,
from Socrates to Shakespeare to Arthur Kessler, have affirmed that
humans should have the privilege of selecting their own death,
a voluntary, rational, conscious, conscious ending chosen not by accident
but by lucid free choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would like to fact check with academic agent
on Shakespeare endorsing uh suicide exactly. Sure, that's what he
was up to.
Speaker 1: But scholar, you know, all he has to do is
pick like, oh, Shakespeare had somebody commit suicide in one
of his plays, and he could be leaning on that.
Speaker 2: Right, which does not definitely does not. Because he portrays
it does not mean he endorses it.
Speaker 1: Correct. The Great Stoic tradition particularly emphasizes that persons have
the prerogative of rational suicide, a humane and dignified termination
of life, chosen courageously and with deliberate self control. I mean,
their hero their heroes for doing it.
Speaker 2: I know, bureaucratic apparatu us experts deciding whether you ever die,
heroism and courage, I don't know. Somehow it's not all
meshing for me, you know.
Speaker 1: Following up Epithetus, the Stoics sought to rid themselves of
the fetters of the wretched body, and to assert their
will against kings or thieves who, by controlling men's bodies,
try to dictate their faith. The Stoics and the Epicureans
chose light, treasured life. Sorry, they were not in any
sense naysayers who wished to escape into a realm of nothingness.
As Epicurus wrote, he is a little man in all
respects who has many good reasons for quitting life. And
as Epictetus advised his disciples, weigh upon God. When he
gives the signal and releases you from this service, then
you shall depart to him. Nonetheless, the Stoics and the
Epicureans believe that the final choice was properly their own,
not that of fate or attributable to a supernatural being.
Rational person should make the choice with dignity and fortitude. Remember,
Epictetus wrote, the door is open to part instead of
staying to moan.
Speaker 2: So basically, real chads kill themselves. Pete, I don't know
if you missed that in your training, about how masculine.
Speaker 1: And you're irrational if you don't agree with that, because
rational persons should make the choice right.
Speaker 2: And oh and just in case it wasn't clear, the
humanist was a you know, secular atheist kind of that
was that was their whole mission was to sort of
be a religiously secular atheist yep.
Speaker 1: Similarly, in recent times, Friedrich Nietzsche deplored the unfree Coward's death,
that most people trapped into contemptible conditions, trapped in contemptible
conditions at the wrong time, and deceived by a slave's morality,
must in door. Instead, he celebrated free death the love
of life. Nietzsch argued, one should deserve a different depth,
free conscious, without accident, without ambush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So here's the thing that jumps out to me.
And this is something I've thought about a lot, just
thinking about what I think of as the planners, the
social planners in the twentieth century. And C. S. Lewis
hits it really well in the Abolition of Man. It's
this whole emphasis on taking control. You know, in the past,
the evolution of man just happened to man. But now
mankind will mold itself. Right in the past, we just died.
Now we're going to take control of death. Right in
the past, you just had babies. Now we're going to
take control of that. And if we don't want to
have a baby, we'll kill it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So to me, this is sort of a regular theme
conscious control. And they'll use words like that, the word
conscious right, conscious control. And of course the Christian and
I don't think it's just Christians view is that uh,
you know, uh, there's a there's a form of trying
to control everything that is really really toxic. I'm thinking
of like twelve step type stuff. You know. Uh. The
attempt to control things that ultimately really aren't under your
control or ought not to be is to make yourself
a little god. And that way lies very very dangerous things. Right.
So anyway, that's that's what this this passage makes me
think of.
Speaker 1: Today. Those who contemplate asserting control over suffering and dying
contend that the possibility of rational suicide preserves human kinds
for fragile dignity in the face of brutal circumstances, ironically
prolog by the most modern of medical technology designed to
sustain or preserve life. Indeed, they point out that one
of humankind's unique in defining attributes is the ability to foresee,
to contemplate, and potentially control our own death. It is
this noble quality which sets us apart from all other animals.
Speaker 2: There you go, Aristotle, that's what he really meant when
he talked about what man is a rational as the
rational animal or whatever. He meant that you can commit suicide.
There you go boom.
Speaker 1: Rather than degenerating helpless helplessly, the ill person can choose
the timing, the setting, and circumstances of death. He or
she may prepare friends and family for the end, make
reasonable visions for the welfare of others, complete worldly duties,
and take leave of loved ones in a dignified manner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just making me think of the whole
thing of you know, rather than just sort of submitting
to the reality that you know, death comes for us
all and you know, then it comes, your time comes
when it comes, and all that stuff. We're gonna We're
going to be the master of reality, right, makes me
think a little bit of the trans thing, you know. Yeah,
reality dealt me this deck of cards in terms of
my biology. But I'm master over that, right, and so
likewise I will be master over my own end.
Speaker 1: By affirming this uniquely human capacity to mediate and mold death,
we enhance our threatened autonomy in the face of a
remorseless fate. What what is I say as the state
is Are they saying, as the state is growing? Suicide
is one way to fight against it? But what the
hell is going on here? What does that sentence even mean.
Speaker 2: Uh, medium, well, death, we enhance our threatened autonomy in
the face of a remorseless faith. Well, remorseless faith just
means yeah death, and and he's saying we we Our
autonomy is threatened. Our autonomy is threatened by the fact
that we die eventually.
Speaker 3: Hugh, Well, hold the word let's keep going.
Speaker 2: Let's hold that word autonomy, and in our minds, that's
going to be very key.
Speaker 1: To take the opposite path, as most people do in
a mindless submission to the dictates of fate, betrays our
highest quality, our capacity for freedom. A death with dignity
is a final proof that we are not merely pawns
to be swept from the board by an unknown hand.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I know that's striking. Yeah, that's that's like,
that's shaking your fist a god, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yes, as a courageous assertion of in the pendence and
self control, suicide can serve as an affirmation of our
ultimate liberty, our last infusion of meaning into a formless reality.
Speaker 2: Right. So, this strikes right at the heart of one
of the reactionary critiques of the modern understanding of liberty
or freedom. Right, what does it mean to be free.
What he argues is to be free is to have
autonomy and to have control over as I argued, reality, Yeah, yeah,
I'm sorry I missed it. He actually uses the word reality,
our last infusion of meaning into a formless reality. Reality
has no meaning, it's random. Right. Remember these are people
coming from a materialist perspective, you know, extreme materialist perspective.
Reality has no meaning. We're going to impose meaning on
it by taking control, right and expressing our autonomy and
our freedom, which is what we mean by freedom is
our autonomy.
Speaker 1: And it's courageous to do so, right? Yeah, all right?
If rational suicide can serve the cause of human dignity,
and I mean, come on, come on, you can't. This
is what every materialist does. Yeah, they argue, they argue
against God and then they use terms like dignity, which
your supportent. Well what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right? Why is? Why is? Why is you committing suicide? Less?
Speaker 1: Formless? We just said formless reality?
Speaker 2: Right right? Why is your autonomy, your courageous act of
autonomy less meaningless and formless and pointless then dying naturally?
I don't know why it would be with materialist friars,
you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can atheists are just so many of
them are just so insufferable with this. It's just a
kind of it's like, what was that guy, Yarron Brook? Yeah,
I mean he he God doesn't exist, and then he
just he jumps right into materialist language, I mean into
he jumps right into metaphysical language, right, and he started
It's like.
Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, And by the way, this is part
of the reason why. Uh. Perhaps controversially, I don't know,
I'm a big fan of Sworn Krekerguard, who really gave
birth to the atheist existentialists, because really, if you read
Krekergard and you really get what he's saying, you have
two options. You either embrace Christ basically, you embrace meaning,
you embrace God uh and and are are able to
use words like dignant and have it mean something, have
it grounded in something metaphysically, or you stop taking half
measures and you realize that, okay, life is just absurd
and I'm not going to pretend anymore that it isn't.
And the famous ones are the ones that took that path.
But there's actually a lot of Christian existentialists who were
influenced by Krekeregarden took the other path of embracing meaning
right and completely rejecting the materialism of our age.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start that again. If rational suicide can
serve the cause of human dignity and autonomy, it should
also be recognized that such a death may often represent
a compassionate act of shielding the person's family, children, and
comrades from suffering needless toll, psychological torture, and even economic catastrophe.
Speaker 2: Right now, I don't know how this feels here and
what peaches read, but understand what this means. We went
from you are expressing your autonomy as an individual with
control of your life too. You need to do this
for the people around you. You need to set an example.
You need to let them off the hook in terms
of providing care for you and so on and so forth.
What psychological torture. Look, they're going to have to watch
you be uncomfortable, and they might feel uncomfortable with that,
And boy, that would be tough for them, wouldn't it.
We don't want that. So so what does this mean? Well,
it's a pretty short move from that setup to someone
who's not feeling very well getting pressured to sign off
on killing themselves right by by doctors, by family, by whoever. Hey,
you're you're you've become an inconvenience. You know, you're making
I'm I'm having uncomfortable feelings because you are having pain.
Could you just, you know, sign up for the medically
assisted death thing please? Because it's bugging me. You know.
So you're in a weakened state because you're sick or whatever,
and now you people got people coming at you emotionally
manipulating you to sign off on your own death. I
don't know if that's ever happened, but I don't know,
it seems like a plausible scenario, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna go on, okay. By these considerations, dignity, autonomy,
and compassion all metaphysical concepts, a rational suicide may be
a noble alternative to enduring the excruciating torment of a
final illness. After contemplation, mature persons may choose a death
with dignity that affirms their ultimate autonomy, and it consequently
softens to blow that fall upon those they leave behind. Thus,
for defenders of rational suicide, as for the ancient stone,
the image of perfect nobility is the rational person lovingly
doing his or her duty to others and meeting death
with pride and freedom and courage.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean they're practically saying, what what did Jesus say?
There's no greater love than someone who lays down his
life for his friends. Right? This is this is the
teachings of Jesus twisted and coming out through the human
humanist here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a it's a complete inversion of it,
right right. Opponents of the that was good, opponents of
the whole concept of a right to death, appeal to
a wide range of Orthodox, Jewish and Christian dogmas. They
draw too, on the organizational strength of the right to
life movement, which portrays euthanasia as one more step towards
justifying the elimination of the helpless and the unfit for them.
The biblical command outshot not kill applies to oneself as
well as others, thus precluding suicide as well as any
assistance in suicide. The absolute sanctity of life takes precedence
over all other considerations. Life must be prolonged, regardless of
the cost and suffering or debasement.
Speaker 2: And by the way, notice the arguments here, it's not
that hard to slide from what he's saying here. You know,
portraying euthanas is one more step for adjutifying the elimination
to help us the unfit. It's not too hard to
slide from his arguments to euthanizing people who are mentally handicapped,
down syndrome children things like that, right, because what does
suffering mean? Does it mean that you're in pain or
does it mean that you're not able to live a
fully autonomous life.
Speaker 1: Well, he already makes the argument for possible fanticide of
any any sick children by bringing up bringing up economics,
by bringing up cost that could be saved. That's just
you can slide right into that. It's like, oh, well,
I mean, think how much it's going to cost you
to raise this sick kid.
Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: The sanctity of human life does not depend upon its costs,
Cardinal O'Connor of New York argues, and since humans are
made in the image of God, the act of suicide
necessarily involves the side to usurp God's gift of life
would be an act of the gravest hubris. The duty
of a community of faith is to extend its care
to the weakest, sickliest members, not to destroy them. Christians
invoke the example of Jesus, our Lord, healed the sick,
raised Lazarus from the dead, gave back sanity to the deranged.
Malcolm Muggridge has pointed out, but never did he practice
or envisage killing as part of the mercy that held
possession of his heart.
Speaker 2: Well, fair play to the author for including that great
Muntgage quote.
Speaker 1: However, the fact is that the Orthodox religious traditions have
often sanctioned killing or even suicide in the service of
some higher goal. For Jews, the mass suicide of that
I can't believe he's going to do this. I can't
believe he's going to do this. For Jews, the mass
suicide of the Maccabees in defiance of Roman oppression is
now celebrated as a glorious event.
Speaker 2: This is a Masada.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, there's a real big difference of being in
battle and knowing you're going to die.
Speaker 2: Then that's just actually, I'm sorry, I might be wrong.
The Maccabees, so I think that would be.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, yeah, the Maccabees would be pre christ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sorry, there's oh wow, there's multiple mass suicides
that have been celebrated in tradition. I didn't know that.
I knew about Masada. I watched the movie, you know. Yeah, anyway,
go on.
Speaker 1: For Christians, the other worldliness of the Pauline tradition sometimes
led early converts into an epidemic of suicide. Did it
is he? Is he calling martyrdom suicide?
Speaker 2: Oh? I was thinking he was talking about some sect
or something. But yeah, maybe from his point, well keep going, yeah.
Speaker 1: Tertillian describes how entire populations of Christian villages would flock
to the Roman proconsul, imploring him to grant them the
privilege of martyrdom. Lucian regarded these Christians with scorn. They
desired death and gave themselves up to be slain, an
eager anticipation of eternal salvation. Like she Eite martyrs today,
some early Christians sought to be slaughtered by their enemies
as a sure mean of gaining immortality.
Speaker 2: You may never have thought of the parallel between the
early Church and suicide bombers, but this author is here
for you.
Speaker 1: Oh man, all right. Contemporary Christians can dismiss these early
tendencies as aberrations and argue that dogmatic justification of some
forms of killing, capital punishment, and just wars, for example,
are misinterpretations of Jesus's commands. Jesus certainly did not describe
martyrdom or suicide as a path to salvation, but just
as surely he never told humankind to cling to life
at all possible costs.
Speaker 2: So that.
Speaker 1: Now we're appealing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus didn't talk about hot dogs, so
let me give you my opinion on hot dogs.
Speaker 1: Right he probably he was probably kosher, So yeah, there
you go. His two fundamental commandments to love God and
to love one neighbor one's neighbor as one's self, do
not in themselves logically condemned suicide. In fact, a death
with dignity, if undertaken in a spirit of compassion for others,
could be considered as an ultimate fulfillment of these injunctions.
Jesus's poignant acceptance of a crucifixion he could have easily
escaped terrify testifies to his conscious willingness to sacrifice his
own life for a higher goal.
Speaker 2: This is this is the meme, right, the guy saying, uh, yeah,
I don't believe in the Bible, but maybe the arguments
will work on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's gonna give
us a little theology here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna let's let's see how deep he gets
into materiology here, you know, let's I mean, this is
some steriological frigging gymnastics here.
Speaker 2: This thing about it can be compassionate, he says, undertaking
a spirit of compassion for others. What was the flip
side of that, right, Uh, it's that maybe if you
don't do it, if you don't kill yourself when you're
a burden on your family or whatever, maybe you're being selfish,
you know, and you're not being compassionate. That's just saying
what he said the other way, right.
Speaker 1: Regardless of religion, some philosophers, such as Emmanuel Kant and
Albert Schweitzer, have been firm opponents of suicide. Kant knew
of the stoic concern that a noble death for a
wise man was to walk out of this life with
an undisturbed mind whenever he liked, as out of a
smoke filled room. Nonetheless, Kant argued, man cannot deprive himself
of his personhood so long as one speaks of duties. Thus,
so long as he lives on grounds that are far
from clear. Kant thought suicide obliterates morality and degrades humanity
since it eliminates the subject and morality.
Speaker 2: I don't know Kunt well enough to comment on that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Albert schw Albert Schweitzer, the great proponent of reverence
for life as a supreme ethical principle, believe that suicide
ignores the melody of the will to live, which compels
us to face the mystery the value the high trust
committed to us in life. Schweitzer did not condemn those
who relinquished their lives, but felt that we do pity
them for having ceased to be in possession of themselves.
In truth, Schweitzer did not apply his principle of reverence
for life very strictly and under all circumstances, since he
did not hesitate to eat animal flesh and believe that
some wars were justified. Oh my god, does anybody no
familiar with Schweitzer's life? I mean, this was a man
who sacrifice was probably the words to describe his life.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Yeah, Well maybe he didn't know the meat is
murder by the smiths, and then he would be more consistent,
you know.
Speaker 1: Oh, man, current Opponents of Death with Dignity believe that
society must maintain the taboo against suicide because the right
to choose one's own death can quickly become mixed up
with the right to choose someone else's, or suicides be legalized.
These people foresee a quick descent into other forms of
euthanasia and unreasonable expansion of powers of physicians and an
increase in state control over life. Gee, I wonder why
they would think that slippery slope is undefeated. Yes, absolutely Indeed,
during the debate over Initiative one, nineteen Washingtonians made clear
their concern over these possibilities. Many Americans approve of death
with Dignity for themselves, but fear taking the grave step
of giving physicians or the state lethal power over others.
Speaker 2: So this paragraph made me again think of Abolition of
Man by C. S. Lewis, where he says that first
we have power over nature, the power of man over nature,
and then we have the power of man over man. Right,
And that's what I'm hearing is he talks about this,
that the power of taking my own life becomes or
the you know, that autonomous choice to take my own
life becomes a choice to have maybe somebody help me
take my life right and then soon enough, slippery slope, right,
soon enough, other people are just experts, are deciding that
you should be killed because the socialized medical system doesn't
want to pay for your end of life costs.
Speaker 1: Right, oh, all right. When we consider euthanasia as a
public policy, we must directly confront these issues. In California
and the other states to follow. The clash over current
medical and legal arrangements for death will undoubtedly raise such
stark problems as these should the right to die extend
to those who have already lost the mental capacity to
choose for themselves. Opponents of rational suicide believe that allowing
such an option would open the door to eliminating everyone
deemed unfit. To avoid reviving the nightmare of Nazism, proponents
of euthanasia must clearly affirm the principle of autonomy. The conscience, free,
and consenting person must make the original choice of terminating life.
Living wills, and the protections afforded by Initiative one to
nineteen must guarantee that the patient voluntarily and intentionally requested
assistance and death before an incapacitating illness or occurred. Such
a provision would bar the door to experiments. Such a
provision would bar the door to experiments in eugenics, and
would in fact impost stricter restrictions on the right to
die that now exist in many states.
Speaker 2: Right, and so the reference to Nazism, I'm shoot I
kmon and Jerusalem. Who wrote that? Hannah Errant? Yeah? So
Hannah Errant writes that the staff that were used to
euthanize people who were viewed as not having a life
forth living, which included I guess very elderly sick people,
mentally handicapped people and so forth, were then used in
the Holocaust. That was her claim. I don't know the
truth of it, but that's the that's the background for
what he's talking about here, is saying, well, we can
protect against that because you're going to sign off on it,
and we're not going to just do this to you. Right,
It's going to be an exercise of your autonomy, all right.
Speaker 1: Next point, Should persons afflicted with serious conditions but who
are not near death be allowed to end their lives?
Proponents contend that people who are still able to choose,
but who are physically helpless, such as paraplegics and those
who are diagnosed on being on the brink of an
inexorable decline, such as Alzheimer patients, should be allowed to
consider suicide as a viable option. Opponents contend that such
a concession would open the door for the mentally unstable,
the temporarily depressed, or the immature to end their lives prematurely.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so that's the big problem with this, right,
Charles Haywood talks about there's this fight against anything that's
not a constantly chosen bond. Right, So, if you don't
feel like being married today, you ought to be able
to just walk away from the marriage, even though you
might regret it tomorrow. Right. Well, the big problem with
this particular issue is that if you feel like killing
yourself today and then you change your mind tomorrow, if
you actually killed yourself, it's too late, right, There's no
tape backsies once you are euthanized.
Speaker 1: Well. I read this sentence and I think of some
of the reports I've read coming out of Canada. There
was one person who chose assisted suicide because they believe
that after their illness they were going to be homeless.
Mm So, I mean, what do how far is this
going to go, yes.
Speaker 2: This was not an immigrant. Otherwise, otherwise they probably wouldn't
have been concerned about being Yeah well, sorry, dark joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah well, probably be putting up in a five star
or four star hotel. What is it? How they do?
Speaker 2: Ye?
Speaker 1: Clearly, people who pass through a period of clinical depression
often entertain the idea of suicide, but reject it when
they are properly treated. Similarly, a large number of American
teenagers roughly one in twelve high school students grades nine
to twelve, say that they have tried to commit suicide
at least once. In fact, the rate of actual suicide
is much lower than for the elderly and those with
degenerative diseases. Nonetheless, the fact remains that temporarily dejected people,
for example, teenagers who have separated from someone they love,
or even revengeful persons, do commit suicide, which it will
be impossible to prevent all of the While it will
be impossible to prevent all of these deaths, and argument
for the rights to die with dignity does not mean
the society would make it easy for the deranged, irrational
person to end life capriciously. No, it may not make
it easier in their mind, it would make it more
That makes it more acceptable.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a really good point. It changes the framing. Yes, right, yeah,
you feel like you're a you know, you're you're an
angsty teenager. You feel like you're just a burden on
everyone around you. And we have people who are it's
all legal and fine and everything and compassionate to relieve
the burden on the people around you, right by by
making this choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah and ye, well this famous person shows to commit suicide.
Speaker 2: And right, yeah, yeah, and everyone celebrated it, right, and
you know the usual circus right.
Speaker 1: To guard against this. Public policy should provide the only
mature mentally should provide that only mature mentally competent adults
with acceptable reasons are allowed to make the decision, and
then only after a certain waiting period. Before a person's
request for assistance and dying is approved by a public body,
it would be wise to have psychologists or psychiatrists consult
with the patient and explore all the options open to
that person. While such an approach would screen out some disturbed, impetuous, harassed,
or temporarily dejected dejected patients, it would allow people who
rationally anticipate a life of misery to choose death with dignity.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, what I can't help thinking up, Pete is
the stories I've been hearing from like D transitioners, who
you know, there's all there's all this, Oh yeah, we
really before we do make any permanent changes, we really
make sure that this is what they really want. And
then the D transitioners say, oh yeah, they talk to
me like twice and then they signed off on it. Right,
So that's real, that's the reality. This is a this
is a pipe dream here.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean to let it to allow someone to
transition sex, especially young person is just basically another form
of population control. And that's what this is. It's just
popular because they're generally they're whatever drugs are taking or
whatever surgery they have is going to take away their
ability to appropreate.
Speaker 2: And then also in that first sentence there it talks
about acceptable reasons only adults with acceptable reasons. Well, who
decides what the acceptable reasons are without some kind of
metaphysical grounding, right right? Acceptable reasons? Because it's become very
expensive because of the screwed up medical system, the state's
screwed up medical system. It's become very expensive to keep living,
and so it's an acceptable reason to say, well, it's
just too expensive. Is that an acceptable reason that it
will be acceptable reason to the welfare state?
Speaker 1: Yes, right, especially in Canada, which is a huge welfare state.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Other issues to consider. Should physicians be in charge of
the actual death. Their oath requires them to prolong life.
If they shorten it, this sends an ambiguous message to
the society. Thus, in general, physicians should not be directly
involved in ending life, certainly less so than they are
now in the termination of feeding or indeed in capital punishment.
Kavorkian has suggested that doctors should not use his suicide machine. Instead,
consistent with the principles of autonomy and dignity, the patients
themselves or trusted relatives must take the final action. Kavorkian
envisioned suicide clinics administered by paramedical workers who would be
salaried so that they would be there would be no
profit motive involved.
Speaker 2: So we already are familiar with the idea of abortion clinics,
but just seeing the phrase suicide clinics gave me a shell.
Looking on this article. Down the corner, you know, next
to the quickie shop or whatever you can walk in
and have someone set you out for a suicide. Huh
what a vision? What a vision of our future? What
an inspiring vision of where our civilization could go here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, more more protesters to be called, you know, Jesus
freaks and right, what if doctors make a mistake? Inevitably,
doctors may miscalculate their diagnosis, or a miracle makes than
the life of a hopeful patient. Miracles and quotes there Conceivably,
a new treatment could result in unexpected cures. Although the
lag between the discovery of a beneficial therapy and its
application is seldom less than a year, This is unquestionably
one of the great risks of medical practice, and it
suggests again that the role of the physician should be minimized.
The doctor should be an expert counselor, but not the
person who controls or executes the decision. Now, it's I
love that it's a decision. The burden of the choice
must be borne by the patient. The exercise of an
individual's autonomy should be that person's sole responsibility.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was asking Dave, the distributist at the conference,
what does he think is the core issue subverting the church?
You know, and I suggested to galitarianism. He brought up autonomy,
holding up autonomy is sort of an ultimate moral value. Uh,
turns out to it seems to seems like there's some
problems with that. It's it sounds pretty nice from a
certain point of view. Well, I you know, I like
to be able to do what I want to do
and stuff, you know. But somehow when we take autonomy
and really run with it, we end up with some
frightening results, some of which we're seeing in some of
which this article is suggesting we could take further.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I was, I was going to go
off on a rabbit trail. But okay, for another episode.
Speaker 1: If rational suicide were freely and broadly allowed, would the
term well, would the elderly, terminally ill, or even seriously
ill choose to it's simply to spare their families, lives
and pocketbooks. Possibly like the terminally ill and pre modern
Eskimo society, patients might well act out of consideration and
compassion for their families. Such self sacrifice should not be
condemned as necessarily evil, but it must not be undertaken
lightly as in other cases. A frank, open and loving
consultation between patient and family should precede any action. I
like how the such it's first of all, it's a
self sacrifice for their for the family, and it should
not be called evil, right, under no circumstances should it
be called evil. But we're not going to take it lightly.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah? I mean, how many times does it use
the word compassion in this article? Blues the count?
Speaker 1: It's or well's, uh yeah, or well's what is that?
The tyranny of language or the tyranny of l I
can't remember what it was? Actually did an episode on
I can't remember. I'm doing great maybe maybe maybe I'm
up for this?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Is there a grisly possibility that someone, even a person's
own family, could push that person into suicide against his
or her own will? Is it possible that a murder
could be hidden a suicide? This could occur as indeed
it already does. Oh, there's a libertarian argument when you say, well,
what would you do in Anne Capistan about this? Well,
that already happens now, Well, yeah, it already happens. Now
it's probably gonna be a bigger friggin issue if there's
if there's no authority around or you know, seeming authority.
But I and off on a tangent there. I'm sorry,
is it possible that murder could be in as this could?
As indeed it already does. The Dutch experience, however, indicates
that the legitimation of rational suicide does not increase this possibility.
With the safeguards proposed, even an initiative when nineteen, it
seems reasonable to suppose that the chances of murder masters
suicide would actually be decreased.
Speaker 2: So I want to speak to his first point here
in this paragraph, where he says, could someone, even a
person's own family, push a person into suicide against his
or her will? I think it's safe to share this
my father's past now, and he never named anyone, but
he did share with me as a pastor that in
his pastoral work he had learned that women were very
often pressured into abortions by boyfriends, by family, et cetera. Later,
as should be none more widely, but it's not maybe
very well known. Very often, after an abortion, it turns
out that the woman realizes she has had a traumatic experience,
she's having nightmares, et cetera. Right, and then she starts
remembering that she had a lot of pressure on her
to make that autonomous decision. Right, So to me, it
seems quite obvious that in the kind of regime being
proposed here, people would be pressured again in a weakened state, right,
be pressured to sign off on their own They're on
their own death under pressure from people who can't wait
to inherit the money after they die, et cetera. Many reasons, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could see that. It's ill. I
lived in South Florida for a very long time, and
I'm sure people are familiar with the level of wealth
there is in South Florida, and I knew forty and
forty five year old men even approaching fifty who were
basically living doing menial labor, just waiting for their waiting
for their parents to die so they can inherit the money. Yeah,
So it's.
Speaker 2: They weren't doing anything with their lives, that's weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just waiting for the They're waiting for the
inheritance to come.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Boy, wouldn't it be nice to the chemical sooner? Right?
Speaker 1: Doesn't the hospice movement offer a better alternative than rational suicide?
It certainly provides an important alternative and a human mode
of coping with death under circumstances of relatively little pain. However,
whether it is better to perish slowly but nune by
morphine morphine cocktails, or to be allowed to choose the mode, manner,
and timing of one's death, is, in the opinion of
this author, a matter best left to individual discretion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just just to drive the point home here, it's
I feel like there's a bait and switch right. On
the one hand, Hey, it's all about individual autonomy, it's
all about your free, conscious choice. On the other hand, yeah,
you're probably gonna get pressured by family, by a bureaucratic structure,
by people at a suicide clinic, by a socialized health
system that views you as a cost that it can't afford,
because of course it's it's always perpetually out of money.
So you know, what is really the nature of this
individual autonomous choice in real life, in reality, not in
some imaginary way. Things that you know that imagine imaginary
world that isn't the way the world really is.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, all right, let's close this out last paragraph.
The obstacles to a public policy of euthanasia are admittedly formidable,
but they are not insurmountable. A failure to decide these
issues because of personal or social anguish over contemplating the
unthinkable will continue to condemn many people to humiliating debility,
pointless suffering, and perhaps meaningless final exits. If I thought,
didn't he say up here that life is it's a
formless reality.
Speaker 2: Formless reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they always want to have it both ways. In contrast,
sensible provisions for rational suicide, governed by the principles of autonomy, dignity,
and compassion, offer humankind the possibility of ending a life
that was so acceptable that it required no further deeds
or days.
Speaker 2: Right, So what's the problem is? So I think this
brings it squarely to this issue of autonomy, because that
is the I think the driver through all of this, Right,
And what is the problem with autonomy? I mean, there's
a lot of ways to come with this, but but
just speaking from sort of a right wing traditionalist point
of view for a moment, I think the problem is
that it is picturing a disconnected individual who's not in
connection with other people, not bonded with other people. They
just have this choice they need they make. You know,
it also does not situate someone's life and the value
of their life in a larger order. Right, Whereas what
we what we see in Burke, what we see in
the scriptures, what we see in all tradition, is that
you're not this atom, atomistic individual. You are part of
a chain connecting your ancestors to your children. You're part
of a chain of being in terms of there are
people who are looking to you as an authority, and
there are people that you are looking to as an authority. Right. So,
rather than picturing people as this isolated atom, autonomous atom
making their decisions, we should see ourselves as what we are,
what we know emotionally we are, which is in a
web of connections, of connections to other people, meaningful connections, right.
And I think it's from that perspective, something like that
perspective that you push back against this huge emphasism individual autonomous,
conscious choice. It is that you're not on your own
and your life does matter, and those bonds with other
people are meaningful and real. You can feel them, and
you know, as a Christian, I would go a little
further and say that you have a bond to God,
who created you in his image, loves you and wants
you to treat yourself in the way that a person
made in the image of God should be treated. I'm
reminded of my dad's great line, who's a pastor. My
dad's great line that if some people love their neighbors
as themselves, their neighbors would be in mortal danger, you know,
So I think it is. It is. I think we
all recognize that we ought not to treat other people
as trash, but we also ought not to treat ourselves
as trash. It keeps on talking to the article about
the kind of message you're sending to the people around you,
right and having compassion stuff like that. Well, what kind
of message do you send to your depressed teenager or whatever,
your angsty teenager when you decide to do the youth
euthanasia option?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So those are some It.
Speaker 1: Like everything else, it becomes mimetic. And you know that's
what happened when it's how everything is always sold. You know,
abortion was sold as oh, you know this is for people,
great and it you know, incess things like that, and
then it's just it just becomes acceptable over time.
Speaker 2: That's birth control, right. Yeah, And as I keep arguing,
I think that the most inevitably obvious consequence, which I'm
sure is being played out in Canada right now of
putting this in place, is that in the face of
the bureaucratic machine, bureaucratic techno machine, right, we get viewed
as a cost. If we're not being productive, if we're
not contributing to the machine, we're a draw on the machine.
The ration whole thing to do is to cut costs. Right.
That's not how a moral human society deals with people
in need, right, that aren't a net contributor at the moment, right, Uh,
we honor the honor them as humans with dignity and
made in the image of God. That's that's normal and healthy.
But that's not how the modern bureaucratic machine views humans.
You're either you're either contributing to the machine or you're not.
If you're not, why are we keeping you around? You're
taking up space?
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and it and they choose their their allies.
You know, there are people that are a net negative
on the system that are more valuable to them than
somebody who's actually contributing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Who decides who's a net contributor and who's in
that drain? Right? Yeah, it may have a lot to
do with whether they consider you friend or enemy politically.
Speaker 1: Right, So once once it gets to that, I mean,
would honestly what people should ask you know is if
you are at all on the right or not on
board with what this regime it promotes and promotes as
a religion. At this point, would you want them to
have the power to know for their apparatics in the
you know, in the medical industry, to be able to
make decisions like this for you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's it's truly frightening. Well, thanks, thanks P
for taking my suggestion.
Speaker 1: To this was great. At any time, you have an
open invitation to come on anytime and talk about anything.
May promote your channel anything you want, and we'll leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, in light of what we discussed today, I
guess I'll promote I've sort of got three shows. I'll
promote one that we don't do as often, which is
the show I do with my wife. I'm called RADLB online,
and so my wife is called missus RADLB and on
our show, which is mostly her. She's someone who worked
as a Christian biblically based therapist up until two weeks
before our first child was born, and she's just generally
I don't know how to put it a wise person,
and so we discuss topics like courtship, sex, and society.
We just talked about honor thy mother and thy father,
especially when they're hard to respect. And I recommend it
to you. I've had a number of people who find,
you know, personal issues to be something they really want
to think about. They watch one of those Missus rad
Lib shows and then a week later they say, I
just binged it all. I just watched everything you guys
have talked about and it was so helpful, you know.
So I'd recommend that to you. And it's a show
that comes with something that you mostly don't get in
our parasocial world, which is that my wife hangs out
in a channel on Discord run by our friend Luke Lamba.
It's called the Missus Radlib Channel, and so we bring
up some really heavy issues and there's a great community
that we make sure stays nice and positive and constructive
where you can come and you can talk about the
stuff that we raise or whatever else. And my wife
is just available. So there's something you don't usually get
with the show.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Yeah, any other.
Speaker 2: No, No, I think that's that's the one to push
for this topic.
Speaker 1: This topic awesome. I really appreciate Steven. Every time I
talk to you and it feels like I'm talking to
an old friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Pet.
Speaker 1: Thanks