RoR: Forum

Post 60

Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 9:30pm

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One has the right of dis-association with others, just as one has the right of association - the ultimate dis-association is to conclude one's own life at one's time, NOT, as many presume, a destruction of one's life, but a ceasing, a concluding of one's life at the time one chooses [since we all will eventually cease, and most always not at a time of our choosing]..

Post 61

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 3:04am

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(3) Since failed suicides are dangerous
(4) Death is the appropriate penalty for attempted suicide.

For (3), you would have to prove that all suicides are dangerous, and for (4), square the death penalty with those attempts made in isolation from others, which I think make up the mass majority of such attempts.

Death penalty for a deliberate, but failed, drug overdose? Doesn't that sound just a little tyrannical to you, Ted?

Post 62

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 5:02am

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I actually do believe that most people who commit suicide do so as a result of mental disease - it is not in keeping with our normal nature and depression and other illnesses lead to suicidal impulses. This does not include people who do so because of, say, a terrible situation they brought on themselves, or who are dying and in terminal pain, etc. but these are the exceptions.

Post 63

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 6:00am

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Ted opined in Post 56:

The suicide, if successful, is beyond the law. The suicide, if not successful, is a proven menace. Pretending that there is a right to suicide is absurd. Better to declare that attempted suicide is a capital crime, and to execute at public expense those who attempt self-destruction and fail.

This is one of the most despicable pieces of drek I have ever read on this site.

A person who attempts to kill himself the right way makes himself a menace to no one. Women typically try to kill themselves with pill overdoses while men typically try with guns or nooses. As I understand it, women show three times the suicide attempt rate of men but men have five times the success rate of women.

In any case, to say that someone who deliberately tries to take his own life automatically brings threat of deadly physical harm to others is outrageously absurd on its face and unworthy of further consideration. Of course some people try and fail. The worst part is not the immediate threat of physical harm they bring to others as this seldom happens. No, the worst part is the financial and emotional harm they bring to those closest to them -- immoral but hardly a capital crime.

I am close to someone who foolishly tried to take her own life back in 2001 with pills after a long bout with depression. The Florida "Baker Act" forced her to spend three days in a mental ward for observation at a cost to the insurance company of $13,000. All this accomplished was to annoy her and the people around her. Worst of all, she has absolutely no memory of the events immediately preceding the attempt despite the note she left by her bedside in her own handwriting. She is doing much better these days.

Kurt astutely observed in Post 62:

I actually do believe that most people who commit suicide do so as a result of mental disease - it is not in keeping with our normal nature and depression and other illnesses lead to suicidal impulses. This does not include people who do so because of, say, a terrible situation they brought on themselves, or who are dying and in terminal pain, etc. but these are the exceptions.

Bingo!

Praise Kurt. Condemn Ted.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 5/21, 6:02am)

Post 64

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 12:53pm

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Simply condemn me? Condemn me to what, pray tell? Being cast as a blasphemer from the Tarpeian Rock? (Right)

I fear that your hysterical response shows that you haven't actually absorbed the actual meaning of the Objectivist Ethics, and haven't integrated the idea that only those who wish to live require a moral system. You are looking at what I said not for the actual meaning of my words, but from unexamined conventional thinking. Sometimes Randianism is radical. There are no rights per se when morality is not applicable.

I did not deny that anyone has the right to own as much morphine as he would need to kill 50 elephants. That's already understood among us libertarians, isn't it? (Chris, this answers your question - whether you have a "right" to suicide or not, how is anyone going to punish you for killing yourself for having overdosed?) But does someone have a right to leap from the Empire State Building? No... Does someone have a right to leave the gas on, and risk blowing up or poisoning his neighbors? No...

Indeed, examine the messy divorce and suicide case of Dr. Nicholas Bartha, who blew himself up in his Upper East Side Townhouse, demolishing the three-storey building, severely maiming a woman passing by who was horribly disfigured and almost killed by flying glass, and injuring 14 others. This man survived the blast. (It turns out he did his wife a favor, since the empty lot he left her was more valuable than the otherwise difficult to alter brownstone that stood on the lot.) He should have been tried and executed for a capital crime, had he lived. As it was, he succumbed to his burns a few days later.

For those who claim a right to suicide, please specify, what do you mean? A right to overdose? Fine, if you succeed, we applaud, if you fail, it was just an overdose - tell it to the judge. Under the current scheme, you'd have to tell it to the judge anyway, and perhaps I'd end up having to pay for you to be treated at public expense. Does the right to suicide mean doctor assisted suicide? Why use a doctor? Why not a hit-man, a garbage collector (Just Jump right in the back of the truck!) or, if you fail the first time, the warden will do it for you, safe and sound and free of risk to the general public.

Truly, what I am presenting is an argument. To call for my condemnation is absurd. Please, call for my rebuttal. I am not making any physical attack on anyone. I am not advocating infanticide nopr the right to father whom I want at public expense. Neither is it becoming to call for me to be shouted down by cries of "Dreck! Dreck! Dreck!" It's not as if I said that a man "correcting" his wife and children (Luke) by chopping them up with an axe were a funny thing.

If anyone would like to actually think my argument through, and debate on the merits, without acting like a bunch of prissy Christians screaming "Satanist!" at someone who has confessed his atheism, I'm game.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 5/21, 6:03pm)

Post 65

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 1:51pm

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Ted, Ted, Ted,

Some days you delight me with your clever posts and thoughtful arguments.

Today is not one of those days.

You said in Post 56:

Better to declare that attempted suicide is a capital crime, and to execute at public expense those who attempt self-destruction and fail.

Now in Post 64 you suddenly try to add a great deal of context and what ifs and wherefores and sidesteps and distractions and yada yada yada.

I already stated plainly what I meant by a reasonable, confined suicide and why the state should not forbid it. Go back and read my post! The real problem lies in outlawing suicide in the first place, not in the immorality of the act.

I condemn your Post 56 as basically fascistic -- and you for posting it. By "condemn" I mean "label as immoral." By "label as immoral" I mean immoral to the percentage that your post constitutes the sum of your thoughts and actions. So you have just a small amount of immorality tarnishing your visible character here.

Every person's life belongs ultimately to himself. If a man wants to take his own life without harming others, that is his business. Clean, safe ways exist to do just that. I would naturally condemn building jumpers, etc. for their reckless disregard of others and penalize them by law. I would not do so for pill overdosers and noose hangers although I would send them a bill if they failed and cost me in the cleanup. As I said, much of this would vanish if the act became legal on demand. Whole industries would arise to supply the means to meet the demand a la Soylent Green.

Do the job right the first time!

To borrow from the old "Mutual of Omaha" commercial:

Soylent Green is people you can count on when the going's rough.

Perhaps our own new RoR poster, Sarah France, who has attempted suicide four times and gotten her life on track now, can add something sensible here -- although I think her earlier post that I just cited speaks for itself! If Ted had his way, the almighty state would have already put her to death. Translation: "If you try to kill yourself, we will kill you!"

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 5/21, 2:09pm)

Post 66

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 5:44pm

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Soylent Green, Sarah France (No Offense) and Fascism?

Maybe I've touched a raw nerve. If so, let me know, I'll stop. (I am sincere in this. While I have meant what I've said up to now, I have meant it in the spirit of provoking thought, not in order to hurt anyone's feelings. My own feelings have not been hurt. I have been greatly entertained, surprised that no one sees the logic in what I say, and am not interested in wasting my time in a grudge match.) On the assumption that I haven't unintentionally and unreasonably hurt anyone:

Now I'm an advocate of storm troopers, eating people and insulting ladies?

Objectivity? More like non sequitur and ad hominem.

Who, exactly, is suddenly trying "to add a great deal of context and what ifs and wherefores and sidesteps and distractions and...?" Am I supposed to lay down and take that whuppin you want to give me, for an argument I didn't make? You sound like a bully of a father upset at his son for being proven right and thus undeserving of the beating you so relished meting out.

I said that there is no such thing as a right to suicide per se. Does anyone deny it?

I myself said that if you do the job right, or in private, good for you! And you do no more than repeat me. Well where are my sanctions?

I asked if there was anyone who wanted to debate my suggestion dispassionately. I see my argument as analogous to the response to those who deny free will or who deny reason. Their own statements refute themselves. How can someone who claims a right to suicide coherently complain if his wishes are enforced? I am not Eric Rudolph, lying in wait for you with a rifle. I have actually been smiling in enjoyment as I have written all of this. Instead I get:

"I condemn your Post 56 as basically fascistic [?!]-- and you for posting it. By "condemn" I mean "label as immoral." By "label as immoral" I mean immoral to the percentage that your post constitutes the sum of your thoughts and actions. So you have just a small amount of immorality tarnishing your visible character here."

That hyperbole, in response to nothing more than my arguments deserves nothing but scorn. (By scorn I mean laughter, by laughter I mean guffaws, by guffaws I mean choking, by choking I mean vomit?) Debate and thought are never immoral - only action removed from and made immune to thought. Some here spoke non-disapprovingly of infanticide in the abortion debate and you yourself chuckled at a madman slaughtering his family - finding it so funny as to post it here as a quote. Did I react then in the overly emotional, and, yes, rude manner that you have here?

Since you are so exorcised in this matter, I offer an amended prayer of my childhood:

O my Luke,
I am heartily sorry for
having offended Thee,
and I detest all my sins,
because I dread the loss of heaven,
and the pains of hell;
but most of all because
they offend Thee, my Luke,
Who are all good and
deserving of all my love.
I firmly resolve,
with the help of Thy grace,
to confess my sins,
to do penance,
and to amend my life,
Not.

Amen.

Ted

Post 67

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 6:19pm

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There are no rights to violate rights.... just as a person has the right to live [which implies doing so not at the expense of others], so too is there the right of self-ceasing - with the same proviso, not at the expense of others..... your error, the same ye make so often in other bloated statements, is a lack of context, a lack of dealing in principles....

Post 68

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 6:20pm

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Ted, if I truly own my body, then I have the right to do with it as I please, including destroy it.

Post 69

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 6:56pm

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Ted,

1. "The suicide is manifestly a danger to society."

2. "Better to declare that attempted suicide is a capital crime, and to execute at public expense those who attempt self-destruction and fail."

You have not demonstrated the first statement. The second statement I find so abhorrent I cannot believe you are serious. Most suicides are either mentally ill or so emotionally distraught living has no meaning for them. I have never heard of a case in my life's experience of a suicide or attempted suicide killing or even endangering the life of another person. Perhaps you have statistics comparing the relative risk of being killed by a strangers suicide as compared to say, being killed by a stranger while driving on the freeway? Should we find the responsible drivers who fail to die in the accidents they cause and summarily execute them?

Post 70

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 7:51pm

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Mike,

The mentally ill would of course, presumably be not guilty due to mental illness, would they not? The mentally distraught, depending on how one defines this, are a danger, a terrible danger, to themselves and others. If by mentally distraught, one means someone devastated at the loss of one they love, they will probably kill themselves safely and in private. What purpose after their death does it serve to say that they did or did not have a right to kill themselves. In a sense, they are "beyond good and evil." If mentally distraught means that they are like The VA Tech Massacre? I would have no problem putting down such people - after a trial - in which a defense would be possible - and based on sound law - if such there be - when evidence is conclusive that they are a threat to others.

Note that I have not claimed actually to have formulated a coherent and objective law under which it would be possible to execute failed suicides. Neither am I making the claim that the police should execute suicides on sight. Nor am I saying that the distraught are unsympathetic, or not worth saving if they wish to live. The accusations of fascism and so forth really surprised me.

I am simply pointing out that claiming that one has a right to commit suicide is either absurd or meaningless or unnecessary in a libertarian society. In a libertarian society, the rational suicide would have the means to kill himself and avoid the sanction of the law. The irrational suicide is a danger to himself and others. I suppose one would have to define, based on the protestations of others above, the dangerous suicide as being a capital criminal. And one would also have to accept the political violability of the death penalty.

Consider the case of Dr. Bartha above. He did not kill anyone. But what would have been the injustice in executing him if he had lived?

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer
on 5/21, 8:23pm)

Post 71

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 7:53pm

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Steven, I have no plans to stop you you fool. And if you try and fail, I am offering help! How have I been unclear on this?

Ted

Post 72

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 7:55pm

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Why is this thread now so much more popular than my exposition on aestheic values in 10,000 Greatest Moments? If it bleeds, it leads?

Ted

Post 73

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 8:18pm

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(Edited by Bob Palin on 5/21, 8:21pm)

Post 74

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 8:22pm

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Thanks, Bob, for some well needed levity. How the hell did you know where to find that?

Post 75

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 8:56pm

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Ted,

"I am simply pointing out that claiming that one has a right to commit suicide is either absurd or meaningless or unnecessary in a libertarian society."

You may as well point out the concept of rights itself is meaningless in a perfect libertarian world where no one initiates force on anyone, ever. Utopia doesn't happen.

As far as I know "manifestly" means proven beyond doubt. You haven't proven that "suicides" as a group are particularly dangerous to others. You will convince me that attempted suicide is a capital crime when you convince me that reckless driving is.

Post 76

Monday, May 21, 2007 - 9:33pm

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I am using libertarian to mean classical liberal. I am not utopian or anarchist - I am a minarchist law-and-order hawk. (Legalize drugs and sex, prosecute thieves and killers to the full extent of the law, and make that law punitive.) The reckless driver usually wants to live and get where he's going. In so far as he's willing to "take others out with him" then I guess he might be classified as a suicide. But bridge-leapers, deaths-by-cop, and the like are evil by default. They may not be actively seeking to take out others, but by their murderous negligence they are the equivalent of premeditated murderers.

Ted
(Edited by Ted Keer
on 5/21, 9:35pm)

Post 77

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 2:10am

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(3) Since failed suicides are dangerous
(4) Death is the appropriate penalty for attempted suicide.

In a libertarian society, the rational suicide would have the means to kill himself and avoid the sanction of the law. The irrational suicide is a danger to himself and others.

Ted, Up to this point I have agreed with the responses to you on this topic, however, I still have not figured out exactly what you are trying to argue. I think some confusion is arising from a failure to differentiate between dangerous suicides, and non-dangerous. I don't see where your post's 56 and 58 did that, i.e. in the first quote one would get the impression that you believe all failed suicides are dangerous, and that all those who attempt suicide should be executed. You began to clarify in post 64, but as I mentioned, I'm still not sure what you are trying to argue for. Also, you continue to speak about suicide in general, when as Luke suggested, very few suicide attempts actually put others at risk. You do raise an interesting point about man's rights being necessary to live, and not applicable to one who attempts suicide.

There is no so-called right to suicide. Rights are those circumstances within a political context which are necessary to living according to man's nature. In order to commit suicide, one must be free from coerced feeding and restraint. But except for someone who is a threat to others, or who is serving a criminal sentence, the right not to be constrained or force-fed already exists. What is the implication of denying a right to suicide per se? Well, if one succeeds, what retribution does one have to fear from the government? The suicide is manifestly a danger to society.

Like I said above, I don't think that it makes sense to argue against suicide in general, when most do not pose a threat to others.
~Jonathan
P.S. - I hope this is not all gibberish... It's five a.m. and I'm barely through my first cup... :-)!

Post 78

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 11:55am

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In response to the Dr. Bartha case: Life be hard, man.

In other words, I am not willing to abridge ownership of the body because of some tragic case.

Post 79

Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 12:13pm

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Here's something for (or from?) the "evil minded"....

Ted, hope you enjoy these.

The Virginia Tech Massacre