This post is not just a bit self-indulgent self-pity, but an exploration of where things could go. The Telegraph today reports that 80% support assisted suicide. Sir Terry Pratchett is suggesting assisted suicide tribunals. I actually do believe in allowing assisted suicides for the terminally ill. However, there are many dangers that it could be abused. Given the behaviour of the Labour government, it can be guaranteed that it will.
Euthanasia for the terminally unemployed, like me, should be available. For many of those without a job there is no chance that they will ever work again.
For some this may be because they are sick or feckless. Many are older where the employers prefer young staff. Some are surplus to requirements because of changing demand. Others may be displaced because the jobs have been sold or negotiated away by the government as in the case of IT staff.
No money is to be spent on them because either the cost to bring them up to employable standards would be too great or they are of the wrong demographic and are unlikely to support the government.
The outlook for those that are terminally unemployed is that they will remain in poverty for the rest of their lives and continue to be a burden on the state. For some this can be for 40 or 50 years. As poorer people, they will also be a greater drain on the health services as well as inevitable criminals.
To relieve the personal suffering of these people and to reduce the burden on the state it would be helpful if the opportunity to end their lives was made available.
I would welcome the opportunity of being helped to die. I find that I cannot do it on my own. I would rather die with minimal pain, distress and in a dignified way where the results can be cleaned up with little fuss (burn me with the rest of the clinical waste will do fine). The alternative is that I do it alone at home, in pain and with the distinct possibility of great suffering as I try to get it right. I live alone without any contact with anyone so my body will not be discovered until it is in an advanced state of decay.
Of course, I would rather live and be a productive member of society. If I was allowed to work, I would be a higher rate tax payer too. However, the government has other ideas and I am now permanently excluded from working. I am condemned to spend the rest of my life in poverty and squalor. The only alternatives the government has for me is some form of prison either regular or mental.
Not in reference to this post in particular; what is wrong with the idea of the FTAC? Doesn't a stable society that desores safety and security need a body that keeps an eye on individuals that pose a threat to others?
ReplyDeleteJethro, thanks for your comment. The FTAC has got nothing to do with the safety of society but the security of MP's. It is also used to silence anyone who speaks against the government.
ReplyDeleteFor the benefit of other readers, I have reviewed the stats at the time of the comment was left and the only entry is from IP Address 194.60.38.10 which is registered to the 'Houses of Parliament'. I will make my stats available to anyone who challenges my report.
Jethro's comment is just the old "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about" argument.
ReplyDeleteWhat follows shortly after is, "But we're just trying to help you".
Yes, I do work in Parliament - there's nothing I have to hide. Are you the person who sends faxes to the offices of MPs (about the FTAC) almost every day? It is for that reason that I found this site.
ReplyDeleteDo MPs not deserve safety and security too? Sadly there are mentally ill people in the world, and organisations like FTAC have to exist to stop some of these people crossing the line between 'mentally ill' and 'danger to people's lives'.
"Are you the person who sends faxes to the offices of MPs (about the FTAC) almost every day?"
ReplyDeleteNo. For a start, I do not have any means of sending faxes. Clearly I am not the only one you have upset. Every recent attempt to contact members of parliament that I have made has been fully documented here. My method of communication is via e-mail and I have audit logs to show everything I have done. You know your statement is false; it is a deliberate attack.
Everyone deserves to live safely and that includes innocent people trying to make a living without the state arbitrarily stealing their livelihood without providing any help finding an alternative way of supporting themselves.
I am just a victim who would like his life back. I have BEGGED for years to be allowed to earn a living, but have been refused help every time. In the end the FTAC sent the police round to abduct me and lock me up. Once held in hospital ‘doctor’ Jonsson contrived any excuse to keep me locked up none of which were valid.
Let me make this offer here in public. I am willing to be subjected to any tests you want to establish the state of my mental health, provided those tests are done by someone from outside the NHS, preferably from another country. I am confident that they will not support the fraudulent diagnosis of ‘doctor’ Jonsson. If they do support him then you can do with me what you like (execution please). However, if they support me then I would like my life back in full and those that would imprison me to be imprisoned themselves.
Jethrow, if you have any honour in your soul, I BEG you to contact the appropriate ministers in the Home office, DWP and NHS to arrange a meeting with me so that I can make my case that I have been injured by the policies of this government and the behaviour of these departments.
As I keep saying: All I ever wanted to do was to earn a living in peace.
Hi Jethro. Branding dissidents as mentally ill is an old trick. Police will often arrest people at demonstrations with the intention of having them psychiatrized. The person can then be dismissed in the eyes of the public as not having a valid complaint, just a "nutter".
ReplyDeleteYou probably know of Maurice Birk. He has had valid complaints against South Wales Police for years and just when he was about to take out what would probably be a successful civil case against Barbara Wilding was arrested for taking photos of himself posturing with an antique machine gun and posting on his website.
And of course they've attempted to portray him as crazy and charged him with all sorts of rubbish to try to discredit him.
"Mental illness" is a "just so" story. It is pure propaganda that most ignorant and apathetic people swallow, some ignorant and well meaning others not.
The fact is that if you fuck someone over you can expect that that person may well come after you. If you think that "christian morality" somehow should trump evolutionary biology you are living in magic land. If you fuck enough people over it is a near certainty that someone will be after you.
It's like this. We'd all like the road toll to be zero wouldn't we? Wouldn't it be great if no one in England died on the road today? But after a few days of no fatalities I'd be starting to worry. See what I'm getting at? There would have to be some kind of magic happening.
It makes no sense to blame road users who die because the numbers can never be reduced to zero and at the same time maintain the laws of physics.
Likewise if you anger a million people it would be magical thinking to expect that you would never receive a threatening fax. But you do receive threatening faxes of course and you have no choice but for your magical thinking to dismiss the reasoning of the sender as pathological.
Back to the topic of the Euthanasia post. I think I know what you are doing. You are giving us an example of a rational, considered opinion. A great many respected commentators and philosophers have written and spoken similar views.
ReplyDeleteYet if YOU do it you are regarded as delusional. It's as if someone like Jonsson is telling you that you don't have the right to express your thoughts. Only he and his friends are entitled to discuss complex contentious things. "We can't have the little people thinking that they can meddle in affairs of state. The cheek of them.We decide these things not they."
Fixated (as I've come to call him) knows that I think that ALL coercive psychiatry is wrong at virtually every level except possibly for the absolute emergency situation of having to subdue and sedate a VERY, IMMEDIATELY dangerous person. And then I say it wouldn't be psychiatry but lawful restraint. But can we forget that for now and talk about policies in general.
ReplyDeleteJethro knows that governments implement policies that benefit overall but can, do and will cause direct harm to individuals. A benign government will factor the cost of remedies and compensations to individuals harmed into the original cost of implementing the policy. A cruel government will deny responsiblity and blame the victim. A cruel government such as yours, and ours in Australia, will have already thought of a way of blaming the victims even before the policy is implemented.
Jethro said:
ReplyDelete"Do MPs not deserve safety and security too?"
Nope. They took it away from us, at our own expense, along with a whole raft of other things. Most notably our liberties and for many, their jobs and their hopes.
A silly attempt at derailment from the main point here (which has led to me doing the same), which is the actual use of the FTAC, seemingly to shut up and destroy anyone viewed as enough of a "dissident".
Those who question socialism are mentally ill.