Thursday, March 26, 2015

Concerning Assisted Suicide

To the People,
    Evil never rests. As we speak, another grave evil is trying to make its way towards legalization and that evil is Assisted Suicide. Currently promoted by the organization Compassion&Choices (another organization with a misleading name), the idea is to legalize assisted suicide. I could argue in terms of morality why this should never be allowed to be made legal. Today, however, I shall try to appeal more to your social conscience and reason.
    Note that I began by addressing "the People." The word people is a collective noun, meaning it takes a group and unites them as one. This is the nature of society as it is made of up many various people but still one. That means if a part of society is being threatened, then all of society is being threatened. In case you believe the lie that the United States is an Individualistic Society, let me emphasize how false that is. Political motions are done through groups. Racism and Sexism show we judge individuals through groups. We sue corporations for actions of individual workers. People have a tendency to not act unless they are part of a group. Clicks are unfortunately very common. Also, we hate the idea of dictatorship where choices are made by an individual.
    Now that I've cleared up that idea, let me show you another nature of society. Society, by its nature, is made up of strong and weak. In a world where only the strong live, there wouldn't be a world. Everyone is weak at some point or another. Even if not physically weak, we become mentally or spiritually weak. People in all three stages are vulnerable and, as a society, we are required to protect them. Forget about Russia, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda for a second. If we allow such legislation to pass, America will destroy America. ISIS will not have to do a thing.
     Here are some of the consequences if we allow for legal Assisted Suicide
  • That will be one more thing doctors will be known for Death instead of Life: Holland already has a special mobile unit to make house calls to kill people. Why should we trust doctors anymore if they aren't concerned for trying to save a life? Anti-vaccine movements will also gain momentum as they won't be able to trust their doctors.
  • We tell our future generations that it is okay to commit suicide: And YES, that undermines ALL EFFORTS for Suicide Prevention! Were you sad to hear about Robin William's suicide? Prepare for more of that.
  • In one way or another, people will be forced to commit suicide: When an "option" is given, pressure is built to force people to take that option. I shouldn't have to point out that there are many women who are pressured or forced to have an abortion against their will, but there are. Some mothers have to seek sanctuary in clinics to protect them from their parents or abusive boyfriends and others who threaten they will stop loving them (which of course indicates they don't love them anyways). This is why some clinics are very selective in who they allow to work for them as the mother's identities and location need to be kept secret. Now for cases concerning Assisted Suicide. Older generations as well as the weak and disabled youth will be pressured because they will be considered a "burden". There is also a story where a woman found that her insurance company would pay for her assisted suicide rather than for treatment. 
  • The Death Penalty will never be taken away: After all, how is it we can kill ourselves, but not people guilty of heinous crimes such as mass murder? I'm personally torn on the issue as I can understand its purpose. On the other hand, I think J. D. Nyle brings up some good points in his short story even though I doubt that was his intent.
  • Health Care will never improve: Health care improvements are made to accommodate the weak and elderly. If the demand is negated by the suicides of these people, investments in improved technology will decrease as both governments and private corporations will find less of a impulse to invest.
  • Jobs will be lost: Can you imagine how many jobs are made because of the weak and elderly? Caregivers, teachers, programmers, and researchers all have jobs thanks to the market of the elderly and disabled. Job competition is already fierce, are you prepared to make it worse? 
  • We promote a more selfish culture: Seriously, our parents spent years raising us. Mothers carried us in their belly for 9 months and went through perhaps the most painful experience. And, unless you are somehow an angel (who would also never consider assisted suicide), you repaid all of this with disrespect and occasional hatred. There is no just reason you cannot take care of them when they are old or weak.
  • Who's asking for this? Who benefits from this? Certainly not the people whose lives are concerned. After all, if they want to commit suicide, they can easily do so. The fact that they would feel a need for "assistance" to commit suicide indicates they still desire life. My guess is that the people who want this are some insurance companies and the greedy or selfish family members. 
  • Another method for murder. By making these "prescriptions" more easily accessible, that means people can request them and then use them to commit murder and try to obscure it by claiming "they wanted it". Of course, in my opinion, it's always murder.
  • Doctors bring Despair, not Hope. Doctors already are known for being the ones who tell you when you are going to die. However, it is possible to interpret that as a warning sign to get your life back in order. Besides, not all doctor predictions are accurate. Someone who was told 6 months can still have 6 years. Secondly, if you despair because you are told you are going to die, let me tell you something, everyone will die. Some people would love to have an idea of how long they have to live. If you despair because you found out, then you should really think about your life and how you can make the most of it.
  • Society will have even less Compassion. What are we telling the disabled? What are we telling their parent? That it's okay to kill their children? Disabled children actually bring more love into the world as those who embrace them truly grow to care and love others. However, if we give horrible parents an opportunity to kill their children (either through force or pressure), these seeds of love will only wasted




If you live in California, tell your Senator to vote against the legalization of Assisted Suicide. Here are a list of a few Senators who were listed as co-authors. I probably don't need to point out that they are all Democrats. However, this is something you will need to consider when the next election comes near.


California Assisted Suicide Senate and Assembly Supporters 
Hannah Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), Marty Block (D-San Diego), Isadore Hall (D-Inglewood,) Lonnie Hancock (D-Berkeley), Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo), Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), and Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont); and they are joined by Assembly Members: Kansen Chu (D-Sacramento), Jim Cooper (D-9th district), Jim Frazier (D-11th district), Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), Bill Quirk (D-Hayward), and Mark Stone (D-Scotts Valley).







Friday, March 6, 2015

Choices: Right and Food

To the Common Man,
    I've made a point that to "Be a Man" is to "Be a Hero" and being a hero entails practicing virtues but why is it that we often choose evil in our daily actions? If I were to ask if you like good or evil more, I would assume you would pick good, otherwise we might need to have a discussion with the local authorities.
    Perhaps the best way to analyze our choices between good and evil is to look at food. Thanks to our knowledge of food, we know some our great for our bodies and others are incredibly bad for us, even deadly if not cautious. Some people might be able to survived a peanut related junk-food, but it will kill quite a few people.
    Let's take for example the oreo cookie. The chocolate cookie with some white stuff in the middle. Unhealthy but delicious to quite a few people. I use this for an example because it is my semi-daily reminder about this analogy. I decided that I will not eat anymore oreos. Some days, the temptation is not even present, but the days when there is a box of oreos on the snack table at work makes it far more difficult. This helped me realize that temptations only exist when you believe you can do something. This helps explain why the maxim "Great Power leads to Great Corruption" is true. Power is related to the word "potential" which means "the capability to do something." So when you have the power to do something, you are naturally tempted, especially when you think you can get away with it.
    I knew a girl who just a little bit of milk made her incredibly sick. However, she loved milk so much that she considered being sick worth it every now and then, like on the weekends. On the other hand, I would think that the days when she knew she could not take the day off, she would be able to resist the urge to drink milk.
    So why do we even eat these foods which are bad for us? Part of it is convenience. Some junk food is cheaper and more accessible than the healthy variety. For example, a box of cookies can cost about as much as an organic apple. Our mentality of trying to get the most for our money will act as an argument to buy the cookies when searching for snack food. Likewise, an apple treated with pesticides and other harmful chemicals may look bigger and be cheaper than the traditional organic apple grown without harmful chemicals. In that situation, we generalize ideas such as "apples are healthy" and ignore that and apple treated with bad chemicals is not healthy at all. Likewise, actions that normally would be good, are actually bad when corrupted with ulterior motives or methods. For example, protecting the country is a good deed. Torturing suspected terrorists, who may be very innocent, is evil. However, to the people performing this heinous crime, it's the most convenient or efficient method in their mind.
    Another reason why we choose evil is because we are corrupted. We get corrupted while we are young and the older and more "mature" consider it their job to corrupt the young and innocent. I don't watch TV much anymore because there is hardly a show that does not contain some sort of sexual exploitation of its feminine cast. CWTV's The Flash started off nicely and was showing why the Flash is a hero but before the end of its first season, it showed every female character in a bra on time or another, half of them leading toward sex outside of marriage. This "fanservice" corrupts the mind of the young men that it's okay to objectify women like so and to have sex outside of marriage. Add that this is a "superhero" show, and the effect is greater.
    Let me explain the logic of how something normally becomes an action. First comes the thought. The more you think about it, you begin to test the waters. You begin to speak about the idea, which of course strengthens thinking about it in the first place. Then you finally act. However, when you have a firm foundation in your character, then you are able to control those thoughts and prevent yourself from performing any bad action. As a child, it's harder to guide your thoughts and actions and so most children act on impulse. So when children are exposed to improper ideas and actions, they will more likely perform those actions.
    You probably heard about the study where a group of children are put into a room full of toys and a plate of cookies in the middle. They are told if they can wait a few more minutes, they will get more cookies. The children who easily distract themselves and play around can easily do this, but the children who constantly think about the cookies will not last the 10 minutes. I believe you could also conclude that the children who eat a lot of cookies will have a harder time resisting the urge to eat them than the children who grew up eating only healthy foods. After all, there are always those people who say they don't like something even though they never tried it before.
    So if we were never introduced to evil, would we always do good? Probably not since that society would never exist, at least in our current world. There is just so much evil that even if a group was close to reaching that point, some other group would work twice as hard to tear it down. I spoke a bit about that last time while discussing envy and how it destroys societies.
    What about in a perfect world where you couldn't choose to do evil? Wouldn't that be evil in itself? It would certainly sound like a violation of the concept of Free Will. However, I think the way popular culture has portrayed that ideas has been only in an evil communist or socialist setting in which no one can make any choice at all. But if we consider a society where choices do exist, just various levels of goodness, would that be wrong? The concept of free will is that we can choose how we act, but it doesn't always have to be between good and evil. It's like choosing between a house by the beach versus a house close to a school. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but both are good. Perhaps that would be the best society, but like I said, it would not last in our current world. But then again, that doesn't mean it's not worth working toward. If we distract ourselves by pursuing good, wouldn't that mean we won't choose evil? If that's the case, then society would at least improve in some sense, even if it's not perfect.
Let's Pursue the Perfect Good Together,
N. D. Moharo