Kevorkian Speech Shows US Flag with Swastika
This says a lot that is wrong at our universities--where social outlaws are celebrated and given huge speaking fees--and with the murderer Jack Kevorkian. At his recent speech at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, he had an American flag behind him with the Swastika in the field of stars. From the story:
On Thursday night, Jack Kevorkian pulled another stunt in front of an audience of thousands at Nova Southeastern University: "Let's all say the Pledge of Allegiance," he said, then flipped a U.S. flag to reveal a replica on the other side with a swastika where the blue and stars would have been.Since Kevorkian's obsession was to conduct human experimentation on people he was euthanizing, perhaps he was speaking about himself with the flag stunt.
That thousands of people turned out to see him shows the decadent power of celebrity that is rotting decency and virtue in our culture.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:05 AM
10 Comments
10 Comments:
Of course, Kevorkian was justifying his own horrific vision for the world by arguing that the US has acted in ways akin to Nazi Germany...one of which, I guess, is not allowing him to carry out his dream of experimenting on hapless, despairing disabled people.
But, as Wesley notes, perhaps we should celebrate this particular segway into the atrocious-at least Kevorkian was providing a preview of where the US is headed of his vision becomes a reality, which people would consider if they ever bothered to study Nazi crimes against the handicapped.
At the same time debate was actually even occurring about the constitutionality of burning the American flag, with Ike's granddaughter on the side of the right to do it based on "the constitution," utilitarianism, the concept of legitimizing assisted suicide, "medical futility," Kevorkianism, and all the other attendant concepts and practices where taking hold.
The same constitutional rights and inadequacy of laws that are absolute about things that threaten good social order and those things that are most important allowed this guy to get out of jail and be running around loose free to pull this kind of stunt. This is the inverted, involuted, effete-snob stripe of "liberalism" that is, as SAFEPRES just pointed out, quite the opposite of true liberalism.
He should have been arrested on the spot. This is desecration of the flag, for starters.
What did we expect?
But I guess no one in the audience was inclined to call the cops, 911, etc., get up and punch the S.O.B. out, etc.
Who the, well, you know, does he think he IS?
If someone WANTS to die, how is that murder?
Michale Anissimov: Thanks for dropping by. Under the law you can't consent to be murdered. And if someone wants to be killed, that does not mean you can do it.
I remember when people were suicidal, the primary focus was on intervening to save their lives. Many people lived to tell the tale and were grateful. But I'm old. These days we don't give much of a darn.
I also note you just ignore the human experimentation issue. I have seent his with Kevorkian since 1993, by media and his supporters. It is as if it is too awful to really see. But, I guess if someone wants to be experimented upon, what's the problem?
I think there is a valid argument made that one cannot "choose to die" and be allowed to have one's choice honored under ANY circumstances. All law, and everything that goes on for all of us, happens between the boundaries of birth at one end of life and death at the other. The point of crossing over into life and the point of crossing over into death supersede manmade law; each is an inevitable part of the framework constructed by nature, or God, or whatever one wants to call it, within which manmade law is created in order to serve those who are between those two boundaries. Just as we cannot "choose" to be born, we cannot legitimately "choose to die." A house can't be a house if people are breaking down the wall on one side to get in and on the other side to get out; that would render it no longer capable of providing shelter, the purpose for which those who need to live in a house built it in the first place. It is not the province of the law to keep anyone from entering the house or enable them to leave it; the law is for the living, and it is subservient to the natural forces that created those who made it and that also govern their leaving the life the law is intended to serve.
That explains why legalizing assisted suicide would not be legitimate and puts at risk the lives of those who don't want assisted suicide; legalizing it undercuts the legitimacy of the law that is supposed to protect all of us. If people could just be logical about these "life issues" instead of dragging religion into them, it would be much easier to defeat the culture. It doesn't matter what created life, death, us, the other animals, the rest of the world; the salient point is that we didn't, and we make our laws, and we make them to serve us, and they don't have standing to legitimize the overriding of whatever it is that created us and is going to take us out in its own due time no matter what. That's WHY murder and manslaughter are illegal. That's what rights are based in. That's why the law is designed to protect the interests of those it was created to serve, who created it. That's why medical malpractice should be a criminal, not a civil, matter; our regarding it as a civil one is integral to and at the root of this whole mess we've got now which SHS was created in order to bring to light and discuss.
Human experimentation is a bad idea because people might sell their bodies and get hurt for financial gain. In that case, they have to be protected from themselves.
I'm only in support of assisted suicide in cases where someone has a terminal illness. So you wouldn't expect them to live through it. In other cases, I would definitely encourage someone to live and want assisted suicide to be prohibited.
I believe anyone at their end of their life who desired suicide probably would either be depressed, or have made a concious decision not to "burden" others. These both seem to be psychological, not physical, states. I haven't heard of any assisted suiciders who died cheerful and in good spirits. Suicide is pretty much always a miserable death. Shouldn't we want better for our loved ones and try to support and assure them every moment with them is precious? I think a happy person would have almost no upper limit for suffering that would part them from their loved ones. Although I know there may be exceptions, I think it takes it too far to make assisted suicide legal. A truly desperate person can kill themselves without help. How about not eating or drinking for starters?
Oh, the irony of the Nazi symbol.
Michael: The most primary instinct among not just humans, but as far as I know all species, is survival. A common reaction among those who try to commit suicide is immediate regret. Therefore it is reasonable to think that anyone wanting to die must have a mental health issue, and that it should be addressed as such: with support and proper treatment. Just because they want (or think they want) death, doesn't mean they are entitled to get it, or that anyone else is obligated to give it to them.
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