The Problem of Suffering

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The problem of human suffering is usually a central point of every one of the great religions. Mitigating it is at the basis of their regimen for human “uplifting.”

We’re not going to be discussing that, since I suspect even those of you of the same religion and I would get into a right big argument over what the best way of getting over suffering is, etc.

What we’re not going to allow as being valid is for the government to get in on the game. Why aren’t we going to allow that?

Because when governments try to mitigate the problem of “human suffering” be it suffering due to lack or suffering due to health or aging, the result is always the same.

When governments try to redistribute plenty to make sure everyone has enough, they end up killing their economy and killing thousands or millions of people with famine and the joi de vivre of the rest of the population with sheer grinding poverty. Not to mention the people who object to being despoiled or those who talk against he program must also be killed.

Then there is “killing to avoid suffering”.

What is this about? Well, X is awash in Canadians telling us all the people that MAID does away with under the auspices (hospices!) of the Canadian government “Were going to die anyway.”

Okay, so what they say mostly is that these people would have died “within the year”. Which, sure, some of them would. So what? Note not all of them. Note also that doctors can be wrong about that. I was told I was going to die anyway within the month so why not let them do the very risky procedure? Well, I didn’t, (or rather Dan forbid it, since I was half out of my mind) and that was 31 years ago. Almost half of my life at this point.

Beyond all that there is a sharp difference between “you will die in six months despite the best efforts of medicine” and “We’re not going to treat you, because there’s a wait list and it’s very expensive, so you’ll be dead in six months’ which most of the stories coming out of Canada sound like. And yes, I know that’s anecdotes but… the vibrant medical tourism to the US tells its own story.

And this is why I want government out of medicine in general, because once you become an expense on the public purse, they’re bound to find a way to not spend any more on you. Particularly if you’re one of the heretical non-believers in government. Or just unfashionable. At 33, with two small children (younger son was 1) and doing really heavy support on family and husband’s career even if I still hadn’t broken into writing so I had no income in cash, I was told that it didn’t matter if I died anyway, as I was just a housewife and a burden on my family. (Which is how they got my consent to the risky procedure, which consent Dan nullified and threatened to sue them into oblivion for, since I was very ill and they’d ganged up on me while he was away for an hour dealing with an emergency.) Fortunately they weren’t government doctors, so he could tell them to put it up their jumpers and I didn’t have the potentially lethal procedure done. Now that Colorado has an euthanasia law that made the AMA say “whoa, that’s too extreme!” they might have been more direct and be able to enforce it too, by non-treatment of the symptoms, if nothing else.

Oh, there’s other reasons for wanting government out of medicine, because everything government tries to “help” with get way more expensive. If government took over the Sahara to make sure everyone in the surrounding areas had enough sand, sand would soon become a rare and expensive commodity.

But to me the real problem is that the more medicine becomes enmeshed with the government, the more all of us become an entry in a column that says “debit” and the way to stop the debit is to kill us.

Besides, they’re being kind. There is real suffering. And they can stop it by killing you…

Except suffering is relative. Every time I consult a doctor and am near the top of one of the auto-immune outbreaks — often totally unrelated to why I went to the doctor — they look at the symptoms and panic and tell me something must be done about it. (We’re going to try another dealing with it method in two weeks or so.)

I do get this when they’re looking, say, at my entire back being raw flesh. It’s shocking to them, and it hurts and itches, so how am I living with it?

They’re always disconcerted when I say “Oh. It’s actually not one of the bad ones. I didn’t notice.” (The bad ones I have sores all over my body, and am spending substantial time awake due to that.) Because the context they like is that I’ve been dealing with this since I was one. This is life for me. I’ve had maybe a cumulative couple of years with no lesions somewhere in my body. (MUCH better when the celiac is not a factor, but still. Celiac and psoriasis run together apparently 85% of the time.) Some sores at my wrists and elbows are legit not noticed and the patches on my back have been that way for years, which means it’s annoying but it’s just life.

Suffering? Sure, but I don’t notice.

In the same way I’m sure if we exported my current level of random aches, pains and just general tiredness to myself at 20 I’d probably think I was dying, but right now I’m fine. No, seriously. I tune out pretty much all of it. Have had years of practice.

So what doctors or outsiders think is suffering isn’t necessarily so to the person experiencing it. Who are you to judge that they need to be killed to stop the misery? Particularly, who is some government official?

And don’t get me started on less physical suffering: depression, grief, lack of interest in anything. These are all things that have been used to justify MAID, even if in rare cases. One case is too many.

Look, this is not just piling on on Canadians, as much fun as that is. It’s that the same ideas are here.

I get that the current state of medical science can prolong the “dying” stage of life for months or years and look, at least from the outside, as though it is inflicting horrible suffering.

My Father in Law died by inches and it looked horrible to witness, and hurt all of us to see it. He’d done nothing to deserve that horrible ending. (And I have nightmares of Dan, who greatly resembles him, going that way.)

But that’s still not worth it giving someone external to the person the right to decide (or pressure, cajole and convince the person) it’s time to die. Or the means of that dying.

Because it always ends the same way. EVERY single time. It starts with what looks like, at least from outside, true compassionate intervention, and it always ends up with people getting killed in batch lots for the flimsiest of reasons. Ultimately to put them out of someone else’s suffering and expense.

As someone who has had bizarre “health” since I was born, and who often looks like she must be in great pain (it don’t make no nevermind.) and who is getting to a certain age, I feel personally endangered. But even if I didn’t, the results of a government being given the right to kill its people for whatever reason, including “to end their suffering.” are plain to see. It always ends in stacked corpses. And Canada and Europe are playing out the very old tragedy.

Agatha Christie said that when you’re very old and bed ridden, the young and vigorous might wish to free you of your suffering, but the old person just enjoyed being alive, breathing in and breathing out.

I’m not that old, yet. And I have trouble believing I’d be okay if I couldn’t work at all. (Fortunately my work is of a kind if all else fails I can just dictate very slowly.) But if I can work in some way, I know I’ll be enjoying that. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to the point that just being alive is enjoyment enough.

The point is that when people let the government take care of their health and well being, the answer to ending suffering seems to be always “death.” And the consent can always be manufactured.

For the record, I will never consent to being killed. No, just no. They might get my signature by brow beating me when I’m at my weakest, but it is meaningless.

I don’t know what comes after, but as long as I can be here, I’m going to be here. And working.

And I’m sorry if it inconveniences some bureaucrat.

105 thoughts on “The Problem of Suffering”

  1. In Unnatural Death, Dorothy Sayers has a murder victim who is a very old woman dying of cancer. And Peter Wimsey, her investigator, has qualms about trying to identify the murderer, saying that it didn’t really shorten the old woman’s life much and the harm doesn’t seem so great as to justify hanging. But the clergyman he talks with tells him, more or less, that he should also consider the effect of such a killing on the character of the killer.

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    2. Who is killing her for very practical, selfish reasons and who either attempts to murder Wimsey and does murder an innocent third party, then frames a completely harmless pastor for the crime.

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  3. Yes.  As a friend three years older than me often says, “This is as good as it gets.”

    The phrase “Come on, you sons of *, do you want to live forever?” is famously attributed to Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly of the U.S. Marine Corps.

    We either take it and like it or lie down and die.  And super bureaucrats who think classification fixes everything are the “Space N@zies” in my Anglo-Aurigan Conflict series.

    May we always remember which side we’re on.

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  5. This was one of the biggest reasons why my youngest – severely handicapped – daughter and I left Oregon. Because I was afraid, with reason, that if she was ever admitted to a hospital, she wouldn’t come out alive. I’ve had people (supposedly conservative people) tell me that her life is worthless. She’s not productive. Meaning, she doesn’t hold down a job and contribute to the economy. She’s a net drain, and requires a full-time caregiver. Leaving aside the fact that when she’s not having auto-immune issues (and I’m going to come back to those in a minute, Sarah), she’s a sweetheart, happy, interested in everything around her, and fun company. Even if that was never true, even if she was a ‘vegetable’ and barely aware, she’s still a human being. And any time that one human being murders another human being, they diminish their own soul. They also usurp God’s prerogative to begin and end lives in His own time, for His own reasons – and that is rebellion against God, which He says is ‘as the sin of witchcraft,’ in how seriously He views it.

    On the auto-immune issues, Sarah, I don’t know what you’ve tried – and I know I’ve recommended this before. But it’s worth mentioning again. Almost the ONLY thing that has really helped Juniper is a diet of just meat. No eggs, no grains or legumes, almost no vegetables (she can manage a little fermented sauerkraut once in a while, or some green beans cooked to a pulp, again, just once in a while). The only dairy that she can tolerate at all is fermented dairy. The one other thing that has helped is vitamin D supplements, but the diet change was orders of magnitude better. She, too, has issues with lesions – usually mostly on her face, but her back is badly scarred from them, too, and she gets them on her arms, and sometimes on her legs. They all go completely away when we stick to just eating meat. I have trouble keeping weight on her, but when I try to add something back in, hoping she’ll gain a few pounds, she ends up losing all of our progress. Severe brain fog (to where she seems barely aware of what’s going on around her); lesions return; a lot of screaming and crying; repetitive speech (I call it ‘scratched record syndrome’); can’t sleep; won’t eat anything (which removes any progress we had made in the weight department). (Yes, we are going through all of this right now – can you tell I’m tired and frustrated?!?)

    I don’t know if that would work for you, but I do know it has worked for a lot of people besides Juniper.

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      1. That’s funny, but I have almost the same problem. I did lose some weight initially, about 45 lbs, but then stalled out and haven’t been able to lose any more. Juniper and I eat almost exactly the same amount of food (she often gets more), and she keeps losing weight, and I have to be really careful or I’ll gain! I stay on the all-meat diet, for the most part, because when I go off of it, my own issues come back (the worst being severe muscle pain).

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        1. Also, I weigh more than twice as much as Juniper does. You would think that someone at one hundred pounds would at least be able to maintain their weight while eating the same amount of food as someone weighing 230 lbs. There’s no logic to it at all.

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      2. Celiacs is miserable and, almost always, diets intended to work with it cause weight gain due how weirdly (im)balanced they are. My boyfriend has it and I have adult onset type 1 diabetes (and a few other genetic health issues that I probably should be paying more attention to) so food in our household gets interesting. If you ever just want to vent about your situation in terms of cooking and homemade food let me know and I’ll be a sympathetic ear.

        Our respective diets and views on how to manage food have changed so much over the years, especially for me since where we live now is so far removed from the foods of my childhood. The compass needle in my mind that points home points to the sea and we are so far from it right now.

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          1. Diabetic type two, two back surgeries, both fusions, one failed, sciatic nerve damage and I live in constant pain. I may not be able to run and slide into home plate at the finish, but by god I can walk, even with a cane, back brace and knee braces on. The constant pain is the reason for my bouts of anger and foot in mouth disease but I am still trying to get better, that’s the point. Even with all my problems their is someone worse of than me and I am still trying to get better.

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      3. OTOH, my stepson married a militant vegan who persuaded him to give it a try and his psoriasis cleared right up.

        (I think she’s a little too militant, though in her favor she did feed the kids meat when they were young).

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        1. Has your stepson been on the vegan diet for long? Does he continue to do well? I’m really leery of that one – as a Bible-believing Christian, I recognize that we were originally created to eat plants – and just plants. But both the plants and our bodies have changed a lot in the intervening time since Creation! A while back, I saw a doctor talking about a study that had been done – MRI’s of the brains of vegans showed noticeable, measurable shrinkage of the brain after just a year on a vegan diet. That makes sense, because the brain is largely made of fat, and a vegan diet has no fat from animal sources at all. Vegetable fats don’t work the same way in our cells.

          I’m really glad to hear that the lady did give meat to her children, though.

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            1. I would not be at all surprised if, once we get to heaven, we learn that God had put plants in the Garden of Eden that provided far more complete protein than today’s plants (most of which are missing at least one important amino acid, and vegans need to carefully balance their diet to be healthy — which not all of them do well enough, hence why you can sometimes spot the vegans in the room even before they tell you about it, because they’re obviously deficient in protein. Not always, some of them do balance their diet well enough to get a complete protein, but some of them don’t).

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              1. Encountered a less-than-healthy Vegetarian some years back. “I suppose you’re going to on about protein.” “No. With modern world wide transport, getting quantities of protein from plants isn’t all that difficult.* The question is where do you get vitamin B12?”

                * I said quantity, not necessarily the right proteins.

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                1. Which is why “Let them eat bugs!” is so stupid (in addition to being evil). Bug protein is low quality, as well as resource intensive. Bugs spend a great deal of nutrients and energy growing and shedding their chitin exoskeletons — which are indigestible, even by other bugs. Only a very few bacteria and fungi can break down chitin.

                  We evolved as omnivores. Which means we eat anything that doesn’t eat us first. Our digestive systems are far more efficient at turning meat into meat than turning plants into meat. Plants are what food eats! 😁

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                  1. Was at the pet store the other day and saw some fish food being advertised as being made mostly from crickets, for fish that normally eat insects. That use of bugs to make food makes perfect sense: those animals are designed to digest insect exoskeletons. (Or in some cases, I suspect, designed to pass them through their digestive system so that they fall to the ocean floor and provide nutrients to the plants growing in the soil below. Earth’s ecosystem is a complex mix of interlocking components, and only its Designer knows perfectly how all the parts fit together. Humans don’t live long enough to possibly know more than a small part of the complex web that makes up the ecosystem).

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                    1. Animals that evolved to eat plants have much longer and more complex digestive systems than carnivores. A giraffe, for example, has a 4-chambered stomach and 250 feet of very skinny intestines to extract nutrients from leaves.

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                    2. Which is interesting because obviously herbivores had to come first.

                      Perhaps the pressure of escaping carnivores drove more efficient extraction.

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                    3. There were carnivores in the sea long before there were any animals on land. (see Anomalocaris) Predator pressure undoubtedly contributed to the original March From The Sea, after which the various critters continued to evolve and specialize.

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                    4. Yes, but there were herbivores in the sea first, because until there were enough herbivores, carnivores would starve.

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                    5. Makes more sense to me that carnivores evolved by way of omnivores, starting with herbivores that supplemented their menus with a little opportunistic predation or scavenging here and there. Ever seen a video of a cow eating a snake? Plus, we all know about pigs.

                      Thus, early omnivores were not dependent on prey, but did incorporate other critters into their diets on an ad-hoc basis. Some of them eventually evolved into full carnivores such as crocodiles and cats.

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      4. Another thing to consider (may seem peripheral) is the difference between grass finished and grain finished. If you have a grain sensitivity your body may be reacting to that.

        They thought my friend’s son was allergic to beef, until they tried grass finished beef. I don’t know how it communicates, but somehow your body knows the difference.

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        1. We don’t have meat allergies, but I notice that I feel better if pork and chicken aren’t the largest part of our diet, and both of those (commercially grown) are raised almost exclusively on grains and legumes. I’d like to try pastured pork, but don’t have a source/can’t afford grass-fed right now. (We manage a tight budget and a mostly-all-meat diet by being very careful and buying the cheapest chicken, pork, and ground beeef.) I could get grass-fed beef, but it’s almost twice the price of the hamburger that we are getting at the store.

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        2. My Father was severely allergic to Soy.

          In consequence, he couldn’t eat pork anymore. The pigs are largely fed on soybean meal. When he ate it, he had the same digestive problems as eating soy.

          It’s weird how cross-contamination can happen.

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          2. Make sure he does not accidentally play the new “Wolverine” video game. Totally chock full of soy. Gamers reviewing it are calling it “Soyverine”.

            Just viewing the opening menu would probably necessitate an EpiPen.

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  6. Do not go gentle into that good night.

    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    or

    Never give up! Never surrender!

    As for me, I’m going to live forever or die trying. In which case, as Ahnold says, I’ll be Bock. PTL

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  7. I am approaching the 8th anniversary of a series of small heart attacks that cumulatively blew a massive hole between my ventricles.

    It felt like pleurisy, so I went to the Urgent Care clinic to get some antibiotics. The doctor informed me that I was having a heart attack and must get to the ER right away. He did not allow my wife to drive, so I had the novel experience of riding in an ambulance at speed with lights and sirens while she drove by herself, panicked and alone.

    Upon arrival they were unable to stabilize me and attempted to intubate me. My fought just the way my cat fights such intrusions on his body autonomy. Luckily, my honey persuaded me that I was at risk of brain damage and wouldn’t be schmart anymore. Vanity prevailed, on condition they give me a clip board and pen to voice my demands and complaints. (I still have that chronicle … )

    The blessed Dr Guber broke my ribs, gingerly lifted my broken heart out of the chest cavity and held it up to the Maya gods to admire. Then he patched the hole with bovine tissue and medical superglue and attached a bypass. Despite his efforts, I was not expected to survive.

    A couple of days later, they pulled the tube out. A nurse gave my son an orange popsicle to slowly and gently feed me. It was ambrosia, a taste of paradise, the ur refreshment. I frightened my son with my greediness for the sensation.

    In subsequent dark moments that memory of the orange popsicle has sustained me.

    The expedient “assistance” to a dying patient robs the human of that orange popsicle experience which suffering does NOT preclude.

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  8. “If government took over the Sahara to make sure everyone in the surrounding areas had enough sand, sand would soon become a rare and expensive commodity.”And they’d blame ‘climate change’. After doing extensive multimillion dollar studies at the finest Universities.

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    1. They’d also blame everyone to the right of Mao, everyone who held to any kind of faith, and anyone who didn’t change his deepest-held beliefs every time some picayuneaucrat issued a press release.

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    1. Same here. I made a private stubborn resolve to live long enough to get two years of military pension for every year that I was in … and yeah, some of those years were fun and fine and I got to travel and live in interesting places … but there were many months and years that were not fun and fine, and my own AFSC basically sucked donkey balls towards the end… so, yeah.

      Anyway – to Sarah’s point: to a physician in private practice, a patient is an income source for every year and month that they live, no matter how ailing – so, every reason to bend every effort to keep them alive. But to a government-financed medical establishment (or to an insurance company), a chronic patient is a money sink. An ongoing debit on the books. So, of course and in the end, when means become restricted, the inclination will slide towards reducing those debits. By any means required.

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        1. Mom has lived 30 years, and counting, past hers. She as pulled more from her Oregon PERS plan than the amount she contributed and the amount the state government provided. Same with SS; only with SS it is hers plus dad’s.

          FWIW, when dad died, mom lost $200/month net income, max. (Dropped her SS, no longer paid for dad’s SS insurance or the outside monthly insurance they paid to keep the state insurance). Former was about $550/month. Latter two were about $450/month. This is really unusual.

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  10. My answer to euthanasia is the same one that Gandalf gave to Frodo about Gollum: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7475611-i-am-sorry-said-frodo-but-i-am-frightened-and

    “I am sorry,’ said Frodo. But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’

    You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in.

    ‘No, and I don’t want to, said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’

    ‘Deserves it!’ I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all end.” – The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

    If Gollum deserves Pity and Mercy to live, how much more does the bedridden grandmother or the grief-stricken husband? How much more the depressed teenager or anxiety-riddled mother? How very much more the innocent unborn child, or the one newly entered into the world?

    Yet the same people who would clamor to give Pity and Mercy to multiple Gollums time after time would see death as the greater Pity and Mercy for the innocent relative to the guilty. NO. It’s good enough for everyone or it is good enough for no one. You don’t get it both ways! :raises sword: Forth Eorlingas!

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    2. And after all, it was Gollum who actually put The Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Would Frodo have actually carried through on the mission, or would he have succumbed at the last to temptation?

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      1. Technically, Frodo did succumb. If Gollum hadn’t bitten his ring-finger off and danced to the edge, Sauron would have won. If Gollum had that part to play, how much more might someone “suffering” be able to affect the world even from their sick bed?

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        1. And of course Gollum broke his promise (by the Precious) not to harm Master. Which of course he had broken by biting Frodo’s finger off. Frodo even warned him that swearing by the One Ring was a dangerous thing. Ultimately, the Ring’s own perfidious nature played a role in its ultimate demise. Tolkien really LOVED to plot. He also hated half-assed prophecy like Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane and Macduff not being “Born of woman” which is fudged around by Caesarean delivery, both of which Tolkien reframes.

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      2. It was actually obvious from the beginning that, no, Frodo was not going to be able to finish the mission. Way back in Chapter 2 of Fellowship, before Gandalf told Frodo exactly what was involved in destroying the ring, Frodo said he’d destroy it by tossing it into his fireplace…and he couldn’t do it. No matter how much he tried to tell himself that the ring was evil incarnate, every time he tried to throw it into the fire, he ended up putting in his pocket instead.

        I spent all of Fellowship and Two Towers wondering how they were going to get around that problem. If Frodo couldn’t do it back then, how much less likely was it he could manage after carrying the ring around for several months, and with the ring knowing that it was going to be thrown into something that would actually destroy it?

        I do wonder what Gandalf’s plan for destroying the ring was, having witnessed Frodo’s earlier failure. Maybe it’s best not to know…

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        1. I suspect that Gandalf’s plan from the start was to maneuver everything into position as best he could, and trust the greater powers to cover the parts that he could not.

          And they evidently did.

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        3. It is not like Gollum intended to destroy the ring when he did. It just happened because Gollum fell into the lava with the ring.

          In the end, the true hero, Sam, saved Frodo from following Gollum and the ring into the pit.

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  11. I have mentioned how my FIL and an uncle have died in the past.

    If MAID had been available for either at the time of their deaths, pretty sure both would have died months or years before they did.

    FIL was bound and determined to see the next grandchild born. That he did not make it was not for lack of trying.

    Uncle died within months of grandma, his mother dying. Not that anyone knows for sure, because not able to communicate at all, but pretty sure he had it in his mind that his mother should not have to bury a child, not matter how old the child was.

    Dad fought until the end.

    I could give more examples. Lets just say during my surgery I did not have a DNR attached.

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  12. “And don’t get me started on less physical suffering: depression, grief, lack of interest in anything.”

    On the latter, I’ve always believed that there exists a certain amount of arrogance poorly hidden within depression and its bitter bedfellows. Sure, I am no great shakes of a man. Not as active anymore, always tired and in pain, forgetful, grumpy, and various bits of brain bruising or damage or whatnot they’re calling it these days. But no high villain am I. No sir, no bodies bigger than a especially enormous jackrabbit buried in the backyard kill ditch. Might’ve hurt somebody’s feelings once, but that was far away.

    Depression tells you that you’re the worst and that nothing will ever get better. The evidence of the world denies this most vehemently. First of all, the title of “the worst” is hotly contested and unless we start polling the toddlers who have just been told that, no, they cannot eat the ice cream in the store right now, then thou and I are not in the running. Secondly, things improve all the time. Even things that touch us individually.

    If you ask a severely depressed person if they want to die, then like as not you’ll find at least a few yesses amongst us. Me, I’ve got a good bit of living yet to do. As far as deserve goes, I’ve got chores yet with my name on them and tasks that want doing, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, and I’d dearly love to get back to writing again.

    The government has got no business doing half or more what it does now, let alone poking around at bumping off a few of its taxpaying citizens for the funzies. None. I don’t trust a bureaucrat to stamp a form correctly nine times out of ten. I’ve a similar amount of healthy distrust of “experts,” having dealt with a few during paying hours myself.

    For what it’s worth, spite and stubbornness may be a poor substitute for purpose and meaning, but they’ll get you through a bad spot in a pinch so’s you can go and search out the good stuff later. Sometimes you have to be mean about living if you want to stay on the right side of the dirt. Even if it hurts some blue haired booby’s blubbering boo-boo. Actually, that might be a bit schadenfreudious, but so be it.

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    1. Many years ago, I had a serious bout of depression. For reasons, it was A Very Bad Idea to talk it over with my mother (who was under weapons-grade stress), and Aunt B was out of town. (Talked to her at the end of the weekend and got useful clues.)

      First, I considered drinking my woes away. One bottle of Jaegermeister down the sink (in retrospect, my stomach was a lot happier). Then I contemplated ballistic measures. That gun safe was really hard to get the combination right, but after a few tries, the dispenser was locked away.

      No, beyond a few milliseconds, I was not ready to die. Now in physically more pain, but mentally, I’m doing all right. Yeah, stubbornness and a smidgen of spite can help break through the rough patches.

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      1. I had no idea how to do a job search after college and got very depressed because nothing I tried worked. I too considered ballistic measures one night, locked away in my bedroom because I couldn’t bear to be up front with family. I wound up praying for a sign that I was not utterly worthless.

        The next day I got a letter from the Gainesville Sun that they were buying an article I had sent to them six months earlier. I got $20 and my byline in the paper.

        I still had a long, painful slog before getting that job with DoD, but I no longer felt worthless. If Himself was going to manipulate the Posal Serrvice on my behalf….

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          1. That’s right. I got no guidance from the university. Mind you, it was the mid 1970s.

            I believe Job Search 1010 should be a required course for graduation.

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  13. “And don’t get me started on less physical suffering: depression, grief, lack of interest in anything.”

    On the latter, I’ve always believed that there exists a certain amount of arrogance poorly hidden within depression and its bitter bedfellows. Sure, I am no great shakes of a man. Not as active anymore, always tired and in pain, forgetful, grumpy, and various bits of brain bruising or damage or whatnot they’re calling it these days. But no high villain am I. No sir, no bodies bigger than a especially enormous jackrabbit buried in the backyard kill ditch. Might’ve hurt somebody’s feelings once, but that was far away.

    Depression tells you that you’re the worst and that nothing will ever get better. The evidence of the world denies this most vehemently. First of all, the title of “the worst” is hotly contested and unless we start polling the toddlers who have just been told that, no, they cannot eat the ice cream in the store right now, then thou and I are not in the running. Secondly, things improve all the time. Even things that touch us individually.

    If you ask a severely depressed person if they want to die, then like as not you’ll find at least a few yesses amongst us. Me, I’ve got a good bit of living yet to do. As far as deserve goes, I’ve got chores yet with my name on them and tasks that want doing, good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, and I’d dearly love to get back to writing again.

    The government has got no business doing half or more what it does now, let alone poking around at bumping off a few of its taxpaying citizens for the funzies. None. I don’t trust a bureaucrat to stamp a form correctly nine times out of ten. I’ve a similar amount of healthy distrust of “experts,” having dealt with a few during paying hours myself.

    For what it’s worth, spite and stubbornness may be a poor substitute for purpose and meaning, but they’ll get you through a bad spot in a pinch so’s you can go and search out the good stuff later. Sometimes you have to be mean about living if you want to stay on the right side of the dirt. Even if it hurts some blue haired booby’s blubbering boo-boo. Actually, that might be a bit schadenfreudious, but so be it.

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  14. “So I figured out. ‘Jail.’ If this is a rejuvenation suite WHERE’S MYSUICIDE SWITCH?”
    “Lazarus—’Death is every man’s privilege.'”
    “That’s what I said! That switch belongs right there; you can see where it has been dismounted. So I’m in jail
    without trial, with my most basic right taken from me. Why? I’m furious, man”

    The problem isn’t the person having the option to end their own life.
    The problem is government having PROGRAMS to help you end your own life.
    The problem is the government having INCENTIVE for helping you end your own life.

    Government shouldn’t be permitted anywhere near medicine.
    The FDA should be an advisory agency at best, not a regulatory agency.
    I’f I’m I’m at deaths door dying form something exotic and I want to try an experimental medicine or treatment that’s my choice, not the government’s.
    If I’m dying from something routine and I want to refuse treatment, also my damn choice.
    I own “me”.
    I get to decide what PMCS* I do or do not get, as long as I can pay for them.

    *Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services. :)

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  15. My decades of experience in palliative care do not provide any support for euthanasia as a reasonable and necessary solution for suffering of humans. It is a sad solution at times for animal companions.

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  16. Even though, while closing in on mandatory withdrawals from my IRA, I’m still rather healthy abnnd active, I will say “Waking up in the morning is the victory. Everything esle is just icing on the cake.”

    Sure, someday I’ll wake up dead, but as I’m not Aragorn, I can’t choose the time of my passing. When it happens, I’ll deal with it.

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    1. All the medical care and pension-like systems were created and are being run on many decades past functional definitions of “old age” and “senior citizen.” Many people have noted the apparent age thing in old photos, where age 60 from decades past looks like current day 90. And the data supports a similar shift in functional aging, with the various hits-like-a-brick diseases still removing individuals, but surviving those leaves modern 60 and 70 and 80 year olds still playing pickleball and actively traveling sans walkers.

      But to those systems, 60 is done working and 70 is way, way out at the narrow tail of the demographic bell curve, so the system decision will be to save resources for those with more productive tax paying years before them and ration, and then at the first issue that arises, invoke MAID or local equivalent so as to preserve the productive tax base that feeds the system.

      It’s a classic non-adapting system problem – things change, but the system can’t.

      Some of the constraints keeping the system from changing are owned by those at the benefit end of that system, having planned their work life around the rules at that time and politically powerful with opinions about any changes. But some are internal, driven by the original design of the system that was based solely on then-current situation, and in part by the inevitable self preservation imperative of any complex system not explicitly structured to be self-sacrificial.

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      2. I was a bureaucrat and while I wanted to use my power of sarcasm on some of the troops who sent in 2028s (Tech manual problem reports) that suggested they hadn’t read the manual, I did not go out of my way to inconvenience them.

        My least favorite Big Aerospace Contractor, now….well, I didn’t “inconvenience,” them so much as insist they actually meet their contractual obligations. It did not make me popular at the Project Manager’s office.

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  18. “Because it always ends the same way. EVERY single time. It starts with what looks like, at least from outside, true compassionate intervention, and it always ends up with people getting killed in batch lots for the flimsiest of reasons.”

    Leftist thinking in a nutshell. Well said.

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  19. If you want to know how wonderful having the government take charge of your health is, ask any of us veterans about the VA.

    V/R William Lehman ________________________________

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    2. My fool Uncle and Aunt, both now passed, wanted Canuck style Healthcare , because he hated the New Orleans VA and refused to use it, while she used Charity Hospital/Louisiana State Health free clinics (lying about income and marriage status to get it free), and if the folks running that ran it all, it’d certainly become like Ochsner and Methodist, because reasons.

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  20. Who is the customer? I am part of a medical reassurance (as in, I pay cash and get reimbursed) pool. So I am the physicians’ customer. That makes a BIG difference. Even at the hospital, when I had GI surgery, I paid by check, and the bill dropped by almost 3/4. Yes, it was a chunk of change up front, but in the long term it was and is worth it.

    Who is useless? I will always remember the son of dear family friends. He was functionally a 12 month old his entire life. He also smiled at everyone, was happy a lot of the time, and his care givers said that he was a blessing to them and to others. Did he pay taxes and do work? Technically, no. Did his life make the world a better place? According to the people who were around him the most, it did.

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    1. My gynecological clinic informed me that they no longer take Medicare patients. Note, they were happy to have me the last five years, when it was Medicare.

      I offered to pay cash. They said no, they don’t do that either, go to the hospital and try their clinic.

      I haven’t yet, need to, and remain ticked at my firmer clinic.

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  21. I don’t see any difference between consenting to be killed and suicide. Oddly enough, suicide in Islam is forbidden, but martyrdom is not considered suicide; it’s okay to die in the process of taking your enemies with you.

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  22. How about this?

    I’ve had to watch Dad get a heart valve put in and a pacemaker as well this month after he had chest pains. (Heart stenosis and an eventual replacement was known, and the “eventually” became “right fucking now” that week.) Still fighting to not overwork himself while he heals (the joys of modern surgery. No rib-cage cracking for anything, which I think he would have slowed down for). Having a serious reaction to that, not the least of which is yet another round of purging and cleaning. Oh, and a garage freezer for bulk storage (because California is run by idiots).

    My sister’s club foot has meant she lives on a tilted pelvis (leg is too long for a thicker shoe, too short for anything to push it, insufficient cartilage to lengthen the bone), neurological issues that means she’s on heavy-duty anti-seizure medications and starting to reach menopause. Oh, and she’s failing at quitting smoking-found her hidden smokes in her car, the one with every kind of scent-killer in it. Thus, she has almost no energy at the end of the day and a clear medical record on why she doesn’t.

    And I’m the only real able-bodied member of the family left. Pre-diabetic and trying to get off of that. Needing to have a certain amount of sugar and caffeine to function daily, which contradicts this. Trying to get my blood pressure and weight under control, when food is one of my few joys. High-functioning autistic with a Dad who-
    *Despite being interviewed by a psychiatrist about this,
    *Despite living with me for my entire life,
    *Despite knowing my issues and trying to explain to him what’s going on (including my best example of being a manual transmission car in an automatic transmission world),
    -doesn’t believe that I’m autistic because I’m “able to function so well in the world.” And most of my issues are-by extension-just me not quite understanding how to do the work. It’s not a lack of skill, just a lack of opportunity to use the skills.

    And I have too many books. Too many things. Too much stuff. Which clearly needs to be trimmed down at some point.

    (He said that after he got home from the hospital for his heart valve replacement. That he said this…)

    If I was the sort of person who believed in God, I would be angry because for whatever His skills are at…something, He is a fucking incompetent engineer who clearly built for planned obsolescence. And no way to transfer to something else and try again on better hardware when the time comes.

    And that I cannot stand.

    I cannot stand even less the people trying to pretend they are God because they look good in a suit and can trick 50.1% of the people into voting for them or stealing the votes for them.

    Sometimes these decisions have to be made. And because of this fucked-up world that was made this way, death is sometimes a mercy.

    But the people who would try to make these decisions are…not people I would trust to make any decision like that. None of them are. None of them should, and they shouldn’t.

    They have no mercy. Just a desire for power, and they will wear any mask that lets them exercise that power.

    Even if the mask is piety and mercy-and it rubs their face bloody raw.

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  23. Even my “I hate politics, and they’re all the same!” co-worker said to our youngster about the Canuks, “I hate our healthcare here, BUT! Before you say anything good about Canadian Healthcare, you need to talk to a Canadian who’s had to use it” and I said all he needed to do was run up to Sault St. Marie and drive into the parking lot of the Hospital and look all at the Canuck Plates therein.

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    1. I had to wait close to three months, with the delays, for my open heart surgery valve replacement. Antidote via FB private support groups, those with *government health care get to wait a year or more to be scheduled. … A year? I would have been dead, as fast as mine deteriorated between original scheduled and the two weeks to actual surgery.

      (*) Canada, and Australian were two examples.

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      1. Don’t forget the infamous British National Health, where if they refuse your child treatment for a rare disorder, you will be arrested for seeking medical services in America at your own expense, and thrown in jail until the child dies.

        Or Italy, where ‘due to the unprecedented Public Health Crisis of COVID19’ everybody over 70 was denied any access to medical services for almost a year, even if they tried to pay for it themselves.

        When The Almighty Government decrees that you are not worthy of their ‘Free! Health Care’, you are forbidden to seek alternatives on your own dime.

        As for ‘Free!’, I saw an episode of Holmes & Holmes about a Canadian couple who were unable to fix their crumbling house because the wife’s ‘Free!’ health care for a chronic gynecological condition was costing them over $18,000 a year. Canadian dollars, but still.

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    2. Socialized medicine is getting your healthcare through the DMV. My cousin in Ireland survived breast cancer and is very blunt about the fact that she would have died did she not have private supplemental insurance and that her brother was a doctor in The hospital. It’s a mess. IF you’re in Europe, don’t get sick or break something on Friday night because they won’t see you until Monday.

      I’m not at all surprised that Canada is murdering sick people, Aktion T4 is inevitable under socialism.

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      1. Yep. In Portugal my parents have/lived as long as they have/did because they have supplemental insurance and go private. This despite having a lot of contacts in the medical bureaucracy, due to to relatives.
        It took me… two years to get my wisdom teeth pulled. They were growing almost upside down, downward into the jaw. My marks for my second year in college suffered “a leetle” from my waking up in the middle of the night with horrible pain and spending half the day zonked on pain killers. To make things “better” I had to go and wait every morning, until my name was called, to confirm a) I was still alive. b) I still needed surgery. (No they didn’t trust anyone’s say so. They had to see me.) Which meant I missed any morning lectures. By third year, I’d learned to borrow notes and fake it but ARGH.
        It was just how long it took to work through the line. At the time there was no private option in country. My host parents offered to have me fly to the US and have the surgery done, then fly back within a month, but we couldn’t afford that. (Because Portuguese money was worth as much as bottle caps.)
        I hated socialized medicine before that, but this did not improve it.
        “Aktion T4 is inevitable under socialism.” – The simple truth, spoken plainly.

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      2. an Ex got Tonsilitis while still a senior in Highschool (the home’s insurer dropped “adults” at 18. That they were still in school and unable to work, mattered not) so to Charity(now LSU Medical) ER she was hied via Taxi. she went in at 6am, and at a bit before midnight, she was seen. I saved the house lady the taxi fee back as I’d sat with her after getting off work at 6pm. Old lady having a heart attack in front of her, popped nitro like it was tic tacs, showed at 10 am and was seen at just before 11pm! Now, show up in Cuffs or (and often enough) bleeding profusely, they would see you on the faster side.

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  24. (Disclaimer – I’m in the deep end of grief, and so everything is hitting me harder than it normally does. Please take with a grain of salt)

    On August 24th, 2026, my oldest sister died after an agonizing six month battle with Pancreatic Cancer.

    By the beginning of August, the cancer had metastasized to her kidneys and liver. She had lost more than half her body weight. She could barely shuffle to the bathroom with the help of a walker. She was in constant pain that Fentanyl + Oxy + morphine couldn’t control.

    I live 350 miles away, and was making the 6+ hour trip every two to three weeks.

    One would think that being in so much constant pain and having nothing in her future but an agonizing death, she would want to end it all.

    No.

    Every single time I was there, my sister ended up crying on my shoulder and saying over and over again “I don’t want to die.”

    (My heart broke so many times the last few months.)

    All I could tell her to reassure her was that we would take good care of her two young adult daughters in her place. I think that made her feel better. I’m not sure.

    When her final day arrived, she waited until both her girls had gotten to her bedside before she let go and passed.

    (I thought with all the heartbreak we went through before she died, it would be easier afterwards. I was wrong. I’m still swimming in the deep end of grief.)

    What I’m trying to say here is that even people who others would expect to be embracing physician assisted suicide – they don’t want it. They have things to keep living for.

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    2. Sorry for your loss. Condolences and prayers.

      SIL and a BIL went the same way. Also with cancer. Both fought until the end. SIL’s oldest daughter’s family was prepping to move her to their place, but she died before everything was in place. BIL was held out for the last Christmas, and until after the New Year. Made the first, did not make the second. He died before we could get there. We would have made it, but Grandma did not wake up the day after Christmas. So we had to wait until after the New Year to head south (drove aunt home after grandma’s funeral, then head further south to help SIL with her preparations).

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  25. Dear Canadians, something to consider, if they want to MAID you, take a few liberal politicians with you when you go. Because if the goal is to end suffering you would certainly be ending the suffering of the People which is their goal right? And don’t worry, it is Sharia compliant. (tongue firmly planted in cheek)

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