Suicide

[Seth]

The deeper philosophical question that RiverF opens is upon what basis does society, or other individuals, presume to interfere in the sovereign decisionmaking of the individual about the course, or end of his life?

Religious objections are usually based in a "Lèse-majesté" rationale that presumes that the individual is the servant or vassal of the controlling power of society, be it a God, a Marxist directorate, an elected body or merely one's superior at work.

The fundamental assumption in all anti-suicide beliefs is the implicit assumption that the individual has a duty to society to survive. The question we have to ask then is why does a person have a duty to survive? Most often it's because the assumption is that the individual owes a duty of labor to the society of some kind or other, and that the collective would suffer if it permitted anyone who wanted to exit the society, either through emigration or suicide, to just leave.

This thought pattern is pervasive, right down to the family level, where the second most often heard question after "why did he do it" is "how could he be so selfish?", as if his life was the chattel of others.

This is why I maintain that suicide is the ultimate freedom and the right to commit suicide unopposed and uninterfered with is the most basic and fundamental human right anyone can have, and that any society that presumes to interfere with that decision is axiomatically acting not in the interests of the individual, but in the interests of everyone else to the detriment of the individual.

You lose that right when you become so infirm that you can no longer take any life-ending action unilaterally and have to rely on others to do it for you. What then? DO you support or oppose assisted suicide in such circumstances?

Yes, I absolutely support assisted suicide for everyone. One should be able to walk into a pharmacy and ask for a "death pill" and have it handed over at government expense with no questions asked. Only catch is you have to take it right then...to prevent them being used for murder. Alternatively, as in "Logan's Run," one should be able to go to a "suicide center" and go out peacefully, perhaps at the peak of an orgasm with a beautiful hospice hooker.

People who want to die should be not only allowed to die, but assisted to do so if that's their wish.

If it's just a "cry for help," they should of course be given whatever psychological help they need, but if they are asked by the euthanasia technician "are you absolutely certain that you want to die right now, and do you explicitly reject any sort of counseling or mental health care" and the answer is "yes," then that decision should be respected.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

The deeper philosophical question that RiverF opens is upon what basis does society, or other individuals, presume to interfere in the sovereign decisionmaking of the individual about the course, or end of his life?

Religious objections are usually based in a "Lèse-majesté" rationale that presumes that the individual is the servant or vassal of the controlling power of society, be it a God, a Marxist directorate, an elected body or merely one's superior at work.

The fundamental assumption in all anti-suicide beliefs is the implicit assumption that the individual has a duty to society to survive. The question we have to ask then is why does a person have a duty to survive? Most often it's because the assumption is that the individual owes a duty of labor to the society of some kind or other, and that the collective would suffer if it permitted anyone who wanted to exit the society, either through emigration or suicide, to just leave.

This thought pattern is pervasive, right down to the family level, where the second most often heard question after "why did he do it" is "how could he be so selfish?", as if his life was the chattel of others.

This is why I maintain that suicide is the ultimate freedom and the right to commit suicide unopposed and uninterfered with is the most basic and fundamental human right anyone can have, and that any society that presumes to interfere with that decision is axiomatically acting not in the interests of the individual, but in the interests of everyone else to the detriment of the individual.

You lose that right when you become so infirm that you can no longer take any life-ending action unilaterally and have to rely on others to do it for you. What then? DO you support or oppose assisted suicide in such circumstances?

Yes, absolutely.

You absolutely support or oppose it!

[camoguard]

I'd work out some complex scheme for determining if people got their pill. The younger you are, the less I might judge a person as being capable of ending their life. But let's say the worst case scenario, a person has to wait a month. And in the best case scenario, a person gets the assisted death pill right away. That would be about what I'd want.

[Seth]

Personally I believe I 'own' my own life and if I want to end it at any time that is up to me. If I were suffering mental health issues which needed attention I would hope to get help with them of course first.

One thing however that we have not touched on I don't think is the impact on those around the person who has killed themselves. I have known a number of people, including a couple of good friends whose close family have killed themselves leaving their relations and friends confused, puzzled and feeling guilty and angry. Some of those have experienced the suicide almost as an 'assault' on themselves, however unjustified a reaction that might seem.

Survivors should be offered mental health assistance of course, but at the core, what's needed is a society-wide deeply held respect for the sovereignty of the individual and his or her choices. Most of the pain caused by suicide is essentially selfish. People lay expectations on others and feel cheated when those expectations are met. Often they are unrealistic expectations and demands that interfere with the free will of another. People feel compelled and stressed by these perhaps unsolicited demands and expectations, and while such expectations might in some cases stave off suicide because of a sense of personal responsibility, that should always be an internal choice, not something imposed by society or one's loved ones.

The thing that's missing in ALL collectivist societies, and even in one such as the US, is a fundamental societal respect for the sovereignty and liberty of the individual to do with and dispose of their own life however they see fit.

[Seth]

You absolutely support or oppose it!

You beat me to the edit...

[Seth]

The fundamental assumption in all anti-suicide beliefs is the implicit assumption that the individual has a duty to society to survive. The question we have to ask then is why does a person have a duty to survive? Most often it's because the assumption is that the individual owes a duty of labor to the society of some kind or other, and that the collective would suffer if it permitted anyone who wanted to exit the society, either through emigration or suicide, to just leave.

This thought pattern is pervasive, right down to the family level, where the second most often heard question after "why did he do it" is "how could he be so selfish?", as if his life was the chattel of others.

I'd say especially so at the family level - usually the tightest and most inter-dependent unit our social species adopts.

So how integral was his life to those around him? If he's the breadwinner of a family, with a wife and four children aged 3 to 9, then ending his life voluntarily without warning is entirely selfish - "It's what I want and sod the rest of you". Contrast to if the children are aged 23 to 29 - one could argue the responsibilities he took on as a father are now over, and the impact of his death would be far less.

His life may not belong to anyone else, but others may well be dependent on him to various degrees.

The only degree of dependence with which I would agree is minor children. One does, when creating children, voluntarily take on a duty and obligation to those children, and it might be acceptable to require mandatory mental health counseling of a parent of minor children before permitting suicide for the benefit and on the behalf of the children.

As for adults, no adult has a right to impose such a burden on another adult. Each adult is responsible for him or herself and has a plenary right to end their life if they so choose. They may have moral, ethical or religious beliefs that interfere with this right, but that's an internal decision by the individual, who may choose to say "I cannot commit suicide because I have moral, ethical or religious obligation not to." But that obligation must and can only be self imposed, not imposed by others.

[Seth]

Inuit, friendo.

The term Eskimo is still in common use, and particularly in Alaska to include both Yupik and Inupiat. No universal term other than Eskimo, inclusive of all Inuit and Yupik people, exists for the Inuit and Yupik peoples.

Aboriginal.
Local original.
IWasHereFirstAsshole.

Except that if they are younger than me, they WERE NOT here first.

Just because one's ANCESTORS lived in a particular place for a long time does not, I'm afraid, vest perpetual rights of occupation to that place for the descendants. Land is for the living, not the dead. Dead ancestors don't give anyone superior rights to occupancy of anything.

I'm every bit a Native American because I was born on US soil. Where my grandparents or my umpty-great grandparents were born is utterly irrelevant... otherwise I can claim aboriginal rights of citizenship in Sweden, Germany and Scotland.

[Seth]

I don't know why death metal fans and libertarians don't just kill themselves. For the libertarian, ultimate control: you get to shoot and pick the victim! And you can't go to jail.

We prefer to stay around and free everyone else from the yoke of collectivist tyranny. But if we want to die, then we die and nobody can prevent us from doing so because we are free.

[camoguard]

I'm every bit a Native American because I was born on US soil. Where my grandparents or my umpty-great grandparents were born is utterly irrelevant... otherwise I can claim aboriginal rights of citizenship in Sweden, Germany and Scotland.

This part mucks up ethnicity with nationalism. Your suggestion would make me a Native American and I'm not down with that because that term has a specific meaning.

[Seth]

I think I agree with what Seth is saying. If someone truly wants to commit suicide (it's not just a passing fancy), they should be able to. If people rely on a breadwinner, they need to be aware of the breadwinner's weaknesses same as they would if the breadwinner had other vices. I would think people have a typical and natural urge to maintain life to such extent that allowing people the right to opt out of life wouldn't change much in the actual number of deaths. But it will change how we look at voluntary endings.

How much better would society be if everyone realized that they are not allowed to be dependent on other people and that they may be on their own and fully responsible for their own lives and maintenance from the day of their legal majority to the day of their death, and that NOBODY else can be held responsible for their well-being or support?

Way better than the dependent-class nightmare we're experiencing now...

[camoguard]

I think I agree with what Seth is saying. If someone truly wants to commit suicide (it's not just a passing fancy), they should be able to. If people rely on a breadwinner, they need to be aware of the breadwinner's weaknesses same as they would if the breadwinner had other vices. I would think people have a typical and natural urge to maintain life to such extent that allowing people the right to opt out of life wouldn't change much in the actual number of deaths. But it will change how we look at voluntary endings.

How much better would society be if everyone realized that they are not allowed to be dependent on other people and that they may be on their own and fully responsible for their own lives and maintenance from the day of their legal majority to the day of their death, and that NOBODY else can be held responsible for their well-being or support?

Way better than the dependent-class nightmare we're experiencing now...

Sure. Even up the initial education aka "basic opportunity" and I'm in that far.

[Seth]

I'm every bit a Native American because I was born on US soil. Where my grandparents or my umpty-great grandparents were born is utterly irrelevant... otherwise I can claim aboriginal rights of citizenship in Sweden, Germany and Scotland.

This part mucks up ethnicity with nationalism. Your suggestion would make me a Native American and I'm not down with that because that term has a specific meaning.

It has an artificial meaning intended to discriminate against "non-Native Americans," which is in my view an absolute violation of my constitutional rights.

And it doesn't muck anything up. You can be a Navajo, or a Lakota, or a Cherokee or a member of any tribe you want, from Menomenee to Catholic to Celt to Masai.

But your national identity, and the rights that you enjoy as a citizen are determined solely and only by your place of birth or naturalization and NOTHING ELSE.

That way nobody gets preferential, or discriminatory treatment under the law. All men, women and children are created EQUAL in the eyes of the law.

Celebrating one's ethnic or cultural heritage is a perfectly acceptable personal pastime, but it has absolutely no place whatsoever in the law or formation of society.

You want to hold a Sun Dance on public lands, that's just fine with me, but the government CANNOT lawfully exclude me from that same public land by claiming that you have a superior "native" right to be in exclusive possession of public lands.

And unfortunately that's EXACTLY what happened here in Colorado, west of Colorado Springs last year. The Forest Service implemented a public lands closure to all "non-members" of a particular Indian tribe to facilitate "Native historical cultural practices" on public Forest Service lands. In actuality, those "native historical cultural practices" were in point of fact specific Indian religious practices for which they demanded privacy.

If they want privacy, they can buy some land and build a church, but it's flatly unconstitutional to exclude other members of the public from public lands based on ethnic, cultural or religious "heritage."

[Seth]

I think I agree with what Seth is saying. If someone truly wants to commit suicide (it's not just a passing fancy), they should be able to. If people rely on a breadwinner, they need to be aware of the breadwinner's weaknesses same as they would if the breadwinner had other vices. I would think people have a typical and natural urge to maintain life to such extent that allowing people the right to opt out of life wouldn't change much in the actual number of deaths. But it will change how we look at voluntary endings.

How much better would society be if everyone realized that they are not allowed to be dependent on other people and that they may be on their own and fully responsible for their own lives and maintenance from the day of their legal majority to the day of their death, and that NOBODY else can be held responsible for their well-being or support?

Way better than the dependent-class nightmare we're experiencing now...

Sure. Even up the initial education aka "basic opportunity" and I'm in that far.

If the citizens of a community believe that it is in their rational self-interest to contribute to a free basic education for children, and they wish to voluntarily donate towards that goal, then so be it.

If they'd rather smoke crack and make babies, so be it...but they don't get a dime from anyone else who isn't willing to voluntarily support them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Suicide cults usually exist on the margins with a charismatic father figure ready to call shop.

Interesting.

Oh, not all of them:

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

[Jason]

Inuit, friendo.