Are we there yet?
Posted on 05/11/2010 7:32:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There was a time when some desperately poor societies had to abandon the elderly to their fate, but is that where we are today?
One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die” rather than become a burden to others.
This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.
Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.
There was a time — fortunately, now long past — when some desperately poor societies had to abandon old people to their fate, because there was just not enough margin for everyone to survive. Sometimes the elderly themselves would simply go off from their families and communities to face their fate alone.
But is that where we are today?
Talk about “a duty to die” made me think back to my early childhood in the South, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. One day, I was told that an older lady — a relative of ours — was going to come and stay with us for a while, and I was told how to be polite and considerate towards her.
She was called “Aunt Nance Ann,” but I don’t know what her official name was or what her actual biological relationship to us was. Aunt Nance Ann had no home of her own. But she moved around from relative to relative, not spending enough time in any one home to be a real burden.
At that time, we didn’t have things like electricity or central heating or hot running water. But we had a roof over our heads and food on the table — and Aunt Nance Ann was welcome to both.
Poor as we were, I never heard anybody say, or even intimate, that Aunt Nance Ann had “a duty to die.”
I only began to hear that kind of talk decades later, from highly educated people in an affluent age, when even most families living below the official poverty level owned a car or truck and had air conditioning.
It is today, in an age when homes have flat-paneled TVs and most families eat in restaurants regularly or have pizzas and other meals delivered to their homes, that the elites — rather than the masses — have begun talking about “a duty to die.”
Back in the days of Aunt Nance Ann, nobody in our family had ever gone to college. Indeed, none had gone beyond elementary school. Apparently, you need a lot of expensive education, sometimes including courses on ethics, before you can start talking about “a duty to die.”
Many years later, while going through a divorce, I told a friend that I was considering contesting child custody. She immediately urged me not to do it. Why? Because raising a child would interfere with my career.
But my son didn’t have a career. He was just a child who needed someone who understood him. I ended up with custody of my son and, although he was not a demanding child, raising him could not help impeding my career a little. But do you just abandon a child when it is inconvenient to raise him?
The lady who gave me this advice had a degree from Harvard Law School. She had more years of education than my whole family had, back in the days of Aunt Nance Ann.
Much of what is taught in our schools and colleges today seeks to break down traditional values and replace them with more fancy and fashionable notions, of which “a duty to die” is just one.
These efforts at changing values used to be called “values clarification,” though the name has had to be changed repeatedly over the years, as more and more parents caught on to what was going on and objected. The values that supposedly needed “clarification” had been clear enough to last for generations, and nobody asked the schools and colleges for this “clarification.”
Nor are we better people because of it.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
>> One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have “a duty to die” rather than become a burden to others.
I’m guessing this idea has caught on primarily among the YOUNG members of the “intelligentsia”.
As Poe once said, “Memento Mori.”
In this case, it’s more like You WILL Die!
You have to be educated beyond your intelligence to think the ideas of the left are good ideas.
Gives rise to the term “Harvard Stupid”.
I will be 63 tomorrow. My duty is to glorify my Lord Jesus Christ until the day He takes me Home.
Interesting how that works.
You can be sure that these same elites don't think it's their duty to die, either nope- it'll be your grandma's, then yours.
It won’t be just the elderly, once the Marxist state consolidates power it will be the duty of the unneeded to die, no matter what age.
Anyone need yet another proof that the DemoLefties are a murder/suicide death cult of freaks and perverts?
‘intellectuals” my ass! They are all just a bunch of Jim Jones socialist, anal retentive, control freak, plague rats.
as long as we give the free medical care to the illegal alien population, yes our own elderly will always come last.
Thank you! You are my first Happy Birthday wish from a fellow FReeper.
The Puppet Master, Soros requires Death Panels—that is one of the non negotiables. He was so ticked that his own father refused to die in a timely manner:
http://joytiz.com/2009/obamas-boss-gets-permanent-death-panels/
Sixty three isn’t old anymore.
The next American President will be elected on one promise:
“I will undo every piece of legislation, law, policy, and appointment of the Obama adminstration.”
Perhaps our current society HAS become desperately poor, as the wide majority seems to have discarded any concept of morality in daily life. Morally bankrupt, and soon to be financially bankrupt, the luxury of supporting the least able among us is becoming too great a burden.
But in pinpointing the elderly as the next “class” to be removed from any kind of favored position, the elites may have stirred a hornets’ nest. Over a lifetime, collectively the elderly have amassed a huge amount of treasure and available assets, more than able to hold their own in any showdown over access to resources on the market.
Old age and treachery will win over youthful enthusiasm and radical thinking just about every time.
As my late Daddy used to say..."Educated Idiots".
These same Dems who now wish to proscribe the elderly medical care are the same Dems who pushed to give them all things through Medicare, the Dems who were against Bush's Part D prescription because it was not generous enough. They did this for the usual Dem reason--to buy the votes of the dependable elderly voters. Now, they do not need us, as they have developed a new class of voters in the various victims groups.
Because of decades of pandering, there is practically nothing Medicare will not do, though the restrictions are begnning to roll in as costs soar. Need a $5,000 electric chair? Keep spending money on cigarettes; Medicare will get it for you. Cholesterol a little high? Medicare will pay $100+ per month for your statin, though it is NOT saving your life--in fact, may be hurting your heart by telling your liver to stop processing COQ10 as well as stopping cholesterol production. And WORST of all--transporting nursing home patients to and from the hospital for EVERYTHING in order to cover nursing home @$$eS.
The excesses of Medicare have increased the fraud, but killing the elderly will not stop it. Fraud and corruption will merely spread through whatever program evolves.
The answer, of course, is that old, forgotten word--RESPONSIBILITY--both personal and governmental. There isn't much anymore as people are more concerned with personal grievances and a gimme attitude.
vaudine
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