What to do with “found money”? Read this little story, and then go beneath the fold for my take.
Category: Ethics
Ah Yes, Philosophers
It’s not often I’m left absolutely speechless with rage and fury, but this is one of those times. Why? Oh, let’s just say the spirit of Dr. Josef Mengele is alive and well, and living in… Norway.
Should brain dead women be used as surrogates? That’s the outrageously controversial concept floated by one philosopher.
The move — which the Norwegian writer herself admits is ‘undoubtedly disturbing’ — would help ‘prospective parents who wish to have children but cannot’, such as gay and infertile couples.
At least The Matrix (which was fiction) used artificial wombs to gestate babies. If this foul bitch is to be believed, actual humans could be used as baby-incubators — of course without their consent because they’re brain-dead.
Here’s my problem with all of this. Let’s be honest and say that this activity is not just “disturbing”, but so evil, so soulless and so inhuman that it’s unthinkable and unspeakable.
Well, guess what? Someone has thought about it, and said it. Which means that at some point it’s going to be discussed — in a purely scholarly manner and setting, of course — which means that at some point further on, this action will be just one step closer to reality.
I am not interested in the philosophy, nor of their right to speak, nor even to speak of uncomfortable topics. This is not an “uncomfortable” topic, it is horrifying and diabolically evil.
One of the most ghastly discoveries made during the trial of Adolf Eichmann was not that he looked like the Devil, but that he looked like some ordinary bureaucratic functionary — which is exactly what he was. To him, moving hundreds of thousands of people from several points A to final point B was just a logistical issue: how many rail cars, how to schedule the deliveries, how many locomotives could the war effort spare, what was the capacity of the stations and switching points en route, and so on.
That this was a job of moving human beings to slaughterhouses was not even part of his mental equation, because he just couldn’t care: that wasn’t his job.
Eichmann was hanged. Now, about this Anna Smajdor…
Where The States Stand
…on the abortion issue, that is.
I have to say, I think South Carolina’s is the most commonsense:
In 2021, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill prohibiting most abortions from being performed after a fetal heartbeat is detected, with exceptions for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies, rape, and incest.
The Socialists are all about “let the people speak” until the people actually say something they disagree with, in which case it’s Jackboot Time and compulsion then becomes the order of the day.
Personally, I hate the idea of abortion — most especially when it’s used as contraception — but at the same time I don’t really have a problem with abortifacients like RU-486 (the “morning after” pill) provided that it is used the morning after and not five months into the pregnancy as some silly women have tried, with disastrous consequences.
Also, I’m uncomfortable with government charging people with murder for having an abortion, because that seems to be a swing of the pendulum too far.
Of course, as always, the wealthier women will always be able to procure an abortion simply by traveling to where they’re available, whereas the poorer women won’t. On the other hand, if the fear of pregnancy does evoke even a little bit of personal responsibility — as opposed to the hook-up culture and utter licentiousness of our oh-so modern society — then making abortion difficult to obtain may have even a little social benefit. In the meantime [Dr. Kim sez] :
If there was a single aspect of the human condition that I could solve, unplanned / unwanted pregnancy would be it.
On the lighter side:
Helping Hand
I know how I feel about the man in this story: I have complete and utter empathy.
Tender love letters have emerged that show the devotion of a British pensioner to the wife he is accused of murdering.
David Hunter, 74, is due to stand trial in Cyprus today after the alleged mercy killing of his terminally-ill wife of 56 years, Janice, 75, last year.
UK lawyers have written to the island’s attorney general asking prosecutors to reduce the charge to assisting suicide amid family pleas to ‘show some compassion’ but have received no reply.
Mr Hunter will die in prison if found guilty of murder.
As to Janice Hunter’s condition:
Mrs Hunter had been suffering from leukaemia since 2016 and her health deteriorated rapidly in the months before her death.
She was losing her sight, couldn’t eat or drink and had constant diarrhoea that meant she needed nappies – but was only given paracetamol by doctors.
Mr Hunter allegedly suffocated her before trying to take his own life by overdosing on sleeping medication in an apparent suicide pact.
And she was quite clear about her feelings:
He has since told his daughter, Lesley, 49, that his wife made her wishes to die clear and talked about it every day in the last six weeks of her life.
‘To begin with, he tried to dissuade her, then he said he would go with her,’ she said. ‘He loved her so much… I’m horrified they were so desperate they thought that dying together was the only way out.’
As you all know, I was in a similar situation when Connie was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and her condition worsened almost daily. We had so many drugs in the house that it would have been easy for her to overdose; and because she was in a drug-induced fog most of the time, she was quite capable of OD’ing through pure confusion — which is why I took over the job of giving her the drugs — and therefore I could have deliberately given her an overdose which would have ended her life.
And I want to be perfectly clear about this: had she asked me to, I would have, even though my conscience would have scourged me every day for the rest of my life.
As it happened, that fortunately never became an issue.
However, New Wife is a cancer survivor, which means the bastard can always return and cause her massive suffering. We’ve talked about this often, as her late husband suffered and died from throat cancer — his last months of life having had as much suffering as Connie had from hers — and so both New Wife and I have had the most intimate experience with this situation.
And we want no part of it.
Fortunately, we’re both in decent health (for our age), so the immediate future so far does not look that dire; but as everyone at our end of the age spectrum knows, that’s a precarious situation. Both of us have a “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) document should it be needed, and we also have a (very private) agreement to cover the “Hunter” situation. Neither of us wants to go through a painful and irreversible illness, both for ourselves and for the strain it puts on the other spouse, and that’s all I’m going to say on the topic.
Thought For The Week
From the much-reviled Puritans (very relevant at this time of the year):
Puritans believed it was also “to knit the heart of a husband to wife,” a charming thought. One of the supposedly oppressive rules of the Puritans was that men should not get away with taking advantage of women. They were strict. They did not believe that a man and woman who were not husband and wife should be alone together, because they thought the temptation was likely to be too much for one or both of them. We threw that rule out, and guess what? It turns out it has a good deal of truth to it. Just because adultery does not occur in 100% of such situations, or even 30% does not mean it doesn’t happen more than is good for both individuals and society as a whole… [Puritans] did not foreswear the flesh, they merely believed it should be held under short rein.
So many of the “old social rules” which have been weakened and eventually discarded have, over time, been seen to be not only sensible, but whose absence has been very harmful to society.
But with the modern world’s insistence that we never ever ever go back to the old ways because that would be [pick any or all as appropriate] reactionary, racist, hateful, intolerant, intolerant, silly, White hegemony, patriarchal and in general doubleplusungood, I’m gloomy about the chances of our ever reinstating any of those old customs, rules and mores.
Even if going back would be beneficial to, oh, just about everybody.
I think I’ll go to the range this afternoon. That usually dispels my gloom.
Western Civilization
Here’s a map which ranks the various countries of the world from light to dark, from least corrupt to, well, Somalia.
Pop quiz: Of the lighter-colored (i.e. least corrupt) countries, find the common thread. (Hint: it’s in the title of this post.)
For those who are surprised at the relatively-low ranking of the United States among the civilized nations, I would suggest that we would rocket upwards with the conviction of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the dissolution of the Clinton Foundation and the imprisonment of all its officers. To reach the top of the charts, we’d have to convict all members of Congress (active and/or retired) who became millionaires whilst earning only a Congressional salary.
And by “conviction”, of course, I mean this:
