Golden Years?

Posted by Larry Miller on July 15, 2010 under Why | Be the First to Comment

A few days ago, while visiting my old hometown, I took my mother to visit my fathers half sister in, what they used to call, a convalescent home. It’s a place where inmates are wheeled out of their rooms daily and many stare blankly down a hall or out a window. Others hold conversations with imaginary companions or grimace while twitching uncontrollably as time passes.

On one hand, these poor souls are fortunate that they have someone to feed, clothe and watch out for them. On the other hand, is this the retirement many have worked all their lives to enjoy? To be sure, most are no longer capable of living with any kind of autonomy. They could not survive on their own in the outside world. What none of them understands is that each one has a target clearly painted on his (or her) back, a large target.

The utilitarian mindset of the proposed keepers of our health care prevents them from seeing these people as human beings with intrinsic value simply because they exist. We are told that the government is capable of being the arbiter, endowed with the ability to decide who has sufficient “quality of life” to be worthy of a share of the limited resources available to preserve life.

While I would not trade place with any one in the facility, and, if the time came, I would almost prefer that my wife shoot me before committing me to such an awful place, I would not “pull the plug” on any of them. To be honest, I don’t believe our medical system would actively terminate their lives at this point. However, we have been warned that, due to increasing demands on available health care resources, little would be allocated to preserve such lives. Some one is in line to make these decisions… and they laughed with Sarah Palin spoke of death panels. Of course they won’t be called that, but they will decide who gets treatment and who does not… which means, who lives and who dies.

The whole utilitarian concept is based on the Darwinian theory that we are all just accidents of nature and have no real value save what we can contribute to the “greater good”. We are seen as slaves to our fellow human beings in general and to those who would be our masters, in particular. This is the end the academic and political figures have in mind when they march in lockstep to discredit any hint of a discussion of intelligent design, and the accompanying concept of individual value.

If each of us has unique and individual value, then it becomes the function of our government to look out for and protect the individual, rather than control him… and away goes the power the elites are so desperately seeking. It means there is a higher authority that our “leaders” must recognize and be accountable to. It means they must actually become the public servants their pose implies.

It also means that the unalienable rights our Declaration of Independence partially lists must be respected and protected. It means that representatives must actually represent rather than run roughshod over the will of their constituents. And, it means that they are, but stewards of the authority they have been granted – and they must use it wisely, for the good of all, not for personal gain.

So, while we will probably always need places to warehouse those who are unable to care for themselves, it needs to be done in a manner that respects who these people once were… and still are.