God is an Iraqi
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 29, 2025 20:41
VIEWED: 12402
PAGE 6 of 12
I think RTL is too simplistic, it seems to mean 'Breath at ALL costs'. And RTD sounds too morbid for some. You could cover both with RTQL (right to quality life).
"I have something to say. It's better to burn out, than to fade away!"
Easy for me to embrace; I believe in a sort of re-incarnation. But even if I didn't, no way would I go like my mom, in such pain and all.
Chrisisall
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RTQL sounds too complicated, it would end up supporting RTD. I like it simple. That way I know my right. Anything else is a separate issue.
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I have a question then.
Isn't free choice one of the most basic things to being Human?
If so how can the 'right to life' supersede the 'right to choose'?
If the 'right to choose' is greater than the 'right to life', then surely euthanasia et al is not intrinsically against the 'right to life'?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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I'm with ya there, Citizen.
Choosey Chrisisall
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I am so not with you
Right to life definitely supercedes right ot choose. This is why murder is illegal, because life is more important than freedom. If this were not so, Charles Manson would be are new founding father. What a nightmare world could be constructed where freedom was more important than life.
Freedom is very important. It's more important to be alive than free. Unless you're Darla or something. Even Spike thinks life comes first.
Freedom of choice is way down there on prioties, belong private ownership of property.
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Quote:DT: I'm with you on this one. RTL is a terrific unifying concept. On a hierarchy of rights and privileges, RTL prolly supersedes other rights and privileges in MOST cases. But like a lot of broad-scope ideas, implementing it in specific instances will require lawyerly attention to detail. That is why I get a little perturbed when I hear sweeping statements like
There are few better founding political ideas than I can think of. There is no more basic right than right to life. I think after that, maybe we can does with liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Quote:Each one of these statements is demonstrably false a significant percentage of the time and ignores the complexity of life.
"Regardless of whether the feotus is a human, it will be"
"A human will come to pass if no intervention is made, so just as the failure to intervene to stop a murder is accessory to the crime..."
"The reason adoption is a nightmare is that most the unwanted children are aborted"
" 'Someone should've killed me before they put me through this.' " Ironically those are things said by troubled teens who've never really had these sorts of life threatening problems.
"All of the conditions you describe are ultimately curable."
But just as there are many ways to lose a life, there are different levels of individual and institutional culpability for that loss: murder, accident, neglect, suicide, self-defense, self-neglect, capital punishment, war, pollution, institutionalized poverty, lack of health care etc etc. Does RTL trump a corporation's right to profit by selling an addictive, deadly drug? Or the consumer's right to purchase and use it? Does RTL mean that life must be actively sustained at ANY cost?
Quote:And given that you can't save everyone... in fact, you can't "save" ANYONE because we all eventually die anyway... we are left trading lives for other things.
People's right to life simply can't be tied to the probably quality of that life, or you get dangerously close to giving justification to fascism again.
I think the best way to look at RTL is to look at the main causes of death, and to work to reduce those causes. Right now, the main cause of death (worldwide) is dirty water, lack of food, war, and lack of medical care.
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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Your misunderstanding me, freedom of choice over YOUR own life.
Not other’s lives.
Murdering someone is putting your right to choose over someone else’s life.
In a very real way RTL (in respect to euthanasia) could be construed as others saying they have more right to choose what you do with your life than you do.
This is where I’m coming from.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
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Okay, I'll ignore those aspersions since those statements were all prefaced by most, usually and other similar qualifiers, they don't need further defense.
Quote:
Does RTL trump a corporation's right to profit by selling an addictive, deadly drug?
An interesting point, but I'm going to nix this one. No one's right to life means that other people can't create things which may be life threatening, roller coasters, fast cars, rocket ships. RTL just means they can't force you to surrender your life, so you could not make a potentially fatal drug mandatory. Though I'm aware that this situationm might approach right to die, let me give you a more appropriate example of what I think you're trying to say:
A mandatory Small Pox vaccine which is sometimes fatal. Do you have to take it? I suppose ultimately RTL should say no, because that might become a mandatory death sentence.
Generally I would say yes, at any cost, since the cost is never prohibitive for the state, only for the individual, and the most expensive attempts are bound to be good for scientific research. But only for $ costs. If the cost turns out to be in other human costs then I would say no. You can't forcably sustain the life of someone who needs a new liver once a month if it means other possible recipients are going to die, which it probably does. But sure, within reason. If the individual needs a life support machine which simply costs $1000/day to run, then I don't see why not.
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Quote:
I think the best way to look at RTL is to look at the main causes of death, and to work to reduce those causes.
Politically, the problems of the world are not our responsibility. If solved, among the uneducated unskilled masses of the earth, such a solution would destroy the planet within our lifetimes, since random uneducated peasants are still the greatest destructive force in the world. I think it far more essential that in world affairs that we educate these people first, more than anything else, otherwise they hardly become worth having in the species. I know this may violate RTL, but I have to at some point be practical. It would be very easy to spend the entirety of the earths resources sustaining an infinite number of humans until we as a species starve.
I'm not trying to be insenstitive to 3rd world problems here, but it's a major problem. I think it's worse than I just described it. A lot worse. It's going to be a major project to get societies like India and Africa into line as places of stable human habitation, which needs to be done before we can even try to pressure them on RTL issues.
That's just realism speaking. But for the most part, I'd like to start smaller. Address the problem in your own country, and when other societies come into their own, then it can become something we can address.
For instance, and I'm just going to cite one example here, so everyone knows where I'm coming from:
In China, the consuption of environmental resources by humans is so extreme that the vast majority species of animal life in the country became extinct in the 20th century. The concept of RTL in China can only be addressed if the population reaches a sustainable level, and proves to be stable without any artificial constraints over at least a couple of decades. I don't want the entire earth to be clearcut so it can serve to grow rice for 40 billion humans, which is the ultimate nightmare scenario. Human RTL is not so great that it trumps the survival of Earth, or of other species of higher life.
When this is established in China, then you cna persue RTL, but it's not that powerful.
Now if you had specific examples you wanted to deal with, fire away.
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Quote:Well, politically the problems of the world ARE our responsibility. As the world's leading economy and the premier superpower since 1945, with over 800 military installations around the world and numerous coups and invasions to our credit, we've had a considerable hand in promoting and shaping the corporatist world as it is today. So I'll probably get back to that point later.
Politically, the problems of the world are not our responsibility.
Quote:Having spent paras explaining the difference between a right and a privilege and how rights cannot be given up or taken away, you appear to turn towards "practicality" when non-USA citizens are being considered. In a previous post, where I said
I think it far more essential that in world affairs that we educate these people first, more than anything else, otherwise they hardly become worth having in the species. I know this may violate RTL, but I have to at some point be practical.
Quote:I didn't include that example out of random liberalism. I find that people in general tend to place others who are "not like us" into a "not quite human" category. Factors as trivial as skin color, sex, language, age, wealth, religion, or politics are enough to suddenly cause "universal" rules to be junked and bring "new" rules into play. So, with those caveats mentioned, I'll take the discussion in the direction you want to go: RTL w/in the context of the USA political system.
What is "human"? There are a lot of variations on that sperm+ egg stuff.... People who have the misfortune of being born very very poor in far-away countries.
In your view, the first step to promoting RTL would be to strictly eliminate insitutionally and individually-implemented death. So you would eliminate abortion (except to save the life of the mother), the death penalty, and individual killing (except in the case of self defense). You would eliminate war, except where engaging in war would results in lower overall mortality. Part of your reasoning seems to involve choice. In other words, it's OKAY to create potential deadly risks, as long as people have the choice to avoid them. So slow suicide (by cigarette for example) is OKAY, By extension, even fast suicide is OKAY. taking medication with a fatal risk attached is OKAY as long as it's an informed decision.
Putting these concepts together, what about people who can't make decisions? Do they need to be positively protected- ie, Do decisions need to be made for them that will protect them? The very young and very old need constant care and a certain number of young/elderly die every year from nelgect. (Which is not a taking of life from action but from inaction). So, is neglect prohibited by RTL? What about risks that can't be avoided (like second-hand smoke, or pollution) where a certain number of deaths are inevitable, but statistical?
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Please don't think they give a shit.
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