In a lot of places here in America, speaking in turn is patriotic, too.

In response to Legal Insurrection: Our Leaders Versus the Un-Americans:
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@Thingumbobsquire: There's a pretty good discussion about Dr. Emanuel a few posts back, titled "An inconvenient truth about the Death Panels." (Short answer: I'm pretty sure the writing you're referring to is actually about the medical ethics involved when you have one donor heart or liver, two or more patients who might not last another 24 hours without receiving one, and a decision has to be made as to who gets the organ. Opinions differ, but from what I've read, Dr. Emanuel (& company; there were 2 other authors to the journal article) is offering a system of ethics that is more compassionate & fair than the one UNOS is using currently, in my opinion.) I'd read the whole threat... someone even mentioned the Nazi angle.

I'm pretty sure that the author and every other person whining about this understands the difference between protest and drowning out opposing voices, no matter the feigned outrage. Marching in the streets to express your point is one thing; smashing windows to get your point across is another. Even though both activities fall under the heading of "protest," those who speak out against window smashing--perhaps by calling it "Un-American," even--are not maligning all protest.

Same goes here. Speaking out is very American. Shouting down your fellow Americans --both those who're elected, and your neighbors--in public meetings designed to express various points of view, and thereby not allowing those who oppose your point of view to be heard... Yeah, that's kind of un-American.

I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for being rowdy in response to what you see going on around you... ...but that doesn't absolve you of being criticized for it, especially if others think you're jumping the gun and acting like hooligans for your beliefs, prematurely.

In a lot of places here in America, speaking in turn is patriotic, too.
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Submitted for approval August 10, 2009 10:15 AM

He's like... ...like... A NAZI!!!

In reply to commenter Lew Waters, at the post Legal Insurrection: An Inconvenient Truth About The "Death Panel", who said:

What should be scary to all about Dr. Emanuel's words is that they sound eerily familiar,

"The underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves and were thus prolonging their lives in torment. ... To quote Hippocrates today is to proclaim that invalids and persons in great pain should never be given poison. But any modern doctor who makes so rhetorical a declaration without qualification is either a liar or a hypocrite. ... I never intended anything more than or believed I was doing anything but abbreviating the tortured existence of such unhappy creatures…… I am convinced that today they have overcome their distress and personally believe that the dead members of their families were given a happy release from their sufferings."

Testimony of Dr. Karl Brandt, Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, Adolf Hitler’s personal physician. Sentenced to death and executed June 2, 1948 at Landsberg prison in Bavaria.

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Really, Lew? A Nazi doctor?

Where does Dr. Emanuel suggest ending anyone's suffering by taking any active step to kill them? Please quote and cite it.

At best (or worst, depending) this is about the allocation of limited resources in the face of multiple patients who all need the same resource to improve their health or (most often) save their life.

It's not about deciding whether or not a patient will likely die; there's one heart, and two or more patients who need one to survive the next 24-48 hours. Somebody will live, and somebody will likely die. Dr. Emanuel's article discusses four different systems of medical ethics for fairly determining who gets the heart.

Perhaps it would be instructive if all the people upset about Dr. Emanuel's suggested method for making this decision were to choose which of the other three ethical systems (or one they create themselves) they support for doing so, and whether the rest of us wouldn't find elements of it (the parts about "...who should therefore not get the heart," especially) equally distasteful.
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Submitted for approval 8/9/09, 3:35 PM

Death Panels? Withholding Treatment? Really?!?

In reply to: Legal Insurrection: An Inconvenient Truth About The "Death Panel"

@ William: But if Zeke's not writing the bill, the argument is a specious one. (Do we even know for certain that Dr. Emanuel is a Democrat? And would it say anything about Republicans and health care, if it were to turn out he's one of them? -- The answer you're looking for, is no.)

I disagree that Dr. Emanuel is talking about withholding treatment from anyone, but is instead talking about allocating treatment in acute situations where there's only so much of it to go around, such as transplants (1 liver, 10-15 patients in the area who need one) or overcrowded emergency rooms (How many patients can one ER treat at a time, and how does s/he decide who goes first (a decision that may also determine who "goes" first.)?) I'm not saying that Trig couldn't become enmeshed in a situation like that, but I'd think that his age would be a plus under Dr. Emanuel's guidelines, and I see nothing in his paper that suggests his Down's Syndrome would work against him. (Perhaps that's because I read "prognosis" as referring to the acute condition that brought Trig into the hospital--will the expensive treatment bring him back to where he was before he was shot/his liver failed, or will he still suffer & possibly die because of it, regardless of our efforts?), rather than as judging the worth of his whole life, mental acuity included.

Assuming you state his view accurately (I haven't the time to read the whole paper now, but I intend to), I agree with the Doc, by the way... When resources (doctors, equipment, organs for transplant) are scarce, choices are made. Happens in hospitals right now, and it will continue to no matter what happens with this health care reform. In a finite system, the patient you have a good shot of saving gets more of those scarce resources than the patient that just isn't going to make it, especially in acute, emergency care situations.

The less immediately dire the health threat, the more that can be offset by patient/family money--and I don't think that'll change under the proposed reforms, btw--but when you're freshly shot or suffering a heart attack, your recovery (or survival) has alot to do with which hospital is closest to you, and what other patients happen to be there at the time. On a good night, you'll get the head of the department; on a busy night, you may get the newest intern. It's all supply and demand, and the luck of the draw.

From what I did read of the paper though, it's apparent that it is
a mostly theoretical exercise that assumes scarcity of resources as a given. It's the equivalent of discussing who you would keep and who you would toss off the overcrowded, sinking lifeboat, or whether you would rescue the doctor on the verge of finding a cure for cancer or the toddler, assuming you could only rescue one of 'em, and knowing the other would surely die.

ALL of the systems discussed in the paper (the one used by UNOS, the one endorsed by the World Health Organization) evaluate patients to determine who should get the treatment and who shouldn't. All of 'em have "winners" -- those who will get the liver or heart and will live, and "losers"-- who will not get the transplant and will likely die, and all of 'em propose some method of judging who the "winners" and "losers" should be. (If need be, I can seek out & post the equally disturbing choices the other medical ethics systems--systems in place as we speak, I might add--suggest for judging who should live and who should die.)

You & Sarah are welcome to your opinions and your fears, of course, but I don't agree with your thoughts on this.
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Submitted for approval August 9, 2009 11:56 AM

Protest is still patriotic, but rude is still rude, too

In reply to: So, Were These Instances Of “Political Terrorism?” | QandO
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Pearlstein's "Political Terrorism" line was over the top (referring to the current crop of bad actors, or Henke's examples of the same kinda behavior, then), but thuggish and rude? Absolutely.

Anytime any person or group interrupts a person speaking at a town hall meeting by yelling or chanting slogans--whether the person is the elected official, or a fellow district resident--it's rude behavior. Anytime anyone bangs on the doors and windows because they didn't get a seat in the room, it's thuggish behavior. Anytime anyone strikes another person--yeah, even if you're on "my" side, and hit someone I probably wouldn't agree with, politically--that's thuggish behavior.

I'll give a pass to folks on either side who don't condemn their own. There's no rule against keeping your mouth shut, and in my opinion (& speaking from experience), it's a jump to state that just because a (lib/con) doesn't come out and say that his/her fellow (lib/con) behaved poorly, that that means he's not thinkin' it.

But that "lookit then, lookit now" line of thinkin' goes both ways. Anyone who applauded those thuggish and rude actions then and condemns them now -- or condemned those patriotic acts then, but applauds them now -- is a damned hypocrite. (Same goes for "nazi" references & other partisan "bad" behaviors.) Left or right, situational ethics and moral relativism will get you nowhere. Protest is still patriotic, but by the same token, rude is still rude.
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Submitted for approval August 9, 2009 at 06:04 AM (QandO blog time)

JokObama (ObamaJoka?): Not racist, not meaningful; Just mean.

In reply to: Legal Insurrection: Joker-ology
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Here I thought the pic was kinda mean-spirited (yes, :::sigh::: just like the one of Bush), but otherwise pretty stupid and meaningless. (At least the author--&/or I--got that meaningless part right. (The Joker, a socialist? Anybody who read or watched ANY Batman--even the silly TV show--knows THAT's not right...)
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Submitted for approval August 6, 2009 5:43 PM Legal Insurrection blog time

ObamaJoka & BushHitler: Another post on the posters

In reply to: Below The Beltway - If Obama As The Joker Is Wrong, What About Bush As Hitler?
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I go the other way than most... I find both of 'em to be kind of offensive, each in their own way.

Sure, it's free speech... ...but so is my (or anyone's) saying they're nasty in reply to seeing 'em. There's a difference between the government (& ONLY the government) saying you CAN'T say something, and anyone (including the government, but not limited to 'em) saying you SHOULDN'T say it, and I wonder why so many folks bring up the issue of free speech at all when stuff like this is discussed... I can think of very few examples of the government stepping in & prohibiting posters of either (any) political stripe in the last 25 years, and certainly not either of these.

As far as I'm concerned, demonization like this reduces us all. I disagreed with Bush. I didn't hate him. I know there are many on the right who feel the same about Obama. He's wrong, not Eeeeeevil...

It is a partisan world, especially here on the internet. (I'm of the opinion that most Americans believe partisan bloggers & protesters--right and left--are nutcases who ought to go out and get a life in the first place, and that seeing posters like these (and the chants and other theatrics that often go with 'em, especially at protests--& lately, town halls) only further cements that nutcase part).

True, anybody who disparages one picture & defends the other is a hypocrite, but with all respect due James Young, that's true whether they're fans of (or disgusted by) BushHitler or ObamaJoka.

And no, neither of 'em really makes sense, either... Like the rumors folks are spreading about the Palin & Obama families, of late, (& not just them, of course) it's lowest common denominator stuff that is more about hurting people personally than it is about any kinda issue advocacy.
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Submitted for approval August 4th, 2009 at 4:49 pm (Below the Beltway blog time)