As I read over the account of Leslie Burke, the British citizen who argued for the right to stay alive if circumstances arose where doctors thought he should be put to death by starvation, a case which he lost on appeal, I prayed that I would never find myself infirm and helpless and unable to keep doctors or relatives from killing me.
It's a shame that I should have to pray this prayer, but we are living in times where the dehumanizing of human beings is prevalent.
We are living in societies which are increasingly hostile to the notion of the importance of the human race, a hostility that is so pervasive that one can talk about it and not even include the abortion and stem cell debate.
In Burke's case, the U.
K.
Court of Appeal was loath to restrict the freedom of certain doctors to kill anyone they deemed unworthy of further treatment, but it did not find the same anathema for restricting the freedom of someone who wants to stay alive.
There used to be a time when leaders thought it was murder to kill an innocent person, regardless of whether or not that person were in any degenerative condition, now being in that state is the impetus for his death.
Unfortunately, this kind of callous disregard is not rare and not always passive.
And it's not restricted to the disabled and the aged.
Consider the tragic more active event of British police officers shooting dead an unarmed man.
Jean Charles de Menezes had already been subdued when he was killed.
Commonsense would suggest that it would have been more logical to keep him alive to secure more information from him.
How useful was he dead, when the hunt for the whereabouts of potential co-conspirators was still in progress? Yet evident of its unapologetic stance, the British government says it will persist in the enforcement of its "shoot-to-kill" policy.
This disregard for human life can also be seen, in a subtle way, in the actions of American federal agents who deported 119 illegal immigrants leaving 30 children behind in Arkansas.
The federal agents didn't seem to think it worth their time to investigate the lifestyles of the immigrants involved to ascertain if children were living in the home, relying instead on a simple yes or no answer to the question: Do you have children? It would seem that children who have been born, in some circles, have so sunk to the level of unborn ones, that not only their existence is dismissed but also their safety and well-being? This slow digression of humane treatment has reached the point that some American state officials see nothing wrong with putting life-time GPS bracelets on former sex offenders who have legitimately served their time.
It seems odd to me that offenders that are so violent that they need life-time monitoring should be walking the streets in the first place.
If they are dangerously violent, why weren't they given longer prison sentences? Surely the legal system has had enough experience prosecuting sex offenders to incarcerate anyone for the rest of his life who has killed a child.
So it makes me queasy that an official in a system still giving lip-service to the notion that one is innocent until proven guilty, would instead pass a law to restrict a person, just short of incarceration, for a crime he has not yet committed based solely upon the recidivism of the particular criminal group of which he happens to be a part.
But the former sex offender is now a part of the lengthening list of categories of people who are subliminally being deemed "it.
" A designation that says they are not worthy of the consideration of a field mouse.
Former sex offenders, disabled, aged, fetuses, the poor, and any other unfortunate group of the wretched soon to be included.
I believe we have reached the point where people can be murdered, incarcerated, restricted, left unattended and any number of other actions sanctioned by law and by policy, who have committed no crime.
The fact is any one of us could face death if we're deemed untreatable having committed no crime.
Menezes was summarily executed, shot eight times, having committed no crime.
Children have been left alone and uncared-for, having committed no crime.
And after serving his time, a former sex offender faces a lifetime of punishment having committed no crime.
The penalty of death is increasingly being meted out to the innocent and, just as quickly, rights are being taken from the free.
This country's and Great Britain's leaders once swore that they would never allow anything to change the basic freedoms of the societies that we enjoy, but whether the causality is terrorism or something else, that is exactly what is happening.
Every new insult to the dignity of the human being, such as the British court's decision mentioned above or the technology that strips a person naked without his having to even remove his clothing, not only strips a man naked of his ability to enjoy and protect his life but reduces him to the humiliation of having to beg for it.
It's a shame that I should have to pray this prayer, but we are living in times where the dehumanizing of human beings is prevalent.
We are living in societies which are increasingly hostile to the notion of the importance of the human race, a hostility that is so pervasive that one can talk about it and not even include the abortion and stem cell debate.
In Burke's case, the U.
K.
Court of Appeal was loath to restrict the freedom of certain doctors to kill anyone they deemed unworthy of further treatment, but it did not find the same anathema for restricting the freedom of someone who wants to stay alive.
There used to be a time when leaders thought it was murder to kill an innocent person, regardless of whether or not that person were in any degenerative condition, now being in that state is the impetus for his death.
Unfortunately, this kind of callous disregard is not rare and not always passive.
And it's not restricted to the disabled and the aged.
Consider the tragic more active event of British police officers shooting dead an unarmed man.
Jean Charles de Menezes had already been subdued when he was killed.
Commonsense would suggest that it would have been more logical to keep him alive to secure more information from him.
How useful was he dead, when the hunt for the whereabouts of potential co-conspirators was still in progress? Yet evident of its unapologetic stance, the British government says it will persist in the enforcement of its "shoot-to-kill" policy.
This disregard for human life can also be seen, in a subtle way, in the actions of American federal agents who deported 119 illegal immigrants leaving 30 children behind in Arkansas.
The federal agents didn't seem to think it worth their time to investigate the lifestyles of the immigrants involved to ascertain if children were living in the home, relying instead on a simple yes or no answer to the question: Do you have children? It would seem that children who have been born, in some circles, have so sunk to the level of unborn ones, that not only their existence is dismissed but also their safety and well-being? This slow digression of humane treatment has reached the point that some American state officials see nothing wrong with putting life-time GPS bracelets on former sex offenders who have legitimately served their time.
It seems odd to me that offenders that are so violent that they need life-time monitoring should be walking the streets in the first place.
If they are dangerously violent, why weren't they given longer prison sentences? Surely the legal system has had enough experience prosecuting sex offenders to incarcerate anyone for the rest of his life who has killed a child.
So it makes me queasy that an official in a system still giving lip-service to the notion that one is innocent until proven guilty, would instead pass a law to restrict a person, just short of incarceration, for a crime he has not yet committed based solely upon the recidivism of the particular criminal group of which he happens to be a part.
But the former sex offender is now a part of the lengthening list of categories of people who are subliminally being deemed "it.
" A designation that says they are not worthy of the consideration of a field mouse.
Former sex offenders, disabled, aged, fetuses, the poor, and any other unfortunate group of the wretched soon to be included.
I believe we have reached the point where people can be murdered, incarcerated, restricted, left unattended and any number of other actions sanctioned by law and by policy, who have committed no crime.
The fact is any one of us could face death if we're deemed untreatable having committed no crime.
Menezes was summarily executed, shot eight times, having committed no crime.
Children have been left alone and uncared-for, having committed no crime.
And after serving his time, a former sex offender faces a lifetime of punishment having committed no crime.
The penalty of death is increasingly being meted out to the innocent and, just as quickly, rights are being taken from the free.
This country's and Great Britain's leaders once swore that they would never allow anything to change the basic freedoms of the societies that we enjoy, but whether the causality is terrorism or something else, that is exactly what is happening.
Every new insult to the dignity of the human being, such as the British court's decision mentioned above or the technology that strips a person naked without his having to even remove his clothing, not only strips a man naked of his ability to enjoy and protect his life but reduces him to the humiliation of having to beg for it.
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