Auschwitz in America

[notyoueither]

Nationalized health care and government involvement in
medical care promised to improve the public's "quality
of life." Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining
government medical care was a contributing factor to
the growth of the national debt, which reached
astronomical proportions. Double and triple digit
inflation crippled the economy, resulting in the
public demanding that government cut expenses.

This precipitated the 1939 order to cut federal
expenses...

Triple digit inflation? At the end of a depression? With wage and price controls?

Medical care was a major bugetary factor when the government was conducting a rearmament drive?

This is all news to me and has my horse hockey indicator going off. Perhaps some German speaker can enlighten me since I don't have access to many economic sources on Germany, in English.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Triple digit inflation? At the end of a depression? With wage and price controls?

The big time of German inflation was 191-1924. At that time, the value of money changed that quickly that their were notes of 5 million Marks

I wasn't aware of any crazy inflation under Hitler. The financial **** began to hit the fan only near the end of the war, when the nazi regime had to massively borrow from Swiss Banks, and had to sell massive amounts of Jewish stolen property.

[notyoueither]

That's why I'm asking questions. I can find no reference to high inflation under pre-war Nazi Germany. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen, but I severely doubt it.

[Tripledoc]

About Nazi inflation, which I haven't heard of either. I think what is means is real inflation. I know that here in formerly occupied Denmark the food prices went Kaboom, and the presumably the property market too.
The whole agriculutral sector went ape with excitement as they saw their real wages rising, as compared with the workers who saw their wages going down.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
And I really hate agreeing with St Leo.

Great minds think alike (and idiots seldom differ).

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by notyoueither

Nationalized health care and government involvement in
medical care promised to improve the public's "quality
of life." Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining
government medical care was a contributing factor to
the growth of the national debt, which reached
astronomical proportions. Double and triple digit
inflation crippled the economy, resulting in the
public demanding that government cut expenses.

This precipitated the 1939 order to cut federal
expenses...

Triple digit inflation? At the end of a depression? With wage and price controls?

Medical care was a major bugetary factor when the government was conducting a rearmament drive?

This is all news to me and has my horse hockey indicator going off. Perhaps some German speaker can enlighten me since I don't have access to many economic sources on Germany, in English.

It's conveniently mixed and matched different economic issues from the post WWI to pre-WWII time frame, to "assemble" a "factual" basis for this assertion.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Euthenasia is as old as humanity, no one wants to see a loved one die a slow and painful death and that sentiment is in competition with our natural selfish desire to keep the loved one around for our own happiness. If it's "humane" to put down a suffering animal, then it may be humane to do the same to a person. I doubt I'd have the courage but I'd be reluctant to condemn those who do have the courage...

I don't think it should be the responsibility of the murderer to judge whether his victim is worthy of life or not - that is actually what you are suggesting. I won't bother correcting your paganism, hedonism, sophistry, and excuses for racism, as I am sure no-one takes your crap seriously.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by St Leo
* St Leo invokes Godwin's Law

* St Leo also disagrees with the idea that the two extremes are the only tenable positions on the spectrum

Can i threadjack this to a discussion of Godwins law? While i disagree with Ben's logic, (though not necessarily his position) it does not seem to me completely inappropriate to discuss Nazism in the context of the large scale taking of life and issues of slippery slopes. I think one could come up with arguments in the opposite direction from that period as well, but Godwins law in this case seems to prevent debate, rather than protect it.

I guess Ive been frustrated in the past by the invoking of Godwins law in places where mentioning the Nazis was appropriate.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Giant_Squid
I see two subtle but dangerous propaganda methods this article exploits.

One, it tries to use synonymously the doctrines that "quality of life is more important than 'sanctity' of life" and the that "the value of life is in its value to the state", two doctrines which it seems obvious to me at least couldn't have less to do with each other.

In fairness to Ben, the article specifically takes on Singer, who is a very vocal "neo-utilitarian" As far as I can tell Singer DOES assert that its proper to make decisions like this based on the total costs and benefits to society, not just to the individual in question. In particular he thinks that not just the pain, indignity etc of the ill person should be considered, but that the cost of medical care for the dying mustalso be considered - not merely CAN be considered, but MUST be. His position in that regard thus goes rather farther than the classic "human dignity" argument for Euthanasia.

Do you wish to support euthanasia and oppose Singer? fine, but it does seem that Singer's position is an argument FOR the notion of a slippery slope. If we can get from the classic euthanasia for dignity argument to Singer's position, where can we go beyond Singer's position?

[Spiffor]

I agree with LOTM on this one. Since euthanasia means taking life in great numbers, it is interesting to compare it with other enterprises of mass life-taking.

Now, I don't think it is always appropriate to use the Holocaust in such comparisons. There were a great many mass life-taking, and to compare with the one that scares us the most is often meant to get a rhetorical advantage through this scare.

In this thread, we are comparing today's euthanasia with the one performed in Weimar and nazi Germany. I find nothing wrong with the fact that both are compared. I find it bull**** that the results of this comparison are that today's and yesterday's euthanasias are the same

[Tripledoc]

How do people know that this professor Godwin is not in fact a closet nazi, and the reason that he came up with it was that his usenet friends continued to call him a nazi?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


In fairness to Ben, the article specifically takes on Singer, who is a very vocal "neo-utilitarian" As far as I can tell Singer DOES assert that its proper to make decisions like this based on the total costs and benefits to society, not just to the individual in question. In particular he thinks that not just the pain, indignity etc of the ill person should be considered, but that the cost of medical care for the dying mustalso be considered - not merely CAN be considered, but MUST be. His position in that regard thus goes rather farther than the classic "human dignity" argument for Euthanasia.

Do you wish to support euthanasia and oppose Singer? fine, but it does seem that Singer's position is an argument FOR the notion of a slippery slope. If we can get from the classic euthanasia for dignity argument to Singer's position, where can we go beyond Singer's position?

If you take on Singer as the visible proponent of euthanasia, you may as well assign Fred Phelps the position of being the spokesman for Christian morality. Just because someone is loud and has a vocal set of groupies doesn't mean they're representative of mainstream thought in their chosen field of ranting.

First, social cost IS considered in medical care even without formal euthanasia. Doesn't matter if you're using private health insurance, or under a welfare state, or relying on public medicine in someplace like the US. Do you think street people with terminal liver damage due to drug and alcohol abuse are on waiting lists for liver transplants to be provided at state cost?

How much effort is really directed towards the maximum possible extension of lifespan in geriatric illnesses, regardless of cost or "quality of life" considerations? For that matter, you can go to Africa and find millions of people living under conditions where the median life expectancy at birth is less than 50 years. If "social cost" and utilitarian arguments are rejected, and "sanctity of life" is the true standard, then why are those lives worth less? Ah, they're not white, or they're not in our country, or they have other problems or it's not our concern or "we're doing something, we contribute a pittance so we can feel good about ourselves" or "our people come first" or any other "utilitarian" excuse you want to make.

The simple facts are that convenience and social cost and value assessments are made even when there is no formal euthanasia. Neither Singer's nor anyone else's arguments lead to a slippery slope, unless those arguments suggest a more extensive and more stringent application of "social cost" and utility arguments than you see in practice here and now.

[Jack_www]

I think this essay makes an interesting point. But I do think some of the agruments and facts used are not correct. A lot of Germany's debt problems came from the fact that they had to pay huge reperation payments to the nations in Europe that won WWI.

But still I believe that we should hold up human life to the highest regard and not be so willing to take it.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


If you take on Singer as the visible proponent of euthanasia, you may as well assign Fred Phelps the position of being the spokesman for Christian morality. Just because someone is loud and has a vocal set of groupies doesn't mean they're representative of mainstream thought in their chosen field of ranting.

First, social cost IS considered in medical care even without formal euthanasia. Doesn't matter if you're using private health insurance, or under a welfare state, or relying on public medicine in someplace like the US. Do you think street people with terminal liver damage due to drug and alcohol abuse are on waiting lists for liver transplants to be provided at state cost?

How much effort is really directed towards the maximum possible extension of lifespan in geriatric illnesses, regardless of cost or "quality of life" considerations? For that matter, you can go to Africa and find millions of people living under conditions where the median life expectancy at birth is less than 50 years. If "social cost" and utilitarian arguments are rejected, and "sanctity of life" is the true standard, then why are those lives worth less? Ah, they're not white, or they're not in our country, or they have other problems or it's not our concern or "we're doing something, we contribute a pittance so we can feel good about ourselves" or "our people come first" or any other "utilitarian" excuse you want to make.

The simple facts are that convenience and social cost and value assessments are made even when there is no formal euthanasia. Neither Singer's nor anyone else's arguments lead to a slippery slope, unless those arguments suggest a more extensive and more stringent application of "social cost" and utility arguments than you see in practice here and now.

I dont deny that cost and benefit considerations play a role now in medical decisions, including ones with life and death implications. However in the case of euthanasia, he is applying them so make mandatory (in many cases) an action the culture has long considered forbidden, and which most mainstream defenders (I think you agree) argue for ONLY on the basis of benefits to the patient. To put it bluntly, its a leap from refusing to fund someones care on social utility grounds, to killing them on such grounds. Im not saying the former is necessarily right, or the latter necessarily wrong, but I do see a leap.

As for Singer being fringe - I guess Im not up to date enough on the Euthanasia movement to say. Certainly he is significant within the academic philosophy world.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm back and can more properly keep this thread on track.

The title alone reduces any argument in the original post to nothing but an obnoxious troll.

MtG:

So only innocently headed threads contain valid arguments?

Then again, blowing up clinics or sniping doctors or physically accosting pregnant women one wrongly assumes are attempting to obtain abortions because they're entering a medical building with two dozen doctors offices, one of whom provides abortions, are fairly "extreme" forms of advocacy, wouldn't you say?

Well I suppose one good troll deserves another. Prolifers cannot justify killing other people in the name of life or in bombing a clinic.

It must be a difficult argument if it stumps MtG.