Posts by Steve Parks
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I'm not suggesting that, but it is a thin edge of the wedge thing.
Not really following you : no one has suggested she was disabled (including you) and this is not about actively ending her life (as with the Nazi example); this is not even not euthenasia. The doctors, at the request of the father, removed artifial life support after 17 years.
So on these sorts of issues - like this case - we need to be aware that our own values and perspectives are our own and not universal. What seems straightforward to us, may actually have negative implications and repercussions for others.
Who are these others? ...
Politians like Berlusconi? I don't care what Berlusconi thinks.
The family? They appear to be the ones wanting to stop the life support, in this case.
Eluana? Agreed, her values/perspective here is the most important, but unfortunately we cannot ask her what she would want. That's what makes this a tricky issue, if that's what you mean.
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I ain't no high falutin' lawyer type - but this seems so blatantly against core concepts of natural justice that I'm floored it's made it into legislation?
I must say that was my initial reaction, too.
Graeme,
you don't seem to think this is as concerning as many others here do. Can you explain how you think the law is meant to work/will likely work?
it appears to have been the intention that "repeat infringer" could mean someone accused of infringement, rather than someone who had been found to be infringing by a court.
Yeah, that's certainly Campbell Smith's take on it, as per your link: 'But Recording Industry Association chief executive Campbell Smith said that would not be acceptable as it would require copyright holders to sue infringers to prove their guilt. "That is just impractical and ridiculous. I don't think that is what was intended."
Instead, ISPs should cut off customers who infringed copyright after notifications from rights holders, he said.'Sounds ludicrous to me.
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"Isn't that arrogant human presumption, that the Vatican and the Italian legislature knows better than God himself when -- and how -- human lives come to an end?"
It's hypocritcal of them, for sure. And I'm starting to worry that, if we get legislation like that propossed by Berlusconi, human life won't come to an end, in these circumstances. Technology allows us to keep people alive when once it wouldn't have been possible. I'm all for medical advancement and curing diseases etc, but I would have thought maintaining a life artificially was meant as a temporary measure, to give the body the chance "regroup" and see if it can show it will recover; not to keep someone in a coma for 17 years, and their family in emotional pergatory for just as long.
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Giovanni,
I'm assuming you're one referring to Berlusconi's attempts to rush through legislation:
The Senate interrupted the debate and observed a minute’s silence as a mark of respect. After the silence came recriminations. “She didn’t die. She was killed,” Gaetano Quagliarello, a centre-right senator, shouted, while others screamed “murderers, murderers” towards the Opposition benches.
Mr Berlusconi’s law would make it illegal for carers of people “unable to take care of themselves” to suspend artificial feeding. Euthanasia is illegal in Italy but refusing treatment is not.
The Prime Minister expressed “deep pain and regret” that he had failed to save Ms Englaro’s life but government officials vowed to push the Bill through. “I hope the Senate can proceed on the established calendar so that this sacrifice wasn’t completely in vain,” Maurizio Sacconi, the Health Minister, told legislators minutes after she died.
"“She didn’t die. She was killed,” Gaetano Quagliarello, a centre-right senator, shouted"... all class.
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Ben,
I don’t think it was accurately described as an ad hominem because it was intended to mock your argument, not principally to be an attack on your person, per se. If anything, you yourself seem to be saying it was a straw man, not an ad hominem.
every time sombody (not just me, I believe) points out what they perceive to be a fallacy in your argument, you shift it elsewhere, which is why you ended up saying so many things
I understand your point, and don’t agree with Ben on the original macron thing, but I also have a little sympathy with him. I grant the digressions were his own fault, but that said, if someone engages the digressions they’re still liable for criticism of their own argument – and there’s been instances of specious reasoning from Ben's critics here, too. For example, when Ben was asked what would happen if the writer of a document was dead or otherwise uncontactable, he made the reasonable point that we might resort to other documented comments by the author, if there were any, to add to the evidence of what their intent might have been. This produced a strident yet confused response from David Cauchi.
We all agree that Linger made intelligent and eloquent comments on this topic. But how similar are the following points...:
- "it makes perfect sense to me to consider other writings by that author as potentially helpful evidence."
- "I think the standard thing to do is try to find other references to the same ideas by the author."
Ben's point was a fair one, but there seems to be a dtermination to rubbish every little aspect of what he says, without much thought somethings.
Having said all that, I agree with Kyle that little more constructive can come from continuing this discussion. I will try to stop myself from further adding to it. -
I won't break out the ad hominems...
That wasn't an ad hominem. (Certainly no more than "I don't like your style".)
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Trolley...)
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Yeah, if confronted by the Trolloy Dilemma, he'd push the fat man off the bridge, no hesitation.
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Yay, a fan!
I love you all equally.
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Rorschach is the Question,
The abyss is the answer. Ha hah hah. … ehh, sorry.
….Nite Owl is the Blue Beetle (not Batman as most people think), Doctor Manhattan is Captain Atom and so forth.
Who was The Comedian based on, btw?
I wasn't aware of the Question/Steve Ditko connection until I came across it in a Moore interview some years after reading Watchmen. There's certainly a touch of Ditko's bizarre Ayn Randian Mr. A about Rorschach. He's a great portrayal of someone stuck in a sort of perpetual libertarian ideological adolescence.
He sure is, and Ozy, for all his genius, is a similarly ideologically adolescent utilitarian. Ditto Comedian and realpolitik.