politics The UK Brave Space For Shitposting and Other Opinions Thread

[roguetechie]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Shhhh.....Don't say that! 

 

I'm hoping they will get really, really cross and cruise-missile Downing Street. 

 

Well I mean... They have already burnt down a fucking island so there's always hope I suppose. And some servers... And some miscellaneous sundries as well as sending jar jar cunts to try and get laptops back from the DC police ....

 

There's Definitely hope I'd say

Edited April 25, 2018 by roguetechie
Way more hope than initially reported

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Anybody from across the pond wanna chime in on the Alder Hey and Alfie Evans situation?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Load of bollocks.....But hey it keeps the press occupied (& thus not reporting any actual news).

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Just now, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Load of bollocks.....But hey it keeps the press occupied (& thus not reporting any actual news).

Care to elaborate?

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It's a nothing-burger.

 

Nobody I know personally has ever commented on it, nobody gives a shit.....Except the press, for whom it is a convenient excuse for not actually reporting any news (oh & the pope apparently).

 

 

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

It's a nothing-burger because it happens so often that no one cares anymore, or it's nothing-burger because the hospital had their hands tied and didn't want the liability of moving a life-support child?

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Sorry fella, I can't answer that one.....I just don't know.

 

I'm simply stating that while it seems quite a hot-topic in the red-tops, it's not something that I've heard discussed and TBH it's not something I would want to discuss.

 

Craig Murray has some comments which might be of interest to you:

 

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/04/alfie-evans-and-the-state/

 

[Ramlaen]

Seems like a ridiculous situation caused by the parents not wanting to accept their kid is a corpse being kept moving by machines.

[Sturgeon]

1 hour ago, Ramlaen said:

Seems like a ridiculous situation caused by the parents not wanting to accept their kid is a corpse being kept moving by machines.

 

Yeah but having the state make that decision for them is even fucking creepier.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Remember, the state pays for it here.....How much money should we throw at poor Alfie?  At the expense of how many other sick kids? 

 

I appreciate that Alfie now has private backers, but had his parents been financially responsible for his healthcare in the first instance, he would have been pushing up the daisies months ago.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

5 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Remember, the state pays for it here.....How much money should we throw at poor Alfie?  At the expense of how many other sick kids? 

 

I appreciate that Alfie now has private backers, but had his parents been financially responsible for his healthcare in the first instance, he would have been pushing up the daisies months ago.

You're missing the point. I'm fine with the state cutting funding to a dieing kid. 

 

I'm not fine with the state not allowing the parents to move the child to another hospital of their request.

 

The responsibility for the child's life should be with the parents, not the hospital.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

5 minutes ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

I'm not fine with the state not allowing the parents to move the child to another hospital of their request.

 

The responsibility for the child's life should be with the parents, not the hospital.

 

I don't consider myself qualified to comment.....However on a matter of pure principle I'd probably agree, the issues Craig Murray raises do seem to suggest the courts are being unhelpful.

[Xlucine]

The state isn't cutting anything, the courts have decided that anything other than palliative care isn't in Alfie's best interests. I'm not sure why he can't receive this in italy though

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Bingo. Again, I will reiterate, the child is a lost cause. But it is no one's call but the parents of said child to determine what treatment he receives. 

 

Because boy howdy, any other way sets a very dangerous precedent.

[Ramlaen]

Should parents have the only say if they were to refuse life saving treatment?

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

39 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

Should parents have the only say if they were to refuse life saving treatment?

I think you're purposely confusing two different scenarios. A government and a person are not equitable entities. And the context of this situation does not translate to a situation like you've described. 

 

Obviously, parents should not purposely harm their children without due reason. And there are laws against that sort of thing. I for one know of instances where children are taken from parents who refuse treatment for life threatening issues. Cosmetic, not so much. 

 

 

[Ramlaen]

1 minute ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

I think you're purposely confusing two different scenarios. A government and a person are not equitable entities. And the context of this situation does not translate to a situation like you've described. 

 

Obviously, parents should not purposely harm their children without due reason. And there are laws against that sort of thing. I for one know of instances where children are taken from parents who refuse treatment for life threatening issues. Cosmetic, not so much. 

 

 

 

I’m checking for ideological consistency with “it is no one's call but the parents of said child to determine what treatment he receives“.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

In this instance, the state decided for the parents to forego treatment. I am saying that that is fine. It's when the state then denied parents access to their child for what in the states would be a second opinion that the line was crossed. 

 

The key here is that legal guardianship of a minor has passed from parents to the state. 

 

In contrast, you are asking if legal guardianship extends the opposing way. That would I be fine with a parent refusing care for a child out of their morals or principals. 

 

I am in favor of legal guardianship being delivered at benefit or potential benefit of the stakeholder. In this case, the ultimate stakeholder is the child who's life is at risk. 

 

While you may make a rightful judgment call that in this case specifically the child's life was a lost cause, I am more Keen to look ahead at the precedent set by following this removal of guardianship from the party that holds the stakeholders best interests as their direct argument. 

 

I'm sure you're ready to bring up a Watchtower/JW example here stateside, and their insistence against blood transfusions. While currently the numbers Indicate about 1.5 percent increase in surgical deaths in this group because of their beliefs, I still hold fast to my analysis of stakeholder claim. 

 

Always err to context and the party at the most risk to lose if guardianship is transferred to someone without stake in the matter.

[Alzoc]

1 hour ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

Obviously, parents should not purposely harm their children without due reason. And there are laws against that sort of thing. I for one know of instances where children are taken from parents who refuse treatment for life threatening issues. Cosmetic, not so much.  

 

One could argue that since the kid is a lost cause what's the point of making him suffer simply because his parents wants to keep him alive as long as possible?

70% of his brain is fried at this point, he won't recover from this and for all we know he may never be able to think, to be properly.

 

That's my personal opinion here, but the brain is what makes an individual: Our memories, our capacity to think, to feel. That kid never had that and most likely never will.

 

So if one accept the premises that the kid is a lost cause and that he isn't able to decide for himself you have an ethical dilemma.

 

Should the parents take priority because it's their child and the State shouldn't decide for them?

Or should the State decide that the child take priority since at this point prolonging his life does nothing more than prolonging his suffering?

 

Personally I think that there is no point keeping the child on life support, it just prolong his suffering.

But I agree that denying the parents a second opinion as you said isn't really a good thing either, if the second opinion is negative as well maybe it will help them to accept that their child is dying, it could help them.

 

Since I'm not emotionally involved with this (and have never been placed in a similar situation), hard to tell if I could say the same thing if I was one of the parent.

From the outside I'm under the impression that they are at the bargaining stage ("maybe there is still hope in Italy").

 

That said I only learned about this case today so I don't really know all the details.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

1 hour ago, Alzoc said:

 

One could argue that since the kid is a lost cause what's the point of making him suffer simply because his parents wants to keep him alive as long as possible?

70% of his brain is fried at this point, he won't recover from this and for all we know he may never be able to think, to be properly.

 

*snip*

 

 

Of course you could make that argument. That's an argument that gets touched on once every few years here in the States as well. And it's perfectly viable to do so.

 

However, that's not the issue at hand. The ethical conundrum should be with the parents who are the legal guardians of the child. They can choose "Do we end his suffering? Do we try to save him still?"

 

The issue at hand is the parents, who are legal guardians acting upon the behalf of the stakeholder, are fighting to attempt a different procedure under a different governance. And the current governance is rejecting their request, I surmise out of liability. 

 

If you expand this situation and give it the breadth of potential future precedent, I side with the parents 100%. There is nothing that would stop me from moving my loved one to somewhere else to seek a different procedure or attempt a different cure. ESPECIALLY when the stakeholder is so young (not like we're doing this for 88 year old grandpa) and the alternative is death.

 

My argument is that the parents should have control over their child's life, as well as death and whatever ethical conundrum begets it, at this point. That choice should not depend upon the bureaucracies of a large hospital. 

 

If you are making an argument just for the sake of its edge, then by all means let the child die. 

 

But luckily, you are not the ultimate stakeholder.

[Donward]

I see that Amy Schumer has been hospitalized. I'd let the State pull the plug on her since clearly it's in the best interest of society to terminate someone like her who is 70 percent brain dead.

 

...

 

...

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Alfies's parents do find themselves the centre of a lot of attention (& very possibly financial assistance) that they would not otherwise receive.....Do you think this might be a factor at all? 

[roguetechie]

43 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Alfies's parents do find themselves the centre of a lot of attention (& very possibly financial assistance) that they would not otherwise receive.....Do you think this might be a factor at all? 

 

I would fervently hope not, but knowing human nature, it definitely cannot be ruled out.

 

However at a certain point the question becomes how much would you want other people having input if you were the one in this situation.

 

I've personally had the unique experience of panicking and waving off my own DNR/No extraordinary measures order at pretty close to the last second and being grateful for it. While also having had an experience after that where other people made further decisions "on my behalf" which it's really debatable whether they should have or not even to me even knowing that had they not made the decisions they did I wouldn't be here to write this.

 

If anything it has left me even more confused about where we should draw certain lines, not less.

 

These situations suck, and I do not envy anyone the personal hell of having to try and make the right decision one way or another. But as terrible as all this is, and as fraught with potential for real abuses and tragedies to occur as they are, I'd much prefer someone who knows me getting to make these calls over a fucking bureaucrat.

 

Is that the right answer? I really don't know!

 

It's honestly bit me pretty fucking hard having it be that way in my own life, but the potential for really effed up shit to happen in the event that we take the other approach just strikes me as a road we shouldn't go down.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Nothing good comes from the death of a child.....The press circle this whole affair like a flock of vultures.

 

I've had similar experiences on the DNR front, but from the other side, my father was allowed to pass peacefully at home when he'd just about had enough.....We could probably have kept him alive in hospital for a month or more, with tubes in every orifice, but where is the 'quality' in that?  Instead he came home and stayed with us just long enough to say goodbye.  Then he left.

 

Maybe something like that would be better for Alfie?  Who knows?  Who really wants to know?

 

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Alfies's parents do find themselves the centre of a lot of attention (& very possibly financial assistance) that they would not otherwise receive.....Do you think this might be a factor at all? 

 

On par for the course of a tragedy. Over here, a hockey team bus crashed and the whole team died. Tons of money was raised for the families.

 

People tend to come together in times of need. Some people take advantage of that for scams. That's a symptom.