The West Must Repent Of Its Murderous Ways

Death Panels

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

I am emerging from a few weeks that were more hectic than usual, during which time I didn’t have as much available time for tracking the news as I normally do. And so it was that the horrific Alfie story from the UK only registered with me slowly. I say this so that no one infers from my silence on the subject that I somehow thought it was not worth consideration. No, this really is a harbinger story.

Picture with me, if you will, a dystopic health care system, managed along the lines of a Department of Motor Vehicles with an unusually surly staff, all of whom have imagined that there’s no Heaven, and no Hell below us. Now picture that you have a sick toddler with an unusual disorder, and you are fighting with the bureaucrats trying to persuade them that your child’s life is worth saving. 

Sarah Palin warned us about the coming death panels, and of course heap big scorn was poured out upon her, along with anyone who echoed any concern about any such thing as death panels.

The Chebar River Beckons

Those Who Hate God, End Up Loving Death

Some slopes truly are slippery.  Not necessarily slippery by force of reason or logic (which depend upon assumptions underpinning premises).  But spiritual forces and sociological trends are what make a slope slippery.  When no-fault divorce was introduced in New Zealand in the 1980 some people argued that it would lead to a dissolution of marriage as an institution.  They were mocked as extremists and idiots--as tawdry scaremongerers.  Not only was the slope not slippery, there was not slope to be seen or had anywhere--the mockers said.

When Christians point out the likely end results of radical changes to law--particularly laws structuring society according to the biblical blueprints--they face a double jeopardy.  When they warn of the slippery slope and what is likely to happen, they are mocked as being cheap alarmists.  When the slippery slope actually emerges, they are then mocked for being  judgemental and harsh.  Rarely are they credited with being right in the first place.  For example, when no-fault divorce was introduced, some people argued that it would lead to an inflation of  the meaning of marriage.  If the union were so tenuous and ephemeral that anyone could just walk away for any reason, then anyone could enter the union.  Including homosexuals.  Nah.  Don't be so idiotic, you ignorant Christian scaremonger!  

Now, within 30 short years, homosexual "marriages" have been recognised in law in New Zealand.  Today, when Christians protest against that monstrosity, they are not acknowledged as being right all those years ago, they are pilloried as being bigoted, enemies of the human race, unfeeling, human-rights deniers, etc. "Have you no love or feeling or compassion or respect for "gay" people?"  

It's the zeitgeist of the times.  What humans will to do eventually becomes a human right promoted, sanctioned, and protected by the brute force of an unholy state. 

Death Panels, Anyone?

Dehumanising and Unjust

When Sarah Palin came out criticising President Obama's socialising of the health system in the United States, saying the system would set up "death panels" of bureaucrats deciding who lived and who died she was dumped on from a great height. 

She was right, prophetically so.  But this gift did not require a special prophetic gift--only some clear thinking on her part.  Health care resources and services, like everything else in this life, are not infinite.  They are limited.  Therefore, rationing of some sort is inevitable.  In a socialised heath care system the government does the rationing.  It is the government which will ultimately decide--bureaucratically--who gets treatment and who does not.  Put bluntly that makes the government a convener of death panels--and that is the fundamental objection, not to rationing per se which in one form or another is inevitable and necessary.   

Fast forward just  a few short months.  HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has become a one man death panel.  This from Politico.