Lecretia Searles Takes Her Fight to Die With Dignity to High Court | MIA: Our MPs.

I’ve written on lawyer Lecretia Searles before: she is dying from brain tumours, and though saying she would not necessarily avail herself of euthanasia, she does, however, sanely want that choice, and so in a legal first for New Zealand is taking her case before a judge at the High Court. Unfortunately her case will be particular to her circumstances and not precedent setting, but it may add more impetus for the growing demand to have legislated this basic individual right/choice for all of us. Best of luck Lecretia, let’s hope you get the humane hearing in court that doesn’t seem possible from our law-makers.

On being headed for the courts, the fight for euthanasia will generate plentiful publicity for – hint – a classical liberal party to wear for itself if it weren’t so gutless, Mr Seymour, and it means euthanasia truly becomes the terminally ill elephant in every ante-chamber of the Fortress of Legislation, sitting with a  gun or some such wretched, violent device, knowing it faces no choice other than to blow its brains against a cold concrete wall, or perform the lonely struggle for oxygen with its head in a plastic bag, because our political masters haughtily won't deign to leave aside the mundane everyday matters of their tax-paid careers, currently being entertained on something as irrelevant and unimportant as the Northland by-election and let us not forget, of course, flags – FFS – and grant us the rightful ownership of our lives and deaths.

Everything I said in my previous post stands, there’s little need for me to repeat myself, other than to note the RNZ audio interview with Lecretia on that link is worth a listen, and this one thing more, which is to say it’s a shame, no, disgusting, Lecretia has to spend the last of the time she has fighting for this right in the court system, when she has better things to do: this is a matter that wouldn’t need be in the courts if we had a representative legislature which philosophically understood the nature of rights in a free society, per my earlier post:

…the fickle path of a private members bill [or a court action] is not good enough for a matter so intrinsic to our lives as this is. Assisted dying legislation needs to come from responsible government: John Key has promised this, and his failure to keep to his word damns him. As with his intention to water down Maryan Street’s very good bill.

Although as bad as our MPs are, the Christian monsters of Family First, within an hour of Lecretia’s piece, Saturday, insensitively nailed to the cross of their sadistic brand of inhumanity, a press release commanding we must suffer for their fairy tale god of war and pestilence, and arrogantly – that word so often synonym for ignorantly - proceeded to tell the legal and policy advisor to the Law Commission, 41 year old  Lecretia Searles, she should not be allowed self-management of her own health issues:

Family First NZ says that the heartbreaking situation that Lecretia Seales faces should not be solved in the courtroom or by a change in law, but through the guarantee of the best palliative care that the country can offer her and others in a similar situation.

In this damnable press release, and I'm talking direct to you Bob McCoskrie, is yet another Arrogance of contemptible, arrogant, meddling fools. How dare you use a word like heartbreaking when you have no hearts at all. Just bugger off with your Stone Age faith teaching suffering for no purpose at all, and thinking it’s your right to have your nose in my face and my life, and in Lecretia’s affairs.

Palliative care simply does not work for all, not by any stroke and for some is unacceptable according to their rational value system – even if drug cocktails of palliative care were to mask pain in some type of vegetative or, for them, undignified state. But more importantly, no one has the right to judge another’s unhappiness as these Christian brutes would do here. Those who don’t agree with voluntary euthanasia are not being forced into anything against their volition, so have no right to be heard, and my life must not be handed by Parliament to the cruel cold hands of a dead God: Family First’s press release is the voice of the school yard bully, pulling the wings off Lecretia’s volition over how she wants to live, and how she wants to die, which is no business of theirs.

Footpiece:

[Note about my father, currently in palliative care, redacted, as last thing I would want to do is offend any of my (Christian) family.

ACT’s Duplicitous War on Classical Liberals | ACT the Conservative Party in Parliament.

Let me change the narrative again. Euthanasia is not an 'extreme libertarian' position, we know this because the member who almost brought in euthanasia legislation via the ballot was a Labour Party MP. What is the extreme position in this debate is the inhumane notion that we must die in sometimes excruciating, undignified circumstances because a fairy tale, angry God deems that as our lot and it's the ticket  price of that Never Never Land called Heaven, a notion every bit as insane and extreme as the 40 virgins bullshit. Yet 120 children masquerading as adults in the sandpit at Wellington seem to believe in just that, including the faux great classical liberal hope, David Seymour. 

ACT held its conference this weekend, and confirmed their status as National’s toadying conservative partner, and the enemy of the libertarian, and thus classical liberal, vote. 

My comment to Lindsay Mitchell’s broadly supportive post on ACT’s policy position, sums up where I’ve been heading since my earlier post against David Seymour’s double-cross of the libertarian vote via not endorsing a position for euthanasia on either a party or personal level:

Afraid for at least a decade I can't stand pragmatism and the 'game' of politics.

Conservatives, which Seymour most definitely is, are not classical liberals: they believe in the small state economically, but the big moral state in your face and life, often in personal issues that are bigger, for me, than the economic state (though all are linked).

I understand David Farrar spoke 'for' euthanasia at the ACT conference; Seymour, however, remains, as ever, silent, and the issue was side-lined. ACT is a (social) conservative party.

I am now a single issue voter. I see no more important right than ownership of my body, thus euthanasia, because that has to be the foundation of all rights for a classical liberal party: the individual. I will vote for any party, including Green Party, that promises euthanasia legislation for their three year term. I will totally prostitute my vote for that single issue (and related issues such as legalisation of cannabis proper, and especially medicinal cannabis).

That won't be any party with Seymour pulling the strings.

Worse, Seymour’s following statement is where pragmatism and doublespeak becomes the ruling politick, punching the face of liberty forever:

Our tribe is the standard-bearer for classical liberalism in NZ, representing a general orientation towards a defence of private property, freedom of contract and limited government.

This is by no means an extreme or pure libertarian position. Classical liberalism takes a larger and more realistic view of government.

Classical liberals believe in individualism, not ‘tribes’, David. Tribes are cleaved to by Marxist identity politickers and collectivists of all hues… remember?

And your statement against the ‘extremism of libertarianism’ is the Left’s infantile misconception of what libertarianism even is: libertarianism is in fact, via individualism and from that minarchism, synonymous with classical liberalism. Your statement is the final double cross to classical liberalism, and one swift, vulgar kick into the gonads of former ACT leader Jamie Whyte, who was ACT’s only glimmer of hope. What a shame he didn’t stand in Epsom, although, noting your premier positioning out of the conference is for a referendum on superannuation, hopefully looking to at least  means test it again, admirable in itself, but given that is the voting base you appear to be looking for, retired God-fearing oldies, strategy is not one of ACT’s strengths.

For me, any party putting euthanasia legislation down as priority policy, including their non-negotiable policy plank in coalition negotiations, gets my vote for the next general election. In the absence of any party offering this basic right, then they have my wrath, and I’m throwing my vote away on the landfill of this immoral majoritainism forced on us by social democracy. A pox on it and its petty partisan politics; its tribes that vote out of mindless subservience to the body politick, not, as a classical liberal party would, issue by issue, voting for individual volition and the dilution of the state, regardless the consensus or an MP's career prospects.

David, in neither committing your party, or worse, even yourself, to any socially liberal cause, such as euthanasia, you can go to hell, which, as you’ve buckled so readily to the God-Squad majority in ACT, you no doubt believe in. My wish for your abomination of a party is electoral oblivion, so we can clear the slate and get an actual classical liberal party from the ashes.

And finally a footnote. Let me change the narrative again. Euthanasia is not an 'extreme libertarian' position, we know this because the member who almost brought in euthanasia legislation via the ballot was a Labour Party MP. What is the extreme position in this debate is the inhumane notion that we must die in sometimes excruciating, undignified circumstances because a fairy tale God deems that as our lot and it's the price of Heaven, a notion every bit as insane and extreme as the 40 virgins bullshit. Yet 120 children masquerading as adults in the sandpit at Wellington seem to believe in just that, including the faux great classical liberal hope, David Seymour.

Update 1:

This letter to Lindsay’s thread makes a fine point backing up my own:

Anonymous said...

But I can no longer be bothered getting emotionally het up about people who take a different perpsective to mine. Unless, of course, they are socialists.

Ok. So far so good. But then Seymour says:

In short, we all know that government must respond to problems of pollution, the creation of infrastructure, of monopoly power, and raise funds through taxation

In short: ACT is socialist.

Can’t dispute that either.

ACT, National, ACT, National, ACT, National … can you see the difference? I can’t. There might be some minor differences of degree between the two, but there are no differences in principle.

.

Individualism, Euthanasia, Car Crashes & Purpose of Parliament | The Actual Social Contract

From the euthanasia debate that has been stirred by my last post, which, note, was an attack on every sitting MP in parliament and ACT’s David Seymour, and then from Peter Cresswell’s appreciated efforts here and here, a couple of important points I have made in comments that I would like to highlight here.

First, from my post:

… regarding the euthanasia debate, you [christian commenter] have no right to have your opinion heard because it is VOLUNTARY. That is, you, like my father presently, are free to live in your pain, [when your time comes], thinking it's going to buy you a place in heaven or some such rot. But you don't get to decide for those of us who want euthanasia, that we can't have it.

That point again, expanded, from the NotPC thread:

… all libertarians should accept that those [faux libertarians / Christians] who don't believe in euthanasia have no right to have their voices heard, because it's voluntary: no one is forcing you, and so no libertarian would seek to not allow such law for those who want it.

Again, the social contract is NOT the damned tax state based on the tax take forced on us by statists, Left and Right, it's that society where I accept religious freedom, et al, for people to believe in the big tree frog for all I care, and the religious accept policies anathema to them, such as euthanasia, abortion, drug legalisation, et al. The binding principle is non-initiation of force and do no harm.

Finally, also from a NotPC thread:

… And again *for me* forget all the politics. I don't see many issues more important than euthanasia. If you're dying in appalling circumstances, there is nothing more important, and you don't have time for political niceties. At any one time there will certainly be tens, if not hundreds, in such a position - including the feisty old lady, cancer sufferer, featured on Seven Sharp last night, who was indignant she not be able to end her life peacefully. (I recommend going to watch that piece on demand : TV 1, Seven Sharp, February 16).

Or as I was trying to explain to the Christian in comments of my original post, who was trying to argue euthanasia as being narcissistic (FFS), I view politicians who can read or view the plight of people in such a dire position - again Faye Clark in my original piece - then do nothing about it, akin to someone who doesn't stop when first on the scene of a car accident, to provide, if nothing else, comfort.

What the hell is parliament for if not the lot of individuals? I have no time for political game playing and this dreadful pragmatism all the partisans are advocating for ACT, in ACT or any party. Politics is shit, frankly. Especially partisan, party based politics. A pox on it.

Anyway, back to work for me. But nice if Seymour might actually state his personal beliefs without having to focus group them first  ...

Related Posts:

The Nightmare of Mr and Mrs Mott

Why it is so urgent we have euthanasia law based on Chief Coroner’s actions.

The unethical stance of the NZ Medical Association against euthanasia I

The unethical stance of the NZ Medical Association against euthanasia II