‘Forty is the old age of youth and fifty is the youth of old age.’
I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I can’t believe people think it’s okay to have this conversation. It is apparently so, ‘this conversation’ having advanced rapidly since 2009. Of old age Longfellow appropriately wrote:
“Age is opportunity no less,
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away,
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.”
Most of us know about the $700-billion taken from Medicare seniors to fund one-third of Obamacare; and of its 15-member, unaccountable Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) bureaucracy coined “Death Panel,” to determine who receives what medical services. Harrowing first-hand accounts of declined senior care have surfaced. The lives and unnecessary, politically determined deaths of America’s elderly are now in play.
On the heels of these cutbacks and under guise of saving an already government-robbed-into-bankruptcy Social Security and Medicare system is the ever-increasing and often misleading conversation about seniors being too costly to the rest of America. That conversation has since expounded into the proposed bullying of those overweight for similar reasons, which I personally find just as indecently unconscionable. For some reason Americans are okay with this?
We’ve been nudged into having these ‘conversations’ casually now, over a cup of coffee, at the water cooler, among friends … even publicly, on television. As if the those affected are not here to see and hear us. As if they are so insignificant we don’t care whether they do. As if by not saying “my grandmother costs too much to keep alive” or “my grandfather does” we’re somehow escaping personal responsibility for what’s really at play. The conversation is inevitably preempted by faux courtesy to make it feel better, like “Well, it is time to have this conversation.”
Uh, no, it isn’t.
“Once a society begins to legislate death, human life becomes less valuable. It is like arithmetic. It just happens. It is inevitable. The German government’s embrace of euthanasia before the Holocaust was no accident.” [Dr. Keith Ablow]
That’s the convenient thing about indoctrinating young minds. They still think their old-years are too far away for concern or they won’t be ailing when they get old or they won’t want to live after they do get old. Surprise. That isn’t true either. And just who gets to say when “old” is? Can it be so simply defined as the moment some stranger determines another stranger’s usefulness has ceased?
Jack Kevorkian was a pathologist in Michigan, commonly known as “Dr. Death” for his assisted suicides. That was back when taking someone’s life – even when they wanted their life taken – was deemed murder. You know, way back in 2009 and in Michigan, one of our most Liberal states. Kevorkian claimed 130-assisted suicides beginning in 1990. Five times he defended himself in courts of law against very public murder charges, by a government just as determined then to tell us what was “right” as they are now in nudging us toward the very opposite. In 1999 Kevorkian was sentenced and imprisoned, released in ill health in 2009 on a promise he wouldn’t assist in any more murders. That was four years ago. Four years. He didn’t die until 2011 at age 83, all the while fighting for his last natural breath regardless of prolonged illness and his own “burden” on society.
“Who does not wish to be beautiful, and clever, and rich, and to have back, in old age, the time spent trying to be any of them.” [Robert Brault]
If I were a Michigan taxpayer I’d be suing for refund of prosecuting those five, very lengthy and costly court cases, as well as what was spent jailing, feeding and medicating Dr. Death for eight-years.
So let me make sure I have this right: Somewhere between this president taking office and now it’s become okay to have this conversation. All of the sudden this is The Conversation to have. And you don’t think you’ve been indoctrinated? (That’s just another word for brainwashed.) What a mockery of fools we make of ourselves. Or is that your definition of rampant “progress?” If so, sadder yet, serving only as glaring evidence of souls waxed cold.
Let us at least understand today’s conversation. This conversation is okay now because now it’s poised as some easy fix for your social security? After eons of honoring our elderly, in 2013 it’s just too expensive to do that any more because a bunch of politicians have run out of tax money to spend? And let’s be serious here, that is the real issue.
How much better to sell it as our vulnerable elderly living too long, costing too much and being too inconvenient because they do live so damned long. They’ve served their usefulness in paying for all they’ve handed down to us, not the least of which was being human guinea pigs for the medical technologies we do so enjoy. It’s time to get rid of them. Feed the tax monster so we don’t have to pay so much for ourselves. Fat chance. That monster isn’t going anywhere if you don’t vote it out.
Americans are allowing self-endowed intellectuals to convince us that we’ve ‘progressed’ so much it’s time to equate value of life to money. That kind of progress will be the end of you and you won’t be wise enough to see it coming because you will have killed-off all of the wisdoms left among you.
Obama Czar Cass Sunstein argues, “people are subject to all sorts of biases and quirks. [He] also argues that this human quality, which some would call irrationality, can be predicted and — this is the controversial part — that if the social environment can be changed, people might be nudged into more rational behavior.“ New York Times, 2010.
Only three-years ago even the Liberal New York Times hesitated, calling this conversation “controversial.” But today they’ve so widely nudged this conversation ‘forward’ even Conservatives are indulging it – out in the open. What’s wrong with us? Are we all kool-aid drinkers?
Let’s assume for a moment that money is a worthy argument. Do you really believe You are going to reap the rewards of any money saved? Do you think for one moment that whatever could be saved would actually run down to your pocketbook or social security account?
Are insurance companies going to do something they’ve never done and lower premiums and copays or will medical providers lower theirs or, even if both did, is government not going to eat up any excess? Do you really think those who’ve paid all of the prices you’re reaping benefit of now are expendable because they don’t keep paying beyond their own paying years – when it’s Your turn? And just what legacy do you plan leaving your children, then? Someone has to leave one if your children are to have any. Common sense alone tells us this sort of short-sighted vanity, in and of itself, spells social disaster.
In a few short years this country has gone from doggedly prosecuting and reprosecuting, convicting and imprisoning those who take lives of the willing to die, to a people of “having the conversation” about taking innocent lives of those who are not willing to die. We already take the lives of newborns. What are we, barbarians? These atrocities are invariably couched so you don’t need to feel any personal responsibility, you’re not really making the decision, right? You’re just ‘having the conversations’ that nudge the consequences ‘forward.’ Uh-huh.
Carl Jung is renowned for his collective thinking, an un-American principle to which I do not adhere. But given the masses who’re rushing to embrace extinction of their elderly on some fraudulent “collective” basis it’s worth reflecting on Jung for just a moment. Carl Jung is said to have spoken of a “Boon Quest,” one’s journey into the realm of unknowns, the boon being fulfilled when we return to share its lessons with others. Chances are he wasn’t referring to 25-year olds. Life is a journey. All the years of life are, not just the first 33, 44 or 55.
“A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning … .”
“Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning, or the natural aim, must pay for it with damage to his soul, just as surely as a growing youth who tries to carry over his childish egoism into adult life must pay for this mistake with social failure.“ [Carl Jung]
The value of our elders is not found in money. Nor is it found in some misnomer of “entitlements” for which they’ve paid handsomely and only now stand to benefit – or in what they do or don’t produce during their later years – any more than boon wisdoms can be found in twenty-five year olds. Our elderly years are those of introspection that youth has not had the time, experience or patience to afford and which season a more peaceful and compassionate view of the world than youth are wired to see.
Our families’ elders are the foundations and groundings of our own personal selves. They are our connections to who we have been, who we will be, and what works and what does not in living who we are. Elders tether us among families, to our pasts, in our futures, and among our ethnicities, the losses of which cannot be measured or replaced; and an imbalance of which leads to the worst kind of species extinction. Who among us is qualified to say who becomes extinct, least of all a government propagandizing to sustain and enhance its own wealth? We revere the extinction of animal species more highly than this. What IS wrong with us?
When you no longer have the wise among you, as a society you are doomed to be more vulnerable. The strongest links in your life chain are removed. That’s where an all-consuming government wants you, as should be crystal clear by the mere nudging of these conversations. A government that has, in a few very short years, indoctrinated the belief that everything will be better for you if only you will agree to kill-off your elderly.
You will be the next links of chain taken, whatever that justification may be, make no mistake about it. And it’ll be okay. After all, it’s just a conversation about betterment of the collective good.
From The Gift of Wise Counsel: Wise counsel will come from individuals who know the difference between …
- what is ultimately good and what is just currently popular,
- what is really valuable and what is just cheap,
- a smart investment and just a quick profit,
- what is earned and what is only borrowed,
- what is achieved by hard work and what is just lucky,
- being happy and just having fun,
- what is beautiful and what just looks attractive,
- what is ultimately right and what may just be legal,
- what is really a generous gift and what is a selfish token,
- a sincere apology and a weak excuse,
- what is true and what is just a matter of opinion,
- what is to be hard sought and what is to be tolerated,
- when help is appropriate and when it should be withheld to encourage one to struggle,
- love and lust,
- what is really dangerous and what may just be somewhat risky,
- what is worth fighting against and what one should run from,
- what is a legitimate source of hope and what is a technique of mass marketing,
- a real miracle and a magic trick,
- what is wise and what is foolish,
- what is a divine blessing and what is a demonic temptation,
- what can last forever and what is only temporary,
- humble worship that glorifies God and pride-filled religious rituals that offend God,
- what is from God and what is from the world.
