marko_the_rat and i found this... Gotta post it...

[ristin]

As ordered, stolen from tygercowboy
From lonerpack's journal

Suicide: The Permanent Solution To A Temporary Problem
Ask the 25-year-old who tried to electrocute himself. He lived. But both his arms are gone.

What about jumping? Ask John. He used to be intelligent, with an engaging sense of humor. That was before he leapt from a building. Now, he's brain-damaged and will always need care. He staggers and has seizures. He lives in a fog. But, worst of all, he KNOWS he used to be normal.

What about pills? Ask the 12-year-old with extensive liver damage from an overdose. Have you ever seen anyone die of liver damage? You turn yellow. It's a hard way to go.

What about a gun? Ask the 24-year-old who shot himself in the head. Now he drags one leg, has a useless arm and has no vision or hearing on one side. He lived through his "foolproof" suicide. You might too.

But... Who will clean your blood off the carpet or scrape your brains from the ceiling? Commercial cleaning companies may refuse that job--but SOMEONE has to do it.

Who will have to cut you down from where you hung yourself or identify your bloated body after you've drowned? Your father? Your mother? Your wife? Your son?

The carefully worded "loving" suicide note is of no help. Those who loved you will NEVER completely recover. They'll feel regret and an unending pain.

Suicide is contagious. Look around your family. Look closely at the 4 year old playing with his cars on the rug. Kill yourself tonight, and he may do it ten years from now.

You DO have other choices. There are people who can help you through this crisis. Call a hotline. Call a friend. Call your minister or priest. Call a doctor or hospital. Call the police. They will tell you that there's hope. Maybe you'll find it in the mail tomorrow. Or in a phone call this weekend. But what you're seeking could be just a minute, a month, or a day away.

You say you don't want to be stopped? Still want to do it? -Well, then, I may see you in the psychiatric ward later. And we'll work with whatever you have left.

Remember: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, PLEASE STEAL IT AND PUT IT IN YOUR JOURNAL, TOO.

Comments

[parakleta.livejournal.com]

I never advocated enforcing ethical behavior

Laws are irrelevant, for the most part they represent and are metered based on what is considered ethical or unethical by society. The fact that you are claiming that suicide is unethical, by implication, means that you have no problem with it being enforced. If you did have a problem, you would have spoken out against your brothers wishes being physically violated when his stomach was pumped. The very fact that you mentioned that as a good thing implies that you think physical intervention is acceptable. Others views, which coincide with yours, were forced upon your brother, and you implied that this was acceptable.

I'm not in any way trying to attack you, merely the argument, but I'm getting the impression that you fail to understand the significance of casting judgement on what is ethical and what is unethical. You may not be looking beyond the simple labels of ethical and unethical, but from there it is quite easy to slip into right and wrong, good and evil. From that it is quite easy to follow the idea that if a man permits a wrongdoing to occur with his knowledge, then it is as bad as if he committed the wrongdoing himself. This then leads into it being not only acceptable, but expected that a man will do what is in his power to prevent unethical behaviour from occuring. You may think this is taking it too far, but I can think of no occasion (although there probably are some) where it is considered a bad thing to stop someone from doing something unethical, but I can think of many where it is considered a bad thing to not stop it.

At no point did I say suicides should be... ...mentally coerced

What do you think labelling someone's actions as unethical, and loading them with the guilt of the anguish of those left behind is, if not mental coercion and emotional blackmail..?

How am I imposing standards anymore than you?

Because I am advocating liberty, you are advocating judgement, coercion, blackmail and intervention.

you are clearly associating my ideas with an entirely different world view that have no relation to my lines of reasoning.

If that is the case, then I apologise. I've only argued against what has been presented. You believe that suicide in unethical (i.e. failing to comply with social standards of behaviour), except in extreme situations. You believe the person committing suicide should be held responsible for the pain and suffering of those left behind. You believe that the physical intervention to stop your brother committing suicide was an acceptable course of action.

I think the difference is that you are standing on what I see as a dangerous precipice, and you haven't realised it yet. The words ethical and unethical carry tremendous power, and can have phenomenal ramifications, which I'm not sure if you fully grasp. The classifications generated by words such as moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, holy/heretical and healthy/ill, among others, are some of the most powerful forces for shaping what can and what cannot be done in society, what can be forced upon people, and enforced by society, whether it be by things as violent as physical intervention, or as insidious as socialisation.

[archdukechocula.livejournal.com]

Ok look. I think there is a clear distinction between what I think is ethical and what I think should be enforced. I think, for example, that lying is unethical. I do not think there should be laws against lying, except in special instances like a court case, where there is a persons life at stake based on a judgment, and truth is vitally important. Me thinking lying is unethical is simply not the same thing as me coercing people into telling the truth. It is me having the opinion that they should tell the truth. Do you not see the distinction there? You are telling me that me having ethical standards different from yours is, in essence, always coercive. By extentsion, you must reason therefore that any ethics of any kind are coercive.

You believe that the physical intervention to stop your brother committing suicide was an acceptable course of action.

No, I didnt say that. You assumed that. On the contrary, I was, and to this day do am unsupportive of what was done to my brother. I am happy that he is alive. I am not happy about the way in which he was made to be alive. I am upset that physical coercion rather than my personal love and the love of others was what kept him alive.

You believe the person committing suicide should be held responsible for the pain and suffering of those left behind.

I believe they should hold themselves responsible. Wether they do that is entirely their choice. I dont suggest this should be done through guilt tripping, or any other means, particularly with a person considering suicide. In all likelyhood, doing such thing would have the inverse of the intended effect. I think the person should be shown love and compassion, in the hopes that they will choose, of their own volition to live, because they perhaps will realize what there is to live for

The words ethical and unethical carry tremendous power, and can have phenomenal ramifications, which I'm not sure if you fully grasp.

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that has no religious conotation. Moral is a religious word. Healthy/ill is a trickier linguistic problem because it frequently that was is currently the standard is healthy, and particularly in the past, this could be based on poor scientific reasoning. I think what is dangerous is to say "that person is ill because they are different." What isn't dangerous to me is to say "I think that person is ill. Here is the line of reasoning as to why I believe this person to be mentally ill."

Coercion means to restrain or dominate by elliminating individual will, or to enforce or bring about by force or threat. I never suggested any of those should be done. If me holding an opinion about ethics based on a line of reasoning is coercion, then holding an opinion of any kind is coercion. I think what you are afraid of is people enforcing ethics. If I were arguing for the enforcment of any of the ethics I argued, then I could completely understand you being upset and your argument against that would be basically valid in that context. However, that really was never my point, and I don't think the two should be conflated. I never did anything other than state my opinion on the matter, which never including physically or mentally forcing anyone to do anything. I do think the choice has ethical implications. You may not believe suicide is unethical, but you must certainly beleive there is such a thing as unethical behavior. I have no problem with you beliveing anything is unethical, though I may find the reasoning to be problematic in one case or another. If you started enforcing your ethics, and I found the enforcment was merely to advance an ethical outlook that was based more clearly on some religious reasoning or something, then I would have a problem with that. I dont have a problem with you thinking about the world differently than me, and you forming your ethical system on a different basis than me. If your ethical reasoning lead you to shoot an innocent person for some reason (which I know it would'nt), that would be a point of issue. Does this distinction between holding an ethical position and enforcing ethics make sense?

[archdukechocula.livejournal.com]

The classifications generated by words such as moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, holy/heretical and healthy/ill, among others, are some of the most powerful forces for shaping what can and what cannot be done in society

Of course. I hardly see that as problematic in any sense, as long as these classifications are made on reasonable grounds. Whether or not others base things upon reasonable grounds is not my responsibility, and is not something I can control. People misconstrue everything under the sun. My ethics are an ethics of personal discourse about how I can live my life ethically, and I think that the reasoning is fairly solid. Wether or not others decide to live along similar lines is their choice. I will try to convince people to engage in what I consider ethical behavior through conversation and discussion, not through any other means. If that is coercive, than language is coercive because it defines the world, thus limiting what is and isn't by creating artificial dualisms. I think language is limited in its descriptive powers, and language can be coercive and can be controlling, but you and I discussing this issue one on one cannot be classified as such in my opinion. If I bought all the meadia groups and prevented them from broadcasting anything other than my opinion, or even advocated such a thing, then my acts would be potentially coercive in a broader social sense, by virtue of me suppressing the voices of others.

what can be forced upon people, and enforced by society, whether it be by things as violent as physical intervention, or as insidious as socialisation.

The step from what is ethical and what should be enforced is a tricky one. This is the problem of having to compromise different ideals to create a livable society. One ideal may be unlimited freedom, but eventually you will run into someone else, in which case their desire for freedom must be balanced against yours. Society creates a need for social standards and laws to regulate any kind of interpersonal discourse. Laws are by their nature a compromise. But they are a necessary one to make society function. We just have to strive to find the best compromises that impact what we consider our natural rights in the most minor fashion possible. In an ideal world, we wouldnt need laws or enforcment because everyone would have a similar standard of ethics and would act upon them in a consistent fashion. But, we live in a world were a great deal of the population hardly even considers the word ethics itself, let alone developing rational philosophies. As such, people do things that dont make for a workable society, and that just arent ethical. People steal, people kill, people rape. People likely always will, assuming we dont genetically alter human nature. At the simplest level, any act which imposes ones will over another persons will without just cause should be regulated in my opinion. Any act which is a matter of an individuals choice should not be regulated under any circumstances as a general rule, even if it is unethical, in my opinion. However, I do not believe that this makes suicide personally ethical. I just dont think anything should be done by society at large or by the government in particular to regulate suicide in any fashion.

[parakleta.livejournal.com]

I think at this point we'll have to agree to disagree. I still believe your use of the word ethical is inappropriate, as you have clarified it to say it's your personal belief, and you don't believe it should be enforced, but ethical behaviour is that which is "conforming to accepted standards of social or professional behavior". It's naive to think that something can be an "accepted standard of social behaviour" without it being enforced, since standards of social behaviour are exactly what are used to create laws. You might want to think of instead using a less powerful word such as simply saying you believe it's "wrong".

[archdukechocula.livejournal.com]

Well, I was using the term ethics as referring to duty or obligation, essentially meaning what is right or wrong behavior. It is ethical not to lie. It is, however, not considered something that should be legally regulated, because of a persons right to free speech essentially, unless the act causes undue harm to innocents (i.e. yelling fire in a crowded theater). It is, in essence, an argument about a personal code of conduct that a rational being would follow. The definition you use is specifically in regards to legal and business ethics, which is a different matter alltogether. It may seem like semantics, but the distiction has relevance, particularly in discussions like ours.

Regardless, it is clear to me that the majority of our argument is based on a difference of understanding in regards to a specific term. Given your understanding of the term ethics, your response to my argument makes a great deal more sense to me. I still believe it is unethical(or undutiful if you prefer) for a person to commit suicide, and do not believe the most ethical (dutiful) behavior for a loved one is to support their inclination. I think both our reasons for our opinions have been pretty well outlined at this point, and further discussion is probably just rehashing our arguments, so I will leave it at that.