Pun the Fiona

fionapun @ 2007-11-11T23:19:00

2007-11-11T15:23:38Z

Legalizing Assisted Suicide Would Make Killing Too Easy

by Matthew Parris, “I Am Not in Principle Against Killing People, but Talk of the ‘Right to Die’ Is Humbug,” Spectator, vol. 291, January 25, 2003 (1032 words)

Sometimes one's creed points logically where one is intuitively reluctant to go. The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak. Item: we should not give money to women begging with babies as this only encourages them. Item: this is a beggar and she is carrying a baby. Conclusion: ... er ... fumble in pockets for change. (She just looked so wretched.)

One settles such conflicts by following a hunch. This is not necessarily the triumph of unreason. We should never question the primacy of reason, but we cannot always be sure what reason dictates. Sometimes the heart may guess early at reasons which the brain proves slower to recognise. Sound argument should be paramount, yes, but sometimes intuition is early warning of an argument that is not as sound as it seems.

Libertarian View of Legalizing Euthanasia

And so it happened that, libertarian to my boots, I thought I would be in favour of what euthanasia campaigners call the Right to Die until this week BBC 1's The Morning Show asked me to do a turn on their sofa to discuss Mr Reginald Crew's plan (he is now the late Mr Reginald Crew) to travel to Switzerland where he could be assisted to kill himself. Mr Crew, who was 74, had been suffering for four years from motor neurone disease; there was no cure, his deterioration was remorseless, and life had become (he said) no longer worth living.

An action which causes another person's death, even at his request, is unlawful in Switzerland as it is here [in the United Kingdom], but the Swiss have been more flexible in their prosecution policy and tend to turn a blind eye to the work of reputable and humane organisations such as Dignitas, the group that assisted Mr Crew by giving him poison to drink through a straw. Though his impunity in Switzerland was assured, it is not clear to me that this would have been a crime even here in Britain where we adhere as unbendingly as we can to the distinction between failing to resuscitate or prolong life, which is not usually a crime, and actively taking life, which usually is. This is a blurred and difficult frontier to police; prosecution is not the invariable rule, conviction does not always follow, and, if it does, sentences are usually lenient or even derisory. But the line is more or less held.

After agreeing to appear on The Morning Show, I sat down quietly and thought my libertarianism through. I knew intuitively that I admired Mr Crew and might well have done the same were I in his dilemma. But should he have had to go to Switzerland to face it?

It appeared to me that if we sought the kind of reform which would have assisted Mr Crew, two alternative means were available. We could make 'He asked me to' a defence to murder and have done with it, leaving judges and juries to determine case by case whether the accused really had satisfied himself that his victim was of sound mind and had formed the settled desire to have himself killed. But I saw, too, that, appealingly simple though (to a libertarian) this might be, it would never do. We cannot go around killing anyone who asks us to, however emphatically. The law would additionally want to know that the accused had made a reasonable attempt to satisfy himself that the victim's wish was well founded, that the accused had no ulterior motive, that he knew and understood the victim, that the victim had had all that was needful drawn to his attention, that....

And I could see where, in Britain at least, the case for reform must tend: to the alternative of setting up a Euthanasia Commission composed of expert persons competent to decide applications for death. Killing people cannot be left to private initiative, the killer subsequently making the best defence he can to any putative murder charge. The proposal would have to be considered in advance by some sort of adjudicating body.

Euthanasia Is Killing

For let us be clear that killing people is what is under discussion. The late Mr Crew went to Switzerland to have poison poured down his throat. It is not quite honest to call this 'assisted suicide' and disingenuous to speak, as the euthanasia lobby do, of 'the right to die'. We already have the right to die. Suicide has not been a crime for some half a century. The need for euthanasia arises when the victim lacks the means or power to take his own life and can only request (on the instant or in advance by some sort of letter of intent) that someone else take his life. The euthanasia lobby wish to give that person the right to kill.

If you hand me a dagger and say, 'I am too weak to do it; here, plunge this between my ribs,' I take it you are asking me to kill you. If I comply, and am discovered, my discoverer will cry, 'You killed him!' and I will reply, 'Yes, but he asked me to.' What difference in principle is there between this and the less bloody alternative in which (say) you indicate a phial of poison and say, 'I am too weak to drink this; here, raise it to my lips and pour it down,' or, 'Inject me with this'? No question about it: you ask me to kill you.

I am not in principle against killing people. In a just war, in self-defence, as a means of preventing greater killing, or even (at times) in overwhelming sympathy for another's suffering, it is something we may contemplate. But to take another's life in peacetime is an enormous step, perhaps the most enormous. If there is anything which should not be done lightly or without anguish, this is it. For those who contemplate such an action, to be forced—at least to contemplate—losing the law's protection may not be an inappropriate hurdle to expect them to clear. I can think of worse tests of good faith than to ask that the killer love his victim enough to risk arrest for killing him.

I will kill myself if I ever have to, and I may. I would break the law and kill a friend if I ever had to—and face the consequences. But what I cannot stomach is the idea of applying to the state for a licence, to be issued upon the determination of an appointed regulatory body, to kill or be killed. If one man's Right to Die gives another the Right to Kill, and if the Right to Kill means giving the government the right to withdraw Permission to Live, then give me prison.

fionapun @ 2007-10-08T20:04:00

2007-10-08T13:45:05Z

I have like random photos in my ~~old shit lok kok pok~~ cool new camera. i shall put some photos later.

haha me and lam were talking about how we got to be best friends before FOM lecture. It was seriously the best.

We were just sitting on the train and when the train passed bishan..
PUN said: "Lets be best friends."
LAM said : "OK!"
hey presto! here we are almost 4 years later, still best friends still same school, same course and same train direction.

I HEART BEST FRIEND.

ZZOMGZZ SPSS test tomorrow. I didn't listen since the first chapter. tumblebugs and tamagotchi town is veh distracting. I is be half dead. but half alive cos i did some SPSS with dawn the other day. It's almost 8.30 and i have not had my dinner. i shall not then. since i am fat and have wobbly fat pig trotters for legs. i am ~~a delicious~~ an unhealthy dish. lam will surely say at this point of time: "where got! i also" and my retort as always: "want to use measuring tape!". I WIN.

haha ok photos. from long long ago, long long ago.

The day lam forgot her dental appointment. haha.

lam will kill me if i put any picture of her in the dental chair or her washing out her mouth, so this shall have to do.

The day we went for Make-up course at Shiseido.

That girl in the brochure is so pretty.

I marvel at how i always take photos of myself and they always turn out terrible. My mouth looks crooked.

Yesterday!

Cute little doggy pillow jon won from the machine thingy at the arcade. so power! i love. i want more toys please!
more photos when i get them.

THE ULTIMATE!!!

Belle Dess-up Doll Book

2007-09-14T07:00:40Z

I buy stupid things. Really stupid things.
Like this

And the inside is pathetic. It would have been better if it was a colouring book. But it's a dress-up doll book. Which means there is someone you have to make stand and put clothes on her. It's like a fake barbie doll made of paper. I used to played with them. Betty Boob and whatsoever characters that wear clothes. What to do? i had no barbie dolls. Hello i got my first when i was like almost 12. and that was because my year end results were good. i have no childhood.

Anyway. Back to the book. haha it's damn coolz. there are like 2 people
and 8 sets of attire between them. only the Prince aka Beast has only 2.

And they totally cheated my money.
These two are like totally the same except for maybe the shade of blue.

And these two are the same except one is in pink and one is in green

They look like that standing up.

And with their clothes on

This is my favourite dress. duh. it's pink. and it shows her cleavage heh heh.

I doubt i'm gonna see them again anytime this year.
bleh
my nose is running damn fast.

Library Girl Part 1

2007-09-05T08:03:40Z

I am in Pasir Ris Library. Sitting at Cafe Galilee. Drinking the cheapest drink i can find. Espresso Long. $2.90. Not bad for lunch. Haha if i keep this up, i will turn brown, coffee brown. This is fun. I don't even need a tan.
That was how my brother got so brown anyway, from all the coffee my mother drank while pregnant, either that, or he got stained by all the shit he passed in the womb. Wonderful story, ask me some time.

I'm gonna stay here till about 9 i think, cos mum's having some celebration with her colleagues. Her company won some award and everyone got a 4 digit bonus. Of $18.20. I is be LOVE money.

This is everything i need to last me till i leave. Coffee. Book. Laptop. And maybe some food later.

Jon aren't you happy i've got my laptop with me? haha now instead of pokemon you can go insaniquarium. Plus i can tell you the surface area of a sphere is 4¶r². I googled it. Totally forgot everything after Os. But i know what's the volume! heh cos i googled it too.

Studying what??

Ah. veh good, study insane fish.

ok, back to maths

This is him thinking. I swear. He thinks and stares. He doesn't even know he stares. I bet his vj eyes are clouded with visions of math formulas and he's deciding which one to use.

Still thinking..
his eyes are having a conversation: "There are too many formulas! The little space in front is not enough! Lets move to the side. More space! More space!"

"To the right! To the Right! GOGOGO!"
Scary. They are like x-ray eyes.

Ahh. Rude boy.

I shall continue later. maybe.

Cam Whore Cows

2007-09-04T17:49:22Z

Yesterday was cam whore day. lam and i cam whored like a couple of whoring cammers. Hahaha such a fun thing to do, it's addictive.

Oh ya. We went gym too, in the morning. We is be veh proud of ourselves. The fact that we even thought of gym and actually went. omg. I am supposed to be a lazy cow. i cycled for 20 mins! and climbed like 30 storeys. if i do this everyday i am sure i will not be fat anymore.

After gym we went home to bathe and change and stuff then i went to lam's house to drop off my stuff. Off we go. Went to town first, shopped at Far East and bought pretty pink scarfs. I got a dotted one and lam got a striped one.

We shared a caramel frappe and sushi for dinner outside Isetan. Then went in to look around.

It is be we are damn unglam and yucks. We sat at some bench at wheelock to wait for diana, but we ended up cam whoring like crazy cows.
It was damn fun i tell you.

Lam says this is the epitome of chee bai. eh why???

Diana called and said she reached and i needed to go to the toilet. So off we go! And we... took another picture in the toilet.

Went to Clark Quay after meeting diana. Walked and walked and walked. Occasionally stopping to take photos of our princess diana. Our night life experience is a failure. haha but the sitting down for coffee was quite fun. diana the cow. lam, our potato wedges.

Heh heh and on the way home??

We is be veh tired already.

fionapun @ 2007-09-04T13:40:00

2007-09-04T05:41:52Z

I look brilliant.