Judge Robert's First Case

The first case brought before the new Chief Justice of these United States was to address the issue of "Death with Dignity". Oregon allows it, and some 200 + people have used the right to request assisted suicides to end their lives. And now the Supreme Court of the land is hearing a case, originally brought up by the previous AG (Ashcroft) against this ruling, which the people of Oregon voted to enforce.

There are several questions surrounding this issue. Does the Federal Government, particularly the Judicial Branch, have any say over issues that the states have voted on and decided for themselves? We bring everything back to the courts these days it seems. Eventually things will always end up at the S.C.'s bench and that's really not what the S.C. was intended for, but that's the environment we exist within. When in Rome.

So, as things are, the question cannot be whether or not the court should be hearing this case, since we settled that by twisting the purpose of the Judicial branch a while ago. The question, it seems to me, is what power does the government have over how we live (or end) our private lives? Is there a good reason the government should ban these practices? Is the argument that the drugs being used to induce death are not being used with their original intent the right way to go?

There are two different dissenters in this argument. One group says that in this instance, as in other instances, where there are "natural causes" in effect, the government needs to butt out--its only our personal choice how we adjust to the designs of nature and no government can decide that life is "sacred" at the expense of our rights to end that life, or that one attraction is right, another wrong, etc. Oddly, this side still wants government intervention when our private choices would have negative affects on minorities or what not and they insist that the government stand ready to give money to us to assist us in our private choices, but when it comes to medical marijuana, assisted suicides, homosexuality, etc--they feel its none of the government's business what we choose--they just want the benefits.

The other dissenters say that this doesn't merely apply to those effects of nature, but that the government should butt out entirely--that our private life is our private life and the government was never intended to mandate anything inside that shell of privacy. Well, at least they're consistent.

From what I can see, both of these groups of dissenters view life as strictly a physical thing, that the government is only in place to oversee a very narrow slice of the physical world, and therefore should keep its nose generally out of the non-physical world, and even out of certain parts of the physical world when it pertains to only us. They seem to think that we are islands, able to separate ourselves from impacting others if we so choose.

I think this is preposterous. But then, I think we have souls. I think that what we do, even when it "only effects ourselves" effects society at large, if not in physical terms, then in spiritual ones. I think this can be applied to a multitude of levels.

When we tell people that pain is a good enough excuse to commit suicide, that severe suffering is grounds for ending life, then how can we tell teenagers with rampant angst that they still have things worth living for? As far as they are concerned, life is over because of the pain that they feel after a break-up or whatever...why shouldn't they kill themselves?

If we say that certain things should be allowable because they only harm the users (pornography, certain drugs, etc) then why not allow all things? If we truly want to open our society up to accountability, then why don't we treat our citizens as if they're accountable?

Gambling should be legalized. Prostitution should be too-and while we're at it, ALL drugs. I've suggested this before and people have flinched, saying that there is a difference between porn, marijuana, assisted suicide and cocain, prostitution and gambling. Somehow I am not convinced. They tell me that with porn, with marijuana and assisted suicide we harm only ourselves, but with those other, more extreme vices we start harming others.

But we don't make all of our rules based upon the possibility of harm being done to others. What about other things that we allow in our society, like guns and alchohol? They certainly harm more than just the users--people get killed all the time by drunk drivers, and though I'm no gun control enthusiast, lets be honest--bad guys get guns and kill people with them. If we're out to protect our society, shouldn't we remove these threats? Or, if we're out to prove society can handle the choices for itself, then why do we still try to restrict the flow of certain vices? Let's at least try to be consistent. I think we need to say no--our society does NOT accept the premise that we as individuals can chose for ourselves what is the best good for ourselves with regard to life and death--at least, not to the point of helping us kill ourselves.

The government exists to rule man in the physical world, its true, but as our government governs we cannot pretend that we are merely physical creatures...and certainly no man is an island.