In a real quandary here. I'm planning on visiting the US. Should I tell them my Google+ handle is ledzkiltrumpwidfyre? Or should I just leave that one out? :chin:

It is an annoyance and hypocritical, but I don't see a problem here that could affect anyone with a cunning index higher than, say, an amoeba. — Baden

I know how to successfully steal a candy bar as well.

The problem with the sovereign nation argument is that the USA itself rebelled against a sovereign nation. The USA states that it was justified to do so, because the British had violated the natural rights of its citizens here. As such, by not extending natural rights to those who visit the country undermines its government's authority to rule, as well as its moral authority to judge the actions of other nations. — ernestm

The fundamental rights of US citizens are set forth in the Constitution, however it may be interpreted. Those rights are possessed by those within US borders. To the extent the Declaration was based upon inalienable rights, it does not, nor ever has, any force of law. When determining whether a law is valid, the Courts look to statutes, regulations, prior case law, and the Constitution. They do not look to general notions of natural law.

I'm confused as to why a non-resident has standing to object to the entry requirements of a foreign sovereign. Can I demand entry into the movie theater for $5 if I think the $12 they're asking is too onerous?

In any event, it seems fairly reasonable for an application to ask for the applicant's name, which would include a request for whatever aliases the person uses. In today's world, those aliases include user names. They've not asked for passwords. The objection, as far as I can see, is that many have created online presences and wish to remain anonymous, but you might understand why a nation that has the right to decide whether to allow you in may want to know who you are and not allow you to remain anonymous.

And I think a credible ant-realist epistemology simply acknowledges the fundamental role that the mind plays in any knowledge act, whether of objects or anything else. — Wayfarer

That doesn't sound right because it references the objective, which is to suggest an external reality that the anti-realist can't commit to. What you described seems like indirect realism.

"Indirect realism is broadly equivalent to the accepted view of perception in natural science that states that we do not and cannot perceive the external world as it really is but know only our ideas and interpretations of the way the world is." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism

I think everyone has gotten a response to their question, so I am going to close this now.

The general question of the closed OP, which asked why certain words had arbitrary connotations (and the examples employed were only those with offensive connotations) was of low quality if understood and flaming if misunderstood.

This is a feedback section, so I think everyone's deserving of my basis for closing the thread, but please don't use this thread to re-argue the merits of the now closed thread.

Can cats go? If they can, then that should solve a lot of the problems inherent in human dissatisfaction while traveling interstellarly.

Medical ethics are not amenable to this one size fits all absolutist mentality. Life is complicated and issues require nuanced thinking — unenlightened

Starting here, at a point of agreement, are you willing to concede that had Noa's parents or had a judge intervened on her behalf and she still lived today, still as painfully as the day her life ended, that you'd be in agreement with the intervention?

That is to say, this is just a terribly complex case, with equal justifications for either decision, and there's no use in second guessing. It's like what we do in most complex life, work, family, career, etc. decisions. We do our best. I lean heavily for her intervention as you know, but might it really be neither of us knows what's best here and rules limiting our intervention into other's affairs becomes murky when dealing with someone with psychological issues.

It's tricky to judge cases like this ethically, but I lean towards the pro-ethunasia side. — S

Why lean toward death?

We need more places like the Netherlands and less places like Alabama. — S

How do you know? You've never been to Alabama.

Would you allowed her to be euthanized given her several year history of serious depression?
— Hanover

No. — Michael

Why? @Benkei says otherwise.

I think here I'll respect the primacy of experience. You might not find it extreme enough, but it was to her and that's the measure. Her suffering; not your arm chair estimation of what constitutes unbearable suffering. — Benkei

I don't doubt she suffered terribly. I question the objective conclusion, which is whether she could expect recovery that might relieve her of what is only a temporary problem.

I thought you were a lawyer; forced hospitalisation is not forced treatment. , — Benkei

From the same article:

"Right to refuse treatment
You have the right to refuse medical treatment, including medication, unless ordered by a court. But you can be given care for personal hygiene or in an emergency without your agreement.

In exceptional situations, health care institutions can use force, isolation, medication or other types of restraints to prevent harm to you or someone else. The use of these methods must be minimal and must be noted in your medical record. "

In any case, het condition was not acute so the necessary requirement for her to be an immediate threat to herself wouldn't even stand so forced hospitalisation wouldn't even be possible. — Benkei

It seemed pretty immediate and acute, considering she died soon thereafter. If I'm the judge, I order treatment. Best case scenario I save a life. Worst, I add a few more weeks or months and know I did all I could do.

As it is, the Dutch health care system is one of the best in the world and absolutely free for children up to 18 years old. — Benkei

Her parents did complain about the year it took to provide her treatment:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48541233

I don't know, but according to the World Medical Association — Michael

:

All kinds of interventions for enteral or parenteral feeding against the will of the mentally competent hunger striker are “to be considered as “forced feeding”. Forced feeding is never ethically acceptable. Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment.[/quote]

This relates to politically motivated hunger strikes.

As paragraph 10 states:

"10. Physicians must assess the mental capacity of individuals seeking to engage in a hunger strike. This involves verifying that an individual intending to fast is free of any mental conditions that would undermine the person’s ability to make informed health care decisions. Individuals with seriously impaired mental capacity may not be able to appreciate the consequences of their actions should they engage in a hunger strike. Those with treatable mental health problems should be directed towards appropriate care for their mental conditions and receive appropriate treatment. Those with untreatable conditions, including severe learning disability or advanced dementia should receive treatment and support to enable them to make such decisions as lie within their competence."

Questions of competence and mental health must be made related to the person in the hunger strike in order for these rules to apply.

Only if you can show that she was incapable of making rational decisions and therefore legally incapacitated, in which case the decision would fall to her parents. Being depressed does not make you incapacitated though. In any case, het parents supported her to refuse treatment. — Benkei

If you're a danger to yourself, you can have care forced upon you: https://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/forced-hospitalization-three-types

— Benkei

Any easy call given the fact she ended up starving herself: yes, if only to avoid the suffering of starvation and dehydration itself. A shit life that ended shitty as well, could've at least avoided the shitty end. — Benkei

As a general matter, life's not shit. That might be where we have a fundamental disagreement. I'm not suggesting there's not an extreme case of just an incredibly horrible life, but Noa's case isn't one of them.

It's clear the initial reporting was inaccurate, so the question now rests in the hypothetical. That Noa's case can be distinguished as having been inevitable and could have as much occurred in Alabama as in The Netherlands is possible.

But to the questions that were posed by the incorrect story:

1. Would you allowed her to be euthanized given her several year history of serious depression?

2. Would you have forced care upon her on the basis she posed a threat to herself (this seems more problematic to@Benkei and @unenlightened than me. ).

It's probably been pointed out already but she committed suicide and this wasn't euthanisia. She starved herself and the Dutch code of ethics for doctors prohibits them to give treatment where this treatment is refused by the patient. (Just so that the moron who suggested to force feed her knows.) — Benkei

My guess ( and I could be wrong) is that you over simplify the prohibition against forced medical care in The Netherlands, as I assume there is a way to obtain a court order to impose care on those suffering psychological issues. If the rule is that the severely depressed must be permitted to live out the consequences of their self-neglect in all cases, the Dutch rule needs to be reconsidered.

It's all well and good to think you would make a different decision as a parent but you simply do not know what it would be like. It's questionable that you'd still agree if you would be in that situation. By all accounts her parents tried everything to treat her depression and eating disorder, which lasted 6 years since she was raped when she was 11. The 3 years refers to the second rape when she was 14. — Benkei

The accounts I've read have all been discounted as inaccurate, without any classification of what actually happened. So sure, if we recast this as everything possible could be done was done, she was never going to get better no matter what, the doctors hands were tied in terms of doing more, the parents were diligent and caring, and there was no mechanism for anything else, then you've just reinterpreted this as a tragedy that would have occurred anywhere.

Euthanisia for mental suffering is very rare: they can be counted on one hand in any given year. — Benkei

Hypothetically, would you have supported euthanasia in this case?

But on issues like this, you should be told to fuck off. I think it should be done forcefully, because you don't sound like someone who gets the "it is none of your business" picture easily. — Frank Apisa

You present this like it's common sense and well thought out, but really it's just you refusing to engage. We don't abort 8 month old fetuses and we don't allow 10 year olds to walk down to the euthanasia clinic and eat hemlock. If you don't want to figure out why we draw our boundaries where we do but instead triumphantly proclaim "fuck off," have at it. You seem to be entertaining yourself.

Generally, the right to refuse treatment is fairly fundamental, such that treatment without consent is assault in most circumstances. — unenlightened

Yes, with the primary exception being when the person suffers from mental illness.

I just happen to think on issues like wanting to live or die..on assisted suicide...or wanting to abort or not abort...the decisions are difficult enough without others intervening unless invited — Frank Apisa

Yeah, well life's complicated and I get to weigh in.

It occurs to me though that I have been over the top in response to your wanting to intervene without invitation. I apologize...although if you persist, I probably will do it more. — Frank Apisa

No worries. Do as you must.

It's not even worth speaking, but just a gesture.

Belief is necessary for knowledge. It's basic epistemology.

And a whole bunch of audacity, pretentiousness, pomposity, and sticking his nose where it does not belong. — Frank Apisa

Generally laws apply to other people too, which allows us to stick our noses into the affairs of other's. What you allow your daughter to do and what she decides to do might be my business, as what I do might be hers.

When did the script flip where I became the proponent of government intervention and everyone else became libertarians?

I'm more just rolling with the punches as it appears she might not have been euthanized. I can't seem to get a good real life example, but must resort to armchair hypotheticals it seems.

My position is had she been euthanized or had she been allowed to die without active assistance, I'd be opposed because I believe the illness should be terminal before such decisions are permitted. That would mean there'd be a duty to intervene in some cases.

I am getting married in 2 weeks — christine

Mazel tov as we non-Christians say.

A Universalist is a Christian who believes everyone goes to heaven no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_universalism . This is not a mainstream view. Protestants require faith alone to get to heaven. Catholics require some good acts as well.

A Unitarian Universalist is anyone seeking spirituality, without specific creed. Some identify as Christians, others agnostics and atheists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism . That might be your best choice for a pastor for your vows instead of butting heads with a pastor of a faith inconsistent with yours..

What are you suggesting they should have done, that they did not already do? Force-fed her? — andrewk

The problem rests in trying to distinguish her wishes from her current illness. Her 17 year old mental state could well be temporary, but her decision while now weighed down with trauma will be permanent. I would impose whatever necessary to keep her alive at this point at least. If this were a 40 year old with decades of pain, a better case might be made to allow her to die.

Maybe, but that's a pretty stringent insistence on topic hygiene I don't usually see crop up. It's not exclusively philosophical, but philosophy has a part to play, and that characterizes quite a few threads on here, including many of both mine and yours. Besides, the OP ends with a question that is legalistic, not philosophical. — csalisbury

I took your post to question my motives, as if I truly don't care about the traumatized, but I'm just more interested in promoting my brand of conservatism. My point is that I'm interested in the philosophical component of this issue and that's why the focus is on the ethical issue, not on my expressions of sympathy for the young girl and her family. While the latter is humane and appropriate in other contexts, it's not part of this discussion.

Anyway, all of this is an aside and ad hom.

A very poor post, prattling on about non-existent race based interpretations of Nietzche. Really terrible. The concocted stats were an added touch of nonsense.

Some people post threads about trauma and how to deal with it. Others only care about trauma when it results in the greatest trauma of all - liberal government overreach. Who cares more about the experience of the person at the center of this? — csalisbury

How to generically deal with trauma isn't a philosophical question.

I wrote several paragraphs. Your response was one weird question. — frank

The point remains that one is not faced with the choice of either laissez faire or Marxism. It's a false dichotomy. There are 1000s of points in between.

You also fail to support your Darwinian ethical theory that you believe requires that the weak be left to die. When challenged, you insert undefinable ad hoc corrections related to the right to protect those within your sphere, whatever that is. It seems that the arbitrary limit set on the "sphere" will determine whether you're anything from a libertarian to a communist.

Historically, American socialism has been tied to either Marx or Christianity. Your strategy is confusion about what constitutes your sphere? — frank

I'm responding to your posts, not Marx. Libertarianism or Marxism is a false dichotomy.

If I was raped and the next day I was completely clean and physically healthy, I could live with it. — Schzophr

The only thing separating yourself from suicide after being raped is a hot shower?

As for those beyond your sphere — frank

Is my sphere just my immediate family, my extended family, my whole tribe, or my entire race?

I'm not suggesting that you should allow people you love to drown. You should protect yourself and that means protecting your loved ones. — frank

How does it protect me to jump in a lake to save someone?

Opposition to this view is essentially an anti-life ethic which promotes mercy and pity over greatness. — frank

Your principle demands allowing the sinking to drown, both literally and figuratively. Watching people drown seems an odd way to express your pro-life ethic.

It's both true that sometimes trying to help people actually helps them and that sometimes trying to help people actually hurts them. I think our focus as a society should be in doing things that actually help people, as opposed to abandoning the attempt because sometimes we fail.

The Independent article may or may not say essentially the same things as the Fox one - I didn't check - but it would be crazy to base any assessment of an important issue of social policy on a report from Fox News. — andrewk

It would be crazier to ignore the literally of hundreds of other cites simply because Fox reported the same thing too. Obviously Fox wasn't the first to report this, and they all use the term "euthanize."

I'll go a step further as well though. If the parents and doctors simply agreed to her wishes and allowed her to wither away without actively killing her ( which is what the euphemism "euthanasia" is), I'd find the matter still very much offensive. The distinction attempted, even if true, hardly makes this a whole lot better.

Whether or not this 17 year old girl made a naive decision should not come to bear on the decisions of terminally ill patients to end their suffering. — VagabondSpectre

I agree, but legislation can have unintended consequences. I do gain some comfort in knowing that there's a nation reckless enough to be the guinea pig so that the details can be sorted out before these ideas will be tried on my soil.

I do find this Dutch experiment vile. It's a step backward for compassionate end of life care and it treats human life as just another item.

She would have to be kept sedated or in restraints, and on suicide watch during these years of exhaustive experimentation on her psyche. And if in the end, it fails anyway, they will have done nothing but harm. — VagabondSpectre

Or not.

It's not like you get a do over if you choose euthanasia and we're wrong.

This was actually suicide, and it has been misreported. — VagabondSpectre

It was euthanasia, not suicide. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9221159/depressed-girl-17-dies-at-euthanasia-clinic-in-holland-after-suffering-unbearable-pain-since-childhood-rape/

The unfairness is that boys can just tie it in a knot and wait until they get home, but girls have to go right away. For that reason. I think girls should get to go wherever they want.