Stupidity and its effects on international politics

[fpb]

A sentence from the political struggle in America has gone viral in Britain, as an example of the ignorance, stupidity and vicious prejudice that drives a certain part of American public opinion. This is the sentence: People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless. This piece of folly does not come from some twelve-reader blog out in freakland, but from the Investors' Business Daily, favoured and eagerly quoted intellectual leader of the conservative movement.

The Professor himself has just responded in no uncertain terms: "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived." For that matter, every Briton, indeed every European, who is disabled or has a disabled relative - which include yours truly - knows what to think of it. Indeed, the NHS as a whole is, without exception, the most respected and downright loved body in British society, with a level of public credibility and support that no other organization or group even dreams of. To use it as a kind of bogeyman is an outrage against everything the British hold dear, and I am not, repeat not, exaggerating.

Not that I harbour any hope that anyone over there might even pay attention. The self-absorption, the self-regard, the total unwillingness to learn from abroad, that are among the most infuriating characteristics of the American conservative mind, have reached the point of total separation from reality in this particular matter. Hysteria about "socialized medicine" has become so widespread among American conservatives that any response from Europe would only be met with a barrage of insults. (All right, American conservatives: if I am wrong - prove it!! But I forecast that this post will receive nothing from my conservative friends, except perhaps the odd attack on my motivations or morals.)

The IBD itself has tried to rewrite its outrageous original argument, without realizing that it is simply a minor part of a misrepresentation of the British experience so huge and deeply stupid as to discourage anything except contempt from anyone who actually knows the facts. The only thing they have seen fit to correct is the evidence that they were unaware of Professor Hawking's nationality, but they have not even begun to wrap their minds around the obvious fact that this gratuitous and grotesque howler is symptomatic of the fallacy in their whole argument - that they are talking about something that simply does not exist and that has no relation to reality.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That if it applies to anything like what exists in Europe, it was a paranoid fantasy. Even where euthanasia, alas, exists - in that antechamber of Hell known as the Low Countries - it is not decided upon by bureaucrats In the UK, Mrs.Palin would have had the exact same experience that she had in the USA - a suggestion that, since the foetus had a serious abnormality, she, the mother, might consider having an abortion. This is inhuman, but it is the mother who is the "death panel" - the doctors and bureaucrats abide by her decision. By the same token, we had a Health Service for a generation before the crimes of abortion and euthanasia were spoken of. The two things have nothing in common, and were introduced in the USA at the same time as in Europe.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, are you aware of cases like the one in Oregon which made headlines last year (I think the patient's name was Barbara Wagner)?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Actually, no. Euthanasia is currently illegal in Britain, although a section of the Establishment is pushing hard to legalize it by stealth.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Basically in those cases, the Oregon health system is refusing to pay for cancer drugs for certain cancer patients whose treatment they don't deem worthwhile (at the same time they are also explicitly offering to pay for the drugs for a physician-assisted suicide, but that is another matter). In those cases it is state bureaucrats who are making the decision about treatment; these are patients who cannot afford private coverage.

The two cases I'm specifically aware of from last year involved patients named Barbara Wagner and Randy Stroup. As far as I can tell the policy has not been revised since, although after the bad PR they are not pushing euthanasia so hard. In any case, Wagner's case was only resolved when the drug company offered to donate the medicine.

The reason I take Palin's scenario more seriously than I might otherwise is not because it bears a particular relation to the European experience, but because it describes things already happening in the US on a smaller scale.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Euthanasia is unfortunately legal in Belgium and the Netherlands, and I am told for a fact that old people in those countries often refuse to visit their doctors for fear lest they should be booked for the exit lounge. So I take the matter seriously. But in Britain as such we have had nothing as outrageous, although there is currently a vicious and loud push by the euthanasia forces to get it legalized by hook or by crook.