Sum Deus

Well, before deciding whether or not someone should want to live or the mental state of said individual, why not ask the individual himself? Not all retarded people are completely incompetent. No one is better able to decide one's own end than the individual in question. It would be absurd to think you know how "happy" someone is, unless you have facts to show otherwise.

My brother understands neither the concept of death, nor of pity for the same reason that if one has never known love, one cannot know hate. He has never been exposed to death, and so does not understand its true meaning, as with life, for he has never experienced it being taken away from someone. As for pity, he has known it all his life and so cannot comprehend it, itself, or life without it.

You sneer at what you dismiss as 'pity'; Let's check the American Heritage ... "Pity: Sympathy and sorrow aroused by the misfortune or suffering of another." I don't see how any community could function without that. Why should pity be a more contemptible element of love than, say, lust?

I do not sneer at the pity in and of itself, but that it is, in this case, substituting love, and, in other cases, even friendship. My brother does not have one friend. He has people who pity him and therefore help him. He is isolated from the rest of the world and no person should have to endure that. The people around him should not have to endure not knowing how to act around him. You people say that I am an insensitive nihilist, but part of my argument is that he himself should not have to deal with leading a "half-life" and being isolated from the rest of the world!

Why would voicing an opinion result in a ban? I thought this was supposed to be a discussion forum! The structure of this thread has not fallen apart into choas... Just because it pertains to something you people think sensitive doesn't mean it should be closed to all, and it certainly does not mean I should be removed from the community. I think I am helping a few people think outside of the box, here, where most people's minds are more closed than they may believe...

I know where your coming from when you say that' date=' but I will always pledge allegience to my country (not the jerk in power) because a lot of soldiers died just so you can say those words.

 

Bettina[/quote']

 

I am an anti-war extremist and so I don't really give a crap. Those people can go kill themselves pointlessly all they want.

I refuse to submit to the mind-smothering techniques of the "Specialists". Too many are the times when my parents forced me to undergo the mind-numbing sessions. They try to fill my brain with what is "right and moral". Good and evil are states of mind, not tangible zones of action. The whole profession is full of that which emerges from the south side of a north-facing bull!

I am not myself a burden on my family. They do not recognize me as a part of them. They have rejected me for my thoughts and my notions and have punished me for my ideas. I am not a burden in of myself, but they make me a burden by constantly deciding to punish me, while smothering my brother with attention and pity. They do not love him. They pity him. And so they attempt, fruitlessly, to help him catch up with the rest of the world.

Studies have shown that the flesh of the penis has an interesting property in that it causes light to bounce off its surface in an angle that is rarely elsewhere seen and cause the phallus to appear larger and longer than it actually is, especially when placed aside a measuring tool such as a graded sticke.

Ok, I see the Ad-Hominem, and I am sorry; my temper was getting a little out of control. As for the strawman fallacy, I see how my analogy could be interpreted as such, although I think it is basically the same position as your proposed one, no easier to knock down. If the government enforced my idea as law, and you said, "You're not removing my little brother until you go through me and my family," they would simply move you safely out of the way and get the job done. That is how the government functions. There is no denying that.

I'm guessing a star...

"Alot" is not a word.

"Not unless we evolved alot of or emotional makeup out of us" is horribly mangled and should not even be allowed to be called a sentence.

Please remember that improper spelling and grammar lowers one's credibility drastically, especially on message boards such as this.

In regards to your post; it is a simple as that. If you don't want to pay taxes and you say, "You're going through me if you want to get to my money," the government will swiftly but firmly move you aside and take the money that they need.

That's utterly and completely ridiculous. If this becomes law, and you stand in the government's way, you get punished. If you don't like the law, you move out of the country. It's as simple as that.

Your previous post states that mentally retarded individuals will still be produced by the people even if all the ones living now were removed. This is true, however, it must be like weeding a garden; everyone knows that even though they pull out all the weeds one day, more will grow back soon. It will just be an ongoing job. There is nothing wrong with that.

They are not suited for this world. Taking the feeding tube out of good ol' Terri was a step in the right direction!

ENTERTAINING? What hipocrites! You say that they are individuals and that they deserve to live and yet you equate them with a dog! "Entertaining... fun... small doses." Try LIVING with one at your side for years and then come back and argue my point!

Why must he cause stress to everyone around him? The world is better off in its entirety if he were not to exist.

To change your perspective a little, my brother has been mentally retarded since birth. We have done all we could to facilitate his emergence into the real world, but anything we do only makes the problem worse. He is beginning to realize he is different, and is going into a state of constant depression. Pity is no excuse for love, and no one loves a retarded individual.

Like what? Anything we do to help ease the burden of their existence only makes it harder to bear.

Why must we keep alive the minds of those who are nothing more than shells? Vegetative individuals are more of an ethical weight on the back of America than an ethical balance! And while we are at it, why must the mentally retarded stay on this earth? They are a burden to society; we do not know how to treat them, and so we try to avoid them. Those few who live with and around them feel pity and shame. We will only reach a peaceful equilibrium, often called by the name "Utopia", if we correct these imbalances in the world.