Showing posts with label Merciful. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Merciful. Show all posts

March 23, 2017

Needed: A Giving Hand With Smart Border Security

While we should certainly help immigrant refugees and those in need, we also need to provide adequate vetting and border security for our people. 

This does not mean that all immigrants are bad or that we are mean or paranoid, bur rather that we need to take smart and measured precautions in the dangerous times we are living in.

Al Qaeda, ISIS, and other such brutal terrorist organizations have shown they mean murderous business, and they are vowing to strike at the hearts of America and the West.

So while we open our hearts, we can't close our eyes!

Safeguard America and the good decent people already here, and at the same time be merciful and giving to immigrants, but don't sacrifice one for the other. ;-)

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal with photos adapted from here and here and with attribution to the New York Times and Alan Silver)
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December 16, 2016

Death With Dignity

It is amazing that still in the 21st century there is not widespread acceptance and legality of physician-assisted suicide. 

Even the term voluntary euthanasia (from the Greek meaning good death) is still considered taboo--similar to using the term radical Islamist.

People are afraid to call a spade a spade and deal with life's complexities and harsh realities. 

All through history, mankind had the code of conduct and honor that when someone (person or animal) was mortality wounded by nature or in battle, they would be "put out of their misery."

This is called COMPASSION!

Yet, in modern-day civilization, extremist PC-ness (politically correctness) dooms even such a basic fundamental act of decency toward one another. 

Like with radical Islam, the fear of saying it and admitting to a war against extremist and murderous religion ideology cannot be fathomed and so "leadership from behind" mandates that we close our eyes and pretend the boogeyman isn't really in the room--even if it means continuous losing in the global war on terror. 

Similarly, with euthanasia, poor excuses for leaders fear that once the genie is out of the bootle, people will just be committing arbitrary acts of suicide left and right. 

Unfortunately, these weak people in leadership positions are not leaders, but rather cowards who force others to suffer whether by the hands of terrorism and war or by the unnecessary and cruel suffering for people with the most horrible illness and disabilities in society. 

In 1988, "Dr. Death," Jack Kevorkian, provided assisted suicide to someone with the horrible, Lou Gehrig's Disease, and in turn, he had to spend 8 years in jail for second-degree murder.

Fortunately, there are now already 5 U.S. states where "physicians cannot prosecuted for prescribing medication to hasten death", where individuals that "have a terminal illness as well as a prognosis of six months or less to live." These include: Oregon, Vermont, Washington, California, and Montana (when mandated by a court ruling).  

Similarly, overseas in Switzerland, associations like DIGNITAS, provide services "accompanying dying patients at the end of their lives and assistance with suicide."

The person must have a: 

- "terminal illness" and/or an 
- "an "unendurable incapacitating disability" and/or 
- "unbearable and uncontrollable pain."

The end is made reasonable and humane by having a in-depth evaluation, followed by at least 2 face-to-face meetings with doctors, getting a prescription for the medicine, setting a mutually agreed date, having loved ones at their side, and self-administering the fatal dose of Sodium Pentobarbital (NaP), usually 15 mg by swallowing or administering by gastric tube or intravenously.

The medicine is "lethal, fast-acting, and completely painless"--after taking it, the patient falls asleep within a few minutes and passes peacefully. 

Having seen my own mother suffer horribly with Parkinson's Disease, I know that voluntary euthanasia would not only have been the merciful thing to do, but the right thing to do to help people. 

Political correctness and fear of doing what needs to be done is no excuse for prolonging the suffering of those that want to exercise their right to die and who deserve their final peace. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 12, 2016

Keeping Perspective

I thought this was a good photo to depict the importance of keeping perspective in life.

It is easy for any of us to "get bent out of shape" over big and little things alike. 

But if we sort of zoom out a little and see the larger perspective of things then perhaps we can realize that while our problems may be big for us, they are really small in comparison to the bigger picture or G-d's eye view. 

Yes, to us, little can be big, and big can be little, but if we could just recognize that we are part of something so much more, we can get that finer-tuned perspective on what's truly important and what's more trivial. 

It doesn't mean that our feelings of hurt, pain, loneliness, or injustices in the world are not important. 

They are significant for us to try to deal with them and make things better. 

Yet, we cannot go back in time and right all the wrongs, and we cannot change all the things about ourselves that we'd like to in a presto change-O wave of the hand moment. 

Life, change, and improvement are incremental. 

Sometimes, we make progress only then to fall back some. 

But overall, we need to keep the momentum of positive change for ourselves, forward.

But why are we even here? 

My wife said something the other day as follows:


"We are here in order to learn why we are here!"

Sounds confusing, but really maybe it's not. 

Our souls are sent here in the temporary vessels of our mortal bodies.

We are here so we can spend time here in this complex and interactive world, and learn from our relationships, positively and negatively with each other. 

The learning corrects our soul's imperfections and makes us better human and spiritual beings and brings us closer to G-d. 

At the same time that we are here, we should make it as pleasant as possible for ourselves and each other (but not over-the-top in a nihilistic and debauchery type of way). 

Stay fit, support yourselves and your family, live reasonably comfortably, so that you can pursue your karmic-driven learning and growth toward inner perfection. 

Like Buddha, we seek to purify our souls before they return to our Maker. 

In the realm of things, we are a very small microscopic human insect, but in the bigger picture, we are part of the ultimate magnanimous giving of opportunity to fix and maybe even come close to perfecting ourselves to be more like our beautiful and merciful Creator. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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