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The Royal Dutch Medical Association has concluded, after a three-year investigation, that Dutch doctors ought to be able to kill patients who are not ill but who are judged to be “suffering through living.”

The decision contradicts the Dutch Supreme Court that ruled in 2002 that patients may only request euthanasia if they have a “classifiable physical or mental condition,” and not if they are merely “tired of life.” The law however, does not require a medical condition, but only that a patient must be “suffering hopelessly and unbearably.” Pro-life activists have warned that such ambiguous language is an open door for new interpretations that would make the law a license to kill. The new report says many Dutch doctors believe some cases of “suffering through living” could be judged “unbearable and hopeless.”

Jos Dijkhuis, the emeritus professor of clinical psychology who led the study said, “In more than half of cases we considered, doctors were not confronted with a classifiable disease. In practice the medical domain of doctors is far broader … We see a doctor’s task is to reduce suffering, therefore we can’t exclude these cases in advance. We must now look further to see if we can draw a line and if so where.”

Mira de Vries, of the Association for Medical and Therapeutic Self-Determination, a pro-suicide group, pointed out that the law exists only to protect doctors from prosecution for homicide. She commented on the British Medical Journal’s forum page, “By claiming that the medical domain of doctors is far broader, and includes the reduction of suffering unrelated to classifiable and measurable somatic illness, physicians are proposing to redefine medicine, and vastly expand its already inflated territory.”

The mass murder train is steaming quickly into the European station again. First the dying, then the terminally ill and now the “tired of life”. How long will it be before they add the “we’re tired of you” group to the list?

And who will they be tired of first?

KR is working on his PhD at Columbia:

All the expulsions were at the instigation of the rulers because the rulers were the only ones who had the power to expel the Jews. Some of those expulsions were kingdom-wide expulsions and some were expulsions effected by lesser nobles from the land they controlled directly: I could cite several examples from several different kingdoms. The 1290 expulsion from England was preceded by several smaller expulsions carried out by minor lords (or, in one instance, the king’s wife), for example.

I am certainly not asserting that the “royals of the MA never etc.” “Never” is a very dangerous word for historical analysis. But we’re faced with several problems here. First, the question of, as you say, “inspiration.” Why did the nobles expel Jews? Was it because of economics? Was it because of piety? Was it because of cruel whimsy? Was it because, as you suggest, the Jewish leaders irritated the Christian lords? That’s virtually impossible to answer, but trying to answer that is what part of what historians do.

The fact is that Jews were under assault, and increasingly under assault once we move into and past the twelfth century, from a number of forces, many of them with strong institutional power. We have powerful clerics speaking out against Jews (Peter the Venerable; Adamar of Chabannes; Peter Damien); we have powerful clerics defending the right of Jews to survive (Augustine; Bernard of Claivaux); and we have low-ranking clerics leading attacks on Jewish ghettos (Radulf, whom Bernard denounced); and we have lords and clerics working together to make a king act out on his quiescent anti-Semitism, as seem to have happened with England’s Henry III.

The attacks against the Jews in Germany instigated by calls for the first crusade were carried out by a heterogeneous mass of nobles and ignoble people, and during these assaults, some Jews were sheltered by the clerics.

What does this all mean? That the question of “inspiration” is too complex to answer simply, although I might add that if we think that anti-Semitism is a top-down phenomenon, that may be only because the primary sources that have survived from the Middle Ages are those generated by the powers-that-were.

I’ve always subscribed to the economic justification as a primary motivation myself – why pay your debts when you can simply banish your lender – but that explanation fails to address how the kings found it so easy to win support for their actions from the common people. It’s interesting to note, too, how KR has shifted his position from his initial “you’re wrong” response in his first email to a far more open-minded “virtually impossible to answer”.

You’ll note, however, that even if he disagrees, KR obviously understood that my contemptuous criticism was directed at specific individuals and not at a group of people or even an organization.

WKD appears to be sincerely wondering if he’s on the right track:

The title is *The Merits of Anti-Semitism*. In this post you come to the defence of someone who likend the Holocaust to abortion, and I am assuming you are defending him against certain jewish organisations that took offence at this comment. You then conclude that maybe you can now understand medieval anti-semitism if medieval jews were like those criticising the cardinal.

Were exactly is the sarcasm in this? If there is any, you are using a very interesting definition of the word sarcasm. Although if you could actually specifically explain how your comment was sarcastic in any definition of the word, I will happily recant accusations of racism, and defend you at Eschaton, even.

SARCASM: A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. IRONY: The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.

Now can you find any sarcasm in the title? Now can you figure out what possibly might have been “opposite to their literal meaning” about it? It is sarcastic BECAUSE I don’t hate Jews. And I certainly intended to wound those self-destructive Jewish leaders and those who are foolish enough to allow them leadership positions.

I’m curious about one thing. If criticizing leaders like Spiegel, Foxman (ADL), Strossen and Shapiro (ACLU) makes me an anti-semite, what does that make all of those who criticize Ariel Sharon in far more hateful terms? It all just makes me wonder how many of my critic’s definitions of irony were formed by Alanis Morrisette.

From Atrios:

“Merits of Anti-Semitism”

Now there’s a lovely post.

Obviously, since the “Merits of Anti-Semitism” post is, well, anti-semitic, and Atrios said it was a “lovely post”, Atrios is an unrepentant Jew-hater, wishes to revive the Third Reich, and personally slaughter every Jewish man woman and child with his filed teeth before feasting on their brains.

I was wondering where all those hysterical morons were coming from. Now I understand both the complete unfamiliarity with me and my writing as well as the inability to master basic reading comprehension.

Arielle is sick of the fly-by name-callers:

Far be it from me to propose censorship, but I know I for one would not mind if you deleted comments that are nothing but juvenile insults from this thread.

No, I quite prefer to let these clueless morons hang themselves with their words and vulgarities. If they:

1) Haven’t read anything I’ve written before but conclude on the evidence of a single post that I am a Jew-hater;

2) Don’t recognize the sarcasm inherent in the title of the post that has their panties all in a bunch;

3) Don’t believe that any individual Jew can be criticized for anything;

4) Believe that the Holocaust was A Bad Thing but increasing the power of central government is a good thing;

5) Think it’s a good idea to allow governments to define who is and who is not human;

6) Are dumb enough to try to create an enemy out of one of their few openly public defenders;

7) Think I’m anything but amused by their little hissy fits;

Then I’m quite happy to let them stew in their fearful, self-righteous ignorance. I wonder if they post this way on Muslim blogs that are actually anti-Jewish, or if they’re too chickenshit to stand up for themselves or the metaphorical Jew unless they know they won’t get hassled. The ironic thing is that I haven’t seen a response this stupidly poisonous since the Council for American-Islamic Affairs modified a quote to imply that I wanted the IDF to kill Palestinian children and launched an email assault against me.

Interestingly enough, the Muslims were marginally more civilized.

The wannabee Maccabee chimes in:

A fetus isn’t a person… How many wingnuts here approve of the death penalty/ I would guess 100% . of course you don’t want someone to “kill” a fetus. But you can’t wait to kill a fully grown person. hyposcrits.

Yes, that whole redefining humanity thing worked out really well circa 1941, didn’t it. You’d think Jews would be the last people on the planet to embrace abortion, euthanasia and gun control, but what’s the fun of learning history when you can repeat it instead.

And I can’t speak for anyone else, but I strongly oppose the death penalty, as I believe it is extremely unwise to allow the government to wield the power of life and death over its citizens. Considering that governments have murdered far more civilians in the 20th century than criminals have, I’d prefer to take my chances with the privately employed psychopaths.

…that none of these irate ignoramuses have ever read my work and that they know nothing about me:

I am a Jew. And I will be happy to accept any challenge to a good, old-fashioned fistfight.

See, it seems that reason doesn’t work. It seems that facts don’t change minds. Why can’t we earn your respect through our good works? Well, I am not a passive man. I’ll fight fire — and anti-semitic people — with fire. You want a fight? Bring it.

It’s fun to read all you have to say in a blog, but I dare any of you to state your hate to my face.

Sure, I’ll be happy to read every column I’ve ever written that even mentions Jews to you as well as my recent posts, right to your face. Should you still feel the urge to fight me – I can pretty much guarantee you won’t – we can certainly bang. Send me an email with your city and I’ll let you know when I happen to be in the area.

Most people don’t like their odds in taking on former NCAA D1 sprinters turned martial artists, especially not those who bench 300+, but I’m always up for a round or three. And if you happen to kick my ass, well, that’s fine. You don’t spend six years doing full-contact without getting beat down two or three hundred times.

One of the many folks with their panties in a bunch manages to stop foaming at the mouth long enough to try to make a case:

1. Stating that Jews have self-destructive tendencies is expressing a negative opinion of Jews. It may be an opinion you feel is justified or unjustified, but it is a negative opinion about the population.

So, you are stating that no Jews have self-destructive tendencies? That no Jewish leader has ever led his people into destruction? A criticism of one Jew is a criticism of them all? Those are interesting opinions.

2. Expressing a negative opinion of Jews is being anti-Jew in every sense. Now, you may feel justified in being anti-Jew; this does not change the established truth that you are here being anti-Jew.

Ah, so can we likewise conclude that expressing a negative opinion of Christians is being anti-Christian? I am not anti-Jewish, in fact, I am one of the few non-Jewish columnists to have been email-bombed by CAIR. So it seems that the children of Jacob and the children of Ishmael may have something in common after all… an absolute inability to withstand even the slightest criticism. Now, I am anti-ADL. I am anti-Abe Foxman. I am anti-Frank Rich. I am anti-Eric Alterman. But if you think I am a Jew hater, then you’d better flee America fast, because I am far more pro-Jew and pro-Israel than the normal non-Jewish American.

3. The characteristics of the governing leadership of a given group of people is hardly ever a good indicator of the characteristics of the group.

If they claim to speak for the group and no other voices are heard, then what other conclusion can one reach? Do any of you buy into the notion that it’s only the very small number of radical Muslim leaders who speak out that want to drive Israel into the sea and wipe out every Jew on the planet? I don’t.

3b. This is because even in a majority rules system, a given elected official usually has only about half the folks on their side, and usually those folks on their side have different reasons amongst themselves for having voted for the official.

Of course, not a single individual I’ve criticized recently or in the past is an elected official. They are leaders of the community, some self-styled, no doubt, others with leadership roles embraced by the community. I don’t know which is which, so feel free to educate me. Of course, the fact that many of the outraged people posting below AGREE with Herr Spiegel’s unwarranted assertion that equating the millions of abortions with millions of murders in the Holocaust and the Stalin era is an insult to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust doesn’t exactly support your case here. Is equating the Armenian genocide by Turks to the Holocaust also an insult?

Both of us would be uncomfortable with assuming every American has the personality of George W. Bush (I’m supposing you’d hate to equate his style with the demeanor of all those frothing-at-the-mouth liberals.) This would be unfair to the parties being compared.

When did personality enter into it? Self-destructive tendencies are inferred by actions, not ascribed to a personality. And they belong to individuals, not groups. I’m a von Mises guy, not a Marxist, which if you’re sufficiently educated should tell you all that you know about the likelihood of my focus being on a class of people.

5. Since you assumed exactly that form of assumption with regard to the Jews, you have engaged in patent, by-the-books racism.

How so? What racial stereotype did I perpetuate. I can give you example after example of self-destructive behavior on the part of the Jewish minority. I never said this has anything to do with racial tendencies, I specifically referred to poor leadership. Bad generals get you killed, this is hardly a controversial idea. Many Jews have died in Israel because of the foolish decision of every Israeli prime minister since the Olympic massacre to leave Arafat alone, just to give one example.

6. Genocide targets an ethnicity. Abortion, even assuming your conceptualization of it, targets an age group, but not an ethnicity. Abortion is thus not genocide.

Fair enough. Mass murder suffices in this case, then. But the point remains, as you’d have a hard time explaining to the Bosnians or the Armenians that they weren’t victims of genocide.

If the behavior and attitude of these whacked-out commenters is the historical norm for Jews around the world, it’s not terribly hard to figure out why they have so few friends. As I’ve written before, do the Jews have so few enemies that they need to create more?

Believe it or not, I’m truly not one of the people about whom you need to be concerned. I even believe I have a religious obligation to defend the Jewish people from destruction. But that does not mean that any one Jew, or any one Jewish group, is beyond criticism, quite the reverse. Indeed, Jews would be wise to heed my words that attempts to control all aspects of the debate concerning any issue that even potentially touches them is counterproductive.

Eponymous plays a quiz game:

Anyway, in case I don’t manage to get anything else posted, identify the three individuals who said the following….

2. American society does not need even one more woman lawyer, professor or junior executive. Frivolous lawsuits will be filed, students will be brainwashed with leftist propaganda, and tedious Powerpoint demonstrations will be assembled with or without female assistance. Instead, what American society needs is women strong enough to be the anchors of their marriages, the foundation of their children’s lives and the bedrock of our civilization.

So, little missy, you just go back to being an anchor, or a ball-and-chain, or whatever it is you women do, and let the MEN file the frivolous lawsuits, brainwash the college students, write the tedious science fiction novels, and run Mensa. Oh, and get me a sandwich while you’re up being the bedrock.

I found some of the responses to be pretty amusing, especially Drew Johnston, who appears to have immediately recognized my warm and soft-hearted style. But Mr. Johnston, the open contempt isn’t for WOMEN, it is for FEMINISTS. The latter is but a subset of the former.

Tedious sci-fi novels? #2 isn’t my own favorite wingnut, Orson Scott Card, is it? I don’t know who #1 could be, but I think #3 is Adam Yoshida.

Chad

Shit, Chad beat me to Card and Yoshida. Neal Stephenson can be preachily right-wing at times, but he can, you know, write.

theogon

#2 is Vox Day for sure. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other conservatives (excuse me, “libertarians”) with that much open contempt for women.

Drew Johnston

For #2, I guess Doug Giles. Failing that, I guess “Gramps” Roberts.

Brad Reed

#2 can’t be Doug Giles. No appalling metaphors. Could well be Mr. Card, with the SF hint, and he’s been getting more and more reactionary lately, so that would work.

delagar

My favorite part was how the discussion devolved into more bitter bitching about Mensa. I can’t believe how some people get so worked up about it; they remind me of the kids at my Greek-heavy university who used to go around wearing Gamma Delta Iota sweatshirts and a chip on their shoulder. Mensa is no big deal, it’s just been an effective way to establish a unique identity in the turgid sea of political columnists.

I need a new nemesis. I am deeply saddened by the darkening of The Dark Window, which could always be relied upon to a) unaccountably miss the staggering brilliance and undeniable truth of my point, and b) provide some of the most amusing commentary on the absurdities of the right, the neo-right and the fake right to be found anywhere on the Internet.

While this was announced at The Dark Window a month ago, I refrained from commenting upon the sad developments given the proclivity of many bloggers to retire and unretire on an almost weekly basis. But unfortunately, Pete appears to be a man of his word, which comes as no surprise to me.

I wish Pete all the best and hope that some day in the not-too-distant future we will see a Dark revival, that like Sauron, Pete will rise from the ashes of Mordor to make another evil attempt upon the free men of the West. Go with the deity of your preference if indeed you have one, my dear enemy.

On a related note, I will soon be taking applications for my next nemesis. True-believing left-wing lunatics are favored, but not absolutely required, as Three Monkey Republicans, starry-eyed Malkinians and anyone who seriously refers to himself as a “bright” will all be given due consideration.