He did great good by demonstrating that exercise and constant stimulation of a paralyzed body can cause nerve regrowth along unusual pathways and lead to increased sensation, which was not known before he accomplished it.

Why would Reeve's life after his injury "rebuke" euthanasia advocates ?

He wanted to live, not to die, and no mainstream proponent of euthanasia would say that an alert, paralyzed person who desires to live should be killed.
To pretend elsewise is to depart from reality. Why not just say that euthanasia advocates are Nazis that want to kill everyone ?
That's just as close to the truth, and probably more effective in arousing emotion.

Because euthansia advocates tend to pooh-pooh the idea that someone with intense medical woes would not be better off dead.

Anyway, RIP Superman. You'll be able to fly now without the wires.

Michael:

Euthanasia advocates are no better than Nazis.

"no mainstream proponent of euthanasia would say that an alert, paralyzed person who desires to live should be killed"

Michael

Is Peter Singer "mainstream"?

h:

And the greater problem is that such folk are understandabl;y prone to depression, especially right after they are injured. Euthanizers would whack them at the precise moment they are most vulnerable--for their own good, of course...

I'm surprised that all of you seem to missing the impact this might have on the campaign.

Though not a top tier issue, it is only a matter of moments (from 9:44 central time today) that the Democrats accuse Bush of "killing Reeves".

It could give them traction, or it could be overreach on their part, but it is coming momentarily to a news outlet near you.

Yes, Peter Singer is mainstream.

Mainstream and euthanasia used to thought of as mutually exlusive terms, at least among usophisticated, non-European types. If the U.S. becomes any more politically and culturally advanced we may as well become just like the Scandinavian, Dutch or German who are so admired among our elite. If we're lucky we too can become Islamicized.

Tom:

Recall that the Germans got their ideas for applying Darwinism from American eugenicists.

Now we see if Reeve (who is no longer available for comment) becomes The Martyr For The Cause of Embryonic Stem Cell Research.

After all, Baby Boomers have Their Constitutional Right To Live Forever In Perfect Health (partaking all the way of Viagra, Pseudo-viagra, ground rhino horn, and whatever's being shilled by Bob the Tetanus Boy). All it requires is enough "pregnancy tissues" rendered down for their stem cells in the lab and then The Lame Will Walk, The Old Become Young, We Will Live Forever! And only those Eeeeeevil Xians and their Primitive Superstition stand in the way of Our Perfect Paradise!

Such is the mythology & belief system.

Yeah, Peter Singer's mainstream, Noam Chomsky's mainstream, the idiot Richard Dawkins is mainstream...

Everyone to the left of Pat Buchanan is "mainstream", right ?

Here's a fun euthenic idea: Let's kill everyone who doesn't read BrosJudd, as their lives obviously lack meaning and quality of life.

Yes, Michael, Peter Singer is mainstream -- in academia, and in that portion of the culture that takes its lead from academia. So also are Noam Chomsky and Richard Dawkins. They may not be mainstream outside of academia, but that's not the point. The point is that inside their sphere of infuence they have influence, are admired, cited and emulated. By the way, get a grip on yourself.

joe shropshire:

So, they aren't mainstream.

I take it that you're one of the few in America influenced by academia.

Michael - You know what Keynes said about our ideas being shaped by dead academics ...

Michael: no, I'm not, I think the tenured class are mostly bloody fools; but also no, it's a mistake to think that only a few are infuenced by the Singers and Chomskys of this world. Such people are, unfortunately, broadly infuential. I believe it's a mistake to presume that there is only one main stream in this country. That may have been the case in the middle of the 20th century, but it isn't any longer. What we've got is more of a river delta: it's entirely possible to spend your life in one political and cultural branch of that delta and assume that everybody else is like you. Not so. Note that none of what I've said is normative: I'm not endorsing any of these chuckleheads. All I'm saying is they have their following, and it's bigger than you or I would like.

Excellent R.E.M. reference in the head. An outstanding band with regrettable politics, but that's hardly unique.

Michael:

Go into any typical bookstore and count the selsction and number of books by Singer,Chomsky, Moore and anyone who wrote a book with the words "Bush" and "lies" in the title. Then count the sensible tomes.

pj:

Absolutely, which is Orrin's point, I think, about Freud, Darwin, and Marx: Their insights, limited to specific areas of human experience, became a zeitgeist, and were applied in ways and situations far beyond their useful scope.

However, the average academic is to Freud, Darwin, Marx or Newton as the average hot-dog pushcart vendor is to Bill Gates or Sam Walton.

joe shropshire:

The river delta analogy is a good one.
However, even in a river delta, there's a main channel.

Those fools attract a lot of media attention, because they're good copy, but their followers are necessarily limited to those with an axe to grind, or emotional/mental problems.
For instance, no wise and learned person could listen to Dawkins on religion without realizing that he's gone off the deep end. One need not be religious to recognize that religion fills a need in humans, and for most people, being non-religious merely means that they don't affiliate with any organized religions of the past, not that they don't have blind faith in anything, or that they don't have spiritual feelings.

Thus, Dawkins, Singer, and Chomsky, to name but a few, have hold of something true, but like the blind men examining the elephant, they've expanded that bit of insight into their entire worldview, and in so doing have stretched a small truth into a larger untruth.

Peter B:

Sure, because apparently those who dislike Bush are also the type who buy a lot of books, but do all of those books do anything more than preach to the choir ?
Polling data suggest not.

Bush was elected with almost 50% support, and after all of his supposedly dastardly deeds, he's still supported by slightly more than 50% of Americans.

After mulling over Reeve's plight, I've come to see that the problem that we're wrangling over here isn't that some wiggy euthanasia advocates might have wanted to end Reeve's life; it's that he was kept alive in the first place.

According to Orrin, Reeve's continued existence was an abomination, for he was the most anti-human type of being: A cyborg.

For most of human existence, Reeve's injury would have caused death shortly after it occurred. The horse has been domesticated for at least 4,000 years, (some would claim 6,500), and people have been being thrown off of them since.
The first iron lung was tested in 1928, and so for over 98% of the time since humans first climbed on top of horses, Reeve would have died.

The mere fact that we could keep Reeve alive doesn't mean that we should have kept him alive, regardless of how he was personally inclined.

Fetal stem cell research may very well save countless lives, but some oppose it, citing the necessary end of a fetus' theoretical potential to grow as too high a moral cost for harvesting the life giving stem cells.
Fair enough.
Often, many of those who oppose fetal stem cell research speak in glowing terms of those military members who "sacrificed" their lives to bring the potential for freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, a potential supported only by the essentially optimistic nature of Americans, and totally unsupported by actual historical events, a long shot if e'er there were one.
This muddled thinking results in individuals who praise the philanthropic deaths of some people, in the cause of human quality of life, and decry the philanthropic deaths of other people, in the cause of human quality of life.
An odd phenomenon.

Similarly, if one believes that an individual who's implanted with mechanical devices designed to offer convenience or advantage, or who is the product of genetic engineering, is no longer human, and that humans must fight against the anti-human, or be lost, then it's clear that Reeve should have been allowed to die, regardless of whether he could have been saved.
Everything about Reeve the Cyborg's life after the accident hastened the day when pure-bred humans will begin to lose dominion over the Earth.

This is interesting:

On the 50s show, Superman was played by George Reeves, in the 70s/80s movies, Superman was played by Christopher Reeve, and the actor chosen to play Superman in an upcoming movie is Keanu Reeves.

Michael:

He had a soul.

And the cyborgs and genetically modified people of the future will not ?

Agreed. That's why we'll have to hunt them like dogs.