Soldiers are drastically underpaid for putting their lives at risk. At the same time, old fogies are bankrupting the nation through their high medical expenses. It takes a Canadian to notice that both issues could be resolved – two for one – though a more muscular (dare we say, “Zelensky-esque”) application of Canadian euthanasia.
"… In the US military, currently only 30-35% of its budget of 840 billion dollars goes to personnel costs or about 300 billion dollars annually on salaries and benefits. By contrast Medicaid/Medicare + Social Security currently cost the US over 3 TRILLION dollars annually. A mere 20% cut in these costs via a culling of only the most aged, cancer ridden, diabetic, senile, and costly elderly… The most hopeless, costly, actively damaging, and unable to resist 2-5% of the retired population, who in the midst of a war might send 10s of thousands of dollars to an Indian phone scammer as their only relevant action, that even in the midst of a war they might send resources to lesser enemies… just cutting THAT would allow the release of Funds sufficient to TRIPLE soldiers salaries and compensation.
young men wouldn’t be able to afford NOT to volunteer. …"
It is undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek, but the writer does make a point. As our decades of economic follies come home to roost, who can say how far the Overton window will open?
Canadians have been trying to kill off their inconvenient citizens lately. Assisted suicide is having a moment there. It makes good sense in a country with failing socialized medicine. It wouldn’t surprise me if Britain got on the bandwagon given the state of the NHS.
Aside from the monstrousness of a government that wants to murder its citizens, this is no way to organize a society. Nothing says “I hate you” more than taxing citizens for decades, then killing them off after they can no longer be milked. Of course, the Canadian political class have been sending the “I hate you” message to its citizens for some time by replacing Canadians with migrants.
The flip side of this dystopian proposal is to fill the armed services with mercenaries: luring recruits with money instead of patriotism and honor. Leave it to Canadians to come up with something like this.
Respectfully, you have not been paying enough attention, Sir! The NHS is notorious for using rationing as a back-handed method of euthanasia.
Been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that will kill you in a few months without treatment? That’s really awful! We will put you on the waiting list for expedited surgery – you will get surgery in only about … 9 months. And it will be free!
I read that piece and I didn’t think Kulak was joking.
“But old folks, many feign as they were dead:
Unwieldy, heavy, slow, and cold as lead.”
….says Shakespeare’s Juliet. But that’s her 13 year old perspective. Am I any less alive than when i was 13? It doesn’t feel that way.
Somebody made a comment on that site:
Why not conscript the elderly?
I think that’s a great idea. I really mean it.
i just read Alan Moore’s new novel, “The Great When”. (It’s no “Jerusalem”, but it’s good) —but suddenly, in the last few pages, he begins writing about old age: twenty years of solitary confinement, he called it.
And I think that’s often true. Wouldn’t we old bozos be happier if we felt we were being useful, and if we had relationships with our peers doing the same kind of work? Because there’s no relationship bond like shared tasks! Really, it seems to me old age is the part of life when you would be least likely to choose “retirement”, if you had a choice. Alone. Useless. Nothing to do but contemplate your infirmities and your imminent demise. Retirement is wasted on the old.
As a disabled veteran, I’m officially insulted, no matter his inner motivations. Screw him and his pseudointellectual preening.
Socialism is the ideology of death, in all its forms including the Democrat party and the Canadian elites, and is antithetical to our Christian civilization.
I tend to agree with TW. Medicare is something we paid for all our lives. To then decide it’s “wasted” on the elderly is the height of absurdity. ?What. would one propose instead - that we spend it on the “young and healthy”. How absurd!
Those Canadians don’t appear to have a lick of sense in the whole lot.The Brits aren’t far behind. (?How many times have they disarmed the populace, only to then be existentially threatened and have to beg others to provide weapons for them.)
I didn’t read it as a joke either. I see real hatred for Boomers on social media and believe the less than 40 crowd will easily be convinced to get rid of the elderly. At the very least severely reduce SS and Medicare since the benefit of these programs will not be available to them.
I had a friend that had early onset Alzheimer’s. At 48 something happened that made it so he could no longer swallow. He chose to starve to death rather than be fed with a tube. I hope they helped him along.
At the age of 93 my uncle was curled up in pain for at least the last week of his life. I hope they helped him along.
I think what this turd is proposing is disgusting, but I also hope people can make the choice to be helped along.
My point was, it’s not like we can opt out of old age. So yeah, if I’m older than you, I WILL go first. But my personal opinion is I’d rather have something to do, have something that’s expected of me, during the “not-dead-yet” years.
What I’m not endorsing is the idea that too much money is spent on caring for the old. Some judge said, “Murder is never more than a shortening of life.” THAT’S where “you first” comes in.
As @Mettelus points out, the time comes, for everybody, when we will WANT to give up life. But it’s clear Kukak wasn’t talking about people at that stage, in extremis…
“Old age” is a life stage which may last longer—even without any extreme medical intervention—for many of us, than youth.
It was supposed to be the application of wisdom. Today social media is filled with influencers. Young men or women should be getting their life advice from the elderly and not another young man or woman. Hypatia on Twitch.
“‘ You are old, Father William’, the young man said.
‘And your hair has become very white.
Any yet you incessantly stand on your head-
Do you think, at your age, it is right’?
‘In my youth’ Father William replied to his son,
‘I feared it might injure the brain.
But now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again!’ “
I know there’s a belief that in certain societies the old were revered for their wisdom. But even in the legendarily wise and inscrutable Orient (yeah I said “Orient” instead of “Asia”, so sue me) , I s’pec’ people were more diligent about worshipping their dead ancestors than their live ones.
Some old people are gorks like Biden. Some are dynamos like Trump (just like in youth some people are mentally juvenile and others are “wise beyond their years”. ). It’s the luck o’ the draw, Nature’s lottery. To say as Kulak does that ALL people over a certain age (and I looked in vain to see what specific age he has in mind) should be euthanized is as stupid as saying nobody should be allowed outta their high chairs before they’re, idk, 15 or so.
As for old people influencing the young….i think that’s usually a matter of the old fart regressing, rather than the young learning the mature perspective. Case in point: Bernie Sanders. No I don’t mean he’s demented, but I’d say he has the mind of an 18 year old—and not in a good way.
I’ve always been a Kingsley Amis fan. I “Lucky Jim”. He was part of a literary cadre the Angry Young Men, as they were called in the 1950s. A.S. Byatt wrote brilliantly about them. Really, she mused, what did they have to be so “angry” about? Their parents generation, (“greatest generation “ to us, and referred to in England, according to Byatt, as the “Powerhouse”). had won the war, endured extreme hardship —only to be despised by their sons?
All I’m sayin’: t’was ever thus…
Long time ago, there was a report stating that about 50% of the average individual’s total lifetime medical expenditures took place in the last 6 months of life. On the one hand, that is obvious – people first get sick or injured and then die. On the other hand, agreeing with Hypatia, there are a lot of older people who are simply “waiting for God”, with no joy or satisfaction in lives they see as pointless. Maybe part of the answer would be to avoid extreme medical measures to prolong life by a few weeks – allow people to die (less expensively) with dignity.
It is interesting that we get excited about suggestions old folks should shuffle off this mortal coil more promptly – but not about the young men (and, yes, we are talking about men) who put their lives on the line in military service to protect the old guys. Kulak makes a good point that soldiers should be much better compensated than they currently are.
That “last 6 months” meme is stupid, it’s like sayin* when you’ve lost something it’s always in the last place you look. Duh.
Don’t forget though I’m NOT endorsing Kulak’s idea, I’m endorsing the idea of the reader who suggested conscription for the elderly.
There are plenty of “desk jobs” in the military, right? And there are plenty of old people who may even be in good enough shape to actually fight.
I’ve read that the military used to not accept diabetics. They might get into a situation where they couldn’t get insulin, and then they’d fall into a coma. Not what you want in a soldier.
But NOW, when since B. Hussein the military is actively recruiting people who have undergone (or will undergo, at taxpayers’ expense) major surgery to remove healthy organs, AND who will require hormonal support for the rest of their lives, AND who are prone to suicidal depression—
There’s no reason why they shouldn’t draft people whose main disability is the inevitable waning of physical strength that comes with age. It’s mild in comparison, really.
And P.S.: since you, @Gavin, referenced Swift’s original “proposal”, I looked up what was the public reaction to that 18th century essay. Some people got the satire, some didn’t, of course. But by the end of the 18th century the “Sunday school” movement had begun, and of course, the Victorians took up the idea of rescuing the poor with great enthusiasm, putting their own fortunes on the line.
I think maybe Swift poked the “elite” of his day a bit, like, “the poor might just as well eat their young, for all the care WE take of them!” I dk how broad Kulak’s audience is, but it would be great if his essay had a similar effect: “Since we’re just gonna warehouse the old people in our society anyway, we might as well KILL them!” (As I said, I don’t credit Kulak with that motive, but…Makes ya think…)
After all, in minority there’s a vast difference between a mewling puking infant and an ephebe of 16, just like there’s a vast difference between a hale and healthy octogenarian and a person who may have lost his or her mentation at age 60 or so.
Palliative care is both cheap and dignified. It often, somewhat, shortens one’s life as a side effect of pain relief. That shortening is not condemned by my Roman Catholic church.
Absolutely! What leaves me very troubled is the people I have known who were struck by cancer, had round after round of (expensive) chemotherapy and radiotherapy with each round of treatment leaving them more shrunken and more uncomfortable, and did no more than delay the inevitable death by a few months. It was not pleasant for anyone involved, especially the patient, and it certainly was not dignified.
If that is the course an individual wants to pursue – great! If others accept their mortality and don’t want to prolong the suffering, then that should be quite acceptable too.
I think “die with dignity” is an oxymoronic phrase. You might APPROACH death with dignity. But when you actually DO it it’s the ultimate INdignity. You’re probably gonna shit the bed. And your face, the window of your soul all your life, will become slack and immobile, a death mask. I reckon people forget about that, even if they’ve seen it.
Reminds me of sump’n:
“One day, we will all die.”
Not true! It’ll probably take several days.
And maybe the Catholic Church isnt censorious concerned if palliative care has the effect of hastening death, but doctors and caretakers could still be accused of wrongdoing if they deliberately shorten life even by a day or so.
This is the long-accepted ethical “principle of double effect”. What is morally determinative is the intention with which (in this case) drugs are given. If given for the purpose of reducing suffering, to do so is morally acceptable despite the fact that it is known that life will be shortened as a second effect. This is sensible and generally accepted. It is what I explicitly request in my own “living will”. I ask that my caregivers err on the side of my comfort and not the mere prolongation of the process of dying.
I also state that my living will is self-executing. No one in my family needs to be consulted with any question of “what to do”. I explicitly state that my wishes require no affirmation by anyone; neither may they be countermanded. I make it as clear as possible that limiting any possible purportedly “life extending” treatments is my wish in each and every case. None of my relatives can ever be put in a position where they might possibly believe that THEY “pulled the plug”. Of course I have discussed all this with them. Only “bureaucratic truth” demanded by some hospital administrative drone, for some imagined “offense” to someone, somewhere, might possibly interfere - though I doubt it. That’s because the STATE’s (my effort to use $ signs in place of the ‘S’ in ‘states’ was defeated by my POS iPAD, like many other bizarre things it does) interest is in my inexpensive Mediscare departure.
Last night our little volunteer first responder department hosted the Southwest Iowa mutual aid meeting. Someone walking in on us would have assumed we escaped from a nursing home and the few young guys were there to coax us back to safety.
“Lucky Jim”. He was part of a literary cadre the Angry Young Men, as they were called in the 1950s. A.S. Byatt wrote brilliantly about them. Really, she mused, what did they have to be so “angry” about? Their parents generation, (“greatest generation “ to us, and referred to in England, according to Byatt, as the “Powerhouse”). had won the war, endured extreme hardship —only to be despised by their sons?