Hi everyone! Today is Friday May 18th, 2012. I thought about continuing with the conversations I had with Anna, but I have decided to wait till Monday and instead concentrate on other topics most of which may appear to be somewhat random. A few days ago, I watched a video on YouTube showing one of the concentration camps in and around Germany during World War 11. The documentary showed well laid out "administration" buildings, large courtyards, seemingly benign "towers" and lots of walkways. What struck me was the sense of organization and planning behind these structures. It appeared to me that the whole place had been created very maticulously. What is interesting to note is that these camps did not just spring up over night. They where in fact the culmination of programs started by the Nazi's in the early to mid 1930's. In the begining, before the "camps" existed, the killing of people took place in hospitals and facilities for the mentally ill. These actions, carried out by memebers of Germany's medical community, was simply known as the "euthanazia" program. Very seldom was the word "death" ever used when describing the creation and administration of this program. It is also interesting to note, that the drug of "chioce" in implimenting this program, was morphine. On a very small scale, this form of death was found to be efficient. However, the Germans soon discovered that killing people on what can be described as an industrial level, required some other form of death. To put it bluntly, morphine was found to be sufficient for killing small groups of people, but not for killing hundreds of thousands of people. The end result, as depicted in the YouTube video, was the concentration camps. The point here is simple, the creation of concentration camps was the result of programs first carried out on an individual basis, primarly in hospitals. What once was small eventually became enormous!!
So what's my point? Thats a good question, a question I wrestle with almost everyday. I guess the point is this: if we can justify killing small groups of individuals, namely the sick and the elderly, where will it stop. If you read remarks from those who supported Dr. Pou, they will gladly tell you that the death of the patients on the seventh floor of Memorial Hospital, was not the result of a deliberate decision made by a single individual, but rather the result of the horrible living conditions found in the hospital after Katrina. My view is this: it was not hurricane Katrina that made the decision to stick a needle into a patients arm, it was not the lack of sanitation at the hospital that stuck a needle into a patients arm and it was certainly not the sense of abandonment by government officials that stuck a neddle into a patients arm. The reality is this, the decision to stick a needle into the patients arm was made by a living and thinking individual who had in fact preplaned the action. And if you chose not to beleive me, thats fine. Wait a little while and I will publish here the email correspondence between myself and Anna regarding this very point.
There is another observation I would like to include. There is an organization based in Switzerland, called Dignitas. It was originally designed for helping terminally ill patients to end or kill themselves. That mandate has now been extended to individuals who are merely "weary" of life. As I write this, I am reminded of a quote that goes something like this "if they do these things in the good times, imagine what they will do in the bad times."