Brutish, Barbarous...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

This is an experience I had on an international LISTSERV group I participate on devoted to my medical specialty. A large part of the group is U.S., but we have active participation from everywhere including Europe, Asia, India, Cuba, especially the U.K. and Australia.

For the uninitiate, LISTSERV groups are internet discussion groups that are conducted via automated email distributions to the group rather than via the web.

Someone had posted an anecdote about a patient who was a criminal who had committed heinous crimes and suffered trauma in the process of being apprehended and was getting surgery, and apparently deliberately received no anesthesia but was received only paralytic agents during major surgery. As it turns out according to the anecdote, the patient did not survive the surgery.

There is no way of verifying where and when and if such an event took place as not enough details were provided... Suffice it to say that a couple of American members of the list expressed satisfaction that this man suffered this fate (most, including most of the Americans, were horrified by this). I will not belabor the ethical issue involved with the practitioner as it is quite simple... the job of physicians is to care for patients in an ethical manner, and not to dispense punishment for crimes real or imagined. That is for courts, justice systems, and society at large to determine. We all have patients we dislike, if we felt unable to provide proper and ethical care based on such feelings then care must be transferred to someone who CAN properly administer it, end of story...

What was interesting was the response of international members. This story, and the comments supporting it, were condemned in the strongest terms, but the condemnations were fully in the context of the barbarism of U.S. foreign policy both in Iraq invasion and torture policies, which were mentioned in most of these comments. These international people "get it", they see what is going on.

Here is my off list resonse to one of the members:

******,

I agree completely with your comments on ***** re: "no anesthesia" case, and the sentiments expressed by some of the members.

It seems that America has very rapidly become a brutish, barbarous nation. Of course there would always be people who would express thoughts such as these, but they now feel quite free, encouraged, as it were, to do so.

You can guess that the political leadership has something to do with this. But I'm afraid it's worse than just that. There is a whole media culture in America now of radio and TV "talk" shows that cultivate and encourage just this kind of thinking.

(personal comment edited)... I think this is a sad and frightening time to be an American.

*****

This person agreed with my thoughts and expressed a sadness that he and the rest of the world, unfortunately, would eventually if not already be caught up in the madness that we are experiencing as well (writing from Australia).

[Dogmudgeon]

1. It could have been a "feel-good" revenge story

A lot of macabre stories are going around. They usually end up identified as Urban Legends and posted on the Snopes website.

People have gotten a lot more bloodthirsty lately. It's a scary trendy. Such stories play right into it.

--p!

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. The person who posted the anecdote supposedly had a connection to it.

But it doesn't even matter if it were made up, it's more the responses of people to it, the idiots who thought "great", and the others, that were of interest...

[fasttense]

3. You are so right.

What is making this country so divided and cruel is the right-wing spin machine. Rush, Ann and O'Riely continually insult, degrade and encourage violence on liberals. As if liberals were the cause of the biblical plagues. Then Cheney, Rove and religious leaders moved on to slander by calling us cowards, questioning our patriotism and religious morals. This country will always remain divided as long as the right wing continues its attacks. I use to listen to it on the radio when I had housework to do. My daughter kept complaining about how mean and rude the hosts were. I stopped listening to it because it was making me so angry.

This right-wing spin machine is the cause of the lack of bipartisanship and slow decline of American compassion and morals.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. I don't think the decline is so slow, anymore.

[izzie]

5. I think it is some how tied into this God thing.

I know it sounds crazy but over and over you hear this. God pays us back for what we do wrong so they justify anything bad that happens to you in that you do not believe as they do about God. Western society gave up so much of that with the age of reason but that is not how the right wing zealots in any religion think. It puts the reasoning of our founders on the shelf plus anything you do in the name of God right. Hard to fight thinking like that. It spreads out to anything they do is right.

[ComerPerro]

6. I just hope that people who support things like that

are one day accused of a crime, and then treated just how they feel criminals should be treated. If they committed the crime, fine. But if they didn't, all the better...


EDIT: I realize my statement risks making me look as barbaric as these animals who condone such measures, but lets just call it "karma". They advocate this kind of treatment, lets see how they like it...

[mikelewis]

7. What good is all this power if you can't threaten everybody with it?

Where in the Constitution does it say... "And America will be nice." Nowhere. Where does it say, "American people can't invade other countries without a valid reason?" Nowhere. And where does it say, "American Doctors, do no harm?" Nowhere. This is America, baby and if you don't like it, we reserve the right to brand you as a terrorist and have you arrested. It's not only legal, it's the way God wants it.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

8. As long as you don't have to worry about someone else doing it to YOU,

it's all good...