Creating Good by Doing Evil

For John, BLUF:  There is no doubt that Adolf Hitler was a terrible person, responsible for tens of millions of deaths.  What would we do to stop him, knowing his evil path?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Why the Ethics of ‘Would You Kill Baby Hitler?’ Are More Important Than You Probably Think

Here is the sub-headline:

The 2002 Twilight Zone episode "Cradle of Darkness" toys with a simple question: can an evil act (murder) be justified if its consequences are sufficiently positive?

From Foundation for Economic Education, by Mr Jon Miltimore, 31 October 2022.

Here is the lede plus four:

Though it was well before my time, I always loved watching the original Twilight Zone series.  (In fact, I can still recite my favorite episodes, which include “The Shelter,” “The Hitchhiker,” “Living Doll,” and “A Game of Pool.”)

Later reboots of The Twilight Zone never impressed me as much, but the 2002 episode “Cradle of Darkness” is an exception.  Directed by Jean de Segonzac and written by Kamran Pasha, it stars Katherine Heigl as a young woman sent back in time to Austria in 1889 to rewrite history by killing Adolf Hitler when he’s just a baby, preventing (hopefully) the Holocaust and World War II.

The idea of sending someone back in time to change the future is a familiar one to sci-fi fans.  Movie buffs will recall the T-800 cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor to prevent her unborn son from leading the resistance that takes down Skynet in The Terminator.

The difference, of course, is that in “Cradle of Darkness” it’s the good guys who are trying to kill an innocent person to change the future.  Heigl’s character, who indicates she has (ahem) special DNA that allows only her to travel through time, reasons that the moral thing to do is to strangle the wretched little Nazi in his cradle.

“Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of 60 million people. Fathers, mothers, children,” she says gravely, moments before she is whisked back in time to become Baby Hitler’s nanny.

There is the questioni of if in every world Adolf Hitler always turns out to be bad, or if our time traveller can, throuogh an act of kindness, change Mr Hitler's path.

More than that is the questiono of what does this do to the balance of world history.  Would a lack of a Chancellor Hitler mean that Chairman Joseph Stalin would expand his actions and kill his list and Hitler's also?  Would Spain go Communist in the 1930s, resulting in a large number of deaths?

Then there is the question of if doing evil to obtain good is ever justified?  The Writer takes that on, so read the whole thing.

Regards  —  Cliff

Compromised Leaders

For John, BLUF:  Voting is a compromising action.  Not eveyone we vote for has the same moral standards we aspire to.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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PRESIDENT BIDEN AND A CATHOLIC INFLECTION POINT

Here is the sub-headline:

I agree with those who argued last year that the primary responsibility for effective Catholic witness in public life rests with lay Catholics. Lay Catholics are to be salt and light in society, including politics.

From The Pilot, by Professor George Weigel, 20 January 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female:  for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28).

Catholics who take this apostolic teaching seriously will understand that our first obligation toward our brother in Christ, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., is to be in Christian solidarity with him through prayer.  We pray for his health, strength, and courage.  We pray that he be granted the gift Solomon asked of God: wisdom in governance.  We pray for his deepening conversion to Christ.  Solidarity in prayer is the first duty of American Catholics toward the new president today.  That is bedrock Catholicism.

There is no doubt, however, that the inauguration of President Biden, the second baptized Catholic to attain the presidency of the United States, creates an inflection point for Catholicism in America, as we strive to be a communion of disciples in mission.

Were he to follow through on campaign promises to bring the Little Sisters of the Poor to heel over the provision of contraceptives, some of them abortifacients, to their employees; were he to support federal funding of abortion, at home and internationally through U.S. foreign aid; were his administration to promote the practices of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide; if, through his Department of Health and Human Services, he were to hollow out religious freedom by repealing the federal regulations that now protect the conscience rights of Catholic doctors, nurses, and other health-care workers -- then Mr. Biden would have demonstrated, as president, that he is not in full communion with the Catholic Church, because he would have deliberately facilitated what the Gospel and the Church teach are grave moral evils and injustices.

That is one very long sentence, but it hangs together.  The rule of thumb I learned was 20 words, unless you are an excellent writer, a writer in the same class as Shakespeare or Milton.

In the end, he notes how the President, and other Catholics, support actions that deviate from Catholic moral teachings.  Then he puts it upon lay persons to uphold those moral standards.

Regards  —  Cliff

Never Learning From History

For John, BLUF:  Remember when Euthanasia was good, before it was bad, before, in modified form, it was good again?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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A Dark Past

Here is the sub-headline:

Contraception, abortion, and the eugenics movement.

From The National Review, by Mr Jonah Goldberg, 24 June 2008 (ten years ago and still relevant).

Writer Jonah Goldberg thinks Ms Margaret Sanger was a pretty evil person.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Cost of Single Payer Health Care

For John, BLUF:  We have to be careful and ask about the second and third order effects.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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ObamaCare Is Robbing Medicaid’s Sickest Patients

Here is the sub-headline:

The law’s incentives push states to spend more on new enrollees, and less on the disabled and ill.

This morning, on City Life, a Candidate for the Democratic Nomination for the Third Congressional District (3CD) suggested that single payer, modeled on Medicare, was the solution to our health care problems.  This article raises some concerns about that belief.  The problem is, once we go down that path, how do we walk back if we find it unsatisfactory?

From The Wall Street Journal, by Ms Allysia Finley, 25 July 2018.

Here is the lede plus four:

ObamaCare made it more difficult for health insurers to turn a profit on individual plans, since it prohibited them from charging consumers more based on their medical risks.  But the law also created a huge growth opportunity for insurers: Medicaid.

Over the past decade, federal and state spending on Medicaid has nearly doubled to $570 billion—roughly as much as the revenues of United Health, CVS, Anthem, Aetna and Humana put together.  California alone will spend nearly $100 billion on Medicaid this year.

The Medicaid rolls predictably swelled during the Great Recession as people lost jobs and left the workforce.  But many never returned to work.  ObamaCare gave states the option, starting in 2014, to expand Medicaid eligibility to able-bodied people earning up to 133% of the poverty line.  The feds promised to pick up nearly all the costs.

Two-thirds of states have cashed in on this “free” government lunch. Between 2008 and 2016, Medicaid enrollment nationwide rose 24 million to a total of 71 million, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  By comparison, only five million more Americans signed up for plans on the private individual market.

Struggling to manage this Medicaid surge, states have increasingly come to rely on private health insurers.  About 270 “managed-care organizations” administer half of federal Medicaid dollars.  Under these arrangements, insurers are paid a capitated rate—that is, a flat monthly payment per enrollee, set to reflect what actuaries estimate will be the average cost to provide covered services.  Unlike on the ObamaCare exchanges, insurers are paid higher “premiums” for covering sicker patients.

The long term danger is that the Government will decide that certain people are consuming a disproportionate amount of resources and thus the Government will cut off their medical attention, thus allowing them to die, or perhaps even hasten that death.  This would be analogous to the German Aktion T4 Program, which operated from 1939 to 1945 and killed some 300,000 people, outside those killed in the Holocaust.  This program contributed to the German War Effort by freeing up medical resources for wounded Service members.

I am with the late Germany Bishop, Clemens August Graf von Galen, who publicly opposed this program.  It wasn't right then and wouldn't be right today.

As a side matter, health care is not a human right.  Human rights are against the Government and what it can do to deprive one of God given rights.  Health care is something that the Government provides, or one provides for oneself, perhaps by insurance.  The place where rights come in is if the Government prevents you having health care, and thus depriving you of life (liberty and the pursuit of happiness).

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Germans Have a Word For It

For John, BLUF:  There is no reason to think we are immune from really terrible ideas.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Emotions high on both sides of L'Italien's right-to-die bill

This is from The [Lowell] Sun, Reporter J.D. Capelouto, Statehouse Correspondent, Datelined 27 September 2017.

The article is at the link, above.

The two things to remember are one, once legal there will be pressure for folks to follow through and die. Second, after they come for the terminally ill they will come for the worthless eaters and then they will come for those with birth defects.  Just ask those who actually follow history.♠

This is an old idea.♥  And a slippery slope.

This is wrong and for members of our society not to recognize it is disturbing.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Think about the poem by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), "First they came …".
♥  The Germans had a term for it back in 1939.  It was Gnadentod.  You can get a Kindle version of the 1920 book Permitting the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life for $4.99.