Sunday, February 27, 2005
The Lesson of Terri Schiavo...
I vividly remember the last time I pet my dog, Joker. I was 16, a junior in high school. It had been a very rainy November. (I think it had rained for three weeks straight non-stop.) I kneeled down, and stroked his soft little head. He looked at me with those sad brown eyes. I knew it was the last time I would ever pet my dog. I choked back tears, and walked out into the dark morning to go to school.
What was normally a furry brown, white, and tan streaked head, now was shaved. Joker was a Shetland Sheepdog, which is a very loving and fluffy animal, but Joker had some weird skin disorder which made him scratch himself endlessly. On his rear haunches he had male pattern doggy baldness. He was getting old, and mom made the fateful decision to have him put to sleep. My grandpa took the dog in, and from what I've heard, Joker went peacefully.
I've heard various stories from other people about family pets being taken to their final resting place. I consoled one friend when his family dog was put to sleep. He cried and remarked how that dog bit a neighborhood kid who everyone considered the neighbor dork. I coudn't help but laugh. My laughter got him to start laughing, and in a sense that eased the situation, but I know the pain of losing a family dog.
The reason that people feel pain when a family pet is put down, is due to the fact that we fall in love with our animals that brings us comfort, laughter, and very simple loyal and honest companionship. No animal can love you more than a dog. A dog is the most honest friend anyone will have. Oh, sure, at times it will ignore you if another person has doggy treats, but that dog will treat you with loyalty even if you've been somewhat cruel to the poor animal. It'll keep silent and never tell your deepest secrets, hopes, and fears.
The only love stronger than the love for a family pet, is the love a human shares with friends and family. Family bonding is the strongest bond of all. People will put up with family members long after others would have walked away. Love and family loyalty are not always logical.
Thinking of families, the Terri Schiavo story hit a nerve with me for some reason. Her story is like one of those hypothetical scenarios your given in a ethical philosophy class. Terri has basically been on medical life support for 15 years. She's in a vegetative state. Medical science has kept her body alive, but the woman who was Terri is now brain dead and merely a shadow of her former self. Yes, she can breath, smile, look around, but is she really concious? Is she living a quality filled life? Should the parents fight to keep her alive on permanent life support until Terri's body finally expires? Is the husband right in wishing to honor Terri's verbal legally non-binding statement that she would never want to be left in such a vegetative state?
The last couple of years have brought personal misfortune to my family. My dad had a debilitating stroke, and my stepbrother died due to diabetes related complications. My dad is now paralyzed on the left side of his body. His memory is weak, but he still is concious.
I wonder what I would decide if my dad ended up like Terri. (Granted, it wouldn't be my decision, but I'm taking this as a hypothetical argument.)
My stepbrother's health began to seriously decline because he didn't treat his diabetes right. He messed around carelessly with his illness, and it cost him. He was 33 when he died. His complications eventually led him to the hospital, then a nursing home, and then to a hospice. It was the first time I had ever seen someone in the final stage of life. The throes of death were upon him.
He made grunting choking sounds as his lungs filled with fluid. My stepmother, dad, and a couple of his relatives were there while he suffered. It was brutally painful to watch. I wished there was something the nurses could do to end his suffering. I knew that was going to be Mike's final day when I saw him. Because there are laws in my home state against euthanasia, it took him over six hours before his body finally gave up and expired.
I wondered, why can't we help ease someone who's suffering and in their last stage of life. No heroics are going to save someone in that final stage. Nothing.
It was a couple weeks before Mike passed away that my dad put down his dog. My stepmom basically loved that smelly dog more than anything. My dad always yelled at the poor thing. Despite that, I saw him being nice to the dog when nobody was looking. He took the dog in to be put to sleep after it had grown old and very ill. He said it was not a very good day.
It was about six months after Mike and the dog had died that my dad had a stroke. A blood clot made its way to the right side of his brain. It was severe and he could have died. Now, he's alive and concious, but basically crippled. His insurance company played a nasty game with him. It only covered a brief hospital stay, and hardly paid for any therapy.
The funny thing is Dad had good insurance. He had one of those factory jobs with a union, good pension, good retirement package. The works. Dad, like many people, didn't read the fine print of his health insurance contract. Many don't. I'd recommend to any reader that you check on your insurance in regard to getting therapy to treat debilitating illnesses.
The government won't help him out due, mostly in part, to the political rangling of the Republican Party. Cutting spending to the elderly, crippled, and helpless, cutting welfare programs, and other social programs that help the poor and unfortuante, combined with setting stricter rules and regulations for people that get disabled left my dad in a virtual hiatus. His insurance company ducked out as quick as it could, and the government wouldn't help because he hadn't been crippled long enough.
It's a sad story, and the family deals with it in the best humor possible.
Which brings me back to Terri Schiavo, and the problem of euthanasia.
The parents remarked that each day Terri lived was a miracle granted by God. Each day is miraculous, but the credit goes to modern medical science not the divine intervention of the Almighty. If it was up to God, Terri would have gone to her final resting place fifteen years ago.
I'll take a leap of faith and say that God's Law would fit in with Nature's Law. Everything in the natural world works in observable patterns. Gravity does not change on Earth. It's fairly constant. The Sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. It would take many volumes of webspace to talk about nature and science, but I'll say if there is a God, and he built the framework for the universe, it doesn't look like he had human beings in mind.
Nature, and life, can be very cruel, harsh, and unfair. Living things take advantage of everything they can to survive to reach adulthood and reproduce. Mammals form family units, in which there are parental bonds between adults and their offspring. Humans, being mammals, do the same thing. With humans, however, the situation is more complex. We live long lives, and form complex relationships. The key to our relationships is that we are conscious of our existence and we share a mutually shared consciousness with our fellow human beings.
As humans we can be both rational and emotional. Sometimes both. In some cases we can rationalize something and get our emotions to support our thoughts, or we can feel something and then work on rationalizing it.
With Terri Sciavo, we have the question of whether a person has the right to die. Terri's case also asks the old philosophical question about what are we, what makes a person a person. Are we a soul? Are we merely an animal where our concept of self and the outer world is stored in a small chunk of meat in the front part of our brains? Are we just our conciousness?
Terri's case shows that humans are just their consciousness. Her heart failed, which triggered a reaction in her brain that blocked the flow of oxygen. Without medical treament, Terri would have died. Medicine intervened, and her body lived. The primitive part of her brain survived, and I'd wager that a very small part of her conciousness remains, but her personality is dead never to return.
It's a very creepy thing to realize that all we are and perceive is stored in a lump of brain matter in the front of our skulls. Our hopes, dreams, fears, our favorite baseball team, the smell and taste of grandma's old spaghetti recipe, the memory of that first girl you kissed, the memory of the family dog as a puppy and when it was old and had to be put to sleep, EVERYTHING that we are is stored in the front part of our brain.
When that part of Terri's brain died, everything that was Terri died.
Terri's parents, and Terri's husband are fighting over Terri's life. Terri has no choice, since she can make no choice. Her conscious mind is gone. The parents want to keep Terri alive, the husband wants her to die.
As I said, human relationships are very complex. What's the right thing to do in this case? The state of Florida has determined that the feeding tube that keeps Terri alive be removed. The parents fought to keep the state from pulling the plug. The husband fought to allow Terri to die. Now the state has decided after fifteen years of court battles that Terri's food tube be removed.
I can only imagine the amount of pain the parents feel, and the amount of pain the husband feels. It seems the media is trying to make the husband the villain in this case. No, he's not the villain. Nature vs. science is the real conflict. Nature in this case is the real villain, and science complicated what would normally have been a natural event.
Now that the state has determined Terri's food tube be removed, comes the question: Should Terri starve to death or should the state allow Terri to be mercifully put to death? I'm guessing the State of Florida has no euthanasia laws, and as a result Terri will die of starvation. Cruel. However, is it cruel to keep her alive when she can never enjoy life again except in some small animal like manner? Who is paying for Terri's health care? Isn't it cruel to force someone to continue to pay for the life of someone who can never enjoy it? In regard to the husband, isn't it cruel to force him to remain married to Terri when she can never reciprocate the companionship a wife provides? Terri can never take care of a child, she can't even take care of herself.
It's a cruel and ugly situation. Deciding Terri's fate is not easy. There's the emotion and reason problem again. On one hand, emotionally you want Terri to live, and you have hope that medical science one day could make her all better. You rationalize it, and you get emotionally involved in preserving her life. You cling to false hope, and any small signs of intelligence as proof that she can get better.
On the other hand, you realize that the part of Terri that was Terri is dead. Her ideas, thoughts, jokes, memories, dreams, hopes, and fears are all gone, wiped out by brain damage, never to return again. All medical science can do is keep the body alive. Her body lives, but her mind is gone forever. It's emotionally painful to watch Terri live and to see her basically as a zombie. You realize that the woman who was Terri, the woman you loved and wanted to share your life with, to build a family with, and to grow old with has basically died despite her body's survival. You rationalize that she would be better off if she had died, and your emotions work to support your conviction.
Terri's case is a case of heart versus mind. This is what makes it dramatic, it's the eternal human conflict. Americans are both big hearted people, but also very rational people. Terri's case tears at the conflict.
If I was king of the world, and I had to make the decision of what to do with Terri, I would first think about my old family dog. I loved that dog. A human being is far more valuable than a dog. Even though I loved that dog, I realized when it was time to euthanize him, the decision was right. It was painful, cruel, and unjust, but it was right. It was the humane and compassionate thing to do. Otherwise, the dog would have suffered more, and endlessly until it eventually died. It would have been far crueler to let the dog die of its own physical exhaustion.
So, I have to ask what would be right for Terri. What is more cruel to allow Terri to die horribly, with dignity, or to keep her body alive until if finally dies from exhaustion?
My gut tells me that Terri should have the right to die with dignity. That doctors should ease her suffering, and see that she dies as comfortably and painlessly as possible.
My heart tells me that the parents should gain all custody of Terri, and as a result should take all financial costs related to her care. The husband should be set free to pursue his life without penalty. Cut the baby in half. The parents and the husband part ways, and Terri is left in the parents care.
However, this could end cruelly for Terri. Her body could potentially outlive the parents. Who gets stuck for the financial costs of taking care of Terri if her parents predecease her?
Inevitably, the final decision comes down to the state. Since I'm king of the world, I am the state. It's a cruel and painful decision to make. It's a cruel and unjust world, but it would be far more cruel to let Terri survive her parents and eventually die with nobody to care for her, except a few nurses.
I'd authorize the state to allow Terri to die. I'd authorize that the medical facilities could take every measure to insure that Terri dies with dignity and as peacefully as humanly possible.
There is no real right answer, but I'd balance the rights of Terri to live and the rights of Terri to die. Can Terri live a productive life? No. Can Terri ever have a family? No. Can Terri ever express love? Perhaps in a very infantile and animalistic way. Will Terri ever be able to live a life of quality? No. She'll be stuck for the rest of her life to a bed and will always have to have a feeding tube to keep her alive.
Keeping her alive defies God's Law and nature. Human compassion, love, and science keep her body alive. But what is best for the state? What is best for the community? Is it best to have the state sanction perpetual zombification or is it better to allow people to die with dignity?
The family's love for Terri will never die. Her parents can't let go, her husband has let go and moved on with his life. True love is not about hanging on desperately, but in allowing someone to be free, even if the decisions cause pain and grief.
Terri was meant to die fifteen years ago. It's time for Terri to be at peace. It's time for the parents to let Terri go, and it's time for the husband to be free to pursue his life.
Life is temporary. Let Terri's case show us all that we should live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment we can. Let us all strive to be as loved as Terri was, and let us strive to work to preserve the sanctity of life, but to acknowledge that death should have dignity. Death is the cruel end all of us will face.
I hope Terri goes peacefully, I wish her parents the best and hope they can cope with the unbearable grief, and I wish for the husband and his new family to have the best life possible.
Wishes are emotional, but sometimes they're all we have.
I vividly remember the last time I pet my dog, Joker. I was 16, a junior in high school. It had been a very rainy November. (I think it had rained for three weeks straight non-stop.) I kneeled down, and stroked his soft little head. He looked at me with those sad brown eyes. I knew it was the last time I would ever pet my dog. I choked back tears, and walked out into the dark morning to go to school.
What was normally a furry brown, white, and tan streaked head, now was shaved. Joker was a Shetland Sheepdog, which is a very loving and fluffy animal, but Joker had some weird skin disorder which made him scratch himself endlessly. On his rear haunches he had male pattern doggy baldness. He was getting old, and mom made the fateful decision to have him put to sleep. My grandpa took the dog in, and from what I've heard, Joker went peacefully.
I've heard various stories from other people about family pets being taken to their final resting place. I consoled one friend when his family dog was put to sleep. He cried and remarked how that dog bit a neighborhood kid who everyone considered the neighbor dork. I coudn't help but laugh. My laughter got him to start laughing, and in a sense that eased the situation, but I know the pain of losing a family dog.
The reason that people feel pain when a family pet is put down, is due to the fact that we fall in love with our animals that brings us comfort, laughter, and very simple loyal and honest companionship. No animal can love you more than a dog. A dog is the most honest friend anyone will have. Oh, sure, at times it will ignore you if another person has doggy treats, but that dog will treat you with loyalty even if you've been somewhat cruel to the poor animal. It'll keep silent and never tell your deepest secrets, hopes, and fears.
The only love stronger than the love for a family pet, is the love a human shares with friends and family. Family bonding is the strongest bond of all. People will put up with family members long after others would have walked away. Love and family loyalty are not always logical.
Thinking of families, the Terri Schiavo story hit a nerve with me for some reason. Her story is like one of those hypothetical scenarios your given in a ethical philosophy class. Terri has basically been on medical life support for 15 years. She's in a vegetative state. Medical science has kept her body alive, but the woman who was Terri is now brain dead and merely a shadow of her former self. Yes, she can breath, smile, look around, but is she really concious? Is she living a quality filled life? Should the parents fight to keep her alive on permanent life support until Terri's body finally expires? Is the husband right in wishing to honor Terri's verbal legally non-binding statement that she would never want to be left in such a vegetative state?
The last couple of years have brought personal misfortune to my family. My dad had a debilitating stroke, and my stepbrother died due to diabetes related complications. My dad is now paralyzed on the left side of his body. His memory is weak, but he still is concious.
I wonder what I would decide if my dad ended up like Terri. (Granted, it wouldn't be my decision, but I'm taking this as a hypothetical argument.)
My stepbrother's health began to seriously decline because he didn't treat his diabetes right. He messed around carelessly with his illness, and it cost him. He was 33 when he died. His complications eventually led him to the hospital, then a nursing home, and then to a hospice. It was the first time I had ever seen someone in the final stage of life. The throes of death were upon him.
He made grunting choking sounds as his lungs filled with fluid. My stepmother, dad, and a couple of his relatives were there while he suffered. It was brutally painful to watch. I wished there was something the nurses could do to end his suffering. I knew that was going to be Mike's final day when I saw him. Because there are laws in my home state against euthanasia, it took him over six hours before his body finally gave up and expired.
I wondered, why can't we help ease someone who's suffering and in their last stage of life. No heroics are going to save someone in that final stage. Nothing.
It was a couple weeks before Mike passed away that my dad put down his dog. My stepmom basically loved that smelly dog more than anything. My dad always yelled at the poor thing. Despite that, I saw him being nice to the dog when nobody was looking. He took the dog in to be put to sleep after it had grown old and very ill. He said it was not a very good day.
It was about six months after Mike and the dog had died that my dad had a stroke. A blood clot made its way to the right side of his brain. It was severe and he could have died. Now, he's alive and concious, but basically crippled. His insurance company played a nasty game with him. It only covered a brief hospital stay, and hardly paid for any therapy.
The funny thing is Dad had good insurance. He had one of those factory jobs with a union, good pension, good retirement package. The works. Dad, like many people, didn't read the fine print of his health insurance contract. Many don't. I'd recommend to any reader that you check on your insurance in regard to getting therapy to treat debilitating illnesses.
The government won't help him out due, mostly in part, to the political rangling of the Republican Party. Cutting spending to the elderly, crippled, and helpless, cutting welfare programs, and other social programs that help the poor and unfortuante, combined with setting stricter rules and regulations for people that get disabled left my dad in a virtual hiatus. His insurance company ducked out as quick as it could, and the government wouldn't help because he hadn't been crippled long enough.
It's a sad story, and the family deals with it in the best humor possible.
Which brings me back to Terri Schiavo, and the problem of euthanasia.
The parents remarked that each day Terri lived was a miracle granted by God. Each day is miraculous, but the credit goes to modern medical science not the divine intervention of the Almighty. If it was up to God, Terri would have gone to her final resting place fifteen years ago.
I'll take a leap of faith and say that God's Law would fit in with Nature's Law. Everything in the natural world works in observable patterns. Gravity does not change on Earth. It's fairly constant. The Sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. It would take many volumes of webspace to talk about nature and science, but I'll say if there is a God, and he built the framework for the universe, it doesn't look like he had human beings in mind.
Nature, and life, can be very cruel, harsh, and unfair. Living things take advantage of everything they can to survive to reach adulthood and reproduce. Mammals form family units, in which there are parental bonds between adults and their offspring. Humans, being mammals, do the same thing. With humans, however, the situation is more complex. We live long lives, and form complex relationships. The key to our relationships is that we are conscious of our existence and we share a mutually shared consciousness with our fellow human beings.
As humans we can be both rational and emotional. Sometimes both. In some cases we can rationalize something and get our emotions to support our thoughts, or we can feel something and then work on rationalizing it.
With Terri Sciavo, we have the question of whether a person has the right to die. Terri's case also asks the old philosophical question about what are we, what makes a person a person. Are we a soul? Are we merely an animal where our concept of self and the outer world is stored in a small chunk of meat in the front part of our brains? Are we just our conciousness?
Terri's case shows that humans are just their consciousness. Her heart failed, which triggered a reaction in her brain that blocked the flow of oxygen. Without medical treament, Terri would have died. Medicine intervened, and her body lived. The primitive part of her brain survived, and I'd wager that a very small part of her conciousness remains, but her personality is dead never to return.
It's a very creepy thing to realize that all we are and perceive is stored in a lump of brain matter in the front of our skulls. Our hopes, dreams, fears, our favorite baseball team, the smell and taste of grandma's old spaghetti recipe, the memory of that first girl you kissed, the memory of the family dog as a puppy and when it was old and had to be put to sleep, EVERYTHING that we are is stored in the front part of our brain.
When that part of Terri's brain died, everything that was Terri died.
Terri's parents, and Terri's husband are fighting over Terri's life. Terri has no choice, since she can make no choice. Her conscious mind is gone. The parents want to keep Terri alive, the husband wants her to die.
As I said, human relationships are very complex. What's the right thing to do in this case? The state of Florida has determined that the feeding tube that keeps Terri alive be removed. The parents fought to keep the state from pulling the plug. The husband fought to allow Terri to die. Now the state has decided after fifteen years of court battles that Terri's food tube be removed.
I can only imagine the amount of pain the parents feel, and the amount of pain the husband feels. It seems the media is trying to make the husband the villain in this case. No, he's not the villain. Nature vs. science is the real conflict. Nature in this case is the real villain, and science complicated what would normally have been a natural event.
Now that the state has determined Terri's food tube be removed, comes the question: Should Terri starve to death or should the state allow Terri to be mercifully put to death? I'm guessing the State of Florida has no euthanasia laws, and as a result Terri will die of starvation. Cruel. However, is it cruel to keep her alive when she can never enjoy life again except in some small animal like manner? Who is paying for Terri's health care? Isn't it cruel to force someone to continue to pay for the life of someone who can never enjoy it? In regard to the husband, isn't it cruel to force him to remain married to Terri when she can never reciprocate the companionship a wife provides? Terri can never take care of a child, she can't even take care of herself.
It's a cruel and ugly situation. Deciding Terri's fate is not easy. There's the emotion and reason problem again. On one hand, emotionally you want Terri to live, and you have hope that medical science one day could make her all better. You rationalize it, and you get emotionally involved in preserving her life. You cling to false hope, and any small signs of intelligence as proof that she can get better.
On the other hand, you realize that the part of Terri that was Terri is dead. Her ideas, thoughts, jokes, memories, dreams, hopes, and fears are all gone, wiped out by brain damage, never to return again. All medical science can do is keep the body alive. Her body lives, but her mind is gone forever. It's emotionally painful to watch Terri live and to see her basically as a zombie. You realize that the woman who was Terri, the woman you loved and wanted to share your life with, to build a family with, and to grow old with has basically died despite her body's survival. You rationalize that she would be better off if she had died, and your emotions work to support your conviction.
Terri's case is a case of heart versus mind. This is what makes it dramatic, it's the eternal human conflict. Americans are both big hearted people, but also very rational people. Terri's case tears at the conflict.
If I was king of the world, and I had to make the decision of what to do with Terri, I would first think about my old family dog. I loved that dog. A human being is far more valuable than a dog. Even though I loved that dog, I realized when it was time to euthanize him, the decision was right. It was painful, cruel, and unjust, but it was right. It was the humane and compassionate thing to do. Otherwise, the dog would have suffered more, and endlessly until it eventually died. It would have been far crueler to let the dog die of its own physical exhaustion.
So, I have to ask what would be right for Terri. What is more cruel to allow Terri to die horribly, with dignity, or to keep her body alive until if finally dies from exhaustion?
My gut tells me that Terri should have the right to die with dignity. That doctors should ease her suffering, and see that she dies as comfortably and painlessly as possible.
My heart tells me that the parents should gain all custody of Terri, and as a result should take all financial costs related to her care. The husband should be set free to pursue his life without penalty. Cut the baby in half. The parents and the husband part ways, and Terri is left in the parents care.
However, this could end cruelly for Terri. Her body could potentially outlive the parents. Who gets stuck for the financial costs of taking care of Terri if her parents predecease her?
Inevitably, the final decision comes down to the state. Since I'm king of the world, I am the state. It's a cruel and painful decision to make. It's a cruel and unjust world, but it would be far more cruel to let Terri survive her parents and eventually die with nobody to care for her, except a few nurses.
I'd authorize the state to allow Terri to die. I'd authorize that the medical facilities could take every measure to insure that Terri dies with dignity and as peacefully as humanly possible.
There is no real right answer, but I'd balance the rights of Terri to live and the rights of Terri to die. Can Terri live a productive life? No. Can Terri ever have a family? No. Can Terri ever express love? Perhaps in a very infantile and animalistic way. Will Terri ever be able to live a life of quality? No. She'll be stuck for the rest of her life to a bed and will always have to have a feeding tube to keep her alive.
Keeping her alive defies God's Law and nature. Human compassion, love, and science keep her body alive. But what is best for the state? What is best for the community? Is it best to have the state sanction perpetual zombification or is it better to allow people to die with dignity?
The family's love for Terri will never die. Her parents can't let go, her husband has let go and moved on with his life. True love is not about hanging on desperately, but in allowing someone to be free, even if the decisions cause pain and grief.
Terri was meant to die fifteen years ago. It's time for Terri to be at peace. It's time for the parents to let Terri go, and it's time for the husband to be free to pursue his life.
Life is temporary. Let Terri's case show us all that we should live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment we can. Let us all strive to be as loved as Terri was, and let us strive to work to preserve the sanctity of life, but to acknowledge that death should have dignity. Death is the cruel end all of us will face.
I hope Terri goes peacefully, I wish her parents the best and hope they can cope with the unbearable grief, and I wish for the husband and his new family to have the best life possible.
Wishes are emotional, but sometimes they're all we have.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Those Godless Federalists!!!
"I wish that Superstition in Religion exciting Superstition in Polliticks...may never blow up all your benevolent and phylanthropic Lucubrations," but that "the History of all Ages is against you." As an old man he observed, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'"
- John Adams, Founding Father
If you have the misfortune of arguing or debating some radical right wing Evangelical who claims our founding fathers were Christians and intended this country to be a Christian nation, have them read this The Nation article.
However, if they're talking about the Puritans, that's another story, here. At least they set up the foundation that gave us public schools.
"I wish that Superstition in Religion exciting Superstition in Polliticks...may never blow up all your benevolent and phylanthropic Lucubrations," but that "the History of all Ages is against you." As an old man he observed, "Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been upon the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!'"
- John Adams, Founding Father
If you have the misfortune of arguing or debating some radical right wing Evangelical who claims our founding fathers were Christians and intended this country to be a Christian nation, have them read this The Nation article.
However, if they're talking about the Puritans, that's another story, here. At least they set up the foundation that gave us public schools.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
If Republicans advocated a free market in 1854, would there have been a civil war?
Stephen Douglas, the Republican senator from the state of Illinois, was the major proponent of "popular sovereignty." The notion of popular sovereignty, essentially is similar to the free market concept. Under popular sovereignty, the people who settle into a territory vote to decide if a state should be free or a slave state.
Free market economics, essentially is laissez-faire economics. This means that the government leaves the market alone and does nothing to interfere with it. Basically, government takes a hands off approach to business.
So, the question in particular, is asking if the problem of the Civil War was merely a matter of letting the free market solve the problems of the day. Today, Republicans are advocating free market idealism as if its a panacea to everything.
Let's see if it would have worked in 1854:
We begin with Millard Fillmore, the president of the United States, and member of the Whig Party. Under Fillmore we got the Missouri Compromise of 1850, which enacted the following:
1. California was admitted to the Union as a free state. (California and the New Mexico territory were spoils of war inherited from the Mexican-American war. Since gold was found in California, its population boomed, and when it demanded statehood, the people wanted the state to be free. This did not sit well with pro-slavery Democrats in the South.)
2. The New Mexico and Utah territories were to decide the question issue by relying on "popular sovereignty," allowing the actual settlers to vote on the issue.
3. Texas lost the New Mexico territory, but received $10 million from the federal government for its loss .
4. The slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished .
5. A new Fugitive Slave Act was passed.
In 1854 we get the Kansas/Nebraska Act, which divided the Nebraska Territory into two territories. The settlers in the territories would vote to decide if the states would be free or slave states. This leads to "Bleeding Kansas," where many of the pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers literally fight one another to influence voting.
Essentially, popular sovereignty would be a variation of free market capitalism at work. The problems leading to the Civil War were numerous. The North was gaining industrial and political power. The South was losing ground and economic power due to its agricultural economy and slowness to industrialization in the North. Slavery was becoming quite controversial. Why would a nation that prides itself on freedom, liberty, and justice allow slavery?
We can look at the problem of slavery from two perspectives; the moral and economic. From the moral perspective slavery is an inhuman way to treat a fellow human being. No sentient being should posses another as property. Humans were born to be free, and slavery was a black eye in the ideal of freedom.
From an economic perspective, slaves were property. Slaves also were the backbone of labor in the South. The economics of cotton and agriculture made many plantation owners in the South very wealthy. Abolishing slavery would have created economic depression in the South.
From the founding of the United States, the issue of slavery was continually tabeled or solved with compromises. The Missouri Compromise set up the provision of settling one free state for one slave state. This allowed Missouri settlers to own slaves, and allowed Maine to be admitted as a free state.
From there the problem continued to fester, and would not be resolved. The Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas/Nebraska Act only agitated the problem of slavery.
But lets look at it how the problem would be handled from the free market perspective. The laissez-faire approach lets the markets solve problems. According to its proponents, markets are more effecient at solving problems than government.
Lets go back to 1820. Missouri wants to be a state. The citizens want slavery to be legal. If the government let the markets decide, then Missouri would have been a slave state. From there, slave owners could have moved into other states, and spread slavery in every state.
Since slaves are expensive, only the rich could afford to own lots of slaves. As businesses would grow profitable from slavery, what would happen to the wages of people who were not slaves? Their wages would go down.
We have to make guesses at history, so let's guess that industries own slaves for manual labor. As these businesses make money, they could pass legislation allowing debtors to become slaves themselves.
A free market approach would not have solved the problem of slavery, and would have made a bad situation worse by allowing the spread of slavery throughout the entire country.
Economics cannot always solve moral problems. Businesses exist to make money and end up regulating the ebb and flow of goods and services. They are not efficient and solving moral problems, since the solution could end up hurting the purpose of a business, which is to make a profit.
Factories which employ slaves, would only have to provide housing, food, and clothing for the slaves. Work conditions of the slaves would be up to the individual factory owners. It would not be the business of government to interfere in business.
The idea of free markets as a solution is that businesses are fairest since they want to provide the best for their customers. Competition, essentially, creates quality for the consumer according to the free market ideal. It doesn't matter how something is produced, where its made, or what is required of its manufacture. What matters is that the good or service provided is of the best quality to the consumer.
Free markets do not solve ethical dilemmas. If we look at the contemporary world, global corporations use sweatshop labor to produce goods and services around the world. Americans are oblivious to the how things are made and produced, all they care about is that they can get low cost good and services at a low price.
Quality and price are the key factors for consumer decisions. Morality is not a factor. (It can be, but usually, people are not interested or indifferent to the plight of others if they can get a good deal.)
However, we do not live in a purely economic world of dollars and sense. Slavery is not a business question, its a moral question. Should a human being have the right to own another human being as property, and treat him/her as such? Seeing humans forced into labor against their own free will did not sit well with many Americans who cherished the ideals of freedom and liberty.
It would be my estimation that free market idealism would not have ended slavery, but would actually have spread it throughout the country.
It would have caused economic hardship on the South if they abolished slavery, perhaps even caused ruin if they did so, not to mention that the wealthy Southerners had invested heavily in slavery to bolster their fortunes.
It could potentially have lead to slaves working in factories in the North, which would have put many workers out in the streets with no means of supporting their families.
Slavery had to go, but how would you outlaw it without destroying the South? Politicians of the early 19th Century did the best they could by compromising, which ended up only making matters worse. Nobody wanted to move to abolish slavery because it would have been political suicide to do so.
By 1860, the issue was crucial and had to be decided. The election of Lincoln indicated that slavery was about to be challenged by an administration that sought to remove it.
As a result, the Civil War was raged.
We can't change the fact that our nation endorsed slavery. The problem was not going to go away with legislation, nor would it have disappeared by merely letting consumers choose if slavery should be a viable product. Allowing a democratic solution, only worsened the problem as we see with "Bleeding Kansas."
You could imagine using a Reaganomic solution by having the government borrow from the treasury to buy the slaves from the slave owners, and then free them, but I'm doubtful the people of the nation would want to fund such an endeavor at the time. It would have been radical and reckless in its day as well.
The Civil War seems like a historical inevitability due to the fact that there was no easy solution to the problem of slavery. So, to answer the question, if Republicans advocated a free market solution, there may not have been a Civil War, but eventually we would have to confront the issue of slavery, which would eventually take a civil war to remove.
Stephen Douglas, the Republican senator from the state of Illinois, was the major proponent of "popular sovereignty." The notion of popular sovereignty, essentially is similar to the free market concept. Under popular sovereignty, the people who settle into a territory vote to decide if a state should be free or a slave state.
Free market economics, essentially is laissez-faire economics. This means that the government leaves the market alone and does nothing to interfere with it. Basically, government takes a hands off approach to business.
So, the question in particular, is asking if the problem of the Civil War was merely a matter of letting the free market solve the problems of the day. Today, Republicans are advocating free market idealism as if its a panacea to everything.
Let's see if it would have worked in 1854:
We begin with Millard Fillmore, the president of the United States, and member of the Whig Party. Under Fillmore we got the Missouri Compromise of 1850, which enacted the following:
1. California was admitted to the Union as a free state. (California and the New Mexico territory were spoils of war inherited from the Mexican-American war. Since gold was found in California, its population boomed, and when it demanded statehood, the people wanted the state to be free. This did not sit well with pro-slavery Democrats in the South.)
2. The New Mexico and Utah territories were to decide the question issue by relying on "popular sovereignty," allowing the actual settlers to vote on the issue.
3. Texas lost the New Mexico territory, but received $10 million from the federal government for its loss .
4. The slave trade in the District of Columbia was abolished .
5. A new Fugitive Slave Act was passed.
In 1854 we get the Kansas/Nebraska Act, which divided the Nebraska Territory into two territories. The settlers in the territories would vote to decide if the states would be free or slave states. This leads to "Bleeding Kansas," where many of the pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers literally fight one another to influence voting.
Essentially, popular sovereignty would be a variation of free market capitalism at work. The problems leading to the Civil War were numerous. The North was gaining industrial and political power. The South was losing ground and economic power due to its agricultural economy and slowness to industrialization in the North. Slavery was becoming quite controversial. Why would a nation that prides itself on freedom, liberty, and justice allow slavery?
We can look at the problem of slavery from two perspectives; the moral and economic. From the moral perspective slavery is an inhuman way to treat a fellow human being. No sentient being should posses another as property. Humans were born to be free, and slavery was a black eye in the ideal of freedom.
From an economic perspective, slaves were property. Slaves also were the backbone of labor in the South. The economics of cotton and agriculture made many plantation owners in the South very wealthy. Abolishing slavery would have created economic depression in the South.
From the founding of the United States, the issue of slavery was continually tabeled or solved with compromises. The Missouri Compromise set up the provision of settling one free state for one slave state. This allowed Missouri settlers to own slaves, and allowed Maine to be admitted as a free state.
From there the problem continued to fester, and would not be resolved. The Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas/Nebraska Act only agitated the problem of slavery.
But lets look at it how the problem would be handled from the free market perspective. The laissez-faire approach lets the markets solve problems. According to its proponents, markets are more effecient at solving problems than government.
Lets go back to 1820. Missouri wants to be a state. The citizens want slavery to be legal. If the government let the markets decide, then Missouri would have been a slave state. From there, slave owners could have moved into other states, and spread slavery in every state.
Since slaves are expensive, only the rich could afford to own lots of slaves. As businesses would grow profitable from slavery, what would happen to the wages of people who were not slaves? Their wages would go down.
We have to make guesses at history, so let's guess that industries own slaves for manual labor. As these businesses make money, they could pass legislation allowing debtors to become slaves themselves.
A free market approach would not have solved the problem of slavery, and would have made a bad situation worse by allowing the spread of slavery throughout the entire country.
Economics cannot always solve moral problems. Businesses exist to make money and end up regulating the ebb and flow of goods and services. They are not efficient and solving moral problems, since the solution could end up hurting the purpose of a business, which is to make a profit.
Factories which employ slaves, would only have to provide housing, food, and clothing for the slaves. Work conditions of the slaves would be up to the individual factory owners. It would not be the business of government to interfere in business.
The idea of free markets as a solution is that businesses are fairest since they want to provide the best for their customers. Competition, essentially, creates quality for the consumer according to the free market ideal. It doesn't matter how something is produced, where its made, or what is required of its manufacture. What matters is that the good or service provided is of the best quality to the consumer.
Free markets do not solve ethical dilemmas. If we look at the contemporary world, global corporations use sweatshop labor to produce goods and services around the world. Americans are oblivious to the how things are made and produced, all they care about is that they can get low cost good and services at a low price.
Quality and price are the key factors for consumer decisions. Morality is not a factor. (It can be, but usually, people are not interested or indifferent to the plight of others if they can get a good deal.)
However, we do not live in a purely economic world of dollars and sense. Slavery is not a business question, its a moral question. Should a human being have the right to own another human being as property, and treat him/her as such? Seeing humans forced into labor against their own free will did not sit well with many Americans who cherished the ideals of freedom and liberty.
It would be my estimation that free market idealism would not have ended slavery, but would actually have spread it throughout the country.
It would have caused economic hardship on the South if they abolished slavery, perhaps even caused ruin if they did so, not to mention that the wealthy Southerners had invested heavily in slavery to bolster their fortunes.
It could potentially have lead to slaves working in factories in the North, which would have put many workers out in the streets with no means of supporting their families.
Slavery had to go, but how would you outlaw it without destroying the South? Politicians of the early 19th Century did the best they could by compromising, which ended up only making matters worse. Nobody wanted to move to abolish slavery because it would have been political suicide to do so.
By 1860, the issue was crucial and had to be decided. The election of Lincoln indicated that slavery was about to be challenged by an administration that sought to remove it.
As a result, the Civil War was raged.
We can't change the fact that our nation endorsed slavery. The problem was not going to go away with legislation, nor would it have disappeared by merely letting consumers choose if slavery should be a viable product. Allowing a democratic solution, only worsened the problem as we see with "Bleeding Kansas."
You could imagine using a Reaganomic solution by having the government borrow from the treasury to buy the slaves from the slave owners, and then free them, but I'm doubtful the people of the nation would want to fund such an endeavor at the time. It would have been radical and reckless in its day as well.
The Civil War seems like a historical inevitability due to the fact that there was no easy solution to the problem of slavery. So, to answer the question, if Republicans advocated a free market solution, there may not have been a Civil War, but eventually we would have to confront the issue of slavery, which would eventually take a civil war to remove.
