| My roomates and I (and Hugh, who is as good as a roomate), engage in crazy arguments/debates at least twice per week. The issue of Monday night, and don't ask me how we got started on it, was suicide. Specifically, we argued about whether or not the government should make suicide illegal (for those of you not with us, it is currently illegal to commit suicide). Here's how the debate shaped out: Hugh, the liberal (and he's damned proud of it), led the argument for the government's ban on suicide. Joining him was Eric. Hugh had two main arguments behind his beliefs. First was the belief that the government should ban suicide because not banning it would condone the act. He maintained that, should the government not ban suicide, it would in a sense be condoning it. People, especially little kids, would see it as okay because the government did not make it illegal, and impressionable young kids would commit suicide more frequently because they did not know it was wrong. His second argument was that, because your parents create you, you do not have the right to destroy yourself. This argument was not elaborated, but I think it speaks for itself. Eric, Hugh's ally in this debate, argued that a person should not have the right to commit suicide because it is not fair to the family, friends, etc. of that person. He also argued that it is a form of killing, and that killing anyone, including yourself, should be illegal. I, along with fellow Republican roomate Sam, took the side of arguing that the government should not outlaw suicide. Don't get me wrong: I am not by any stretch of the imagination a supporter of suicide. There was a kid in my high school who committed suicide - though I was not friends with him, one of my good friends had been a very close friend, and my sister used to eat lunch with him. Furthermore, there was another kid, in my grade, who committed suicide the summer before my senior year. I was not a friend, but I had known him since the 7th grade and had often talked to him. I don't think that anyone should ever commit suicide, but hey - I've had a pretty decent life, I've never been pushed to the edge, who am I to judge? My disagreement with the outlawing of suicide was based on the fact that I don't think the government should involve itself in suicide. First, a person is guided by free will. I believe that part of that free will is the decision to wake up everyday and live your life - if your life, for whatever terrible reasons, has come to the point that you decide to take it, should the government be in the position to say that you must live against your will? I also maintained that the government outlawing it does not prevent a person from committing suicide. Sam, being the good Republican he is, said that people are starting to turn too often to the government to solve all their problems, espeically ones that are for people themselves to solve. Anyways, here's a short clip from the debate (sorry if the quotations are not the exact words, they may have been paraphrased): Hugh: If the government outlaws suicide, a person might stop before they do it. Tony: That's absolutely retarded. Hugh: If you call something I say 'retarded' one more time I'm gonna punch you in the head (I had called some of his earlier arguments retarded) Tony: I am calling it retarded, and let me tell you why it is retarded. A person is about to commit suicide, for whatever reasons - there are too many to get into - but in any case, there are so many things going on in their mind, and i bet few of them are directly related to government. Are you seriously telling me that someone who has made up their mind to kill themself is going to stop and say, 'suicide is illegal. The government says I can't do it, I might be punished for doing this"?! Hugh: They might because they know that if they mess up they're gonna go to jail. Tony: That's retarded! Anyways, what it boils down to is this: I think the government is trying to tell people how to run their lives. The government has the duty to protect its people. This, at least to me, does NOT mean that the government should have to tell people not to commit suicide. That's just bad politics. It's not the same as killing another person - if it was, then we could argue that I should be arrested for assaulting myself. ::::slaps own face::::: I don't remember when I learned that suicide is illegal, by law, but I sure as hell know that I learned not to do it way before that. The government is not your parent - it is not the job of the government to raise you, to teach you the difference between right and wrong - you have parents, you have family, friends, churches, temples, mosques, and a million other institutions/people who raise you. Is suicide a terrible thing? It sure is. Should the government tell you whether or not to do it? You be the judge. |
| Government and Suicide |