The Populist Case for the Assisted Dying Bill
The following first appeared on the Substack ‘Creeve Rua’ and is syndicated with the permission of the author.
Compassionate care, urgently needed
‘What is needed here is not reform, not even a revolution, but a vastly bigger thing — a creation. It is not a question of pulling machinery asunder and piecing it together again; it is a question of breathing into a dead thing a living soul.’1
‘I am as conscious this is a momentous break with the inherited morality about killing, and a move into uncharted country. I realise it is a break not only with the Christian ethical tradition common to Europeans and Americans, but also with its Graeco-Roman underlay, and therefore with the entire ethical system which has characterised the West since Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman empire.’2
Many will have seen the recent debate in Britain this week, over whether the State should have the right to consensually kill elderly people who are a burden on the tax-payer. Our Free State, always just several steps behind whatever our big brother does, has been diligently pushing a carbon copy bill through the Dáil.
While positioned as compassionate and sensible, some (including the author of this piece, initially — I'm ashamed to admit) have found the concept of the legalised slaughter of elderly, mentally ill and more vulnerable dependent people as a reprehensible cosmic breach of the 1,500 year-old ethical tradition in this country of cherishing the sanctity of human life — from the Panentheism of the monks to the Humanism of the Independence era.
In a telling representation of the moral backwardness of old-Ireland, Archbishop Éamon Martin claimed that doctors killing their patients (painlessly and professionally one should add!) was somehow a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.
Thankfully, this week’s general elections have confirmed that the establishment which supported this state of affairs has maintained its grip on power, thanks to a clear public mandate. Not only that, but when one breaks the results down by age, it becomes clear that the core cohort of support for our pro-euthanasia status quo are those who are the most likely (and deserving) beneficiaries of the assisted dying bill — the Celtic Tiger Cowboy generation.
The most deserving generation
‘I grant this Food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords; who, as they have already devoured most of the Parents, seem to have the best Title to the Children.’3
More a cultural force than a wholly objective and quantifiable demographic, this specific breed of Irish uncle or aunt are (generally) those 55-75-year olds (65 being the essential form) who made their dough (inflated property) during the golden dawn of the country’s early globalisation period. They are the prophets and soothsayers of the nu-Ireland — cultureless, vapid and solely concerned with maintaining their cushy positions in the ‘knowledge-economy’ or FIRE (Finance Insurance Real Estate) sector, which produces nothing tangible and holds no long-term national value.
While no doubt enemies of the youth, they are equally opponents of their parents and the older Independence generation — those first children of the nascent Irish Free State. For all the sincerity of faith the first generations of this state had in establishing an independent, Gaelic and free republic, the Celtic Tiger boomers have an equal amount of snide and petty national self-hatred. They reject self-rule in favor of European dependency, they’re apathetic about the extinction of ár dteanga agus nós dúchasach and they scorn those who are willing to fight and die for something — precisely because they do not believe in anything, other than their own leeching and withering.
As the most recent elections demonstrate, they are a generational cohort content to see this nation crash and burn. Content to see 15,000 and counting of their people’s men, women and children homeless, with hundreds of thousands more young people forced to live at home with their parents, or made to emigrate to Australia. Content to see the country’s major cities become cess pools of crime, litter and social decay. Content to have hospital waiting lists expand endlessly, all while immigrant nurses have to make up for all the tremendous care lost by our best medical students leaving the country en masse.
The cynic can go on, but one is forced to conclude they have a penchant for the macabre, destruction itself and particularly the evisceration of the Irish nation. Explanations as to why they are like this vary — from anti-national individualism and petty narcissism to accusations of some kind of perverted cultural sadism, to perhaps that they are accelerationists, deliberately hastening the decline of the country in order to inspire a new generation of radicals.
One can never truly understand their reasoning, but one thing remains definite: they are a death-cult.
The Golden Ticket
‘Bhí an sagart paróiste amach 'nár gcoinnibh,
Is é dúirt gurbh é an diabhal ba Dhóigh leis,
A ghaibh an treo ar phocán buile.’4
When one thinks about it, who could be more fitting, more deserving to be the people ushering in a euthanasia-regime, but Irish boomer technocrats? Just as the Spire represents the tyranny of modern Irish nihilism, a mass (consensual) euthanization programme could represent the political apotheosis of our new global province — the nu-Ireland equivalent of the collectivization of agriculture under Stalin’s Russia.
Of course some may object, arguing that awarding all the plaudits to boomers is unfair — opposition parties (backed by millennials) were stalwart supporters of the legislation. However, this misses the forest for the trees. Firstly, boomers are the ones we can thank for raising the next generations, with all their worst impulses being a reflection of boomer values (while their best the antithesis). And secondly, boomers are the perfect representatives of the euthanasia-regime, precisely because they don’t even believe in it.
What distinguishes idealistic millennials from boomers is that the former are (mostly) true believers in further liberalising public policy, many of whom being genuinely naïve and earnest in their belief that they are acting in the name of a just moral vision (if a contradictory and bankrupt one).
Boomers are no such radicals. Whether it be euthanasia, abortion, divorce, mass-emigration, censorship, anglicisation — whatever the position may be — they do not actually believe in a positive vision, but simply in compliance, homogenization and the blackening out of the Irish spirit and national consciousness.
With this in mind I propose populists collaborate with Irish boomers in their support for the future anti-human regime. While some have proposed stripping away their right to vote, I instead suggest helping to develop a fast-paced, readily accessible on-demand (consensual) euthanasia service, particularly for that generation who are the most ardent supporters of the government and their new plans.
We could have the inverse of the populist-nationalist New Zealand First’s SuperGold Card system, which is a generational welfare policy aimed to celebrate the life and promote civic pride in the elderly who built that country. For Ireland, we could similarly honour the achievements of our boomers, but perhaps less so celebrating their lives and what they built, but, more in homage to their values, we could encourage a speedy and cost-effective form of state-backed assistance? A free State-sponsored golden ticket for every establishment boomer perhaps?
The greatest thing about this populist proposal, is that it is unlikely its supporters will even have to advocate for it, more likely than not, Irish boomers will literally vote for and support it themselves.
‘But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.' 'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.' 'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'’5
Footnotes:
1
Mac Piarais, Pádraig. 1916. The Murder Machine.
2
Fennell, Desmond. 1996. Uncertain Dawn, p.22.
3
Swift, Johnathan. 1729. A Modest Proposal, p.3.
4
An Poc Ar Buile.
5
Huxley, Aldous. 1931. Brave New World.