We previously listened to Rick Santorum as he suggested to religious college students that a vote for him might keep them from being devoured. Now it appears it may also protect you from being snatched up by crazed euthanizing Dutch doctors who will send you to the Nether Regions unless you are wearing a bracelet. He also appears to relish the good old days when abortions in America were regulated to “the shadows.”
Santorum told voters that (1) ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands were by euthanasia, (2) people have to wear bracelets now to be sure not to be euthanized at hospitals, and (3) 50 percent of euthanasia is performed “involuntarily.”
Before any of our statisticians demand to be euthanized, let’s correct a few of these facts.
The bling-bling of death is hard to figure out. Clearly people can wear bracelets with their blood type or other instructions like do not resuscitate — as they do in this country. However, such bracelets are not needed in the Netherlands and Santorum’s comments appear to come as a surprise to people in that country.
The ten percent figure is a bit bizarre. While growing, the number of people choosing euthanasia remains small and less than 3%. In 2010, 136058 people died in the Netherlands and only 3136 did so through euthanasia. That is roughly 2.3% of the total deaths.
In 2009, the annual report on euthanasia showed 2,636 cases of euthanasia — or 2 percent of all Dutch deaths. Over 80 percent were cancer patients and more than 80 percent of the deaths occurred in the patient’s home — not in those bureaucratic hospitals dispatching everyone who comes in with a slight fever without their bracelet.
As for those 50% of cases dispatched against their will, the Dutch law is extremely strict. It now only requires consent but a waiting period. If a doctor dispatches someone without their consent or satisfying the tight controls, he is charged with murder.
The doctor must document that he or she confirmed that the patient requesting euthanasia or assisted suicide is making a voluntary and informed request. The record must also show that the patient was suffering unbearably and was fully informed about the prospects. Then a second doctor must examine the patient and supply a second written opinion on the satisfaction of the criteria. The government found only nine cases in 2009 of a doctor failing to complying with the strict criteria. There was no mention of a bracelet.
As for the claim that abortions were once forced to occur “in the shadows,” the part is entirely correct. It is just unclear why that is a positive image even for those who oppose the right to choose.
Putting aside these tiny factual disagreements, it is good to finally see a politician willing to take on our greatest threat: the Dutch. Dutch propagandists like Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh have already infiltrated our schools and museums. Our leaders (except Santorum) are deaf to the growing sound of their wooden-shoe stomping, marzipan-eating hordes. I for one will be on the ramparts with Rick wearing my do not euthanize bracelet before I eat a single herring from the hands of our Dutch overlords.
Just read a blog from former Rep. Alan Grayson, the man who condemned the Republican health plan from the floor.
He observes Presidents’ Day by referring to Abraham Lincoln who pardoned many a soldier from death.
I quote Alan:
And why did Lincoln show this mercy? Because over 600,000 people died during the Civil War, more than one out of every 50 Americans. And Lincoln thought that that was more than enough death. As journalist David Locke said: “No man on earth hated blood as Lincoln did.”
I can’t bring myself to embroider on that.
Gene H.
Thanks!
Onlooker ; he’s either an ignorant fool, or a devious, lying sociopath.
this is America, the greatest country in the world…he can be both
Had to post:
“newamericanliberal
Facts don’t stop being true by your disbelief
699 Fans
14 minutes ago ( 4:16 PM)
If only Ricky’s mom had used the aspirin between her knees.”
id707,
I’m not Mike, but I’m going to answer anyway.
“I guess I should have expressed myself better.
Like: Where is the suggestion box?”
The generally accepted practice around here is if you want to suggest an article to use the Corrections thread. If JT doesn’t pick up on and run with it, one of the guest bloggers might.
“Or: I feel like spouting, where can non-topic stuff be posted?”
Anywhere. Free speech is king around these parts. Some of the best threads on this blog are filled with off-thread ramblings, however – that being said, generally staying near the topic if not on the topic is appreciated. “Threadjacking” (especially when done persistently) is widely considered bad form and is often used by trolls simply wishing to create a distraction from a topic they don’t want discussed in a meaningful manner. But there is a big difference between “meandering” and “purposeful distraction”. Meandering is cool. The other? Not so much.
I hope that helps.
idealist,
great “quote”. Santorum might be returning to centuries before the 13th!
idealist707:
TOUCHE!!!
Eniobob,
A quote from the Philly article. Note last sentence.
Something for a T-shirt motto?
He says that contraception is “harmful to women” and society, and that “radical feminism” ruined society by encouraging women to work outside the home, which is one reason an Inky reviewer of his 2005 book, It Takes a Family, called Rick “one of the finest minds of the 13th Century.”
As for working outside the home, guess the depression and WWII had nothing to do with it. But factual rebuttal means nothing. It’s just buttons he’s pushing.
raff:
Just doing what I ought to do,RE:Article :=)
I think I got Mr Santorums qoute right:
“Freedom is not doing what you want to do,freedom is doing what you ought to do”
WHAT???
Elaine,
Thanks for the link to our Saintly Rick Santorum’s efforts to screw vets.
Eniobob,
Great link to the Philly article on Saintorum!
I guess the “home folks” know the real deal:
John Baer: Santorum? Really? He’s atop the GOP heap. Are they nuts?
John Baer, Daily News Political Columnist
Philadelphia Daily News:
“HERE’S A THOUGHT for Presidents Day: President Santorum.
Did you just shiver?
How in the name of all that’s holy is Rick Santorum atop national polls for the Republican nomination?
Get it? All that’s holy? Maybe that’s the answer. You know, the Tebow factor; the Jeremy Lin effect? Well, I have another theory”
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120220_John_Baer__HED_ALL_ACROSS_KL.html
On the morally superior overly religious Rick Santorum:
How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans
A controversial land deal by the presidential candidate robbed a vets’ home of tens of millions of dollars.
—By Andy Kroll
| Wed Jan. 18, 2012
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/how-rick-santorum-ripped-off-american-military-veterans
Excerpt:
Like any good presidential candidate, Rick Santorum heaps praise on America’s soldiers and veterans. He’s pledged to “make veterans a high priority” if elected president, adding, “This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democratic issue, it is an American issue.” But as a US senator, Santorum engineered a controversial land deal that robbed the military’s top veterans’ home of tens of millions of dollars and worsened the deteriorating conditions at the facility.
The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which is run by the Department of Defense, bills itself as the “premier home for military retirees and veterans.” The facility sprawls across 272 acres high on a hill in northern Washington, DC, near the Petworth neighborhood. The nearly 600 veterans who now live there enjoy panoramic views of the city—the Washington monument and US Capitol to the south, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to the east. At its peak, more than 2,000 veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War lived at the Home.
But with the rise of the smaller all-volunteer military, the Home began to run into serious financial problems. It was clear that one of its primary sources of revenue—a 50-cent deduction from the paychecks of active-duty servicemembers—wasn’t enough to keep the Home operating fully. In the 1990s, the Home scrambled to find ways to avoid insolvency, trimming its staff by 24 percent and reducing its vet population by 800. Still, the money problems began to show, with its older historic facilities slipping into disrepair and decay. To grapple with its worsening shortfall, officials running the Home eyed a valuable, 49-acre piece of land worth $49 million as a potential financial lifeline.
Under one scenario, by leasing the parcel of land and letting it be developed, the Home could pocket $105 million in income over 35 years for its trust fund, David Lacy, then-chairman of the Home’s board of directors, told Congress in 1999. Lacy stressed that the Home wanted to keep the property, and not offload it to a buyer. “Once land is sold,” he said, “it is lost forever as an asset.”
Enter Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.). At the behest of the Roman Catholic Church, and unbeknownst to the Home, Santorum slipped an amendment into the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act handcuffing how the home could cash in on those 49 acres. The amendment forced the Home to sell—and not lease—the land to its next-door neighbor, the Catholic University of America. Ultimately, the Catholic Church bought 46 acres of the tract for $22 million. The Home lost the land for good, and by its own estimates, pocketed $27 million less than the land’s value and $83 million less than what it could’ve made under the lease plan. Santorum’s amendment sparked an outcry from veterans’ groups and fellow US senators, who barraged his office with complaints.
Laurence Branch, then the executive director of the Home’s board, says Santorum’s amendment was “a travesty” and the Church’s lobbying for the land a case of “coveting thy neighborhood’s goods.” To this day, Branch says he blames Santorum for the Home not receiving more money for the 49-acre parcel of land. “I’m convinced Sen. Santorum is no friend of veterans,” Branch says. (A spokesman for Catholic University did not respond to a request for comment.)
At the time, Santorum said the amendment was the product of “a consensus agreement” and “was certainly not an attempt to shortchange the veterans.” (A spokesman for the Santorum campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
Santorum’s advocacy for Catholic University isn’t at all surprising. A practicing Catholic, Santorum embodies the church’s anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage positions as well as its support for charities and alleviating poverty. While in Congress, he was a fierce advocate for the Catholic Church. A former Santorum aide told New York Times Magazine in 2005 that the senator was “a Catholic missionary who happens to be in the Senate.” That same year, Time magazine named him one of America’s ”25 Most Influential Evangelicals.”
Meanwhile, the $22 million from the land sale hardly stanched the flow of red ink at Armed Forces Retirement Home. Financial records, court documents, and government reports from the 2000s show how the Home cut back on the services it provided veterans as it grappled with funding problems. The slashing of services got so bad that in 2003 veterans living at the Home filed a class-action suit against the Home and its director, Timothy Cox, alleging shoddy health care and less access to that care. As a result of cutbacks and declining quality in care, the suit claimed, the suicide rate at the Home spiked from 59 in 2000 to 131 in 2003.
In 2007, an investigation by the Government Accountability Office came to similarly troubling conclusions. The watchdog’s head, David Walker, reported that one Home resident had been admitted to the hospital with maggots in a wound. Other vets were admitted with bad pressure sores, suggesting they’d been left unattended for dangerously long stretches of time by the Home’s health care employees. In the aftermath of the GAO’s investigation, Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) demanded an independent investigation into the quality of health care at the Home.
Mespo: “Crazy Santorum thinks “euthanasia” is an adolescent street gang from Beijing.”
—-
🙂
Guns are dangerous. All the wrong people get shot. Better targets come to mind. Hint! Hint! (Crazy laugh).
Actually some scare the you what out of us. And that’s what’s intended, as earlier mentioned.
Mike Spindell,
I guess I should have expressed myself better.
Like: Where is the suggestion box?
Or: I feel like spouting, where can non-topic stuff be posted?
I thougt I implied that it was something which we could come to someday.
But whatever. No rush and certainly not posting a detour sign.
Santorum is lying. The Netherlands murder at least 50% of their elders when they become to expensive for the health care system.
Ok, seriously now, is there no law in the USA that would punish him for telling lies about other people, races and countries? In many other countries his campaign and maybe even his career would have already come to an end just because of this.
Sometimes the Dutch have people dance themselves to death like Snow White’s evil stepmother…but in wooden shoes–not burning hot iron shoes.
Santorum told voters that (1) ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands were by euthanasia,..
***************************
Crazy Santorum thinks “euthanasia” is an adolescent street gang from Beijing.
sufferingsuccatash:
“It confirmed for me that Obama is the only sane Republican.” I agree.
that dutch guy:
“To be honest, I’m getting scared of the idiots going for the white house, sorry.” Me, too.