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No worries! If I run out of time you’ll just stop hearing from me haha

original post for reference

It’s true that I’m religious and that that’s in the background of my beliefs about this, but the argument I gave is not strictly religious. The religious argument is “your life does not belong to you, it belongs to God and you are the steward of it”. (It’s not my favorite argument, in fact, because it treats life as a possession.) My argument is more like:

The worth of a human life is intrinsic [because it is given by God].

Suffering is an evil but it does not reduce the person to less than a person [and by the mercy of God can mysteriously be the means of grace].

Dependence is not an evil, [as all living creatures are by nature dependent on God].

With these three premises, taking one’s own life is morally impermissible simply because it is the taking of a life. Your life does not have less value if it’s yours, and the loss of your life would be no less tragic if you’re the one who ended it. Suicide is wrong for the same reason murder is. Even if you disagree with the religious background, to make assisted suicide permissible I think you would still have to disagree with the main body of at least one of those three bullet points. You would have to say “the worth of a human life is dependent on a person’s abilities and when those abilities are absent or reduced their life is worth less”, or “suffering does make a person to be less than a person, a person in great pain is reduced to the level of an animal”, or “dependence is undignified and evil and we are justified in taking extreme steps to avoid becoming dependent and avoid wasting resources on those who are”, or some other version of one of those. 

You have to reject one of the three bullet points because what you mentioned about suicide being a “freedom” is not enough to make a judgment about whether it should be considered permissible or not. Thought experiment: a person is kidnapped by a Batman villain and injected with a paralytic and a slow-acting poison, so that they cannot escape and they know they are going to die. They’re in horrible pain and they’re afraid. And the villain comes up and puts a button in their hand and says “The last freedom you have is this choice: if you press the button you can poison Gotham’s water supply!” Poisoning the water supply doesn’t save them. It’s not a trolley problem, a choice between poisoning the water supply and killing Batman. It’s just press the button or do nothing. The button IS their last freedom. But that doesn’t mean the choice to poison the water supply would somehow be more legitimate, let alone laudatory, than if they made that choice in other circumstances. All choices are free. That’s what make them choices. It doesn’t mean they are by virtue of that good or moral choices. Sometimes it’s better to make no choice, rather than a bad choice. 

So when you say “it’s their last freedom”, behind that is the assumption that it’s their last freedom to make a good choice, one that isn’t like poisoning Gotham. And so one of my premises would have to be false. And you are welcome to believe one of my premises is false! But I think when you wipe out those unconditional premises, limiting whose life has worth and what kind of life is worth living, you start down that treacherous slippery slope which is so deadly for vulnerable communities. I’m going to mention again the idea that certain options exert pressure as soon as they exist: society doesn’t have to work too hard to actually help people when it could funnel them towards suicide instead. And so once assisted suicide is thinkable, life for disabled, mentally ill, elderly, and poor people gets worse. (The United Nations agrees with me: article 10 paragraph 19b)

And if you make freedom itself the condition for life’s value, i.e. “a person’s life has value if they freely confer that value on it”, the danger doesn’t disappear. How do we know the difference between a person who has with full freedom decided to stop valuing their life and a person who is so mentally unwell that they should be considered unable to freely consent? If you’re going through a rough patch and you start to have trouble seeing the value in yourself, does your value immediately disappear? How quickly can a medical professional sign off on your death? That same day? The next? And are we saying, then, that people only have value when they’re able to exercise freedom? What about mentally disabled people who need a lot of support and whose autonomy is limited? There is an extremely thin line between the principle of a person going to the doctor and saying “I have freely decided my life has no value” and the doctor assessing them and agreeing that they have the mental fitness to make that free choice, and the principle of a doctor looking at a person (with advanced dementia, intellectual disability, etc) and assessing that they don’t have the mental fitness to choose to give their life value.

As modern people we are obsessed with autonomy, and terrified of not having control, but in reality, most people have quite limited control. Obviously it’s an admirable goal to restructure society so that the poor and marginalized are less trapped by their circumstances, but we should also be really, really careful about making being-in-control the ultimate value—because it confers more value upon the powerful and leeches it away from the poor and marginalized. Bad enough that they don’t have a ton of choices! Now their humanity is somehow less because of that? Their lack of autonomy shouldn’t make them disposable.

The mirror replied "To whom?"

"The miller who made the flour for my bread," the queen would say, or "Whoever spun the thread my shawl was made of".

The second time, she says "To the King," and she is pleased to see herself once more.

The third time, she says "To the Royal Advisor," and is once more satisfied to see herself.

The fourth time, she says "To the scribe who takes the King's letters." She is shown the man's wife. And she seethes, but quiets herself, for it is only right that a man loves his wife.

The fifth time, she says "To the Court Wizard," and is shown the man's departed mother as he remembers her from his youth, radiant and smiling and warm and larger than life.

The tenth time, she says "To the Stable Master," and is shown the fastest horse in the stable, majestic and free as the wind even in captivity

"To the baker," she is shown the man's daughter, young and adorable and full of joy and laughter.

"To the artist who did my portrait," she is shown a painting of a woman done by the man's teacher, who he still looks up to now that he is well established himself.

"To the Royal Knight," she is surprised but not displeased to see the castle's entire guard force in the middle of doing drills.

The one hundredth time she asks the mirror, and it asks her "to whom?" she once again says, "To me." And she does the same the one hundred and second, and again and again and again.

10 years ago, I was watching my Potential and Opportunities dissolve and evaporate in an ocean of cheap gin and expensive whiskey.

But 5 years ago, I was in Rehab.

One of the exercises they had us perform was to imagine ourselves happy, 5 years in the future.

Many of us in that room had forgotten how to imagine nice things happening to them. A few snorted (well, I snorted), finding the notion that we’d even still be around in 5 years grimly humorous.

For about half of us, it was the last stop on the way down.

But I indulged the therapist. I was there, after all, because I did not want to die. So, I imagined myself, 5 years hence.

Happy.

It came to me all at once; an artistic remix on Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want, reframed with myself placing food at the table.

Sunday Dinner At My Place, I answered, when it came my turn to share my fantasy. I was asked what food I imagined eating.

It’s not the meal itself, I said, it’s the implications framed around it. Sunday Dinner At My Place means that I have a Place. It means that I have Family that will actually speak to me and friends who actually want to see me. It means money enough not just to feed myself but others too. It means having the time to spare to take the time preparing the meal.

A lot of nodding heads all around me. A struck chord. Many people with no Place, in that place. Nowhere that would lament their leaving.

5 years hence, as I lay down to sleep in my Home, with my Wife and my Son, surrounded by my Art and my Flowers, I reflect.

It was a long road. It was hard. We lost people. So many people. There were long days and long nights and hospital stays. Angry arguments with ghosts. I changed, in ways I never hoped for, or expected. Good ways, finally, for once. Slowly, against the backdrop of a world in chaos, I found my mind.

Sometimes, My Wife wondered aloud, what she did to deserve me. After some stumbling with my feelings, I eventually settled on an answer.

I’m a Rescue.

She gave me a Home.

And, so, I gave her a Family.

It seemed fair

This Sunday, my folks, which whom I have not had a shouting match in years, will come over for dinner. We will cook and eat together. My Friend became My Wife, and she took a piece of me and with it she made Our Son. There will be many hugs, and no violence. Good Things Happened.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you don’t know what the future holds.

don’t give up yet, ok?

In early December we found out that our son is suffering from Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), where his diaphragm didn't full close. He is left with a hole in his diaphragm, allowing the organs in his abdomenal cavity to move into his chest cavity, restricting the growth of his lungs and affecting the positioning of his heart.

So far a portion of his intestines, most of his stomach, and now a portion of his liver is sitting in his chest cavity.

He'll need surgery with in days of birth to move the organs back into his abdomen and repair the diaphragm. He is expected to stay in the nicu a minimum of five weeks but could be up to 3 months or more, depending on his progress during pregnancy and how he responds and heals post surgery.

We hope to stay as much time as possible in the NICU with him during his time their.

And thats why I am posting this link today. Its hard for me to ask others for help, especially financial. It would mean the world to us if you could donate money so we can be there for our son.

Donations would go toward loss salary while staying with our son in the NICU, transportation to and from the hospital, food while staying there. Also the money would go toward things needed when we bring him home from the hospital, like the possibility for oxygen needs, feeding tubes and formula, medication, and other monitoring equipment he may need. Additionally, depending on how his hernia progresses before birth, we may need to relocate out of state and we want to be able to have that option to give him the best care.

@robert-the-foul @r0bilargreenleaf

If you can not donate, please share. I’ve provided two different fundraising sites:

They repaired the hernia again , luckily it was small but they added a biological dissolvable mesh to help cover the area. They had to get rid of part of his intestines from the issue that they saw. His blood pressure has been too low, so they don’t think his intestines would properly heal if they attached the pieces of intestines together just yet, so now they are being held outside the body in the meantime.

They told us 6-8 weeks for healing possible then they’ll attached the intestines together.

It’s a set back for sure.

They had mentioned that before they caught this they were considering starting feedings soon and weaning off more things .

So no pay, and he may not be able to visit our son until he is cleared to move about more.

But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then. 

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together. 

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing. 

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already. 

Here’s her list of kitchen basics. 

Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic. 

Make your own pasta–gluten free. 

She gets it. She really does. This is the article that started it all. It’s called “Hunger Hurts”.

She has vegan recipes.

A carrot, a can of kidney beans, and some cumin will get you a really filling soup…or throw in some flour for binding and you’ve got yourself a burger. 

Don’t have an oven or the stove isn’t available? She covers that in her Microwave Cooking section. 

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days. 

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling. 

Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that. 

Here’s an up to date link

Jack’s site is now a wordpress, which can be found here:

For most of my life I've never heard a child over two years old called a baby, but now online I've heard it used to refer to children up to six? I will probably make some follow up polls to clarify the reasoning/demographics of the difference more, but:

this is a vegetarian potato curry recipe that's about 75% spices; once you get the potatoes in there you can really do whatever you want with it

this is literally just pasta, broccoli, and cheese babey and you can live off that shit for DAYS it makes such a big portion

bro this spinach/pesto/3 cheese flatbread is so fucking tasty bro

also you can make the flatbread yourself it's super quick!!

oh hey I'm eating this white chickpea chili right now, much like the curry it's mostly spices and you can do p much do whatever you want with it

don't let the name fool you these potatoes are delicious any time. not just breakfast.

Garlic butter rice

Pork - any cut boneless

Onions- chopped anyway you like

Orange juice - about one cup (you can use about 2 tablespoons of the condensed frozen stuff if you have it)

Root beer, pepsi, or other cola soda - about one cup

Preferred chili mix seasoning - 1-2 packets depending on how intense you like your flavoring and how much pork you put in

Garlic - as much as you wanna, specifically smashed not cut

Canned or frozen corn - to your preference