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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27522 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023

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Offering to euthenize veterans when they have the temerity to complain that their wheelchair ramp is taking a long time to install is not what I'd call "who's diseases are really bad".

Ah, you mean that grand myth about an offer that was “made verbally” and for which the veteran in question was unable to provide any evidence for whatsoever, that one?

Someone claims they want to die but were refused: we must believe them, don't ask for proof!

Someone claims they want to live but were told to die: where's the proof? oral only? it's a myth!

This is reminding me of #MeToo and 'believe (all) women' - when the accusations were against the guy we hate, it was mandatory to believe them and no doubt could be cast on the claims; when it was against our guy, of course the bitch was a lying, politically motivated, fabulist.

I don’t see why a verbal referral, possibly made sarcastically to a “squeaky wheel”, would have been recorded.

This is one of the reasons American conservatives don’t trust a large, central, bureaucratic government: “The part of the government which oversees the government states they couldn’t find anything in the files of the part of the government which works with citizens who served the government in fighting another government to indicate there was a referral to the part of the government which kills its own citizens to prevent them using excess government resources which could be used for more productive citizens.”

Well it’s relevant becuase in the Canadian bureaucracy (as in most bureaucracies) most things are recorded in writing, including offers of this kind of assistance apparently. Almost nothing in a Western bureaucracy when it comes to interaction between some government body and the citizen would ever happen ‘verbally’, even minor stuff requires 7 forms and a bushel of letters sent to the citizen about everything that relates to anything to do with an issue.

So while the government may have conveniently lost its copy, it’s much more suspicious that the veteran did, especially when she went directly to the press to complain about it.

Well hon, I've worked in a Western bureaucracy implementing government grants and policies, and we often communicated with the public over the phone or face-to-face at the enquiry window. And didn't write down every single word we and the client uttered.

So "interaction between some government body and the citizen" did "happen ‘verbally’". The 7 forms came later in the process.

Do you think the woman is telling the whole truth about the alleged offer of euthanasia she supposedly received?

i'm not sure, but this is a case where it's not easily "the claimant is lying/the clerk is lying". Canada does have a MAID programme. As we saw with the Liverpool Care Path review, what is intended as helping the terminally ill can easily get translated into 'this person would be better off dead'.

Unhappily, I don't think that it's impossible that someone suggested "have you considered euthanasia?" to a disabled or ill person.

Almost nothing in a Western bureaucracy when it comes to interaction between some government body and the citizen would ever happen ‘verbally’, even minor stuff requires 7 forms and a bushel of letters sent to the citizen about everything that relates to anything to do with an issue.

None of this is true, and bureaucrats know perfectly well that if they want to get something done, but it's not really up to code, they need to handle it over a phone call, or a face to face meeting, instead of via email for example.

Yes, with each other, between government employees. With the public, there is no need to get anything done at all. Clients of the bureaucracy are dealt with…bureaucratically

Again, that's not true. Lot's of interactions undocumented, and to a large extent the system running smoothly depends on it.

Actionable items get documented to a certain, but not full, extent, but no one's going to write down "I offered X but they turned it down", unless they're covering their ass.

Do you think that the Canadian government regularly calls up disabled people (who - of course - could be secretly recording any of these calls for the press) to offer euthanasia for minor ailments? Do you believe this woman, with no evidence? If you do, why?

I think it's not all that improbable that when someone comes to complain, they'd shill their latest program.

And it's not that I believe her, but I don't disbeliever her, and I think it's ridiculous to claim that lack of evidence means it never happened.

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