Death Panels – Sneak Preview

by

by publius

Now that “death panels” have been added to the health coverage bill, the logical question is how to structure them most efficiently.  Personally, I hope Obama requires all death panels to be modeled after the Trial of Zod in Superman 2 (begin at 1:30):

30 thoughts on “Death Panels – Sneak Preview”

  1. As always, I think Star Trek provides us with a model for dealing with all social problems. There was an episode in the original series where two planets were having a war, but rather than deal with the mess and fuss of dropping actual bombs on each other, they’d have a lottery, with the losers going to disintegration chambers.
    The extension of this concept to the current health care debate is obvious, so I leave it to others to work out the details.

  2. Considering that at the Al Smith dinner, Obama slipped–er, joked–that’s it, joked–and mentioned that he’s from Krypton, I’d say his Death Panel will look exactly like the one in the clip.
    Someone call Oily Taint, we’ve got him now!!

  3. I think that we should be able to nominate people for the death chamber. Anyone who pisses off a certain number of their neighbors gets the ax. It would do a lot more to improve behavior than gun ownership.

  5. “There was an episode in the original series where two planets were having a war, but rather than deal with the mess and fuss of dropping actual bombs on each other, they’d have a lottery, with the losers going to disintegration chambers.”
    “A Taste of Armageddon.”
    But, dude, the guards got to wear these totally funky hats:

    And Scotty gets to utter his line: “The best diplomat that I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank.”
    There’s another pompous Federation diplomat, who thinks he can settle things by talking! Ha! What does he know?
    Of course, the admirals in Star Fleet were typically even more stupid and incompetent.
    You couldn’t trust a lot of the other starship commanders, either. Altogther, the Federation had a lot of suspiciously incompetent personnel scattered about, if you weren’t on a ship that had its own tv show.

  6. It’s not in the exact spirit of this thread, but I ask a question I have asked before:
    Is it not the GOAL of medical progress to make SUICIDE the predominant form of human death?
    Seriously: we do research, invent new drugs, implement new therapies, all in order to eliminate deaths due to disease after disease, injury after injury. Progress in eliminating various causes of death is good — just ask anyone who is “pro-life”, never mind anti-“death panels”. And progress is relentless — it feeds on itself. Given enough progress, what will be the only thing left for anyone to die of?
    Suicide, of course. Godless, cold-hearted, premeditated suicide. Good Christian centenarians won’t have many other ways to get to Heaven. Bummer for them, eh?
    –TP

  7. Well, I imagine the GOP is thinking more along the lines of Alice in Wonderland. First the execution, then the sentence, then the trial. The Dems are, as is generally known, all knaves [add inappropriate tart joke here].

  8. Tony P.: Given enough progress, what will be the only thing left for anyone to die of?
    Presumably there will still be war, hunting accidents, and SUV rollovers.

  10. Of course, it depends upon your definition of “enough progress.”
    If you accept the hypothesis that with “enough progress,” we’ll be able to upload and download copies of ourselves, accidents won’t matter either, though the philosophy of identity might.

  11. Given enough progress, what will be the only thing left for anyone to die of?
    falling down stairs
    assaulted by bears
    wasting away
    throw out of the sleigh
    choke on a peach
    sucked dry by a leach
    smother under a rug
    done in by a thug
    drown in a lake
    take lye by mistake
    struck with an axe
    swallow some tacks
    swept out to sea
    death by ennui
    run through with an awl
    trampled in a brawn
    sink in a mire
    consumed by fire
    perish of fits
    fly into bits
    slip down a drain
    squashed under a train
    embedded in ice
    devoured by mice
    head is knocked in
    drink too much gin

  21. You know, Zod and his buddies were some bad dudes, but I have to feel some sympathy for them. Condemned to spend eternity imprisoned in the grooves of Queen II!!
    “I, for one, welcome our new space robot overlords of the death panels.”
    I’m putting the Roomba on a leash!

  22. I suggest a half-a-loaf sort of compromise solution, such as keeping the Obama death panels, but having them composed of awesome celebrities, especially now that Paula Abdul is leaving American Idol.
    Can anything be more American?

  24. Despite cleek’s outstanding poetic efforts and the earnestness of all the diligent posters, clearly this thread is spinning all out of control.
    Where the hell is a professional bioethicist when you need her? Chasing after some brightly colored Go Run Amok bird somewhere, I suspect…

Comments are closed.