Death Cults Redux

     Isn’t there anyone who still believes in the intrinsic value of human life?

     That charnel house known as the Netherlands seems to be not content over killing off their citizens one by one, and have now begun to double-down, with couples killing themselves together in “beautiful” ceremonies so that neither one will be alone (until they’re dead, of course).

     “An elderly couple died holding hands surrounded by loved ones in a rare double euthanasia.

     “Nic and Trees Elderhorst, both 91, died in their hometown of Didam, in the Netherlands, after 65 years of marriage.

     Read it all, if you have the stomach for it.

     Holland was once a beautiful, eminently civilized country. That was before it embraced death as a sacrament. Perhaps we should ask Pim Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh for their memories of that time. Oops, sorry, for a moment I forgot about what happened to them.

     But we’re still above all that, aren’t we?

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     There are days I find it all but impossible to go on with this enterprise. The madness just keeps accelerating. The several Death Cults that have planted themselves on our shores are merely the most dramatic excrescences of what appears to be a pandemic global psychopathy. I’ve spaced my direct references to them widely to keep from being overwhelmed by the subject. But the tactic no longer helps much.

     We are surrounded by death worshippers. (No, I don’t just mean Muslims.) It’s likely that some of them are your neighbors. I know for a fact that some of them are mine.

     In discussing international relations and conflict studies, we often speak of “salami tactics.” The would-be aggressor looks for flabbiness of will among potential victims. When he finds one, he acts – but if he’s smart, he doesn’t immediately go “whole hog.” He tests his thesis by reaching for a “slice” of what he covets. “No war over the Rhineland.” “Would you risk a continental conflagration over Leipzig?” “So there are a few nuclear weapons in Cuba, what’s the big deal?” And of course most recently: “Let Putin have the Crimea; it’s historically Russian anyway.” If the victim acquiesces, the aggressor is emboldened to reach for another “slice,” and yet another, and another...

     Salami tactics are also employed domestically, according to the agenda of the aggressor. Have a look at the following list:

• Abortion without restrictions.
• Assisted suicide.
• Commonplace ritual mutilations of the human body.
• Involuntary euthanasia of those deemed untreatable or having "no quality of life."
• Legal infanticide within the first X days post-birth.
• Compulsory surrender of the organs of the deceased for transplantation.
• Environmentalist crusades that prioritize human life below other considerations.
• Use of “abandoned” embryos for “research.”
• Creation of zygotes and embryos for non-procreative purposes.
• Government-enforced "triage" to “conserve medical and financial resources.”
• Compulsory acceptance of specified therapies.
• Procreation licenses (alternately, compulsory sterilization of those deemed “unfit”).
• Government eugenics programs:
  • At first, as subsidies to couples with favored genetic characteristics;
  • Later, as compulsory donations of gametes for use in government-supervised breeding programs.
• Conscription for military purposes.
• Conscription for non-military purposes.

     You’ve seen versions of that list before. It just keeps growing as the Death Cultists discover ever more ways to advance their creed. Parts of it have been upon us for some time. Other parts are the targets of our domestic salami slicers.

     Life, and our grip on it, are under attack. They’ve been weakened bit by bit for several decades. Our grandparents and great-grandparents – they who fought, bled, and died in terrible wars for the lives of others – would hardly recognize their posterity.

     The value we place on human life is what gives value to everything else in our world. It’s what allows us to make sense of things, to settle on what we want, and to reason out how to go about getting it. Is it really necessary to be explicit about the implications for its loss?

     Mankind as a species is slowly but steadily going mad.

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     One organization, alone among all the voices of the world, is unbending in its proclamation that human life is sacred: the Catholic Church. Note how viciously it’s attacked, principally for its opposition to abortion and euthanasia. Note how, whenever someone dares to raise an objection to some element of the Death Cults’ program, some interlocutor will cast a wary eye at him and say “You’re not a Catholic...are you?” in that unmistakable tone that implies that no modern, well-intentioned soul could possibly associate with so retrograde an institution.

     While I differ with some of my Church’s doctrines, nevertheless I will defend it against all comers. Conspicuous among my reasons is this: It’s made all the right enemies. It’s achieved that by defending human life, by placing it above all utilitarian considerations, and by insisting that so precious a gift cannot be disparaged, much less renounced, without eternal consequences.

     Note that Catholicism has essentially disappeared from Europe. So too have most other forms of Christianity, but those have always been satellites to the Church and the Gospels it was formed to conserve and promulgate. When anyone speaks of “the Church,” there’s no doubt about which institution he has in mind. The other denominations have retained a slowly failing fingernail hold on what was once called Christendom by giving ground, on one issue after another, to the Death Cultists. The Church has not.

     Draw the moral.

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     Wednesdays are currently significant here at the Fortress of Crankitude. Our Newfoundland Rufus has a regular weekly appointment at a veterinary clinic where he receives chemotherapy for B-cell lymphoma. Getting Rufus to the clinic is a burden on us. The treatments are very expensive, and there’s no way to know for how much longer he’ll be receiving them. The point, of course, is to keep Rufus alive and healthy for as long as we can.

     We do it out of love for our dog. We’re not alone; the clinic is just about always busy. People bring pets of all varieties, suffering from many diverse maladies, to be healed, or at least made more comfortable. I have no doubt that the burdens on them are fully comparable to ours.

     How much more precious is the life of a human being? How much more deserving of reverent defense?

     That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. I need to pray.