Euthanasia: People vs. Pets

My family is going to have to put down our dog pretty soon because she is getting old and apparently, is suffering from different maladies. It’s a sad state of affairs whenever a family pet dies or has to be put down, but obviously, it’s a part of life. Certainly, it’s better to put down pets who are in pain rather than let them continue living until they die naturally. Most people accept this as a natural part of life and simply put down their pets when the time comes.

On the other hand, though, when it comes to human life, there are quite a number of restrictions placed on physician-assisted suicide, whether it be for yourself or for somebody who cannot speak for themselves. My question is, why are there so many restrictions in place like this, while the process for putting down pets is so much easier?

The only reason I can really think of is that human life is regarded more highly than animal life. That’s why it is much easier to put down pets than let humans commit suicide. There is an implication that it is a serious decision to end a person’s life, which I definitely agree with. It is something that shouldn’t be discussed lightly. But at the same time, what about animals? Is it easier to euthanize animals simply because they cannot voice their own opinions on the matter? Do we have to make that decision for them since they can’t do it for themselves?

I am of the opinion that the real reason is because humans cannot actually talk to animals. Sure. We can communicate with them. But we can’t have a conversation with them. Basic feelings aside, it is difficult to understand what an animal is actually trying to convey to you, and that is why euthanizing them is much easier than euthanizing a human being. The emotional attachment that humans have to animals is not as strong as humans have to themselves. This emotional attachment gives credence to the basic standard of values that people have among themselves. Other animals simply do not adhere to these same standards, which is why euthanizing them is considerably easier. If this is true, though, why do humans who cannot communicate effectively get different treatment than animals? The Terri Schiavo case certainly comes to mind when thinking about this discrepancy.

So now that the why is out of the way, does that make it right?

In regards to animals, I think taking them to a veterinarian and having them give an official “okay” to putting down a pet is sufficient enough to go through with euthanasia. If a pet’s owner describe noises and actions that a pet makes that makes it seem like the pet is in pain and is at the right point in their life to be put down, then I think that is a decent enough standard to follow. I’m sure there are other procedures that go into a veterinarian’s decision to put down a pet that I am unaware of, as well.

My contention is with how we treat euthanasia for people. With how seemingly easily humans are able to put down animals, there are only a number of states that even allow physician-assisted suicide in the United States. The majority of nations across the world do not allow any form of it either.

This essentially means that we are allowed to take the life of another animal, creatures that we cannot communicate with effectively, much more easily than we are allowed to take our own lives. Why is it that we can decide it is alright to kill another animal but not ourselves? Do we not suffer as much as other animals? If a person says he does not want to live his life anymore, should we forbid him from ending it? We make that same decision for animals every day simply because we cannot effectively tell what an animal wants from us, but when a person says they want that same treatment, it is either completely forbidden or a much more difficult process altogether. That doesn’t seem right.

This is especially true for terminally ill people. Should they be forced to live out the rest of their lives in increasing pain just because society dictates that suicide is illegal? I don’t think so. Everybody has the right to life, but most people don’t have the right to death apparently. A person is only allowed to die when laws deem it appropriate. That makes no sense to me.

The laws regarding euthanizing animals are just fine, but laws concerning physician-assisted suicide need to be reevaluated to better serve the population. There is no reason people should be given the authority to kill other creatures but not themselves, particularly when people are terminally ill or even less responsive than the animals we put down on a daily basis.

Classroom Electronic Policies

I’ve been reading a lot about classroom electronic policies and specifically, the rationale behind banning laptops in the classroom. It is a given that cell phones are prohibited in just about every single college (or otherwise) classroom across the world. I have yet to walk into a class since I started college where cell phones were allowed to be used. Oftentimes, it is overlooked if it is not distracting, but the fact remains that there is always a strict “no phones” policy in place, which I think is a reasonable expectation.

More controversial, though, is the “no laptops” policy. I have only run into this policy once, and it was in one of my most recent graduate classes. I have difficulty agreeing with most of the arguments for why laptops cannot be used in the classroom. They distract the student from the content? This is a possibility if the student decides to use his laptop for non-educational purposes in the classroom, but it is that student’s prerogative to use his time as he pleases. Just as I can sit in class looking at Facebook for a whole three hours, I can sit at my desk and doodle in my notebook for three hours. They both distract me from the classroom content. The only difference between the two is the way in which they distract me.

There is only one justification that I understand for not using laptops in the classroom, which is that they distract the other students around you. The reason I think this is a fair assumption is because other students should not have to worry about focusing on the content because the person next to them decides to sit in class and take online quizzes about which Game of Thrones character they are.

At the same time, I don’t think students should be restricted in the way they learn just because the students around them (or the teacher) does not approve of the way in which they learn. It is true that many students who are on computers in class will spend at least some of their time not focused on the content, but what about the students that actually want to use their laptops to take notes and follow along with the teacher? It’s a much faster method of note-taking, and if they want to do it that way, they should be allowed to.

There is another even greater problem with disallowing students to use their laptops in the classroom. What if their textbook is on their laptop? More than half of the textbooks I used this past semester were online books. Many of the articles I had to read for class were also downloaded from online databases. If I want to follow along with the discussion using the material, I should not be forced to print out every single article we discuss in class. It’s a waste of paper, ink and time.

Besides that, I actually think laptops in the classroom add a beneficial element to discussions. I took a class this past semester where one of the students always had his laptop open to the readings to follow along with the discussion. The discussions we had in that class were comprehensive, often including pertinent information from other topics or fields of study. Because of this, we were often bringing up new ideas that could be more easily understood if we had more information available for the discussion.

Whenever we needed to do this, this student would look up the information on his laptop, which the professor appreciated, and reasonably so. Having a laptop handy helped us to provide a deeper context to our discussions. It was also useful for quickly accessing online videos for our class to watch in conjunction with our discussion.

My recommendation: if students want to use laptops in the classroom, let them. If they are in an environment where they might distract other students, implement a policy where students who want to use laptops must sit in the back of the classroom. That way, nobody will be able to see what they are browsing. It will also reward the students who don’t use them because they will be closer to the professor during the lecture. It’s a win-win situation for all of the students.

The only person this doesn’t possibly benefit is the teacher, who may not appreciate some students not paying attention. My opinion?

Tough. Deal with it.

Students pay a lot of money to go to school. If they want to frivolously waste their education, let them. It will help to weed out the students who don’t deserve to pass class anyway. There is already a problem with degrees being handed out like candy these days. An A is not nearly worth as much as it used to be. Loosen the job market a little bit, and let some of the students drop out who aren’t even intelligent enough to pay attention.

One more thing that exasperates this issue are attendance policies. Attendance policies are some of the worst parts of education. After high school, these things should not even exist. Why reward students just for showing up? What’s the point? The purpose of education is to educate students on specific subject matter. Students simply showing up for class doesn’t prove that they understand the class’ material. It just proves that they can get out of bed to go to class.

These same students who show up just to get their attendance grade are also the ones who are using their laptops for non-educational purposes. Remove the attendance policies, and it removes a big piece of the problem of distracting students on their laptops during class.

Problem solved. Let students use their laptops in class.

Back in my Hometown

I just made it back to my hometown a couple of days ago, and as always, it’s nice to be back. Whenever I’m around, it’s hectic. The time seems to fly by, but it’s good to make it back to the place that I called home for a good portion of my life.

Every time I come back, a couple of things change. Different stores will open and close. Friends will move out or back in. Things shift. There’s always a slightly different feel each time I come back home. That’s only natural.

I’m usually staying in a different place than the last time I was in town, as well, so that makes it feel different from a purely physical standpoint, too. Maybe over time, the place I once knew will have changed into something completely different that I can no longer call home. Maybe so many little things will change over time that I won’t have any of the same nostalgic feelings that I once had for it.

Another possibility is that as my hometown changes, I will change with it. There are some nifty things that happen every time I come back to Erie that I have embraced. For instance, I am currently staying with my friend whose house used to once be a barn. It is one of the coolest houses I have ever stayed in because it is spacious and has a lot of technological gadgets in it (compliments of two technological geeks living together).

My alma mater has changed too. They have slowly been adding onto it for years, even while I was attending school there. While the campus is slowly changing into something much different from when I graduated less than four years ago, most of the changes they have made to the campus have been welcome changes, and it is nice to see my small private alma mater continue to grow into something even greater than it once was.

I think an important part of the nostalgia that people feel towards their hometown and other parts of their life is largely impacted by how often they revisit those memories. For example, if I were to move away from my hometown and not come back for five, ten or even fifteen years, it would feel like a completely different city. I would probably reject all of the changes that the city has made and be indignant about them. People are naturally resistant to change, and I don’t think nostalgia is in any way immune to this phenomenon.

On the other hand, if I keep regularly revisiting my hometown and slowly replacing some of the old memories I had of it with newer memories of the city, I will still be able to retain the closeness that I had with it from since I was a child. It won’t seem like a completely new city to me because I will have been adding all of the changes about the city slowly into my personal image that I have of it. It will feel like a natural development that has occurred over the course of time rather than something that has been forced upon me by being so far away from my hometown for so long.

Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic way of looking at it, but I feel like the time spent away from one’s hometown definitely has an effect on how that person views it. If a person never leaves their hometown, they will probably continue to feel the same way about it as they always have, but if they move away, thus severing ties with it, and return later, there is a much greater chance for a shift in mentality towards that place.

In the future, I’m not sure if I will continue to view my hometown with the same adoration that I currently do. It has treated me well in the past, but maybe as time goes on, I will spend less time visiting as more of my contacts move away from it. For now, I will enjoy it, for the next time I visit my hometown may very well be my last — or at least the last time that I truly enjoy the nostalgia that it brings.

North Korea’s Collapse

I’ve been reading and writing a lot about North Korea. For one of my final papers this term, I actually chose to write about North Korea’s collapse. I think this is an interesting topic because, like China, people keep speculating when the collapse is going to happen. Pundits make it seem as if it’s a forgone conclusion that the North Korean regime will collapse without even considering that it may never collapse. Since I have been studying North Korea, I have come to a firmer conclusion about what the outcome on North Korea will be. My assertion is that it won’t ever collapse, barring a few circumstances.

There are basically three ways in which a regime can collapse:

1. politically

2. externally

3. economically

Politically speaking, a regime can collapse through an internal coup or a revolution. Very rarely does a regime change just because people want a change. Usually, a more dramatic event needs to occur in order for a regime to change politically.

Revolution is basically never going to happen in North Korea. With a standing military of one million, a revolution would quickly be suppressed. Even more important than that are the controls that the Kim regime uses to suppress the people. The masses are basically on constant watch by the government and by their neighbors. There are rules put in place so people cannot speak ill of the regime, and travel is also restricted. Essentially, the North Korean government controls every part of every person’s life. There is no possible way a group of people could coalesce into a group to start a revolution.

A coup is much more practical yet still improbable. So long as the Kim family provides for the military and other political leaders, they have no reason for a coup. If they are being fed and live good lifestyles, what would their impetus be to start a coup? Additionally, Kim Jong-Un also keeps a watchful eye on military and political personnel. If he suspects a coup, he will depose anybody he thinks poses a threat to him. This has been shown in the past when he even removed his uncle and a number of other high level party members from office. One can only expect they are now either doing hard labor or are dead.

An external attack against North Korea is also unlikely. The reason this is is because nobody really wants North Korea to collapse. Nobody benefits enough from it. Certainly, South Korean citizens would want to reunite with their families, but the government has no incentive to take any aggressive action against North Korea, so from a state’s standpoint, a conflict is undesirable. The DPRK may talk big, but it rarely ever does anything. In that sense, North Korea existing doesn’t really pose a threat to any of the regional states in the area, or even the United States. Thus, why would anybody want to spend resources to try and topple a regime that poses no legitimate threat to anyone else?

If North Korea were to collapse, I think many people assume it would happen economically. The North Korean economy has been stagnant for the past twenty years, and it is receiving less and less aid from countries like China and Russia, while it keeps suffering harsher and harsher sanctions against it by the U.N. and other countries.

The problem with thinking North Korea will collapse economically is that this viewpoint assumes North Korea cares about its people. I’m not an economist, but North Korea’s economy still seems to be running just fine one way or another. Even if the economy were to fail as it has done in the past, North Korea will simply do what it has always done. It will secure food for those people who are important to the regime’s survival while letting everyone fend for themselves. In essence, they will simply let people die until the point that there is enough food to feed everyone.

For example, let’s assume there are twenty million people in North Korea. The regime currently has enough food to feed twenty million people. Some sort of crisis happens, and the regime now only has enough food to feed fifteen million people. Barring any sort of external aid, North Korea will just let five million people die until the population is low enough that it can feed the whole population. North Korea isn’t concerned about the loss of those five million people. North Korea is concerned with maintaining the status quo of the country.

With that said, what could cause the North Korean regime to collapse? I think there are two possibilities that could cause this.

The first is if North Korea continues to provoke other states and goes too far. Currently, North Korea only causes minimal damage to other states, particularly South Korea. This, in itself, is not enough to justify a war against North Korea. As I said before, South Korea, or any other nation, for that matter, is not interested in warring with North Korea anyway. It would be too costly, especially considering North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. Thus, unless North Korea pushes too far and acts too belligerently, nobody is going to interfere with what North Korea does.

Secondly, the regime can collapse during a time of weakness. For instance, a coup is much more likely after the death of Kim Jong-Un, or as the world saw just recently, if Kim Jong-Un is hospitalized. A scenario like this, though, is much more arbitrary and is hard to predict. These points of weakness, though, provide an opportunity for opponents of the Kim family to gain power. I still think it is fairly unlikely because high ranking officials probably don’t need to change the regime since they already have a considerable amount of power, and they are watched very carefully.

All things considered, I don’t see an overarching reason as to why North Korea would collapse. It has moved along its current path just fine for the past sixty years, and it doesn’t seem like change is imminent. Certainly, I hope I am wrong, though, especially for the benefit of the North Korean people.