Perhaps ye Philistines should cleanse thyselves.

[LOCpunks]

I may be an asshole yes agreed and unquestionably, but I am far from being ignorant and I know for a *fact* my friend that I am smarter then you, heh.

Very compelling.

Could have fooled me.

I'd say that anyone who says anything along the lines of "they (all Indians) could die for all I care," if not ignorant, is frankly retarded for trying to espouse individual rights thereafter.

[SarahG]

...women were generally very receptive to sterilization after being educated on the risks of enduring many childbirths and on the benefits of declining fertility.

Again this is only giving me more evidence that there are things to be explored before forced sterilization. If there are women who are receptive- aka willing to consent to such procedures without threats, lies or governmental mandates then that should be taken into consideration far before any country starts sterilizing sections of their population as a blanket policy to curve mortality statistics. Don't you agree?

I don't have a set line to draw where government action should be taken. The fact is that the mortality rate is alarming. And yes, I fully support establishing institutions for voluntary birth control. But the fact of the matter is, there is not enough money in the world to penetrate the poor, rural areas in India with educational programs and to establish the number of medical facilities to facilitate those programs; at least to a point where they could be considered effective.

I think the key to any problem in a global population such as this one would only practically be curbed through a combination of programs, incentives and other such things... I think it is absurd to say or believe that a country should merely try contraceptive distribution/education/etc and then if that fails, move on to say, educating women about sterilization programs and seeing if they consent to them etc... you really need to hit it with as many options as a country can pull off without violating civil liberties. If I gave you the implication that I was advocating trying one thing then an other then an other I am sorry as that was not my intention- I will make it clear that any progress on problems like these requires as many options as possible, especially since what works for one person may not work from another. Would any of these things by themselves be a comprehensive solution to mortality statistics? No, I don't believe that would be possible in *any* country.

Maybe I am not being clear. The issue is whether or not court-ordered medication is justifiable when a patient has the capacity to consent to or to disallow medication.

I don't see how it is justifiable in cases where the patient is not a threat to them self or society. Many mentally ill patients are never a threat to anyone, including themselves... forcing them to be on medications by court order is meaningless in such cases because it fails to accomplish anything but to remove the consent rights of the patient. Now someone with a history of violent actions against society is a whole other situation and I suspect *most* court ordered medication cases are of this type but that is just a guess on my part.

But if a mentally ill patient has done his time and refuses to be medicated, forcing medication on him IS justifiable for the public good? Because he represents a threat to society, no?

See above, that would depend on the case. If we're now talking about people that are mentally ill that have been found to have had a past involving violent actions then I still think it depends on circumstance; depression is a mental illness yet if someone who is clinically depressed gets in a bar fight I hardly consider it logical to require them to be on paxil for life, especially if the violent action in question had nothing to do with their specific condition...

Federalism is a political philosophy. Not only that, but it is often (but not always) in contrast with libertarianism. Republic may refer to the structure...

And I was responding to your statement that our country is a federal republic... the republic part is obviously unrelated since that is pertaining to structure and, per the federalism part- as you stated yourself does not have to contrast with libertarianism. Which makes your statement that our system is a federalist republic meaningless and unrelated per the scope of this thread.

...The central government, at least here in the U.S., undoubtedly has a responsbility to provide social provisions and to promote the general welfare of its citizens, which is all that I am asserting.

This isn't being contested in this thread, the libertarian perspective is based on governmental duties and actions being as minor and hands off as practical (as practical being the key word here), that doesn't mean there are no governmental duties, responsibility, or actions- just that they are as minor as practical.

I would argue, that within the scope of what is necessary from an "as minor as practical" perspective includes certain things, one of which being some level of social provisionism... the extent of which, now that is open to debate. But I don't think I have anywhere said there should be no such provisions.

how you believe that libertarian theory should be applied in a federalist state (or confederacy) where citizens are subject to state and federal laws intended for the public good.

It is pretty simple really. The constitution was to be a listing of all the federal government's powers, duties, responsibilities and so on. The original use of said document was pretty simple; the ONLY powers/responsibilities/duties/etc of the federal government were outlined in said document.

As time has went on we have abandoned this -dare I say- libertarian use of the document to an authoritarian one where unlike the original use of the document, today- the document is used as a system of outlining the things in which the government can not do (note the difference). Aka "there is nothing saying we can't do it" logic runs contrary to the original use of the constitution and allows for more federal governmental actions et al than what is truly needed (thus running contrary to libertarianism). Unknown to most in this country today, there actually was a debate among the founding fathers (especially Jefferson) in terms with rather or not to have a bill of rights... there were two schools of thought on this issue.

The first was a fear that if a list of rights was constructed, time would allow the federal government to view the list as a comprehensive list (which it was never intended to be) and thus the document would become an exclusionary document (aka if the civil liberty is not on the list, it is not recognized). The list was never supposed to be a comprehensive list, Amendment #10 eludes to this.

The other position was that the list was required, again not to be comprehensive but to list the most important civil liberties/protections/etc out of concern that if no such list existed, the people would fail to care as such rights were slowly eroded.

We can clearly see where things ended up today.

Per the states, again the same basic principle applies- the original states have constitutions, charters and other such documents just as the federal government does- to establish its responsibilities/duties/etc- the philosophical origins and evolution has been mirrored, however I will note that the states appear to be quicker in becoming authoritarian then the federal government has... things such as gun control, prohibitionary laws (be it alcohol or certain plants/drugs/etc) usually are only touched on the federal level after enough states do similar things per to make it "mainstream"... this is how the drinking age was standardized at 21, so many states had decided to make such a change individually to make it the norm, and the Reagan admin stepped in to use threat of removal of highway funding to "force" the last state holdouts to adopt the same policies.

Did you ever learn that correlation does not constitute causation?

Did you read my post where I specifically mentioned both genetically caused AND genetically linked conditions? There are both out there.

Eugenics is just over glorified selective breeding to "breed out" traits such as genetically caused conditions... usually such programs are extended to include genetically linked conditions as well, but not always.

Just because eugenics programs have historically been used to justify forced sterilization of persons who appear to have genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized, and genocide, does not mean that sterilization programs constitute eugenics.

True but my point, in case that has been missed, is that forced sterilization programs have globally been seen as a civil rights violation even when they are based out of good intentioned concern for the public health.

Eugenics of conditions proven to be caused by genetics would save lives. That doesn't mean we need or should run around forcing everyone of said segments of the population to be sterilized... and I would argue, that this does relate to the mortality statistics we are talking about in this thread because your posts indicate that you would support such a forced sterilization program out of similar concerns. It is the same argument, just different semantics.

These programs are not intended to "perfect humanity", serve as drastic population control, or anything that you keep trying to paint them as.

Really? You honestly believe that? Forced sterilization to prevent mothers from "having kids repeatedly one after the other until they kill themselves in the process" is a population control. The mortality stats you're talking about are NOT about mothers dying while giving birth to their first or even second child... you're talking about population control and controlling size of families rather you realize it or not. No where did I say such programs or your proposal would disallow citizens from having multiple children, that would depend on how many children a mother would be allowed to give birth to before someone like you would have them forced to have their tubes tied against their will.