Steven Weinberg famously said, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.”
Keep Weinberg’s quote in mind when you read this appalling story of how a British Columbia man was forced to endure agony rather than get a physician-assisted death as he requested.
Why was he forced to do this? Because his hospital was a religious hospital.
Look, clearly most of the people who work in such a facility are humanitarians. But when the hospital’s ideology prevents a dying man to be helped out of his pain at his own request, that’s pretty sad.
His hospital was a religious hospital, and the Canadian Catholics won’t stop jockeying for special snowflake status so they can continue breaking the law.
That’s one of the few stupid (or clueless, if you like) things that Weinberg has said. All it takes for good people to do evil is ideology (which could be religion). It’s also ironic, since Weinberg calls critics of Israel antisemitic. See here, for example.
Counterpunch is a laughable crazy-left site; it’s as if you advocated the World Net Daily, only on the other side.
Lots and lots of Israel critics are anti-semites. Not all.
Nice avoidance/deflection!
Wow, you must be one of those American Overton window victims. Nothing to see here.
Oh, what bullshit. I’ve pointed out a lot of Israeli wrongdoings only to be called “antisemitic” when I didn’t say one goddamn word about Jews.
If you’re denying that “lots and lots of Israel critics are anti-semites”, then there’s no further avenue for discussion. That’s a fact.
The KKK were, and probably still are, rabidly anti-Catholic.
Of course, the only reason someone would even bring this up when someone else is criticizing Catholicism is to derail the conversation and poison the well.
I’m not saying there’s no overlap, because there IS.
I’m saying that simple criticism of certain policies and military actions is also often labeled anti-semitic, just because the policies and actions in question are Israeli.
Like, pointing out that they’re trying to commit genocide on the Palestinians.
Unfortunately all too many critics of Israel fail to note that they are facing opponents who are far worse. In particular Hizbollah and Hamas. A notorious case in point is Glenn Greenwald who is not at all shy for calling out Israel’s alleged transgressions but becomes rather silent about Hamas and Hizbollah. Considering the attitude toward homosexuals in the Gaza strip where being outed will result in a death sentence and in the parts of Lebanon controlled by Hizbollah likewise, I find it outrageous that a gay man like Greenwald would ignore their attitudes.
Counterpunch is certainly an unreliable source of information and is a two-fisted Israel bashing site. However, bad as it is, I don’t think it is quite fair to equate them with the Whacknutdaily. Breitbart would be more to the point.
I used to read Alexander Cockburn in The Nation, and he seemed interesting. Then one day he wrote a column about something I actually knew a lot about, and nearly everything was factually wrong. If he was so wrong about that, I thought, maybe he’s wrong about a lot more. So I began doing some fact-checking on Cockburn, and I quickly came to the conclusion that he was just a partisan hack. Stopped reading him then, and haven’t returned.