{"id":23898,"date":"2014-09-20T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T01:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=23898"},"modified":"2014-09-20T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T01:25:09","slug":"some-quotes-from-someone-who-played-a-very-important-role-in-the-philosophy-behind-obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=23898","title":{"rendered":"Some Quotes From Someone Who Played A Very Important Role In The Philosophy Behind ObamaCare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday <a href=\"http:\/\/www.caintv.com\/obamacare-architect-ezekiel-em\" target=\"_blank\">Caintv<\/a> posted an article which contained a number of quotes from <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Ezekiel Emanuel\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ezekiel_Emanuel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Ezekiel Emanuel<\/a>, one of the chief architects of <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">ObamaCare<\/a>. Mr. Emanuel&#8217;s views on aging are disturbing. Here are some of them:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Doubtless, death is a loss. It deprives us of experiences and milestones, of time spent with our spouse and children. In short, it deprives us of all the things we value.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8220;&#8230;living as long as possible has drawbacks we often won\u2019t admit to ourselves. I will leave aside the very real and oppressive financial and caregiving burdens that many, if not most, adults in the so-called <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Sandwich generation\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sandwich_generation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">sandwich generation<\/a> are now experiencing, caught between the care of children and parents. Our living too long places real emotional weights on our progeny&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8220;&#8230;But parents also cast a big shadow for most children. Whether estranged, disengaged, or deeply loving, they set expectations, render judgments, impose their opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children. This can be wonderful. It can be annoying. It can be destructive. But it is inescapable as long as the parent is alive. Examples abound in life and literature: Lear, the quintessential <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Jewish mother stereotype\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jewish_mother_stereotype\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Jewish mother<\/a>, the Tiger Mom. And while children can never fully escape this weight even after a parent dies, there is much less pressure to conform to <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Parent\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Parent\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">parental<\/a> expectations and demands after they are gone.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8220;&#8230;My father illustrates the situation well. About a decade ago, just shy of his 77th birthday, he began having pain in his abdomen. Like every good doctor, he kept denying that it was anything important. But after three weeks with no improvement, he was persuaded to see his physician. He had in fact had a <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Myocardial infarction\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Myocardial_infarction\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">heart attack<\/a>, which led to a cardiac catheterization and ultimately a bypass. Since then, he has not been the same. Once the prototype of a hyperactive Emanuel, suddenly his walking, his talking, his humor got slower. Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn\u2019t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life. When he discussed it with me, my father said, \u201cI have slowed down tremendously. That is a fact. I no longer make rounds at the hospital or teach.\u201d Despite this, he also said he was happy.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I would agree that extending a life indefinitely with machines is a questionable activity. However, it is obvious from these statements that Ezekiel Emanuel does not appreciate life as a specific value&#8211;he values life according to what it can do. He seems to forget that we are called <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Human\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Human\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">human beings<\/a>&#8211;not human doings. Our value is in the fact that we are created in the image of <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"God\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/God\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">God<\/a>&#8211;not in what we can or cannot do. It is my belief that God is in charge of life and death and we tread on dangerous ground when we as people try to take those matters into our own hands. Unfortunately, ObamaCare reflects Mr. Emanuel&#8217;s point of view&#8211;not those of the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Judeo-Christian\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Judeo-Christian\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Judeo-Christian<\/a> nation that was <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&amp;spn=10.0,10.0&amp;q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667 (United%20States)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">America<\/a> at its founding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday Caintv posted an article which contained a number of quotes from Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the chief architects of ObamaCare. Mr. Emanuel&#8217;s views on aging are disturbing. Here are some of them: Doubtless, death is a loss. It deprives &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=23898\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1236,5650,3891,3008,7,134,8131,285],"class_list":["post-23898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-emanuel","tag-ezekiel-emanuel","tag-god","tag-judeo-christian","tag-obamacare","tag-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act","tag-sandwich-generation","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23900,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23898\/revisions\/23900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}