I read that when I was a child and remember thinking how ridiculous it was – now, I would call it prophetic – along with Atlas Shrugged and others who saw where idiots like those presently in power want the world to go…

harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut jr

“It doesn’t matter how high or noble your motives are, how much you love the terminally ill person, or even if you are just in it for the money from a purely above board business perspective, you are literally gambling with the rest of your life, liberty and freedom.

Why? Because the only people who give a fuck about the anti euthanasia laws are those who want to end it all and cannot without help.

It doesn’t affect anyone else.”

Something like – “Always ask: who has skin in the game?” and “A good deed seldom goes unpunished.”

I’ve seen plenty of examples in my life of charity done wrong; charity as a codependence. Got a buddy, his dad is constantly trying to “cure” addicts by giving them a place to stay. In twenty years, he’s cured 2, been taken advantage of by a dozen or more. Most charity is about the ego of the person donating, and as a consequence the charity seldom works (many years ago this was my liberal excuse for letting the technocrats manage socialism…)

There’s a fine line in there, somewhere, between going out and doing Good Works as an oldschool Christian might say, and doing modern feel-good charity.