Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before the NHS.

A UK court has decided that not only must toddler Alfie Evans, who has “a rare undiagnosed degenerative neurological condition,” be denied treatment in the UK, but that he he must not be allowed abroad for some other country to pay for saving his life.

Remember how Democrats scoffed at the ideas of death panels?

Well, a UK death panel decided a small boy must die, and the state will use force to make sure he does die.

Alfie must duffer so that the state won’t be embarrassed by their attempts to kill him.

Every. Knee. Must. Bend.

Alfie Evans must die so that the glorious dream of socialism might live:

The NHS simply cannot afford the extremely expensive prospect of keeping alive a little boy who most likely will not live much longer due to an incurable condition. Alfie’s chances of any meaningful recovery were slim to none. It isn’t outside the boundaries of reason that the government tasked with his treatment would deem it simply not worth the effort expended.

It’s cruel, but logical…the inevitable result of a single-payer system.

I may not agree with such reasoning, but I can at least derive the path that such woeful decisions must take in a place like the UK.

What is not logical and nearly incomprehensible is the decision of the court not simply to deny Alfie further treatment, but then deny his right and the right of his parents to leave the country to seek treatment elsewhere. Even that decision might make a tiny bit of sense if it were to add to the NHS’ costs. That would be a problem for that pesky algorithm. However, Italy had already sent an airlift equipped to take the young child. His transportation and hospital provisions were covered by donations and the state of Italy. In fact, to move Alfie out of the care of the NHS would only save them money and labor. Alfie’s parents would have one more shot at rescuing his life. It seems like a win-win for everyone.

And still, the courts have barred the family from leaving the country.

Let’s ponder that for just one moment. Great Britain is a nation with a proud history of freedom and democracy. Most other nations around the world and Britons themselves would describe it as a “free country”, and yet here is a case where its free citizens are not allowed to leave its borders.

Is this something that should happen in a “free country”? Would Alfie’s parents be barred from taking a vacation? Would anyone in their right mind in that country find it acceptable or consistent with British values to deny any family the right to leave for a vacation or to visit a relative abroad? Why then is it allowable for this family to be virtual hostages in their land simply because their reason for travel is medical care rather than pleasure?

Some years ago I watched a documentary on the design and building of the Berlin Wall between East Germany and West Germany. It included extremely rare clips of interviews with the architects (I was shocked to learn there was actually a deliberate design to that monstrosity).

Snip.

In one clip, an aging (former) East German Wall architect spoke briskly about the strategy of his designs. Although the interview was conducted during what must have been the last years of his life, he still seemed deeply resentful that he was being asked to defend the wall’s erection even after the fall of the Eastern Bloc. I’ll never forget what he said in that interview – it made the hair stand up on my arms.

With great sincerity – almost pleading with the interviewer – he said, “We had to build the wall. Too many people were leaving for the West and you need people to make socialism work. We had to build the wall to keep them in so they could see how great socialism was, so they could see that it works.”

Snip.

This is exactly the point in the ruling by the NHS and the courts to forbid their free citizens from leaving the country. If they are allowed to flee the heart-wrenching consequences of socialism, then others will want to do the same. How can a socialist system work without the cooperation of everyone? And how can you force people to participate in that socialist system when they discover that system may kill them or their loved ones?

You build a wall.

Great Britain doesn’t yet have a wall to keep its citizens in, but the courts have built one with the law. Just as East Germany could not tolerate the massive loss of defectors who were leaving with their training, intellect and tax dollars, Great Britain’s healthcare system cannot tolerate the defection of those who might find better healthcare somewhere else.

After all, how would it look if Alfie were allowed to leave England (allowed to leave a free country! Even to write the words feels absurd!) and then found a successful treatment in another country?

It would be an abject embarrassment to a government that holds up their socialist healthcare as one of the wonders of the Western world. Not only would they be forced to admit that their own doctors and bureaucrats were wrong for denying this baby life-saving measures, but they would then have to deal with hundreds, maybe thousands of other citizens fleeing the bondage of NHS algorithms for a chance at swifter, more modern healthcare.

For some bizarre reason, a nation that boasts figures like Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, a tiny island nation that was once so powerful and broad it was said that the sun never set on the British empire…for some inexplicable reason that nation has chosen to hang its pride and joy on socialized medicine.

If you think I exaggerate just look up the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics.

To release this child to the care of any other nation would be to admit failure, and heartless bureaucrats who will never have to watch young Alfie struggle for air or dehydrate to death have decided that their misplaced pride is more valuable than the lives of their citizens.

Borepatch is even blunter:

Doctors cut off water from a baby. How could that have happened?

The religion of socialized medicine rules the land that used to be Great Britain. That religion has a priesthood, trained in the Universities and ruthless in their demand to be appeased. They control the purse strings of the hospitals, and therefore the doctors. Their sacred writ (the “Liverpool Pathway”) is enforced – and they pay cash money for sacrifices, to the tune of millions of pounds sterling each year.

The priesthood’s rule is so complete that the parents were forbidden to take their baby out of the country, even though there were other countries willing to take him.

There’s an Ursula K. Le Guin story called “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” about a utopian city whose prosperity is dependent (how it is never stated) by keeping pne child locked away in torment and misery. It won a Hugo Award, back when they actually meant something, despite all but having a giant blinking neon sign proclaiming COME SEE THE METAPHOR!

The story ends with those whose conscience is shocked by this one great injustice walking away from the city, but now we know that’s not true. Now we know that the “good” people, the one’s most insistent on their own virtue, wouldn’t walk away, Instead, like NHS, they’d be indignantly guarding the child’s door to prevent him from escaping.