BS: Hard Hearted or Learning?

Subject: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:07 PM

I'm not sure what or why, but the older I get it seems the more hard hearted I get. (Don't forget I'm married to a cop for this one). It just seems to me that some people don't deserve any more help.

The impetus for this was some 29 yr old multiple times convicted person...he was shot 3 times with a BEAN BAG for resisting police...so he stabbed himself in the chest 3 times. Now, he is in the Trauma Center and they are trying to save his life. Why? Now, I know that sometimes cops make mistakes and the person/perp in question has not done anything wrong but this dude has been in trouble before and stabbed himself, three times no less.

Pretty sure neither he nor his family will have the money to pay his medical bills...so why should my taxes? I just sometimes have to wonder why the effort.....

He managed to stab himself in the heart, lung and aorta....so is getting emergency surgery to try and save him. I again just have to wonder why bother....save the effort and money for the babies who had no part in their own messes.

I'll get me coat now.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:21 PM

A bean bag? It must mean something different over there. In the UK it is a floppy chair. Could you just explain for the non gunners amongst us please?

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:23 PM

Yes, basically that. It's a very small bean bag which is shot from a shot gun....will not permanantly harm anyone, just hurts like hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:36 PM

Well you learn something new everyday! Now, what was he trying to be arrested for and does he have a medical history of mental illness?

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:40 PM

Mental illness is likely the key. Perhaps he was hoping for real bullets? At any rate, the hospital had no choice. Determined bugger, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:42 PM

Yes, but...am I getting hard hearted or just finally growing up and learning? (No clue what the cops were on him about....didn't say)

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 09:55 PM

Sorcha,

No, you are fine. It comes from living in the belly o' the beast.

Dave Van Ronk said, "Sometimes you have to forget your principles, and do what's right!"   ---- Doesn't fit your situation exactly, but...

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 10:04 PM

Thanks, Art. I trust your judgement. Wish I could meet you in person. And, yes, it does seem to be the Belly of the Beast thing. Cops wives have a different take on stuff. We live with the Crap everyday, and can't do a damn thing about any of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 10:12 PM

I figure I will probably stir the pot with this one...oh well. IMO, let the bugger die...w/o taking 'extreme' measures....which the hopital is doing. I know they have no choice about 'helping', but such Extreme Measures? Come on....

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Peace
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 12:01 AM

I do first response with a fire department. Occasionally we deal with situations involving people who were drunk when they caused a car collision. At more than one call, the drunk has been fine and the other people have been seriously hurt (or killed). Ask me if we feel good about helping the drunk. However, that is not our call to make. Kinda like, save 'em all and let God sort it out. Doesn't help, but it is what it is.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 04:06 AM

The first tennent of medicine ~ First do no harm.

I guess I can see your point of view, after all, if the bastard who had killed my brother had been strung up, he wouldn't have been able to kill another teenager some years later in the same way (with a car - he was a taxi driver and pleaded loss of livelihood if they took his license).

BUT.... as Tolkien put it, some who live deserve death, but many who die deserved life, who are we to decide?

[By the bye, I was thinking of the little bags we used at school, for games.... they really did hurt when you got Seamus Mullarkey's right arm behind it.... didn't think of the big bean bag chair, but having put my back out struggling to get out of one, I can see the possibilities...)

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 10:05 AM

Years ago I knew a man, a very smart, well educated man, who was an old time beatnik with a reflexive dislike of the police. One day he had to spend an entire day at the local station on some non-criminal adminestrative business. He returned a changed man. "I never knew what they have to put up with." he said. "How can they stay human when they spend most of their working day dealing with idiots and slime?" It's a tribute to our police that most of them do remain human. Even though it might be better to let some of these fools die, No one has the information to make the decision at the time it has to be made. Or the right.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 11:03 AM

I suppose you are right Mack.....but it still just bugs the crap out of me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 04 - 06:19 PM

Seems plain to me that when a person gets so beaten down or driven mad by his own mis-steps, the world looks pretty upside down, and south-bound looks like desirable territory, taking others with you if you can. That's the ocre nature of mental illness, in my view -- you flip over from building stuff for the future to destroying things because of the past.

Some folks go there temporarily, due to loss, stress, chemical condition, and so on. Others go there chronically. Some people can be lifted out of that state with no more than a hug or a smile, and others wouldn't back out if you slapped a Bradley on their ass and pulled. They're just stuck in on the southbound side of the street. Those are the ones that seem like they aren't worth saving.

I think thereis a third class, too -- the ones whose destructiveness toward others is hidden in little needling remarks, the chronic correctors of others, the passive-aggressive under-miners and invalidators, who sweetly suggest you are worth very little, just for your own good, and end up stopping you from breathing, the secret saboteurs and artfully smiling destroyers of spirit. They don't look destructive until you trust or rely on them.

Those are the kind, IMNSHO, that when you can figure 'em out, you should move far away fast, with no forwarding address, 'cuz they produce more misery per second than gravity itself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 12:18 AM

I don't think you're hard-hearted, Sorcha. I think you're just conflicted and distressed.

The problem is, who gets to decide? I'm with you, up to a point - for instance, in theory I'd be in favor of doing away with all the murderers, rapists and child-molesters, but in practice I can't be sure that every one who is convicted is guilty, because the system is fallible. People get off who shouldn't, innocent people are convicted, maybe there actually were extenuating circumstances...

The way I see it, if you give total strangers the right to decide if someone else lives or dies, you're potentially giving total strangers the right to decide whether you yourself live or die. How much faith do you have in your fellow man, when it comes down to it?

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 12:31 AM

You are just so right, Sue.....and as for the question, not much. Been there, done that, got the t shirt.

Subject: RE: BS: Hard Harted or Learning?
From: *daylia*
Date: 20 Oct 04 - 10:14 AM

I really sympathize with you Sorcha. It's hard to stay compassionate and nonjudgmental when so many people seem to bring senseless tragedy onto themselves and others - at everyone else's expense. So please don't be hard on yourself ok? Your courage is just shining through here ....

All I can say is that the person you've described must have been going through one horrible personal "Hell on Earth" to have done the absolutley insane things he did. And that your posts here have given me even more respect and appreciation for the "Men in Blue" and the Hell they deal with every single day on the job.

Here's a thought - would it have costed the taxpayers more to give the guy the medical attention he needed, or to bury him? I'm bringing this up because a poverty-stricken and very depressed acquaintance of mine hung himself a few years ago. He had been living in my area for only a couple years, under an assumed name. No-one really knew who he was, and when he died the police and the City officials spent a few months searching for his next of kin or any other family members - to no avail. So the city ended up having to foot the bill for his coffin, burial plot, coroner's expenses etc. They were NOT happy about that - rang up thousands of dollars I guess.

... Ask me if we feel good about helping the drunk. However, that is not our call to make. Kinda like, save 'em all and let God sort it out ...

brucie, you're wonderful ... this one's for you

daylia