Ravi Fullofshitmon: “Some lies are worth telling”

Posted by admin on October 24th, 2008 filed in General

So now The Online Shitizen has not ONE religious fundie , but TWO . Let’s welcome the new guy named Religious Fundiemon !

This one is no different from Gerald Giam, as he uses rhetorical tricks to appear reasonable, when in fact is presenting a misleading argument to advance a fundamentalist agenda. Let us take a look at what he says in his latest post .

According to Rita Marker of the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force, euthanasia now accounts for 15% of the deaths in the Netherlands. And according to the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, “humanitarian terminations” by doctors occur at the rate of ten thousand per year in the Netherlands.

Ok. First things first. Google for “International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force”. What’s the first hit you get? Yes. Some dodgy looking website that looks like its been made by a 12 year old kid using Microsoft Frontpage. Scroll to the bottom of the page and what do you see? No actual address for this so-called “Task Force”, but only a PO box in Steubenville, Ohio. Next, google for “NRC Handelsblad humanitarian terminations”. What do you get? Exactly 3 hits, none of which are authoritative sources for the quoted statistic. The first question that comes to mind now is, from whose ass did Ravi Fullofshitmon pull his numbers from?

Economics indeed plays an important role in motivating Netherland’s culture of euthanasia.Faced with bloated fiscal deficitsthe state is rationing the use of new technologies. Moreover, Holland which do not use prices to allocate heath care, have taken the economic incentives for extending life away from physicians.

Ah yes. Fiscal deficits. Let’s fact check the above info shall we? First, Let us take a look at the CIA World Fact Book [ link ]. Under its Netherlands page, it states that the government budget was:

revenues: $359.5 billion
expenditures: $356.5 billion (2007 est.)

I was bad at math in JC, but unless I’ve suddenly gone retarded, the above figures don’t quite add up to a deficit do they? Ok, lets just say that the CIA’s data is crap, and we need more authoritative sources. Fine. Let us look at Eurostat, the EU statistics agency. The relevant page is to be found here . [ link ] Under the part “IV.3. Data availability”, there is a PDF available for download with the relevant government finance data. The direct link is also here [ PDF ]. I have also extracted the data for Netherlands and embedded it below under the cut. Zoom in and take a close look.

What do you see? OH SNAP! For the year 2008, government revenue is 46.3% of GDP and expenditure is 45.9% of GDP. Government deficits are 0.4% of GDP. To put things in perspective, and to show how LOW this is, look at the following graph found here [ link ]. This is data from OECD compiling data from all its member countries.

YES! Netherlands is one of the few countries with a well-managed budget that is balanced. Also note that the balanced budget is an average for the years 2004-2006. Now now Mr Ravi Fullofshit, how did you arrive at your conclusion that the reason why euthanasia is legal in Netherlands is due to huge government deficits?

And the most major WHAT THE FUCK moment came when I read this paragraph:

It is highly probable that the government of Singapore, who rates the worth of the individual Singaporean by his economic value, will move towards legalising euthanasia, citing the same reasons. But if that happens, what does it say about our society, when we say that we will stop caring for a person because he is “unproductive” or is considered as “surplus”?

What? So if the government ALLOWS people to choose when they wish to leave this world, it means they are rating the worth of an individual by his/her economic value? At the very minimum, this is an amazing leap of logic, but the truth is probably far more sinister.

Yes you see, there appears to be a consistent pattern emerging. Gerald Giam called for married women to be banned from having abortions so that the birth rate can go up, claiming that legal abortion is a utilitarian and instrumentalist view of society that treats humans as economic digits. (Note that this statement is so rife with irony I don’t know how any sane person can write it and still be alive.) Now Ravi Fullofshitmon is arguing along the same lines, that the right to choose when to go should be banned, as it is based on rating people by economic value.

What we should REALLY take note of is, that religious fundamentalists are hypocrites. They will accuse a government of being X, but then happily use government’s powers in the same X way to pursue their own religious agendas. I have shown here clearly that Ravi Fullofshitmon’s screed has no basis in fact, or even fiction. The details in his post are either made up, or he himself was misled into believing them to be the truth.

The question for you dear reader, is to decide, is Ravi Fullofshitmon a liar or a moron?