Guns, Hospitals, and Little Alfie Evans
Oleg Volk 05.11.18
The news story of the late Alfie Evans was the perfect storm, highlighting official malfeasance of the British regulatory and law enforcement organizations. The first step of that tragedy was predictable: rationed socialized medicine assumes that heroic measures to save a gravely ill patient end when the cost becomes too high. So far, no surprises.
The surprise came when the kid’s parents secured transportation and possibly more-competent medical services for him in Italy at no cost to the British taxpayers. The hospital refused to release the child to his parents, taking him off ventilator support instead and then starving him to death when that didn’t kill the patient. The parents were blocked from traveling freely with their child. British police protected the decision-makers.
Kids die daily world-wide from murder and neglect, with nobody getting worked up about it. The case of Alfie Evans got massive attention because it was needless and was performed unapologetically and wantonly, in slow motion by the same people who were supposed to protect his life. His murderers gained nothing by their actions except bad publicity and the opportunity to teach the public a lesson.
The death of little Alfie was an object lesson about who really owns the lives of British subjects. By American ethical standards, failure to release the child to his parents is kidnapping. The subsequent denial of care is first degree premeditated murder. That made the British cops accessory to the conspiracy to murder a minor in a particularly gruesome fashion. In an ideal world, that would lead to criminal prosecutions with death penalty for some and prison for others. In the UK, the proles aren’t even permitted to voice their views on this topic. The police department that shielded the kidnappers warned about legal sanctions for free speech.
In the USA, parents usually bear a greater financial responsibility for the treatment of their kids. As a result, they also enjoy a greater say. And, in cases where the parents disagree with the doctors, they can force the decision, as happened recently in Texas, when a supposedly brain-dead patient turned out not to be brain-dead — and survived thanks to his father’s armed intervention.
Absent the personal weapons, the father would have been just removed by brute force, while in reality the hospital didn’t escalate. They could have defeated the father, but then they would have had a literal blood feud with the survivors — and in the USA, that means a lot more than it does in the subjugated UK.
People outside of the US are often unwilling to hold officials to the same standards as private individuals. They feel that the government sanction excuses certain unethical or criminal actions. Americans hold government officials to a higher standard than individuals, “committed under the color of the law” being an aggravating factor in sentencing rather than a mitigating circumstance. At least that’s how it should be, numerous exceptions granted to cops being an unfortunate reality even here.
A single armed individual cannot win against government enforcement organizations. However, armed as Americans are, we can make the conflict personally expensive to the decision makers who aren’t keen on putting themselves on the line just to victimize somebody. The porcupine doesn’t always win, but the quills make it less popular with predators than less spiky food.
This is where the US culture, at least in the ideal, is ahead of the more feudal Europe. We take the William Tell story as a good idea, while their culture has caught up with their laws… at best, their least domesticated residents can emigrate and improve the US by their presence. While the popular lore of the US may be a bit naive, the point remains that we can escalate a situation — granted, at grave personal risk — while the inmates of the late great Britain cannot.
The availability of small arms and the will to use them give our kids an extra chance that was denied to Alfie.
