Richard Carvath is a horrible, nasty little man. Here’s how he describes Tony Nicklinson in a post that he misleadingly calls “For the love of Tony Nicklinson“:
Tony certainly isn’t a human rights hero or a positive role model for the severely disabled either. Tony is selfish: he is concerned for no one other than himself. Tony is cowardly: he lacks the courage to live with dignity. Tony is dishonourable: he seeks murder and despises his own life. Make no mistake: however much Tony is being manipulated by the media, the pro-euthanasia lobby and even his own family, Tony is guilty of pursuing the legalisation of murder, which, if he ever achieves his aim, would inevitably lead to the murder by doctors of hundreds of vulnerable disabled, incapacitated or elderly patients in an NHS holocaust of involuntary euthanasia.
None of this — not one word of this — is true, and Richard Carvath is a horrible, nasty little man to say it. To start at the end, there is absolutely no evidence that assisted dying will lead inevitably “to murder by doctors of hundres of vulnerable disabled, incapacitated or elderly patients in a NHS [National Health Service] holocaust of involuntary euthanasia.” There is no evidence for this at all, unless, like Carvath, you take it that helping someone to die who wants to die is to murder him or her. But this is simply Christian propaganda of the worst sort. Carvath should be ashamed of himself to say deliver himself of this sort of emotionally uncontrolled nonsense. Again, there is no evidence for this claim at all.
Nor is there any reasonable standard by which you could say that Tony Nicklinson was a dishonorable man, or that he was a coward. Cowards don’t, in defence of principles, challenge laws, despite the emotional toll that this must have cost him. Tony, to my mind, was in fact a hero, someone who stood up for the right of people to say when they have had enough, when their quality of life is such as to make life no longer worth living. Nor was Tony selfish. Indeed, he was exceedingly generous. He could have done what in the end he did, and have asked to have food withdrawn so that he could die. But he didn’t. Instead, he fought in court for his right to die, and by doing so, stood up for the rights of others similarly placed. That took a lot of courage, and it was the obverse of selfishness. A man in desperate straits because of his illness, unable to communicate except by blinking his eye, was yet willing to go through the glaring publicity and emotional strain of a trial before the High Court in order to fight for the right, not only his, but others’ right, to be in control of their own dying, the right to say “Enough! I’ve had enough! Life is no longer of value to me!” But Carvath and other horrible, nasty people like him, are prepared to enslave people like Tony, and force them to live. Once you have done that, the person becomes a slave. He can only do what he is commanded to do, and everything that he does henceforth is done at the behest and command of those who have this proprietary control over his life. This is a horrible, nasty thing to do to anyone, and Carvath, who, I am told, wants to be an MP, and spread his poison more widely, and officially, should be ashamed of himself.
And yet, Carvath says, he loves Tony Nicklinson. Here’s what he says:
I love Tony Nicklinson and I recognise just how precious his life is, whereas my opponents have nothing but contempt for his life. I must disagree with those who say, “Tony Nicklinson’s life isn’t worth living… put him down like a dog.” To feel sorry for Tony is normal and understandable, but to want to kill him is inexcusable. To want to end this disabled man’s life rather than care for him is to hold his life in utter contempt.
As usual, Carvath, like all those who so self-righteously speak about the value of the lives of those who want to bring their suffering to an end, expresses things to suit himself, and not to reflect what such people are really saying. No one was saying that Tony Nicklinson’s life was not worth living. Tony was saying that. And he wasn’t whining and whingeing about it either. He was willing to stand up for his right to say it. Nor was he asking to be put down like a dog. He was asking for help to die like a human being, at his choice, and at a time of his choosing. Instead of valuing Tony’s life, which included the person that Tony was, with his values, hopes, fears, plans and purposes, Carvath thinks that valuing just the living body is sufficient. That’s all he has to value in order to value Tony’s life. But Tony was a person, not just a body, and if you will not value Tony’s values, for Tony, not for anyone else; if you won’t value his decisions, arrived at after careful and serious thought; if you will not accept that, for Tony, not for anyone else, his life had reached the point where he no longer felt that living a life locked into his body was consistent with what he thought of as a worthwhile life; then you have neither loved nor valued him at all.
Carvath falls into that group. He has nothing but contempt for Tony, or for anyone who thinks like him. He does not respect his thoughts, values, decisions or his sense of what would make for a worthwhile life. He has his own conception of life, and, no matter what, he thinks that his values, not Tony’s, should govern the lives of others. To this extent this Richard Carvath is a nasty, horrible little man, and should be dismissed with the contempt that he deserves. He is a contemptible theocrat, who thinks that everyone should be able to live out their lives in misery, casting all their cares on the Lord, or some such theological bull shit. I’m with Tony on this one. I don’t want to live according to someone else’s values, especially if they are informed by theological wish thinking. I want to live with a sense of my own dignity, according to a plan of life that I choose, and if that, at some point, includes asking for help to die, I do not want to be told by some jumped-up theocrat, how I must live and how I must die. A pox on the lot of them!
Quite unbelievable. He has everything quite upside down and back to front. Par for the course. Completely oblivious to his own utter lack of compassion. Also, he’s a liar.
Perhaps to the religious “put down like a dog” is an expression of contempt, whereas it could more accurately be one of jealousy. We are not so cruel as to force a dog to suffer. We treat dogs with compassion and respect we deny to those able to request the same treatment.
I would very much like the right to be “put down like a dog” should the situation arise.
The lack of empathy, the callous indifference to suffering, it is staggering. How someone can look at a person who found the will to starve themselves to death, their current situation so intolerable as to make a horrible death by starvation preferable, and accuse them of cowardice is completely beyond me.
What a bald faced straw man. He should try “Tony Nicklinson’s life is his own, and we should respect his choices to live and die as he sees fit.” Let him argue against that statement.
Here here, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments which I find very restrained.
Surely no civilised society could entertain having such a lying bigot as Richard Carvath as an MP ?
This Conservative hopeful speaks in such contemptible ways that I’m seriously tempted to plunge into the depths of using foul acrimonious terms to express my true feelings.
Sadly, I would fall far short of what really needs to be said and I lack Eric’s masterful wordsmith skills.
Gordon Duffy, while I agree with the sentiment, the important difference here is choice, and no one should be, in this sense, “put down like a dog”, without any choice in the matter. We are compassionate to our pets, that is true, but more than compassion is involved in assistance in dying.
His attacks on Tony and his family seem to have strong parallels to your experience, Eric. It sadly seems like their tactics haven’t changed at all.
No, CR, I am afraid that the religious opponents of assisted dying are confined, pretty much, to one register only.
I should add that, while it was not at all a happy experience, the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition pretty much fouled its own nest by the high-handed way it spoke and acted. They preach to the converted, but they frighten the hell out of politicians.
Sometimes the best arguments against something come from the mouth of their proponents. I don’t see how any reasonable on-the-fence reader could not reject his position after seeing what he said. I will do my part to spread this around.
There must be something wrong with this Richard Carvath. His statements are so brutally inhuman that psychopathology is very likely the case.
To Mr. Carvath:
“Love”. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
There’s obviously an lot of fear fuelling Carvath’s rhetoric. Anyone living with a mind like this deserves a lot more pity than hatred.
Mr. Carvath is just an honest version of the religious troll Bob Wheeler.
Say what you will about him, at least he is not a hypocrite.
His viewpoint is entirely consistent with xtianity and the fact that anybody is surprised by his vicious inhumanity just goes to show how thoroughly society has been indoctrinated to equate xtian morality with decent behaviour.
He is just a small, impotent version of real monsters like Ratzinger.
In fact he does the world a service by giving us a small hint as to what life was like when the xtian churches exercised significant political power and what it would be like should sociopaths of his ilk re-gain any sort of power.
I fixed it:
Richard Carvath certainly isn’t a human rights hero or a positive role model for anyone. Richard Carvath is selfish: he is concerned for no one at all and only his imaginary god. Richard Carvath is cowardly: he lacks the courage to let anyone choose to die with dignity. Richard Carvath is dishonourable: he seeks to prevent people from making their own choices and despises personal autonomy. Make no mistake: however much Richard Carvath manipulates the media, other politicians and even his own family, Richard is guilty of using lies, deception and scaremongering to push his religious agenda on everyone, which, if he ever achieves his aim, will inevitably continue to force people to suffer horrible physical and emotional torment even if they would rather be helped to end that suffering.
Steve, there is some truth to what you say. Unfortunately, the person revealed is, while perhaps not a hypocrite, just as he says, a horrible, nasty little man.
And darn it i left Tonys name in and should have replaced it with Richard on line 7 – i really have to work on my proof reading — corrected!
In many cases, religious passion is nothing but pathological lack of empathy.
Eric, no disagreement with your diagnosis of Richard Carvath.
I would point out though that this horrible, nasty little man unashamedly trumpeting out inhumanity to the world is just the tip of the religious iceberg of those xtians who agree with him but are too ashamed of their beliefs to air them in public and those who claim to be xtian but actually discard all the ethical trash of xtianity but still act to give credence and support to the Richard Carvaths of the world.
I find your position as harshly extreme on one hand as the man whom you bash holds in the opposite direction . Why? Because yours is as emotionally charged as you deem your antagonist’s view to be. This is such a sensitive subject there is no wonder emotions can get carried away in either direction. I have many reasons for my opinions about PAS and TRTD (the right to die) but I have had to share them so much in the last two years that I won’t do it here. However, I too, have strong convictions about this dire strait from personal experiences among several sick people, some who wanted to die, and at least one who did not want to die (93 years old) but knew that those with power over the sick would see to it that death would come. Peace.
Mayrymhm, I have let your comment stand, although I must say that I find it hard to understand the points you are trying to make. As far as my dismissal of Carvath being harsh, I was only using his own words, and he is particularly harsh and indiscriminate. My response to him was deliberately using his tone, and his words, to condemn something that I find particularly offensive.
However, you must do more than simply say that you know someone
This is something you have to make plausible, at the very least. A general accusation against “those with power of the sick” of this sort is not something that deserves a response, unless you can show that this person is in real danger, or would be. In that case, you should make it widely known that this would be the case. Since you don’t, I assume it is merely your imagination working overtime, and merely saying that you have shared your views so much that you won’t do it here, makes your contribution look a lot like special pleading.