Telling People How to Live

The NY Times has some writer who discusses how to "take the care keys" away from a relative. This is a touchy topic. One the one hand we have 80+ folks who are often brighter and more considerate than their great grand children. Then we have some older person whose vision gets no higher than the horn on the steering wheel and moves like a snail but without any awareness of their surroundings. So who gets to decide?

The author writes:

My now-car-free relative is not the sort to sign up for one of those 55-plus communities promising sunshine, gardens and golf. Retirement was an eventuality that inspired in him not relief but dread. Fiercely independent, an old-school intellectual and, frankly, a bit of a loner, he insists on remaining in his suburban home (“I will die in this house” typically ends any conversation in which I suggest a move) — even if that home is slowly becoming a dangerous place for him to be in.

The issue here is; who gets to decide what to do? Does this author believe that she has total authority, that at some age we deny people autonomy, even if at no risk to others?

Autonomy has been a value for Americans since the founding, but since the Left has come along in a Nanny State, they get to decide and tell others what they should do, and in turn decide what is best.

There is an interesting article in the Deep Code blog which is worth reading. The author states:

So, for example, if the Deep State uses its power advantage as a way to stall until until it can innovate a collective intelligence advantage, it has a decent chance. (Of course, becoming a decentralized collective intelligence is going to be really hard for the actual individuals who make up the Deep State to understand and accept.) But watch out as the conflict evolves. As the Insurgency cuts down and unplugs legacy power structures (e.g, the media, the intelligence agencies) and replaces them with more fluid and innovative approaches (e.g., gab.ai and Palantir) the balance will begin to tip quickly. If the Establishment cannot stave off the Insurgency in the next 4–5 years, that phase of the war will be over.

I will not  de-construct the above, but what it is saying is that there is a massive change afoot. Taking the keys away from Grandpa, letting Grandma just die, may be the final throes of the Left. It is not the Right taking over, it may be a totally different movement. Strangely enough, the very protests we see well formed and assembled with pre-printed signs, may be the very catalyst for this alternative to move ever so fast. Perhaps Marx had a point, namely thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, but that such a process continues without a stable point.

Taking Grandpa's keys may be the last straw and the first act.