I would very much enjoy hearing reaction to this BBC News item.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2263690.stm

Maybe they were all liberal

Utterly MEANINGLESS! one hundred some odd people out of every million pull the plug on themselves annually? And that number only fluctuates a very little over time?

MEANINGLESS! Now had there been a spike of Thousands per million we would have a conversation here!

There are always people who will commit suicide. I knew a guy back in HS who pulled the plug on himself. He was a friend of mine and was what I would cal a lost soul. he took so many meds he was a fuqued up mess and one day just pulled the plug by hanging himself with an orange extension chord in his garage and by the guess of the police had done PCP since the remnants of a PCP laden cigarette was found near his body. He had no reason to kill himself. Some people kill themselves becasue of terminal illness. A close friend of mine had a Grandfather diagnosed with terminal cancer. The man was found in his pickup truck and had taken a 357 magnum to his own head. My own Grandfather was dying of colon cancer and was begging for someone to give him a gun in the hospital so he could put himself out of his misery. The man would have done it too had he been given the chance.

Sorry but the whole article was a fallacious equivocation based on not enough fact or evidence to substantiate its claims. It is too convenient to display a trend with such small percentages.

Now had it said that 100 people per million were setting themselves on fire or starved themselves to death in protest we MIGHT have something of a conversation here.

OK. I guess we don't have a conversation, then.

The article is from 2002.. Show me something that includes the full reign of Blair and Brown and then we will talk..

Researching what you ask seemed like a pretty formidable task, and a bit more than I really want to do, BUT, it was quick and easy to click on the little blue letters to see the figures that the author used as his source material.

That's fine.. I didn't expect you to spend the next 3 days looking for it.

statistically this is an incomplete and inconclusive set of data.

I am sure if I was motivated and had access to all historical records I could produce a number of variables control charts that could prove a certain month, weather conditions or socioeconomic status was more of a determinant than who was in power.

I agree with that. It was just food for thought.

People off themselves out of desperation.

They see no future.

The reasons for that desperation are multitude.

My cousin offed herself because she was bored.

One day she went for a long ride in a closed garage.

Man. That makes me sad. Full disclosure. I had a brief flirtation with the idea once. Those suicide hotline people can make a huge difference. I think they're hero-angels.

People are taught and conditioned that we are supposed to be good. Unfortunately what we are taught and conditioned to believe is a huge lie.

When you take humans as a species at face value we are not as evolved as people want us to believe. Evil is an innate part of us and yet most religions try to make us turn our face from the fact we unto ourselves are evil creatures. And with free will comes the choice to do right and wrong, good and evil. Just becasue some people are good doe s not allow us to completely discount the fact some people are bad. Some people are just down right worthless! They have no motivation to achieve, no motivation to contribute, and yet while they don't contribute they demand their share. In a tribal community if you didn't kill it you sure were cleaning and cooking it or you didn't eat at all! And it was the men doing all the killing that got all the pu@@y classically. Now a days it is the guy with the bank roll and the shoes.

People do stupid things for a host of reasons. Equivocating suicide rates on government is a shadow play of the real underpinning reasons. People are seeing religion as a failure and when all hope dies so do some people. A hand full of sleeping pills and a can of paint thinner or jumping in front of a train, its all the same. The reasons though are as different as each individual case.

On top of that people in general have this sick obsession for martyrs! Hell, Christianity is FOUNDED on Martyrdom! Some people kill themselves to get to heaven sooner!

Just one of the laws of nature.

The weak die off, or kill themselves.

The strong survive.

Is that the way you like it?

What has like or dislike have to do with natural law?

In the Army, I was taught many to kill. It was for survival. I neither liked or disliked the idea of that knowledge.

In the streets, I learned how to survive. The lesson was painful but,I survived.

Knowledge is a tool. If I need either, I have them.

I also realize, one day, I to, will become one of the weak and vulnerable.

I will have to face death.

We all will.

I think that's a really good and powerful opinion. I don't agree with it. Civilization doesn't have to conform with natural law. civilization is a man-made construct. By definition, it is not necessarily "natural".

There are many places in the world where natural law is the law.
When they get sick or break a limb, they either get well or die.
They do not have the means of artificially sustaining life.

An old aboriginal was well and breathing yet, he knew there was not enough to sustain everyone. He couldn't produce.

It was time to migrate. His thoughts were for the survival of the clan. Therefore, he told his family to set him up against a boulder and surround him with thorny bushes.

His death was a race between the elements taking him or the wild animals being able to penetrate the thorns to get to him.

Here is a video about a society that well understands the laws of nature and are intent on complying with them. I found it difficult to watch.
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/696654/

Frankly that is life and people have to get over themselves. The environment is ever changing. And when things get tough the weak die, the tough survive. In all seriousness this is the way it MUST be. We are perverting our gene pool and allow people with no hope of survival in normal circumstances to live and breed and pollute the gene pool. To put this bluntly people who are genetically defective (retardation, hemophiliacs, and a host of other genetic conditions) should be sterilized if they are to live or terminated in-untero.

Seems harsh? Not really, since in the wilderness a retard would get eaten by a bear. There is nothing special about genetic defects or the genetically defective. I know some azzhole out there will take this argument to some Sci-fi extreme but hey, screw them, they can live with the heartbreak of raising a retard!

I would love to see some of these BHLs blow smoke up some alien specie's azz if and when they come to conquer us. The BHLs will toss hugs and roses, they will toss red hot death. In this UNIVERSE, This whole Encompassing reality it is all about survival of the fittest no matter how anyone wants to paint civilization. Sparta was a proper civilization but they are very selective about which children lived and which were rejected!

On top of that go tell a bear to its face we are civilized and it is not and see what happens. if you are not armed or stronger than the bear guess what. You will be a spaghetti dinner for that bear!

It is sad they allowed those kids to suffer. That may be part of their sacrificial rituals. I have no way of knowing.

I do know, in the US, animals are treated better than humans. When they can, animals aren't allowed to suffer long. They are put down.

Humans are made to suffer to the end.

Why is that? Certainly doesn't seem very compassionate.

That's why I am a huge fan of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act. It gets a lot of heat from other political factions.