Forgetting Who You Are

I maintain that when you are performing your duties in the employ of the government you are not an individual anymore.  You are The State.

If it is wrong for the The State to do what you are doing it is wrong for you to do it.  There are a couple of things where it's wrong for you, personally, to do something but it's OK for the state to do it, therefore it's OK for you do it as an agent of the state.

I can't personally get a warrant to break into a house and look around; for example.  I've delegated that power to the cops.

There's a recent kerfluffle about The State having the authority to detain someone who's expressed a desire to check themselves out of life.

While I don't think the state should have the power to do this, if someone is TALKING about killing themselves, they are looking for a reason to NOT kill themselves.  The detention and evaluation is actually giving them what they are after, an out.

How do you tell when someone is really serious?  You find them dead.

I've lost two people in my life to suicide.  My uncle had cancer and just couldn't face another round of treatments.  Nobody knew he was going to kill himself until he'd done it.

My friend WAS evaluated about it when her parents became worried about her.  She did the evaluation, answered the questions in a way that the psychiatrist would identify as not-a-risk and they let her go.  She put an 8mm round through her skull not five minutes after getting home from the hospital!

I am not sure of the rightness of forcing someone to do something because YOU feel it will be in THEIR best interest.

BUT THEY WERE GOING TO KILL THEMSELVES!

Yep.  Sure might have.

Where is the line?

Eating fatty foods will kill me as surely as a vintage Mauser, it just takes longer.

Smoking sure won't do me any good.

Being sedentary is not a life extending plan.

If the state has the moral authority to keep me from hurting myself there's literally nothing they cannot govern about my life to save me from harm.

This is why people are bashing on Ambulance Driver for doing his job.  But I'll bet they are having heat-stroke in their wookie suits and can't express it so.

UPDATE:

In response to Robb.  I used injustice in his comments, that was perhaps too strong.  I don't feel it's my job to keep people from hurting themselves as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.  By extension, it's not my job to HIRE someone to do that which I don't think is my responsibility.  Not injustice, but not all the way great either.