King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands Takes back New York....

To: The Citizens of the Colonies of Nieuw Netherlands, most recently known as the States of New-York, New-Jersey, Vermont, and Delaware:

From: His Majesty Willem-Alexander, Monarch of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Noordeinde Palace, Amsterdam.

Greetings to our family in the western hemisphere!

Your current troubles have caused your European parents great consternation, as we have watched you struggle among yourselves without resolution in sight.  In short, we have watched in horror as uncivilized rubes from those places called “Red States” have sought to impose the most regressive social and economic policies on the educated citizens of the northeast and western coastal zones; we have watched you wring your hands over issues of equality and victimless crimes, issues which have been long-settled in more civilized realms; and now we watch as your Congress appears unable to provide even a modicum of leadership, all while continuing to collect your taxes and pay themselves.

The final straw that now tips our hand, however, is the belligerent and aggressive acts of the State of Britain. We have learned that Queen Elizabeth II has issued a unilateral decree assuming control over the lands of the United States. As this includes lands that initially prospered under a Dutch flag, we can not permit the actions of a hostile Britain to further imperil our children.

Henceforth, The Kingdom of the Netherlands immediately reasserts its claims to the former colonies of Nieuw Netherlands, comprising the current day states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Vermont.  In so doing, we hope to sever these right-thinking progressive lands from capture by either domestic Texan Rangers, or by Uptight British Lords.

Henceforth, the laws of the Netherlands now apply in these, our former-but-now-reunited Colonies:

1) The use of Marijuana is now Legal for personal use.

2) Prostitution is now legal and regulated.

3) Same-Sex Marriage is legal throughout the Kingdom.

4) The Dutch mandatory Minimum Wage of $10.93/hour now applies throughout the former Colonies. We should point out that even at this rate, our Unemployment rate is lower than the US.

5) You will now be enrolled the world’s #1 rated Universal Health Insurance System.

6) No Physician shall be prosecuted for assisting a patient desiring to end their life.

7) As long as Tenants pay rent, they may not be evicted for any reason.

8) All employees shall be covered by a collective labor agreement.

9) As a historic trading and seafaring nation, you will enjoy maximum flexibility in operating your small businesses without interference by the Kingdom

10) You will continue to enjoy your Freedoms to Speech (including using the language of your choice), Religion, Assembly, and the Press – all rights granted by this Kingdom to you in your original Colonial Charters.

In return for these freedoms and privileges, we require one thing only: as 2/3 of the Dutch Population are members of Sports Clubs and participate weekly in these healthy endeavors, we will require our reunited children to join in regular matches of Football (you call this ‘soccer’), Field Hockey, Rugby, and/or Volleyball, our top four national sports. 

We shall not await a response, fully expecting in your eager assent.  As such, we have dispatched a fleet to New York Harbor, to be henceforth known as Nieuw Amsterdam Haven.

Your King,

Willem-Alexander

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Rick Santorum's Lies re: Euthanizing of Dutch Seniors

For more than a decade, right-wing activists have engaged in a whisper campaign about health care in the Netherlands. Common statements have included faux-horror at the use of cost-benefit analyses in assigning treatment, criticism of corporate-sponsorship of hospital wings, and rumors of the forced euthanization of the elderly.

But the most recent instance of uneducated Euro-hating spewed forth from Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who has caused an international storm with baseless lies about the treatment of hospitalized seniors in the Netherlands. In a speech before the American Heartland Forum in Columbia, Missouri on February 3, Santorum said:

“In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized — ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands — half of those people are enthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.”

Santorum’s outburst most likely stems from his inability to understand a compassionate euthanasia law passed by The Netherlands over a decade ago. The law set forth a complex process which requires that two separate doctors diagnose an individual’s illness as incurable. The patient must have full control of his or her mental faculties, and must voluntarily and repeatedly request to die with the dignity afforded under the law. As a follow-up, a commission made up of yet a third doctor, a jurist and an ethicist must verify that the requirements for euthanasia have been met. In essence, it is a law that permits the medical community to assist a patient in the last days of their lives in accordance with the patient’s will.

The law was adopted after the publication of a 1991 study entitled the Remmelink Report, which found that a tiny number of hospital deaths (fewer than 1%) might be seen as “involuntary;” even in 59 percent of those cases, the physician had previously obtained some information about the patient’s wishes. In the vast majority of cases, “Life was shortened by between some hours and a week at most,” and the decision was discussed with relatives and with other medical colleagues. In nearly all cases, according to the report, “the patient was suffering unbearably, there was no chance of improvement, and palliative possibilities were exhausted.”

As few in number as these cases were, The Netherlands chose to adopt a set of guidelines for the health profession to follow in all cases. Today, the number of deaths attributed to patients and physicians following this procedure amounted to 2.3 percent of all deaths in the country. More than 80 percent of the patients were suffering from cancer, and almost 80 percent died at home, making the process only minimally different than the American approach of “allowing” patients to die at home, often with Hospice Care to minimize suffering.

But somehow, Rick Santorum blithely reported that half of Holland’s elderly were being sent to involuntarily death chambers. And as for those heart-rending “Do Not Euthanize me” bracelets - Well, they don’t exist, except in the minds of some of the right-wings more eccentric fiction-writers. A website known as Right Wing News published an article last year that claimed that over 10,000 Dutch citizens such cards. Their source was the Louisiana Right To Life Federation, who obtained their “information” from the Nightingale Alliance, an anti-euthanasia group. But this group claims it has no such actual figures.

In a statement from the Dutch Embassy, “According to the Ministry of Health, ‘Do not euthanize me’ bracelets do not exist in the Netherlands.”

Ironically, just one month ago, on December 20, 2011, the free-market-based Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank that follows health care issues and is often quoted by Republican politicians in the US, analyzed the Netherlands’ health system. They applauded The Netherlands health delivery and insurance system as a model system ("Are the Dutch Crazy Capitalists?"), and recommended that Canada reform its own system by adopting Holland’s approach. They concluded:

“…[I]n addition to achieving universality, choice has become one of the fundamental characteristics of the Dutch system…Under our current system, Canadian families cannot access insurance that best suits their medical needs. We can learn a lot from countries like the Netherlands but we can’t afford to wait much longer.”

Meanwhile, Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold has lost all patience with Santorum. Feingold, who served with Santorum, responded by calling Santorum "extreme," and "hateful. " “Santorum is possibly the least tolerant person I've ever dealt with. His attitude towards people who are different from himself is shocking."

Onze excuses aan het Nederlandse volk.


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