Basic Rights

So there you are, sitting at the train station, when you happen to overhear this guy talking on his cellphone. It seems like he's about to buy insurance against... I don't know, stubbing his toe on alien spacecraft or something equally stupid. Whatever it is, it's perfectly obvious to you at that moment that this person is about to waste his money, and... oh no, he's about to give the insurance salesperson his credit card details!

Naturally, without wasting a moment, you punch him in the face, grab his cellphone and throw it under an incoming train. Disaster averted, you grin proudly at the man you just saved, expecting some form of eternal gratitude. He seems a bit reluctant about it, but you're convinced that as soon as he realizes what a favor you just did him he'll lovingly embrace you and thank you for saving his money.

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Today someone found a 56 years old man who hanged himself in his apartment and for some reason two separate teams of paramedics rushed to the scene. When the second team got there, the first team told them something along the lines of "Don't bother trying to resuscitate him, he's already in rigor mortis". The second team decided to ignore it, and after 7 stressful minutes without breathing or pulse, got the man back to life. They are, apparently, considered heroes for it.

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Look, I realize that some people might be insane and decide to hurt themselves for some reason which us sane people might consider ridiculous. That's not even the point.
You wouldn't assume control over someone's money to forcibly prevent him from making a financial mistake that might ruin the rest of his life, would you? Forget the silly insurance example up there, suppose you caught someone in the middle of sending his bank account details to that good old Nigerian prince, would you tackle the guy and actually physically force him not to do it?
I sincerely hope that every single person reading these lines replied with "Dude, no, it's HIS money and he can do with it what he will".

So why is it that when it comes to someone's life instead of money, suddenly their most basic rights are forfeit?

A person's life is their own. For good or bad, the decision must be theirs. It doesn't matter if you think you're so much smarter than them that you know, absolutely know, that things will be fine in another few years and this person will be glad to be alive. Hell, it doesn't matter even if you know for a fact that whatever this person is going through is purely temporary. It's still their choice.

What if it were the other way? You find this guy who's so absolutely depressed, suffering from various illnesses, lost his job, his wife ran away with the kids and the dog, maybe he even gave his bank account to a Nigerian prince and all his life savings are now gone. This person, you can clearly see, is miserable and doomed. Does that give you the right to kill him just because you think that would be doing him a favor?

With all due respect to people who want to "help" other people, this sometimes involves too much arrogance. You don't necessarily know what's better for other people. And even if you do know, you can't just take control over another person. You just can't. It's the most basic of human rights.

If you could arbitrarily deprive others of their basic rights for their alleged good, where would you draw the line? If you're allowed to "save" someone's life when they made it perfectly clear that they don't want it, what else are you allowed to save?
Should people be allowed to spend their money in a sub-optimal way? Suppose I want this nice chair I found in a catalogue, but you, being smarter than me, know I might be just as happy with another chair that costs 10% less. Are you , a random person, allowed to forcibly take my money and spend it on the second chair?

Maybe the government should also tell people which job to work at, which house to live in, what food to eat, what to do in their spare time, whom to marry, so long as it's for their own good. It's scientifically proven that you can't trust people to choose their own spouses (e.g. domestic violence), perhaps it's time for the lawmakers to intervene.

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The absolutely worst part here is that the analogy between life and money just doesn't cut it in this particular case. This guy up there had no pulse for at least 7 minutes while he was being resuscitated, and who knows how long before that. That's 7 minutes without circulation, without oxygen reaching his brain. This isn't "saving" someone and giving him a second chance for a bright future; this is taking a person who was already miserable enough to choose death over life, denying him this choice, and probably adding severe brain damage to his list of troubles.

You know, while some people who survive their suicide attempts eventually try again, I have never heard of a single person who successfully committed suicide and then regretted it. I think I'd give them the benefit of doubt before choosing to violate their most basic human rights by forcing life upon those who don't want it.