Totalitarian - christiansquoting.org.uk

From the descriptive point of view, the difference between the physician and the veterinarian is that the former treats human diseases or sick people, whereas the latter treats animal diseases or sick animals. From the moral and political point of view, the difference between them is that the physician is expected to be the agent of the persons who are his patients, whereas the veterinarian is expected to be the agent of persons who own sick animals. In proportion, then, as the physician becomes the agent of the State and in proportion as the State is totalitarian, the physician becomes, from a moral and political point of view, a veterinarian- that is, the agent of a State that owns its citizens, just as the farmer owns his animals. This is why killing animals is part of the normal function of the veterinarian and why incarcerating people is, and killing them may yet become, a part of the normal function of the physician employed by the Therapeutic State.--Thomas Szasz