Ilya Somin writes about the clash of values between those of us who want to live, and those who want us to die. And no, I'm not referring to Islamists.

Though the Islamacist did come up in one side paper
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v24n4/boaz.pdf
in the origional CATO debate:
http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/do-we-need-death

>> Islamic martyrs “love death as you love life,” bin Laden
tells an interviewer. “The Americans are fighting
so they can live and enjoy the material things
in this life,” a Taliban spokesman says, “but we
are fighting so we can die in the cause of Allah.”
In a video for his followers, bin Laden intones,
“The love of this world is wrong.”

It does in the end seem to boil down to those who feel life isn't something people and society should be forced to put up with - and those who feel life is something precious to maximized as much as possible.

From Bin Ladens or various other rainbows of faith who feel life is only a test you have to prove yourself in to move on to something that maters. To eco groups who feel people are a bad thing to be limited (quotes from above listed subpaper bellow).

Personally, I think if someones arguing that their death is a good thing - they need therapy. When they argue that lots of peoples deaths (much less everyone elses dwaths) are a good things, they need to be kept away from any real power!!

Isn't there a old Jewish toast "to life"!
;)

One of the most quoted
bioethicists of our time, Daniel Callahan of the Hastings
Center, says: “The worst possible way to resolve [the question of
life extension] is to leave it up to individual choice. There is no
known social good coming from the conquest of death.”

Or

>>"And then there are the environmental extremists,
who think there’s just too much human
life on earth. Jacques Cousteau told the UNESCO
Courier in 1991, “In order to stabilize world
populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.”

>>Earth First! founder Dave Foreman writes, “We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox.”

>>Celebrated young novelist William T.
Vollman says, “I would say there are too many people in the world
and maybe something like AIDS or something like war may be
a good thing on that level.”

The people who think death is a good thing, whether they be Callahan or Bin Ladin, should put their money where their mouths are and off themselves on national TV.

There's plenty of room for oldsters. The usual way we measure GDP is if someone is willing to pay for something and does (e.g., lifespan and healthspan medication), it's considered good. So more people living, working and enjoying is considered good. I strongly disagree that having fewer people in the world is better for me.

If we endorse suicide as an approved method to cut life short, we risk different and more serious potential consequences for liberty.

>If we endorse suicide as an approved method to cut life short, we risk different and more serious potential consequences for liberty.

I've heard that there have been cases in places that allowed Euthanasia, where elderly were being pressured by next of kin to “not suffer”, or not be a burden on others, and agree to be euthanized. Kin not wanting to pay the medical or nursing home bills, hospitals not wanting them to soak up resources to treat incurable conditions, etc.