Posted on 04/03/2005 10:40:43 PM PDT by tessalu
THE BEHAVIOR OF CONSERVATIVES. Uneven and sometimes awful, with lots of vituperation and extreme charges. (Jeb Bush does not remind me of Pontius Pilate; I don't think it's fair to circulate rumors that Michael Schiavo was a wife-beater.) Worse were the revolutionary suggestions that the courts be ignored or defied, perhaps by sending in the National Guard to reconnect the tube. This is the "by any means necessary" rhetoric of the radical left, this time let loose by angry conservatives. Where does this rhetoric lead?
# THE BEHAVIOR OF LIBERALS. Mystifying. While conservative opinion was severely splintered, liberal opinion seemed monolithic: Let her die.
Liberals usually rally to the side of vulnerable people, but not in this case. Democrats talked abstractly about procedures and rules, a reversal of familiar roles. I do not understand why liberal friends defined the issue almost solely in terms of government intruding into family matters. Liberals are famously willing to enter family affairs to defend individual rights, opposing parental-consent laws, for example. Why not here? Non-intervention is morally suspect when there is strong reason to wonder whether the decision-maker in the family has the helpless person's best interests at heart.
A few liberals broke ranks -- 10 members of the black caucus, for instance, plus Sen. Tom Harkin (news, bio, voting record), and Ralph Nader, who called the case "court-imposed homicide." But such voices were rare. My suspicion is that liberal opinion was guided by smoldering resentment toward President Bush, and the rising contempt for religion in general and conservative Christians in particular. We seem headed for much more conflict between religious and secular Americans.
# THE BEHAVIOR OF THE NEWS MEDIA. Terrible. Pro-life columnist Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice called it "the worst case of liberal media bias I've seen yet." Many stories and headlines were politically loaded. Small example of large disdain: On air, a CBS correspondent called the Florida rallies a "religious road show," a term unlikely to have been applied to Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights demonstrations or any other rallies meeting CBS' approval.
More important, it was hard to find news that Michael Schiavo had provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife since 1994, and even blocked the use of antibiotics when Terri developed a urinary infection. And the big national newspapers claimed as a fact that Michael Schiavo's long-delayed recollection of Terri's wish to die, supported only by hearsay from Michael's brother and a sister-in-law, met the standard for "clear and convincing evidence" of consent. It did nothing of the sort, particularly with two of Terri's friends testifying the opposite.
The media covered the intervention by Congress as narrowly political and unwarranted. They largely fudged the debates over whether Terri Schiavo was indeed in a persistent vegetative state and whether tube-feeding meant that Schiavo was on life-support. In the Nancy Cruzan case, the Supreme Court said that tube-feeding is life-support, but some ethicists and disability leaders strongly dispute that position.
# PUBLIC OPINION. Polls showed very strong opposition to the Republican intervention, but the likelihood is that those polled weren't primarily concerned with Terri Schiavo or Republican overreaching, if that's what it was. They were thinking about themselves and how to avoid being in Terri Schiavo's predicament. Many, too, have pulled the plug on family members and don't want these wrenching decisions second-guessed by the courts or the public.
If this is correct, it means the country has yet to make up its mind on the issue of personhood and whether it is moral and just to remove tube-supplied food and water from people with grave cognitive disabilities.
The following candid exchange occurred on Court TV last month in a conversation between author Wesley Smith and bioethicist Bill Allen:
Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person?
Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood.
Fetuses, babies and Alzheimer's patients are only minimally aware and might not fit this definition of personhood, and so would have no claim on our protections. Smith points out that other bioethicists narrow protection further, requiring rationality, the capacity to experience desire or the ability to value one's own existence. Tighter definitions of personhood expand the number of humans who can be killed without blame or harvested for their organs while still alive.
On Court TV, Bill Allen argued that the family could have removed Terri's organs while she was alive, "just as we allow people to say what they want done with their assets." This issue has been hiding behind the Terri Schiavo case for years. Soon it will be out in the open.
"(I don't think it's fair to circulate rumors that Michael Schiavo was a wife-beater)"
What rumors? - there were 89 reports to DCF about abuse from Michael upon Terri.
Correction -- the Liberal monolithic opinion was: Kill her.
What did the polls show as regards to people's knowledge of the facts? Fer instance. How many people thought she was brain-dead as compared to those who knew she was not?
I would venture to guess that a huge proportion of people who were opposed to the Republican intervention were under the impression she was.
Well, strangulation is not really 'wife-beating'.
I still can't figure why liberals were so united in their desire to see Terri dead. What had she ever done to them?
Unless, of course, they were using her as a tool with which to beat conservatives. Pretty sick, isn't it? So much for liberals caring about people...
See a Tribute to Terri here:
Please let it load -- it's 11 mb.
Hats off to the invisib1e hand for his dedication and hard work.
Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood.
I would like to know, if someone was 'once a person', how do they lose their 'personhood'.
How soon before this outrageous travesty is forgotten? How soon before there are no more news stories, no more posts, no more lawmakers with a conscience, no more brave words from Tom DeLay because the media has made enough snide comments to shut him down?
I'm afraid it's starting already when instead we should be rising up in our own orange revolution.
I see more and more of the truth slowly coming out, and I will not give up. Someday, I believe that all America can see that our National News papers played a trick on the good people of USA, by trying to slant the polls about Terri Schiavo and just how many people would make the world believe that it was okay to murder Terri Schiavo. The courts did not even allow Terri the staus of an American dog or cat.
USA has no business trying to get other nations to improve on human rights when our courts are willing to murder an innocent person, who has done no wrong, by starvation and dehydration. Before Terri died she was bleeding from a cracked tongue and had blood coming from her eyes. The court system in the USA has failed us all.
Public opinion was manipulated by lying questions.
When people were asked fair questions, the polls came out very differently, unfortunately, they only came out after Terri was dead.
Zogby Poll: Americans Not in Favor of Starving Terri Schiavo (poll with fair questions)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1375888/posts
"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.
We're getting there - April 7 - March for Justice II
Where, when????
Send a FReepmail to kristin and he can fill you in - plus there is a poster at the top of the sidebar. Just keep pressing your refresher button until it shows up.
This is what the poster says:
Join FR's Historic
March for Justice II
April 7, Washington, DC
Stop the filibuster!
End judicial tyranny!
Can't go to DC?
Click here to support the MFJ with your donation!
I think when the prolife people of good intent, who were duped by the Congress' actions, analyze the facts of what took place and the inaction on addressing the core legal questions, they'll realize they were had and they'll stay home in the following election in protest. This scandal *must* be one of the blemishes on Bush's legacy.
I realize this is not directly on topic, but how can this have happened?
It revoltes me to a degree which I am not able to express.
I believe the individual Terri was brain dead in any way it mattered. Only the most basic autonomic functions remained keeping her body going as if she were on external life support. That's what unbiased experts reported was her true state in a medical sense... thinking, feeling, understanding... all of that dead and gone.
I feel as you do. I think that the left would find it ludicrous to label me a right wing religious zealot, but maybe not.
Newsflash: it happens everyday in America. Thousands of times. Only this time one party turned it into a massive media circus and unscupulous politicians saw opportunities. There was nothing *new* in this case. Feeding tubes are removed all the time. Courts rule on these cases routinely and have since around 1983. She had more "due process" and protection of her rights than probably anyone.
If you want it to stop, demand Bush & Congress make feeding tubes other than 'extraordinary measures', perhaps (if you believe in liberty) an exception for living wills and similar written documents. Make Jeb & the FL legislature change their law such that feeding tubes are not 'extraordinary measures' something that was actually *changed* to that status in recent years.
THIS IS NOT TRUE. She was under Florida law. Feeding tubes under Florida law are an extraordinary measure, are life support.
That's the law there and only recently too (take note!). You're playing in semantics.
There is a lot new in this case for most Americans since Florida is in the minority of states that allows proxy or surrogate decision making, in the absence of a written directive, when it comes to the removal of artificial feeding.
The number of times per day murder takes place does not magically transform murder into a "good thing."
Thanks for your help ...I found the correct thread and donated money since there is probably no way I can get to D.C. Thank God for FR....this is His work, we need to make ourselves heard!
Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood.
By that definition, we aren't persons when we sleep or under anaesthesia.
*are* under anaesthesia..
---Liberals usually rally to the side of vulnerable people, but not in this case. Democrats talked abstractly about procedures and rules, a reversal of familiar roles. I do not understand why liberal friends defined the issue almost solely in terms of government intruding into family matters. Liberals are famously willing to enter family affairs to defend individual rights, opposing parental-consent laws, for example. Why not here?---
Could it be because people at risk of getting their feeding tubs cut are not in a position to vote, but their families that want to cut them off are? And those kid's in the parental consent dispute are future DU dummies, Dean supporters, and all around Democrat clownheads for many years to come.
At bottom though it seems this is where all those years of abortion on demand have gotten us. I admit that I was not one who foresaw the danger this loss of personhood spreading throughout our society like a moral plague, but here we are. I fear their are many potential heirs that do not look forward to seeing their inheritance eaten up by the "needless" medical expenses of their parents and many taxpayers not looking forward to shouldering the burden of an increasingly aging population.
Given the state of moral and ethical education in this country, why should they?
Where were NOW, AARP (not a good precedent as people age and need extensive care), organizations supporting people with various disabilities, etc., etc? Why has there been nothing in the press about the fact that denying food and water would kill anyone after enough time?
We, as a nation, have become so manipulated that about any level of nonsensical manipulation of the news will be tolerated. And, when people start questioning and thinking about things, some soap-opera type story or court case takes over all else.
Enlighten me to your thought process. I think you have a non-sequitor here. Once that feeding tube was removed, what right did the state (or anyone) have to deprive Terri of water and of attempts to give her liquid nourishment? Wouldn't the removal of the feeding tube necessitate attempts to feed her naturally? Or does Florida law say it's okay to starve and dehydrate someone until they die?
That wouldn't be real reassuring to the millions of people who move to Florida for health reasons and for a long, healthy retirement.
Glad to help.
That should read:
# THE BEHAVIOR OF LIBERALS. Mystifying. While conservative opinion was severely splintered, liberal opinion seemed monolithic: Starve and dehydrate her to death.
Words have meaning and laguage matters.
BINGO!
I think this writer hits the nail on the head with this. I am in California, and I can't tell you how many times I heard the sophomoric "Anybody but Bush" before the election. Now they seem determined to "get him back" in a million petty ways. This makes me sad that so many people can't look past politics to judge the merits of such an important case.
No the question was ... was this an illegal order?... we have prosecuted people in the past who have issued and follow so called "illegal orders" that caused the death of others
The question is then what makes an "illegal"order or law...
are there inherently "illegal"orders and laws?
Or only technically "illegal"orders or laws(and therefore any act can be made technically legal by men
Are there self evident illegal order and laws that no authority on earth can enact or order?
A test question being "could the Holocaust ever be a legally ordered act by any authority of men at any time on earth?"
If there are no "self evident" laws... then the Holocaust was not and act of evil men but an act of bad CYA by the Germany legal system
If there are "self evident"illegal orders and laws... did what happen in Florida fit?
I wouldn't want to question the worth of your argument or the legitimacy of your line of questioning, but it is important to decide what it is that you aim to accomplish. We are talking about a bad law. Changing the law is a very tricky business that often requires fortitude and might ultimately fail, but attacking the judiciary itself in this case is simply foolish. They cannot change the law. Only the politicians can change the law. To blame the judges will only swing more power to the politicians who have failed us.
If the law is immoral, then everybody who stands up for that immoral law should be blamed.
And make no mistake about it, the Florida law that defines food and water as "extraordinary measures" is immoral.
But the judge was also immoral in finding that Terri's wishes were that she wanted to die by being starved to death and dehydrated to death, based on casual conversations where she made statements like "I wouldn't want to be a burden on others," and "when it's my time, just let me go."
MO, the Shiavo case is the line in the sand just like the NG forgeries, the Left and the MSM has once again shown why they are completely subverted to immorality and injustice. Time for this issue and many others to be decided.
The writer lost me when I read "Liberals usually rally to the side of vulnerable people." Amazing there are those who still believes this.
THIS IS NOT TRUE. She was under Florida law. Feeding tubes under Florida law are an extraordinary measure, are life support.
And allowing her food and water through her mouth is "extraordinary life support?"
You nailed that one right on the head.
Just because a report is made to DCF doesn't mean abuse has occured. There have been FReepers who've said neighbors or ex-spouses have made false allegations of abuse toward them. It happens.
I've known of a couple of cases where teenagers made false allegations - or threatened to - as revenge for punishments.
I'm not saying abuse did or did not occur, just that a report of abuse is not proof of abuse.
Bingo!
Judge Greer, in his court rulings, his appointments of guardianships and his flaunting of Congress's de novo intent clearly demonstrates that he was hell-bent on helping the Schiavos and George Felos to kill Terri.
Her Constitutionial rights to due process were totally abrogated.
The court was successful. Terri's dead.
Murder by Probate.
/Infidels
/Canada
A few quotes from Thomas Jefferson seem especially fitting re: the Terri Schaivo case:
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny(read tyrannical judges) over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson*
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...
Thomas Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence)
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826
Sad state of affairs if the country can't make up it's mind if it wasn't murder. Where does one draw the line? Disabilities, today. Will it be brown or blues eyes tomorrow?
This life support thing is a real joke.
First of all, tube feeds were never considered life support. If the law changed in the past little while - then that does nothing to support the fact as to what the perception of life support was at the time Terri supposedly said her wishes.
By denying her ice chips or even a damp cloth to suck on, this went way past life support or extraordinary measures. As I have said before, when they remove a respirator, then don't suck all the air out of the room as well, in the off chance the person might take an unassisted breath.
"What rumors? - there were 89 reports to DCF about abuse from Michael upon Terri."
Do you by chance have a source for these? Several Freepers have been trying to track them down.
Thanks
YES! This is an excellent point. Up until this case, if I heard the term LIFE SUPPORT, I would've assumed you meant artificial respiration, which when removed, someone dies within minutes usually. I never thought of life support as 'tube feeding'. No way Terri thought of life support as food and water either.
"Correction -- the Liberal monolithic opinion was: Kill her."
Ann Coulter..
There are a few glaring exceptions. On the anti-killing side, to one extent or another, are: former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis, former Gore lawyer David Boies, former O.J. lawyer Alan Dershowitz, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, McGovern and Carter strategist Pat Caddell, liberal blogger Mickey Kaus, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Rainbow Coalition leader Jesse Jackson
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1376891/posts
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.