Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

Renew America ^ | May 29, 2006 | Kevin Fobbs

[KevinNuPac]

Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

Kevin Fobbs May 29, 2006

America's Culture of Life is truly the legacy of one woman whose death forever changed our nation because of actions that were not in her hands but in those of her husband and his lawyers. Yet for millions of Americans we will forever link our own celebration of our nation's independence to the courage of the Schindler family to go forward past the tragedy, past the personal sorrow, past the searing anguish to help America draw a distinct line in the sand, to issue a clarion call to America.

Our 4th of July is coming... Our Culture of Life Independence Day is on its way. Our month of Independence is a message that March 31st (Terri's Day) will signal, that July 4th will signal... and that the month of July will signal to defend the Culture of Life before we lose it forever.

When we talked with our family members or even our neighbors or our friends we may have spent but a moment reflecting upon why we are even gathered on a Memorial Day afternoon. Do we think about the sacrifice of our soldiers and of their families? Do we think about the long goodbyes which are never long enough... as the military families send their loved ones to war, to battle, to stand firm for our freedoms... for our life... for our nation and its values of faith?

How does Terri Schiavo and her legacy tie into this? Terri's legacy and Terri's Day is a representation of a right to live, and freedom to have the liberty to not have it compromised away, devalued by inconvenience, or litigated away by judges who celebrate a culture of death that would rob life from the womb, steal life from a hospital or hospice bed, and destroy and shatter a family's love for a daughter, a sister and aunt who was given a gift from God, but had it separated from her as easily as an ant would have its life take by an uncaring shoe... extinguished forever.

The families who send their loved ones off to war have to wonder as well, does America value their sacrifice? The families of the military have to wonder just where does its society draw the line on its values? A soldier who is in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan has to wonder if a Florida judge can take away the life of an innocent, what is the measure of his life? Would a judge in America suddenly decide that if he were injured, if he had to sacrifice a limb that the protesters outside his hospital bed would have more rights than he would or his family? Would this soldier have to wonder that if he or his fellow soldier were killed in battle, that upon their return that the protesters who would stand outside of his funeral... have more rights to be protected than the rights his family would have to a military burial with honor?

You see, the Culture of Life is about Terri Schiavo, because Americans now have to examine the life of our culture itself. We have to wonder if we as a nation of Christians and of a nation of faith and of a nation of compassion would allow for a state to murder an innocent woman and strip her family of their loved one then as a nation would we allow America to have other symbols of life, of our nation to be peeled away as well, all in open sight and in plain view of a dispassionate nation?

What does our American Culture mean if we allow millions of illegal aliens to literally browbeat us into submission by demanding that because they have stolen across our borders, demanded and received protection from local law enforcement in numerous cities throughout the U. S., obtained free or reduced educational opportunities by state public colleges that our own children could not qualify to receive the same financial aid assistance for. Are we that defenseless to let illegals strip our state coffers of housing assistance for loans and mortgages when tens of thousands in almost every state in America have legal citizens who are homeless, impoverished, or working poor or middle class Americans who need similar assistance but cannot receive it. And they are legal! They are citizens! They are Americans.

What is so wrong about our nation when we are so ready to compromise our freedoms, our culture's life, the life of an innocent and the taking of any life is the taking of our own children's life and their child's. And with each successive generation the nation and its life, its values, its traditions, and its language will disappear because we as Americans were too preoccupied — too narrow — to see that an illegal alien was taking your child's education, that a crusading death culture judge was preparing a bed, a room, a legal precedent to take your child, grandchild or sister or parent.

That is why I have stayed my course to defend the Culture of Life and to ask my fellow Americans to begin to understand that as Terri Schiavo's life was slowly ebbing from her body and as her mother Mary, father Bob, sister Suzanne, and brother Bobby waited in the Florida early morning air on March 31st, 2005, America was having part of its soul ebb away as well.

What will it take to spark an interest, a concern, and a passion for protecting one's own life? Some may say that it would take a clear and present danger — like tanks rolling down your neighborhood street or another 9/11 that strikes at the heart of America. Do we have the convenience to wait? Do we wait until a state legislature in Maine or California or Delaware or Ohio or Illinois decides that your mother's decision to live is determined by a hospital "bean counter" who decides that your mother's life is not based upon a "Will To Live" but an ability to pay her bill? What about a baby, not born, but already set for murder in the womb — not because the mother is pro-life or pro-death but because "the law" says the unborn baby's life is expendable because the baby's genes are determined to be part of a class or a group or a race or of an ethnicity which pre-programs the child, un-born, to death?

America is being murdered in small pieces. It is seeing its values, its life, its culture disemboweled with the finesse of a skilled surgeon. And it is America's poll takers and its legislators and its uncaring, disinterested, and uninvolved who are handling the scalpel. Take the scalpel away. Contact www.Terrisfight.org to join the Foundation's battle to educate America about the right to live. Go to Terri's Day on www.kevinfobbs.com to learn about new updates on Terri's Day and the event to celebrate the Culture of life.

So on Independence Day and Independence month of July will we have any Americans who will sign up and join the Culture of Life movement in their community? Even if it is to sign a pledge, hand out a flyer, become aware of legislators and judicial candidates who have agreed to stand firm for the Culture of Life — a crusade that is based not only upon the life of Terri Schiavo's legacy but equally crucial based also upon the legacy of the right to live, to defend our culture and the life of its values.

Terri's Day is not the end of a national movement but the beginning of a national contract with itself to stand for a future that our nation can guarantee for its children and for a culture that will insure life. The right to live will be Terri's legacy — our legacy... one nation under God. Join us in your homes, on your family picnics, out camping and celebrating July 14th and 15th ... Our American Culture of Life belongs to each and every one of us... We must protect it. Let's celebrate together.

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the host of The Kevin Fobbs Show: go to: ,www.kevinfobbs.com. To contact him go to: kevin@kevinfobbs.com.

© Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060529

[T'wit]

>> Scientists Skirt Stem Cell Ban by Building Dual Labs and Firewalls

Government funding certainly has interesting effects on science and its practitioners. How much remains "scientific" after grantsmanship games is an open question.

[amdgmary]

Michael Schiavo has a new blog the liberal Daily Kos site.

Here are a few comments that Schiavo wrote on his blog regarding a convention he spoke at in Las Vegas:

"Before we even got checked in at KOS, people were hugging me and snapping pictures. That's a far cry from the hostility, anger and threats that have been directed at me and my family from our friends on the far right."

"My name is Mike Schiavo and I'm here to talk with you about privacy. I don't want to talk too long because I'd rather answer some questions and hear from you. I really just want to make three points about the right-wing and how they run our country."

"But let me begin by asking for your understanding. As you may know, I'm not a professional speaker or a politician. In fact, before anyone here knew who I was, before the right-wing made my family a political issue and before their spin and lie machine went to work to ruin my name, I was a private person."

"The right-wing politicians and fanatics will tell you they had to act because they cared about Terri.

Let me tell you as clearly as I can - I think that's a lie. Not a single one of those people ever met Terri. They didn't care about Terri until she made the front page of the paper. Most of them didn't even know how to say our name. They didn't care about Terri until they figured they could score cheap and easy political points by using her to stir-up anger in their supporters.

Comments from the Michael Schiavo supporters:

"Michael, I was sitting right up front for your talk, but I could hear the sniffles from behind me. You had us in tears."

"I simply can't imagine the hell you've been through. I hope you carry with you the love and good wishes of the vast majority of Americans (and, for that matter, people all over the world) who support you and will do what they can to protect you and others from ever having to experience that kind of horrific abuse of political power again."

[T'wit]

God is listening, Michael.

[T'wit]

>> "I simply can't imagine the hell you've been through.

Let's see. He lived off his wife's insurance while it lasted. He got a quarter of a million dollars in a phony malpractice suit. He got MUCH more (the exact amount is lost is lawyerly lies) in a second fraudulent malpractice suit. He pulled the plug on both his parents, which also presumably improved his bank account. He stole his wife's rings and made jewelry for himself. He got hundreds of thousands of dollars for "loss of consortium" even while he was cheating and getting all the consortium he wanted. He put a hit on his wife so he could inherit her estate when he married his floozy. He has book and movie rights to his wife's murder. He has a book on the market, courtesy of someone else doing the writing for him. He got financial help from the ACLU and death cult groups. He's on the speaking tour now, also financed by the Death Culture. He took 10 guests along to Las Vegas on his honeymoon on a private jet -- not bad for a tax-paid salary working in a prison.

Poor Michael. It's hard to imagine how much more hell he could go through.

Well, maybe it isn't :-)

[T'wit]

>> "Before we even got checked in at KOS, people were hugging me and snapping pictures. That's a far cry from the hostility, anger and threats that have been directed at me and my family from our friends on the far right."

Criminals are attracted to the Left like flies to sugar.

Let a murderer say a few angry words about the "religious right" and he becomes a misunderstood social reformer. Let some terrorist write venomous tirades from his jail cell, he will be portrayed as a national savior. Let a rapist thunder against far right loonies and the Left will send him a fresh supply of women. Like Michael Schiavo, they all know the password to be protected by the Left: all you do is blast "right-wingers."

The thugs and crooks all know something else, too -- that they won't be welcome on the Right. The Right has standards. The Right asks more of you than cheap sloganeering. You have to believe in moral law and personal responsibility. You have to believe in the rights of life, liberty and property. And you'd better darned well love America!

Go snivel off to the Left, Schiavo. They can have you.

[BykrBayb]

Thanks for the link. Here's what I got out of it... See if you can guess which parts I added, and which are actual quotes. There really isn't much difference.

MS: The Republicans are all out to get ME. They directed hostility, anger and threats at ME. I know a few people at YearlyKOS and many supporters on DailyKOS missed MY outstanding remarks. So I have posted them below so you can tell ME how brilliant I am. The right-wing made MY family a political issue. They violated MY rights. Their spin and lie machine went to work to ruin MY name. The right-wing in this country used the power of government to try to take away MY legally and morally protected rights to abuse and murder MY wife. They stalked ME. What was the national security interest in taking away MY rights? MY case had zero to do with Terrorism or national security. When it comes to explaining why they acted to restrict MY liberty and impose on MY rights, there was no national interest. They'd love ME to go away and shut-up. It's no wonder they keep trying to trash ME. It's because they know that they can't explain the invasion of MY privacy and MY rights by making us afraid of terrorists. They interfered in MY right to do what I wanted to do to MY wife. There are real problems in our country: lack of health care (he really said that), poverty, immigration, the environment. So, I'm pretty down on our current leadership in our country. Not only because of what they've done to ME personally, even though it was inexcusable. I need your help. Help ME spread MY propaganda, because what the right-wing did to ME and MY family is one of the clearest examples of an out of control government. They put ME through hell. ME ME ME!!!

Replies: AUTHOR! AUTHOR! Oh Michael, you are my HERO! I simply can't imagine the HELL you've been through. You are my one true love! Thanks for your courage and bravery. You suffered horribly. Michael Schiavo is a HERO right out of a Frank Capra movie. Conservatives are so evil, no, eeville, to abuse such a kind and loving husband. I got to take my mom off life support following a heart attack that destroyed her brain. I thought of the rage I would have felt if the Bush admin or the GOP or the Government or ANYBODY would have tried to stop me from killing her. You're an American hero and one of the greatest husbands ever. Terri was lucky to have you and we are all the better for you sharing your trials with us. You inspired more than a generation! grandparents, parents and children will worship you throughout eternity, because they have all had this discussion because of your fight .... thank you and I'm sorry you had to bear this weight for the rest of us. I'm listening to all the smart people in my Universe, and I'm happy to say, you're one of them. After my wife was injured in an accident, her parents were like the Schindlers, supportive at first, but when I brought out our signed living wills, and announced my plan to kill her, they mysteriously turned hostile and combative. Most of my family are reasonable, and have written down their desire to be killed, but we have a wingnut contingency in our extended family, who thinks murder is wrong. No one should have to endure what you did. My family went through such a situation with my (mother, father, sister, brother, dog, mother-in-law, father-in-law, or other useless eater.) We happily sent them to SugarCandy Mountain (see Animal Farm), where they are now frolicking with Terri. One good thing that came out of Michael's torment, I talked everyone I know into signing away their right to life. Oh, Michael, dear sweet Michael, can I sniff your panties?

[T'wit]

Hahahahahaha!

[T'wit]

Just remember, someday you're going to have to explain to the Big Snickers himself up on SugarCandyMountain how you happened to learned to think and talk and emote in KOS.

[8mmMauser]

Dakota Voice...

Florida again! Wouldn't you know it.

The madness that is running around freely has nothing to do with whether or not the death penalty is morally right or not. It doesn't even have to do with whether lethal injection is constitutional or not. It has to do with the very fact that there is intense concern over whether convicted murderers suffer during their brief death episode, though that same concern was not present a little over a year ago, when an innocent woman was sentenced to death by starvation and dehydration. A death sentence that took 13 days of unnecessary suffering to complete. What is wrong with this picture?

Madness on the Prowl

8mm

[8mmMauser]

We are starting to get the definition of what a daily kos really is. Even a weekly one sounds, well, scummy.

My My....

[8mmMauser]

Lynch mobs in New Hampshire are learning the ropes...

One of the blocks to check must say, "Yes or no" "Please dehydrate me"

The new law updates state laws on advanced directives, which includes living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care. The law takes effect Jan. 1.

The directives allow people to dictate what care they wish to accept or reject in a medical emergency or if they're near death and can't speak for themselves. They could, for example, say whether they want to receive food and water through tubes if they're unable to swallow -- an issue that affected the brain-damaged Florida woman, Terri Schiavo, who died after the courts ordered her feeding tube removed based on her husband's assertion she would not want to live that way.

Lynch signs living will law rewrite

8mm

[T'wit]

Seems to me, in all justice, that if they're going to gather to discuss the niceties of morbidity, dying, death, more death, assisted suicide, murder, involuntary euthanasia and all that kind of fun, they should have professional speakers.

Jim Jones on Jonestown
Ted Bundy on taking your love affairs to a new level [straight]
John Wayne Gacy on taking your love affairs to a new level [kinky]
Tamerlane and Pol Pot - panel discussion on piling the skulls in an orderly heap
Janet Reno on Waco
Timothy McVeigh on fertilizer bombs
Karen Homolka on doing in your sister for thrills
Mike Schiavo -- phone interview from Las Vegas at the Tinfoil Hat convention.

[8mmMauser]

Don't mess with Justice. This comes from USA Today so it must be uhhh right? left??...

• Speaking in the same vein three months earlier, Ginsburg revealed that she and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" stirred up by critics of the use of foreign law in court rulings.

• In speeches she gave before and after she retired in January, O'Connor responded to critics who were upset with the federal courts for not preventing the death of Terri Schiavo in 2005. "We must be ever vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies," O'Connor said. Her candid remarks to USA TODAY published earlier this month struck the same theme.

Justices fight back

8mm

[T'wit]

>> One of the blocks to check must say, "Yes or no" "Please dehydrate me"

[ ___ ] I don't want to live like this! Please either bring me flowers and take me out to dinner tonight, for a change, or tie my four limbs securely to four immense draft horses and whip them to go in the four compass directions so that I will be drawn and quartered and die in excruciating pain.

[8mmMauser]

They can use channelers to channel 'em right out of the grave or wherever they repose. In Mikey's case and Reno, they can channel their spirits. Edgar Cayce where are you?

[8mmMauser]

For those strong enough to listen, from Lab yak's mouth to your ear: Now hear labyak...

ST. BONAVENTURE, NY (2006-06-19) Terri Schiavo's death last year sparked a national debate on "end-of-life" issues. Tomorrow, St. Bonaventure University's Bogoni Center will host a day-long conference titled "Grace at the End of Life" that will explore the palliative approach. The keynote address will be delivered by the head of the hospice center where Schiavo was cared for in the last years of her life.

Mary Labyak is chief executive officer of Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. Even before Terri Schiavo arrived at her center, Ms. Labyak was well-known among those involved in the hospice movement nationwide. She runs the nation's largest not-for-profit community based hospice in the United States, carrying for more than 2,300 patients and their families each day.

Ms. Labyak joined Mark Scott on the phone to talk about the Schiavo case and the lessons learned. Click the "listen" icon above to hear their conversation now or use your podcasting software to download it to your computer or iPod.

Hospice Director Looks Back at Terri Schiavo Controversy Mark Scott

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[8mmMauser]

Polls: Full Gallup towards death. "Please dehydrate me" Take two. (Excerpted)...

.................

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll conducted by the Gallup Organization finds that Americans back both euthanasia and assisted suicide. However, the Gallup questions were favorably disposed to the grisly practices and other polls show opposite results.

Conducted in May, the Gallup poll asked two different questions.

Half of the respondents in the survey were asked this long-term Gallup trend question on euthanasia: "When a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?"

The latest poll shows Americans back euthanasia by a 69-27 percent margin, which is down six points from the last poll and shows a drop in euthanasia support following Terri Schiavo's euthanasia death last year.

However, the polling question assumes a patient has an incurable disease, that the death will be painless and that the patient and the patient's family agree that death is preferred.

Gallup Poll: Americans Back Euthanasia, Assisted Suicide, Others Disagree

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[8mmMauser]

Albion Wilde Ping to a thread by Aussie Dasher on the Supremes...

Supreme Court to Expand Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Review

8mm

[T'wit]

Leftists ALWAYS complain that they have received death threats. The threats are never documented and never carried out. Just the usual hate-the-Right talk that's been going on since the French Revolution.

But I wonder if we haven't run into a philosophic problem? The Left is in love with death. They hold death seminars to discuss how to die faster. They sponsor laws to euthanize, to commit suicide, to assist suicides, to redefine medical law to get rid of inconvenient patients, and on and on.

So, why do they worry about death threats? If they get one, they should just say, "Thank you!"