We, the Witness Protection Program For Freepers, aka the Wild Turkeys, aka the Coalition of the Sane, have through mutual discussion and rigourous thought, determined that:

1. The discussion threads regarding Terri Schiavo (hereafter referred to as "TS") have become too full of innuendo, rumormongering, hyperbole, hysteria, namecalling, paranoia, and general poor behavior to warrant participation.

2. Said threads have degenerated into "echo chambers", wherein the same, common thoughts are continually posted again and again, and the same old disreputable, unconfirmed and/or false urban myths are propagated.

3. Anyone who joins in said theads with alternative viewpoints to the most extreme posts are routinely driven away with slander, accusations, and vile namecalling.

4. No data or evidence contrary to the "prevailing opinions" are accepted, considered, or discussed; and in fact are rejected outright in most instances.

5. That the continued calls for armed insurrection, military or paramilitary involvement, impeachements of politicians and judges, and death threats are embarassing, stupid, shortsighted, doomed to failure, and contrary to most if not all conservative thought prior to this case, as well as damaging in the extreme to FR and the conservative movement as a whole.

6. That such emotional, hyperbolic, and propaganda-driven hysteria is in fact contrary to all conservatives USED to stand for.

7. That the holding up of swastika and other Nazi imagery towards the police and the Bushes, the use of children as political props, and the disruption of the peace at the Woodside Hospice can only reflect badly on conservatives in general, and should be discouraged.

8. That the pursuit of this issue to the exclusion of all others by the GOP has damaged, perhaps beyond repair, the pursuit of other important issues as well as the reputation of the GOP, FR, and conservatism.

The WPPFF is NOT of one mind as to the case of TS or its correct outcome. In fact, wide disagreement exists within our little group. However, we are united in our wish that reason and sanity be respected in the discussion, as well as the rights of all parties involved or participating. We wish to discuss this as adults and intellectuals, as conservatives and as FRiends, not as children screaming past each other on some playground of hysteria. We wish for facts and evidence to be provided, discussed reasonably, and considered fairly.

We reject all accusations of Naziism, "death cultism", or other slander as methods of debate. We reject the practice of "spamming" multiple threads, of posting unending vanities, and the posting of propaganda and calls for violence. We reject, in fact, all unseemly and childish behavior which has come to characterize this case on FR.

We DO invite others to come and reasonably discuss the issue. We have no problem with FReepers who wish to debate in a rational and fair manner, and with due respect for their fellow FReepers. We have NO problem with those whose views are formed by religion; however we reject "preaching" or "being beaten with a Bible" as legitemite debate tactics. Not all of us are Believers, and such tactics only cheapen the source.

If a FReeper finds this an acceptable meansd to discuss this and other issues, they are welcome to join in and participate. Those who find pleasure in attacks, flame-baiting, slander, stalking, and personal atacks will be ignored, and their egos will go unfed.

We assume this thread to be a zone of sanity in an overheated atmosphere. Thus, a general amnesty is in effect. If posters conduct themselves within the guidlines above, we will be happy to discuss and debate with you. If a poster wishes to apologize for past slips of the tongue, or for possible "over-the-top" statements to another, it will be graciously accepted, and your company welcome.

Please bring a sense of humor; we feel that too many have been taking themselves too seriously lately.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/30/schiavo.tm/ CNN

Lessons of the Schiavo battle

By DANIEL EISENBERG
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Posted: 12:43 PM EST (1743 GMT)
What the bitter fight tells us about politics, religion, the courts and life itself.

Pat Robertson called the removal of her feeding tube "judicial murder," and House majority leader Tom DeLay described it as an "act of medical terrorism."

Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of only five House Republicans to vote against Congress's emergency legislation throwing the Terri Schiavo case into the federal courts, declared that "this Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy."

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, acting as spokesman for the parents of the severely brain damaged woman and making even his counterparts on the conservative right wince in embarrassment, inveighed in a mass e-mailing that Florida State Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who approved the request by Schiavo's husband to let her die, "has shown more courage in trying to kill Terri Schiavo than Governor [Jeb] Bush has shown in trying to save her."

Just a few days before Easter, Brother Paul O'Donnell, a Franciscan monk and spiritual adviser to Robert and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents, said, "We pray that this modern-day crucifixion will not happen."

With Schiavo's life hanging in the balance, and people on both sides of the case holding strong beliefs about her right to live or die, passions were understandably running high. But as the endless barrage of inflammatory rhetoric and sometimes blatant posturing continued, the Florida woman at the center of the bitterly fought case seemed to have become a sideshow.

"This is not about Terri Schiavo," says George Annas, chairman of the health law department at Boston University School of Public Health. "I think this is about abortion and stem cells. Congress wants to say that we need pro-life judges because the judiciary is out of control and favors death over life."

Most Americans disapproved of the congressional action?and showed little faith in the stated, high-minded motives behind it. In a TIME poll conducted last week, fully three-quarters of respondents (including 68% of Republicans) said it was wrong for Congress to intervene, and two-thirds said they believed that Washington's action was more rooted in politics than principles.

Having conspicuously interrupted a vacation to return to Washington to sign Congress's bill in the wee hours of the morning?although he could have approved it from his ranch in Texas?President George W. Bush did not escape the public's displeasure. In TIME's poll, 70% disapproved of his role in the drama. As federal and Florida state courts continued to reject appeals from Schiavo's parents to reinsert her feeding tube, Washington may have started to get the message.

Bush, DeLay and Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee were suddenly as quiet as the Democrats had been all along; the Republican congressional leaders declined opportunities to speak about Schiavo on the Sunday-morning talk shows. "The winners of this are going to be the people who stop talking about it," said a senior Republican strategist.

To many Americans, the idea that there could be any winners in this ugly and tragic family spectacle, filled with accusations of greed, abuse and adultery, must have been hard to believe. Beyond the heart-wrenching specifics of the case, the Schiavo controversy raised alarms for many about the federal government encroaching on states' rights, individual rights and the judiciary, not to mention the role religion should play in politics and the legal system. Most of all, though, it got people thinking seriously about what it means to be alive or dead, and how they might prepare for their own death.

Suddenly, couples gathered around the dinner table or getting ready for bed were discussing how they would want to be treated near the end of their life and making plans to draft a living will and appoint a health-care proxy.

Almost 70% of the people polled by TIME said they would want their feeding tube pulled if they were in Schiavo's situation, and some went to lengths to ensure they didn't end up in the same predicament.

One Florida attorney told friends he had just drafted a new living will that included the words "I really, really, really mean this," and a Democratic political consultant says without joking that her new living will is going to include the words "Congress cannot overturn this by any legislation." Of course, having a living will doesn't guarantee it won't be contested. In a Bucks County, Pa., court this week, a daughter hopes to prevent her mother from having a feeding tube put into her Alzheimer's-afflicted father against the express wishes of his living will.

More than 15 years after she suffered cardiac arrest (from a potassium imbalance that may have been caused by an eating disorder), which deprived her brain of oxygen and left her in what most doctors have diagnosed as a persistent vegetative state, Schiavo has become a cause celebre for the right-to-life movement.

Already mentioned in all sorts of fund-raising literature, Schiavo is a symbol not just for those fighting the right-to-die movement but also in the battle over abortion, stem-cell research and judicial activism. "We're replacing the sanctity of life with the quality of life in this country," laments Ken Connor, Florida Governor Jeb Bush's counsel in the Schiavo case.

Over the course of the nasty seven-year legal battle between Schiavo's parents and her husband and legal guardian Michael, he has insisted that his wife, who did not have a living will, had previously made clear her wishes not to be kept alive in such an incapacitated state.

She has been dependent on a feeding tube, though not a ventilator, and according to most medical experts, lacks a consciously functioning brain. Although Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers were initially united in seeking extensive treatment for Terri's condition, the two sides have been estranged since February 1993, when they apparently had a falling out over the $300,000 malpractice settlement that Michael won from Schiavo's gynecologist, who failed to detect the potassium imbalance that led to her collapse. (An additional $750,000 from the case was put into trust for Terri's care, although Michael Schiavo's lawyers claim almost all of it has been used for medical and legal bills.)

Since then, Schiavo's parents exhausted every legal avenue to keep their daughter alive; their unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last week was their fifth.

Along the way, they have made a number of arguments, and all were rejected: that because of his relationship and two children with another woman, Michael should be removed as guardian?although, according to court documents, the Schindlers originally encouraged him to see other women; that as a devout Catholic, Terri would want to live?although they have also acknowledged in court that they might have disregarded her wish to die even if stated in a living will; that Michael was abusing Terri, charges he has vehemently denied; and that her condition has been misdiagnosed, that she actually has a minimal level of consciousness and, with more therapy, could get better.

Even a bill signed by Governor Bush in 2003 to allow the tube to be reinserted ultimately didn't help, since the measure, dubbed Terri's Law, was declared unconstitutional.

By the time they were able to persuade Congress to give them another chance to be heard in the federal courts, her parents were arguing that Terri was being denied due process, contending that her rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act were being violated and even claiming that Terri had recently communicated that she still wants to live. While the Schindlers and their supporters charged that Terri was being starved to death, her husband maintained that Terri was in absolutely no pain.

Almost from the moment that DeLay first came up with the idea of subpoenaing Schiavo as a way to prevent the removal of her feeding tube, the saga has had elements of a political circus. There was Congress, convening a special session during the Easter recess to pass a bill crafted just for one family, giving Schiavo's parents a final avenue of appeal.

There was President Bush, for the first time cutting short a rest at his ranch to sign a bill. Top Republican staffers on Capitol Hill told TIME that it took some lobbying by congressional Republican leaders, who Bush needs for his controversial Social Security reform and budget cuts, for the President to return on short notice in such a visible role. There were members of Congress, including some physicians like Senate majority leader Frist, earning the derision of the medical community by voicing their own views of Schiavo's condition based on little more than court transcripts and some grainy, heavily edited three-year-old videotapes. ("We're not doctors," Democratic Representative Barney Frank quipped. "We just play them on C-SPAN.")

There were protesters suggesting that Governor Bush should, in an eerie echo of the Elian Gonzalez snatching that took place five years ago, forcibly remove Schiavo from her hospice to make her a ward of the state?with the help of the Florida National Guard if necessary.

At one point, they almost got their wish. Agents from Florida's Department of Children & Families actually did begin to head over to Schiavo's hospice, but local police at the scene made it clear that they would not allow them in without an order from Judge Greer, who had previously enjoined the state from taking such a drastic action.

In the end, Governor Bush, a devout Catholic who scored valuable points with the religious right with his dogged work on the case, reluctantly admitted that "my powers are not as expansive as people would want them to be."

On the Internet, conservative bloggers questioned whether an anonymous G.O.P. talking-points memo calling the Schiavo case "a great political issue" was in fact a fake cooked up by Democrats. And DeLay, for whom the Schiavo case served as a well-timed media distraction in the midst of his growing ethical scandals, told a private gathering of the conservative Family Research Council that "this is more than just Terri Schiavo. This is exactly the kind of issue that is going on in America ... attacks against the conservative movement, against me and others, to destroy everything we believe in."

Many voters reacted negatively to such bluster. In the TIME poll, 54% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote against their congressional representative if he or she voted for the recent Schiavo bill. Still, for all the speculation that Republicans may have overreached with their control of Congress, it is hard to imagine that many voters, especially moderate Republicans, will punish legislators for, in effect, trying to prolong Schiavo's life.

"All we did was allow Terri's parents to have the same privileges as an individual sentenced to death?an appeal to the federal courts," says Thomas Price, a Republican Representative from Georgia. That comparison is debatable, but there is no denying that the action will resonate with a small minority of committed members of the religious right.

"For people for whom this is murder by the state in a grotesque and inhumane way, this will deepen and harden their energy and activism in ways that will last a lifetime," says former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who while personally conflicted over the issue, thinks Congress did the right thing. "But for everyone else, it will be a memory."

That surely was one of the political calculations the Republicans made when deciding to get so involved in the Schiavo case, which was first discussed in the halls of Congress late last year. At a time when G.O.P. leaders in Congress have been unable to gain much traction on issues like abortion and gay rights?which are near and dear to Christian conservatives?this was a no-lose opportunity to burnish their credentials with their most demanding and important supporters.

Still, many Republicans reject the notion that anything but deep moral conviction motivated the extraordinary legislative measure. "It's hard to say it's politics when you get that kind of consensus in a divided U.S. Senate," says Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

The move contradicted the G.O.P.'s long-standing support of states' rights, generating concern from a few independent-minded members of the party, like Virginia Senator John Warner. As the only Republican Senator to take to the floor to speak against the emergency legislation, Warner declared in the Congressional Record that "I fear the door has opened, and Congress, which by constitutional mandate is entrusted to pass laws for the nation, will again and again be petitioned to deal with personal situations which are the responsibility of the several states."

Even so, the idea of a meaningful split emerging in the Republican ranks seems to be overblown. The people who deliver votes and mobilize constituencies are still on the same page, and that means doing what they can to make social conservatives happy.

Some on the religious right think the Schiavo case shows that their agenda is more realistic than ever. "When I heard that Senate minority leader Harry Reid was with us, I thought I had died and gone to heaven," says the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition. "[This] says that being pro-life is respectable and has political credibility. The issue is broadening; it isn't just abortion."

If people like Sheldon get their way, it will be about almost everything that encompasses the so-called culture-of-life movement, including restricting stem-cell research and assisted suicide. Social conservatives are almost certain to use the Schiavo case as another weapon in the coming war against what they castigate as judicial activism, the practice of creating new rights from the bench.

As Frist contemplates the so-called nuclear option of trying to take away congressional Democrats' ability to filibuster President Bush's controversial judicial nominees, Schiavo is sure to be a rallying cry. In particular, critics fervently believe that the federal courts that heard the Schindlers' appeals largely ignored Congress's will by not following the bill's order to conduct a thorough re-examination of the case, formally called a de novo review.

"In this instance, judges have essentially made themselves the supreme political power and simply aren't willing to listen to other branches of government," says Don Feder, communications director of Vision America, a Texas-based Christian conservative group.

Some Democrats tried to make political hay out of the fact that Republicans were rallying to the defense of Schiavo, much of whose care has been paid for by a malpractice settlement along with Medicaid, just when the G.O.P. was trying to limit such awards and cut Medicaid spending.

Even if that doesn't help their case on specific issues, some Democrats believe the Schiavo episode may change voters' general perception of the two parties. "This is a cold, bracing slap in the face for a lot of Americans, as to the degree they want these very personal issues debated upon in a political forum," says Democratic political consultant David Axelrod.

Although they insist that the Schiavo saga was an extreme example, Republicans aren't giving up on the issue of end-of-life care. The Senate Health Committee is set to hold a hearing this week on end-of-life issues, and there is talk among some members of introducing a federal version of Terri's Law, which would give other people in similar right-to-die cases access to federal courts.

Members only have to look at their state counterparts to get other ideas: a conservative Democratic lawmaker in Michigan has introduced a bill that would bar spouses caught in adultery from blocking measures that would keep a husband or wife alive, while a Georgia state senator has authored legislation that would bar the removal of a feeding tube from patients able to breathe on their own unless they had left a living will specifying otherwise.

Certain social conservatives don't believe in any kind of right to die, even if someone has asked for death in a living will. In their minds, ending any life-sustaining medical treatment is tantamount to murder or assisted suicide. The G.O.P. probably would never go that far. Still, as an aide to the House leadership puts it, "the fight is not over."

And with that kind of language, the battle over Terri Schiavo's legacy isn't likely to simmer down anytime soon.

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