Posted on 03/24/2005 12:45:36 PM PST by Southside_Chicago_Republican
I've been searching for the right word to describe what is happening to Terri Schiavo, a word that has some real blood to it.
It's important to find the right word now, because, by the time you read this, the severely brain-damaged woman might be dead.
Perhaps you've noticed other bloodless words being flipped at her, words like "viability" and phrases like "pull the plug."
These words were once the issue of bloodless people, of clerks and sophists who can prove almost anything with their fine arguments. The rest of us have fed on them until they shape how we think, shaping our options, shaping our future.
If you love someone who is severely disabled, you've thought about this, about their lives years from now, and you wonder about those folks who talk abstractly, using the phrase "quality of life" and you can hear the threat in what they say.
And if you don't think what's happening has anything to do with your own future, you're wrong. Our collective attitude toward her death will likely shape the legislation of tomorrow, when the Pepsi Generation is forced to realize that immortality isn't an option.
What's happening to Schiavo suggests that Americans have finally been taught to think like bureaucrats. Bureaucrats cover their flanks with e-mail and send copies to others to establish positions. They almost say what a thing is, but not outright, not exactly. The bureaucrat embraces the neutral and avoids conflict.
And we've allowed this. We've embraced the values of the bureaucrat, of the manager, and replaced those older, iconic Western values of self-reliance, accepting responsibility and meeting things head on. One of these values--albeit ignored through countless wars and cruelties--is that human life is sacred. But now we are about process. Now we are about avoiding consequence.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Boy I feel sorry for the staffers that are having to field all these phone calls.
I saw her on Norwegian television tonight and if you ask me she should have been dead long ago.
Kass is a good writer. He's right - it's MURDER. And he has the stones to call abortion MURDER as well in this article, which is career suicide working in liberal Chicago.
It would be kinder to use a Zylon gas chamber on her.
I do, too, which is all the more reason we must be polite. The woman I spoke to was very nice, but sounded exhausted.
You picked the right screen name.
I heard Shiavo's attorney, Felos (former board of director of the "hospice" where she's being murdered, by the way), say that the parents, instead of resisting further, would be better served to spend their time in reflection. Talk about insult to injury: A lawyer without a conscience lecturing the parents about reflecting on one's actions.
I'm sure she is. Honestly, if I were their office, I'd have a "answer only calls from within Florida" this week.
They're covering this case in NORWAY?! Considering how liberal Europe is, I am not sure this a good thing.
"A lawyer without a conscience lecturing the parents about reflecting on one's actions,:
I am convinced that Law School sucks the heart, the soul and conscience out of a person....
Kass has stepped on worse "third rails" than this. I think he'll be alright. With all the bootlickers and hacks in the Chicago media, I think the people here appreciate someone who speaks his mind, no holds barred.
I don't know why anyone would apply for that sort of job unless they were willing to field all these phone calls (and they shouldn't apply).
Why Scott Peterson - haven't seen you on a coon's age!!!
And how would you recommend her death be brought about? Do you prefer gassing? The needle? Or is the starvation of this human being enough for you?
Well, typically, they don't have the flood of calls that I feel sure they are getting right now.
Micheal Schiavo is absolutely brilliant.
Michael is openly (and completely legally) finally completing his murder of Terri, all before the rapt attention of the entire world. Judicial tyrants like blind Judge Greer assisting 100% in the hit.
He is the first cheating husband in history to publicly murder his wife without the slightest risk, and will (finally) inherit the phony malpractice monies he suckered out of the magnificent Florida courts. Not to mention get the proceeds of her substantial life insurance.
Maybe you could be so kind as to let me know when I should be dead too.
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