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 ...
ditto
That's the problem with the few images we've seen. They can lead one's opinion either way. Years ago, I did considerable work in nursing homes. I've seen plenty of people who couldn't walk, couldn't feed themselves (they could take food by mouth but had to be fed), had no control over their bodily functions and, if there was any kind of consciousness left, it was buried pretty deep. I often think of an old lady who sat with the same pained expression on her face all the time. I would go up to her, talk to her, take her hand, and look into her eyes. I have no idea whether she was conscious of any of that. Still, I would never have said that measures should have been taken to speed up her demise.
If I don't know what to make of that video of Terri, then I do have to give a lot of creedence to the people who have been with her -- her parents primarily, but also the nurses who have come forward recently. Could the responsiveness they say they've witnessed be nothing but their own illusions and and their own hopes against hope? I doubt it. I like what Kass says: "Perhaps she feels nothing, but her parents feel it. They want to care for her and should be allowed to." Terri's injured body is functioning on its own -- all she requires is food. Since I haven't visited her, I'm in no position to say if she is "there" or not. As I said, I'll take into account what her parents and others say and, if I err, I err on the side of life.
Judicial tyrants like blind Judge Greer assisting 100% in the hit. <<<<
Let's not forget the Congress and the Attorney General who are allowing activists Judges to get away with this Tyranny.
Are we at Critical Mass yet? Anyone?
Thx, I couldn't remember what the final letter was, either.
Abortion is the highest sacrament in the socialist religion.
Instead of having Terri Schiavo on yesterday's front page Chicago Sun-Times, the color photo was of a handful of NARAL and Now members boycotting a downtown pharmacy which refused to dispense the morning after pill.
Next to the Daley royalty, There is nothing more sacred in Chicago than "reproductive rights" ie abortion and the murder of the unborn.
I heard the brother of Schiavo say there was NO money left, no life insurance, nothing...except I'd bet they're thinking about book deals, made for TV movies.
But you're right, Schiavo and his attorney, with the judge's help, are getting away with murder, right before our eyes. (I think he needs to get rid of the evidence that he abused her) I never would have believed this country would allow such a thing.
She(?) looks euphoric, doesn't she?
We've become "1984."
The mainstream media (Information Ministry - INFOMIN), just doesn't want us to know about it.
In Vermont they are jailing a man who starved his cows....
This was so very clever. I recognized most of the rationalizations from past days. I wonder how many people you get to find their soul(less) mates!
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness..." Romans 1:28...
We are witnessing in Michael Schaivo, his lawyer, Greer, the justices, etc. what happens to the mind of a person who continuously lives without the thought of God in his life. They, at this point, can't help what they do because God has washed his hands of them. He has said, "o.k., do what you will." People in this state have a very hard time coming to repentance.
It's MINITRUE (Ministry of Truth).
Liar, Norway hasn't discovered electricity yet.
PLUS the scumbag could get an estimated $20 MILLION for the book/movie rights!
All these liberals have become bureaucrats -- or technocrats as they sometimes flatter themselves. Virginia Postrel did some good work on that expose.
He should simply state that the cows were not really viable and that their quality of life had declined. besides, he just remembered that the cows wanted it that way. It seems to work when you want to kill someone in a hospital.
Wouldn't it more honest to kill Terri quickly
than have her die slowly by starvation?
Michael Schiavo is able to ignore his act
in murdering his wife through this passive act
of starvation.
Terri isn't dying.
Terri is being murdered.
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