Posted on 03/25/2005 5:21:18 AM PST by mhking
My position on the Schiavo matter has vascilated back and forth over the past few days as I've agonized over the matter.
Should she be given a chance at life? If so, what kind of life are we talking about? Is there a chance at rehabilitation? Is Michael Schiavo an evil S.O.B., or is he simply a heart-broken man?
Conversely, is she truly in a vegetative state? A virtual zombie with eyes open, and nothing inside? Are her parents and family in denial about her pain and suffering? Are the evangelicals coming to her aid getting so worked up that they are looking past the true nature of this situation?
Difficult questions these. Who wins? Who loses?
There is no winner here. This situation is heartbreaking at the core. A vibrant woman struck down in the prime of her life. A myriad of doctors, most of whom have indicated that much of her brain tissue has deteriorated and possibly even liquified inside her skull. CAT scans that support that diagnosis.
Conversely, we see her eyes focusing on a balloon, we see her apparently responding to people entering her limited field of vision.
What do we believe?
After 22 different judges have agonized over this, they all have come to the same decision: that her husband has the right to make that agonizing decision.
Talk show host Neil Boortz has taken the stance that Terri Schiavo has earned her place in heaven, and that we, as a people, should let her go home.
Do you believe in Gods promise of everlasting life? Do you believe that the reward for a life well spent on this earth is a life with God in heaven after you die? If you do, then a few more questions if you will.Jesus awaits Terri Schiavo at the gates of heaven with open arms. He will grant her eternal rest. He loves all, no matter which side of this sad story the people are on.Do you believe that the human soul can make the transition to everlasting life while the human body that carried that soul through life clings to life on this earth? If you do, then you must surely believe that Terri Schiavo has earned and is already enjoying her reward in heaven. That being the case, why is it so important to you that the now-unneeded body of Terri Schiavo is kept alive?
But perhaps you believe, as I do, that the human soul is so connected to and integrated with its earthly body that any transition will not be made until that body ceases functioning -- until death occurs.. That being the case, why do you so ardently desire that the soul of Terri Schiavo spend five, ten, perhaps 30 years or more trapped in a useless and non-functioning body, unable to move on to whatever reward awaits her? Isnt 15 years enough?
Where do your concerns truly lie, with the eternal soul of Terri Schiavo, or with her earthly body?
Let her go home. We can only commend her spirit among the angels for the journey.
Sadly, those who damn the judges and politicians and those of us who wish her spirit to move on are going to fracture the fragile fabric of the conservative wing of the GOP. In their zeal to ignore the rule of law and the Constitutional process, they are sliding down the slippery slope of anarchy toward mob rule.
This is a land of laws, not men. And the political problems that are surfacing -- on both sides -- point toward the deterioration of our constitutional republic. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for that will mean in the future?
I weep for Terri Schiavo today. But I fear for more tears in our future, thanks to those who would wad up the Constitutional protections and freedoms wrought by the notion of ignoring the rule of law, simply because those in power didn't get their way.
That is true. People expect Bush to do everything overnight.
And worse, how betrayed they must feel by our "system"! This isn't just a plain ol'death to them, it's a state-sanctioned MURDER! My God, how would that feel?! Horribly, painfully awful - and something which may embitter them forever against our system, our country, etc. Would you really blame them, regardless whether it's rational or not?
And many others, I am finding out. A FReeper replied to one of my "beware the Living Will" posts with the recollection of her grandfater being starved to death by the legal parsing of his Living Will. His wife knew perfectly that he would not want that, but the starvation was forced anyway, against the patient's wishes, based on the written advance directive.
The Schiavo case will rush many people to sign advance directives, the court workpload will be reduced, and the forced starvation will continue apace.
I oppose this execution of an innocent civilian... and have throughout. Life CANNOT be defined by convenience. I also question Michael Schiavo's motives here. Having said all of that, I can help but wonder whether the time to rescue her has now passed. I'm wondering if she has physically reached the point of no return in terms of organ damage through dehydration and malnutrition.
"Get consistent!"
I'll grant you this: your arguments are consistently wrong.
"Do you propose the President violate laws to attain a goal. Sorry old chap, but that is not the way it works in a free society."
Well, old chump, that is exactly what the founding fathers did when they signed the Declaration of Independence, and exactly what Eisenhower and Kennedy did when they sent the troops in to end Jim Crow and school segregation.
What you so blindly refer to as "a goal" is in reality the most fundamental principle of society: the protection of innocent life.
Further, it is Judge Greer and the other black-robed moral lepers that have upheld him who are in violation of the law. Using the power of the executive to rein them in violates the law in no way.
"here is seemingly NO LEGAL way to that end."
Road apples. Greer's ruling is no more valid than those of the 1950s courts that acquitted the guilty of murder in civil rights cases, and no more constitutional than laws barring Negroes from public accomodations.
"I just bet you pissed and moaned"
Did you have to study to become that supercilious, arrogant, and obnoxious, or is it a reaction to too many atomic wedgies from the popular kids at school?
"when klinton/el reno use shock troops to grab the Cuban boy. Now you call for the same here?"
Any reasonable person sees, as you do not, that there is a difference between pushing a little old lady into the path of a speeding bus, and pushing a little old lady out of the path of a speeding bus.
Klintstone and the rugmuncher general used their power to do an evil thing. I call for the Bushes to use their power to do a good thing. What sort of purblind wrongheadedness sees those things as morally equivalent?
Good post.
It is no wonder the public get this wrong. Even the highly educated are parroting a falsehood. Michael's "legal authority to speak" (actually, duty to carry out the patient's wishes) comes from the court's divining of the patient's wishes.
The manner in which this woman dies is not as important as the circumstances leading up to it.
Lest you think I concur with Michael Shiavo's decision aided and abetted by Felos and the court, permit me to categorically state otherwise.
"People expect Bush to do everything overnight."
Either Bush could have troops on the scene in a couple of hours.
his point as to how both sides view this is absolutely right on.
socialismisinsidious: "On our local news last night..there was a woman who was being interviewed b/c she runs an animal shelter and a starving dog had been brought in....she was crying, wiping away tears! b/c she had never seen a dog "in such bad shape before" this was after they did a piece on Terri about how "she wasn't in pain" blah, blah... the irony lost..."
Exactly:
Why Levin's Book Scares the Left March 24, 2005
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
Excerpts:
.....CALLER: "Listen, I want to talk to you about this Terri Schiavo thing and what I think is a great cultural disconnect here, and part of the reason why so many otherwise common-sense Americans are calling in and blithering, as you say, and that is that anyone over a certain age, say 30, you know, remembers when this whole "right-to-die," "death-with-dignity" thing got going, and it was all about allowing terminally ill patients who were long past their natural life span, we were torturing them by keeping them alive, yada yada yada -- and now we are here 20, 25 years on, and we're talking about starving a woman to death simply because, you know, her presence here has become inconvenient, and what I challenge the media of America to do is to get in there and insist that we get some current video of this woman, with what you just said notwithstanding, and I think it would go a long way towards informing the American public that that's not what we're talking about here, we're talking about --
RUSH: My point -- you go get the video if you want. I'm not suggesting you don't. All I was saying was the video is irrelevant to me. What the video shows is not relevant. I mean, if it showed that she's talking, of course, and swallowing and this sort of thing, I'm not saying I wouldn't be moved by it, but I don't need a video to have my belief here.
I don't need video. I don't need it. I'm not looking at it on the same terms these people are. I'm not trying to prove this woman's worthless. I'm not trying to prove that she has no right to live. I'm not trying to prove to anybody that I think she is so far gone or so worthless that we ought to kill her for our own sakes. I don't want to go there. That's not my point in this.
I'm trying to discuss the whole issue on the basis of the sanctity of life, and if hers isn't worth diddly-squat then someday ours isn't going to be. Yours isn't going to be.
You just wait till somebody wants to get rid of you for whatever reason. These things have ramifications down the road.
You just said it: This movement's been going on for 30 years, and where is it headed? This is not the end of it.
We're not solving a problem here. We're prolonging one and we are exacerbating one.
Now, if there were a living will here and if she had said without question that she didn't want to live this way, then this wouldn't even be a story. It wouldn't even be an issue.
If her husband... Look it, we're told she can't feel; she's in a vegetative state, then why does it matter whether this is a painless death?
Why does it matter whether there's euphoria? If she's a vegetable, she won't know any of that. Why do you have to tell us that this woman is going to be in a euphoric state? "It's going to be peaceful. It's going to be dignified. She'll feel nothing!" She can't feel anything anyway! According to all of you, she's a vegetable! Why do you tell us all this?
You must be concerned she's feeling something, and you don't want us to be upset, but you're contradicting yourselves left and right.
On the one hand she's a vegetable; she's worthless. Then you have to tell us she won't feel anything. It's peaceful and she's in a euphoric state and all this. If she doesn't feel anything, if she's a vegetable, and if her life inconveniences no one -- and it won't because her parents have said that they're willing to take it over -- all her husband would have to do is say, "You know what, Mr. and Mrs. Schindler? She's yours."
He won't do that and he won't do it because he's on record in court as saying she told him. He can't back out of this now. But that would be a bit of a solution to it. Look at this. "The Terri Schiavo drama has focused renewed attention to the euthanasia law in the Netherlands, and the Dutch ambassador to the US disputes assertions that Dutch euthanasia guidelines have put his country on a slippery slope towards state assisted murder. 'At least we have enabled by a debate in our parliament to nail down our approach. We consider that a strong point on our part.'" So he came to America, he defended the Dutch euthanasia law and started to lecture us on killing innocent people. That's where it's headed, so, you know, made the bed, live in it.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Articles...
(Washington Post: Conservative's Book on Supreme Court Is a Bestseller)
(Washington Times: Ambassador defends Dutch euthanasia law)
Buy The Book...
(Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America - Mark Levin)
For me , this is the subject. I can understand a DNR status and also taking people off life support. Usually, these measures are taken by the family soon after the trauma if these are the patients wishes. If I understand correctly, the first time the removal of life-support was mentioned was 7 years after the trauma. For me, this is totally unethical to remove feeding from a person after 15 years of living this way.
This just has me sick and angry beyond my power to express. It is like a distillation of all that's wrong with our nation -- our drift from the Constitution, to say nothing of the Bible which so influenced the thought and worldview of the Framers.
Wait, did I say "drift"? "Drift" praises by faint damn. It hasn't been a drift. It's been sedition, it's been rebellion, it's been a suicidal and deliberate plunge.
What enrages me is the innocent who suffer. I'm sorry Hunter Thompson's worldview led him to kill himself; but he suffered directly for his own sin. I'm sorry on one level or another for everyone who ruins his own life by his own sins.
But this woman, Terri Schiavo, is being slowly tortured -- TORTURED -- to death, in this land of unprecedent plenty, and of unprecedented access to God's Word. And this is being done to her in full view of everyone and, if the polls are to be believed, with the fatuous approval of the majority.
Dear God in Heaven, we kid ourselves about how we're #1 because of our superior military, and we feel so damnably invulnerable -- incidents like this just make me feel that the "timer" of God's ripely overdue judgment is about to ring.
To employ an overused cliche, I fear for my children. They didn't do this; but they are likely to suffer for the sinning idiocy of their elders, many of whom post regularly on FR in defense of our godless culture. And when the hammer falls, so long delayed by Romans 2:4's mercy, not a soul in the universe will be able to gainsay God's verdict. There will be a lot of weeping and howling, yes; but a lot of nodding, too.
I agree with that. It is reverence to the gift of life from God vs. a secular humanist point of view. Some people think life isn't to be monkeyed with, others see nothing wrong with asserting human will and human intelligence in this circumstance. The battle will never be settled. The human condition is not capable of settling it.
That is correct.
For me, this is totally unethical to remove feeding from a person after 15 years of living this way.
For me it is totally unethical to stop feeding a human in order to cause the body to die, period. Would have been wrong the first day, first week, first month, and it is unethical now, to me.
It is perfectly ethical to the medical and legal professions.
We have no right to murder an innocent, living human being.
That goes for you vigalantes too.
She was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic household. She has at least heard the biblical Gospel.
mhking: "...I fear for more tears in our future, thanks to those who would wad up the Constitutional protections and freedoms wrought by the notion of ignoring the rule of law, simply because those in power didn't get their way."
Rush had a lot to say yesterday about the "blatant, blithering ignorance" out there "that is informing people" who would wad up the Constitutional protections and freedoms. Here's a little taste of what he said:
Why Levin's Book Scares the Left March 24, 2005
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com
Excerpts:
Rush: "....Now, I did an interview today, a little interview on the phone with an info babe from U.S. News & World Report. ....the Washington Post ran a story on his [Mark Levin's] book Sunday and they went out and quoted all these legal scholars at Georgetown and Harvard, and they said they're mystified by why this book is there.
They hadn't read the book; they don't intend to read the book, but they just can't believe it. So she was intrigued. "How come a book that is apparently selling so well to make it all the way to #3 in the New York Times list is not being read by a certain segment of the legal community and the public?" ....
...I said, "The reason why the book is doing so well is because it's education. This book that Levin has written, Men in Black [ - How the Supreme Court is Destroying America], teaches people about the Constitution, the founding of this country, and judicial history that used to be taught in schools but isn't anymore because we're too busy teaching about how corporations are destroying the planet via global warming and pollution and all this. We're being taught about Rosa Parks. We've got 15,000 chapters in however many textbooks on how great Bill Clinton was but we don't have any history on the Constitution.
The education on the founding of this country and what makes this country the way it is, is so woefully inept that a book like Levin's comes along and people go shazam! They're hungering for it and they're thirsting and they're reading for it."
She said, "Well, why are so many people ignoring it and playing it like it doesn't exist?" and I said, "Because they're the people threatened by it. They're the elites.
They're the elites, and these people love the fact that the courts are out of control, that the courts are now patrolled by judges who implement their personal policy preferences, and they look at Levin as two things. They look at him as a typical conservative -- which means he's an extremist, hayseed, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, a bunch of closed-minded bigots -- and the second thing is they fear him because he's a competitor."
I said, "It's no different they're ignoring the Levin book than how they ignore talk radio, or try to impugn talk radio.
They used to have a monopoly. The Democrats in the media used to have a big monopoly." .....
Do you people know how much blatant, blithering ignorance there is that is informing people on this case?
You have genuine glittering jewels of colossal ignorance who think they know it all, forming opinions on this case.
They call here; they talk to me; it's embarrassing. Quite honestly it's embarrassing to listen to some of these people tell me what they think. It's so embarrassing. It seems pointless to argue with them. It seems fruitless.
They don't even have a basis of knowledge and understanding of the court system, Congress and the Constitution where I can even penetrate this wall, this boundary that rejects all facts that might challenge their already-conceived point of view -- and this is largely the fault of the deteriorating public school system in this country.
It's more like an indoctrination system than an educational system, and they're teaching about all these great social causes, and activism, and we heard in the campaign of 2004 that school kids were being taken out -- where was it, in Michigan? -- taken out of class, fourth and fifth graders to go campaign for Kerry, and so forth, and this was called "education" and "part of the process of teaching people about how our electoral system works" and all this sort of thing, it's mind-boggling.
You ought to see people when I start telling them about Article 3, and when I start describing to them Congress has jurisdiction over the courts.
You ought to see mouths fall.
First they get mad and think I'm an absolute idiot and am lying to them just to win the argument. It's stunning. It is stunning. It's like telling people two plus two is four but they think of five all their lives and they damn well are not going to accept that it's four even though it is, and in dealing with it, after four days of this, I will admit to you, folks, I am talked out.
I am frustrated trying to talk to these blockheads about this.
You do not know, folks, you do not know the depths to which I have sunk -- better said, the heights to which I have risen -- to maintain my patience and decorum in dealing with some of this.
Because, frankly, you know, after awhile, it becomes pointless, fruitless and frustrating to talk to blithering ignorant idiots, and they're so all over the place out there that it is just frightening.
It is just literally frightening. And, boy, the left owns 'em.
The left has made 'em, the left has dumbed 'em down, the left has made 'em comfortable being dumbed down, and they own 'em.
But we're not giving up. Don't misunderstand. I'm not suggesting giving up. I'm just being honest with you about how frustrating it has been this week to try to talk to some of these -- not all of them.
Some of them had glimmering signs that they might be receptive and open to certain things but a lot of them, a lot of them -- half the people calling here to argue with me don't even listen to the program, they're just on phone banks out there.
They've been ginned up by the likes of Democrat websites or whatever and it's like running push polls for death, push polls for death are being run out there. Just unbelievable. ..... [snip]
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