Posted on 03/30/2005 8:45:00 AM PST by stan_sipple
the (relatively silent) majority of Americans feel(s) that the most compassionate treatment for Terri Schiavo - as well as the proper legal course of action - is to let her vegetative existence end, as advocated by her legal guardian, her husband.
For Republicans who consider their party a captive of the religious right on matters like medical research and right-to-die legislation and now legislative intrusion into the judicial system, there is a way to at least feel more comfortable with their political consciences.
That way is to leave a party whose leadership is currently attempting to leave behind in the dust of American constitutional history the principle of separation of powers that has served this country well for more than 200 years.
the religious conservatives deeply involved in the case believe in an afterlife - eternal life in circumstances considerably more appealing than lying in a hospital bed in a vegetative state for 15 years, being kept alive by food and liquids fed into your body through a hole in your abdomen.
Wouldn't the more compassionate course be to release Terri from a vegetative existence in the belief you are sending her on to a better life after death?
(Excerpt) Read more at omaha.com ...
Hmmm. . .based on the part of the post you quoted, your answer doesn't seem to fit. The call was for paleocons and libertarians to show some political drive or stop bitching. The call wasn't for libertarians to 'carry the water for the big tent people.'
"Unfortunately they are right. This three-ringed circus in Florida is a disaster for the GOP and conservatives."
And the disaster can be averted if the Republicans would just do what they have SAID they were going to do.
Examples:
Republicans speak of Nuclear Option, but don't pass it.
PASS IT.
Bush and Bush speak of the travesty and injustice concerning Terri Schiavo.
INTERVENE.
Congress issues subpoenas and passes a law requiring de novo review. The law is NOT struck down by the federal courts.
ENFORCE THE SUBPOENAS, and INVESTIGATE THE JUDGES who ignored the law and did NOT give the legally required de novo review. Impeach them if it is shown they willfully disregarded the clear instructions of the law.
The Republicans in the Florida Senate did not pass the bill to save Terri.
REPLACE THEM IN THE NEXT ELECTION.
Etc.
The Nuclear Option is the biggie. Republicans have nowhere to hide on this. They have promised it, but they refuse to deliver. THAT is what is going to cost them their majority. The solution is real, real simple: DO WHAT YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO DO.
That's it.
That's all.
Anything less, and it is a disaster for the GOP and conservatives, a SELF-INFLICTED disaster.
You cannot expect to lie to people and hold onto power.
When you campaign on something, once you get power you had damned well better DO IT. You don't have the "option" to welch on your promises, not if you want to KEEP power anyway.
Well Mr. Anderson.... Now that you have written this article and successfully removed all doubt that you are an blithering idiot--perhap you should go get a job you are better suited for outside of journalism. Maybe a professorship at the University of Colorado.
Care to point out where the President has any authority to do what you think he can do?
Republicans how they |
You are getting quite a kick out of this thread aren't you? :)
Along with "who else will they vote for, the democrats?"
And the hue and cry that it's a states right thing; after wage and price control, minimum wage, unelected federal judges running school districts, the EPA putting people in jail for filling in a ditch or building where there's a bug, OSHA, ADA, the list is endless.
Yet all the states rights handwringing over trying to protect one innocents "life and liberty" is suddently the destruction of states rights.
Sign me a religious whackjob bible thumping nutcase (all of which I've been called the last week and frankly, quite proud of it).
It was while I was living in Omaha in 1981 that I decided to foreswear newspapers and TV news forevermore. MSM fraudrooms, AP, Gannett press affiliation simply had destroyed their ability to report the true picture.
I have no regrets, and have been happier and more informed ever since.
Since when do you want political drive from libertarians? Half this site spends hours a day insulting and deriding them. Now it's their fault if the run of the mill Republicans are helpless? It would be amazing if it weren't so predictable.
"Care to point out where the President has any authority to do what you think he can do?"
I will do so if you really to read it.
But does what I have to say make any difference?
You can copy and paste all the Patrick Henry quotes you want, but that does not change the fact that he tried to impose Episcopalian as the official state religion.
The Deists defeated that legislation and gave us separation of church and state. If not for the Deists, we would all be Episcopalian.
...
Congress can NOT amend the Constitution. Read Article V more carefully.
Don't you love it when the libs tell the conservatives what they should do?
The "opinion" polls are based completely on views that people have made from inaccurate, incomplete and false information.
The legislative actions that conservatives have taken would not, and were not trying to, determine Terri's ultimate fate. They sought judicial review of long held, prior court findings on the proposition that an unbiased look at new and long ignored evidence could change those findings. They sought injunctive relief, from removal of the feeding tube, until full reconsideration of the findings could be done.
Far from interfeering, they sought the same type of chance that death row inmates are given by the courts as a matter of course. It is the court in Florida, and the appeals courts that refused to over-rule judge Greer, that have placed the government, through the courts, as an active advocate for one family member, instead of ruling as an unbiased arbitor between different family members.
All Terri's family has ever asked for is a re-examination of judge Greer's original "findings" and maintenance of the status quo until those findings were re-examined. The public has the impression that successive courts have looked at the whole record, completely, and came to the same conclusions that judge Greer did. That is not true. They, the appeals courts have simply ruled to not over-turn judge Greer and not demand that he re-examine his "findings". In that process they have only looked at the original hearings and the evidence and testimony that judge Greer had in those hearings. They, the appeals courts, have not, not once, looked at things judge Greer either refused to look at or that were not presented to judge Greer at the time. Instead of the courts conducting any judicial inquiry in the case, they have simply refused to inquire beyond judge Greer's original opinion.
What the public is missing is that judge Greer and the appeals courts have actively interveened in this case. They have not adjudicated it. They, through judge Greer and the appeals courts' refusals to reconsider Greer's opinion, have become active advocates for Michael Schiavo - political advocates, not "judges".
Is there 'evidence' to question all of judge Greer's findings? Yes. To over-turn Greer's findings? Maybe, maybe not. The point is not whether or not they would change the findings. The point is that they are legitimate questions that should be asked in determining what should be the correct "findings" in the case.
If Terri had said what Michael Schiavo now says she told him, then why was it a brand new annoucement from him, which it was, six years after her ordeal began and only after a court settlement gave him the money to hire lawyers to fight for that newly announced statement of Terri's "wishes". Prior to that, Mr. Schiavo never made the claims he now makes about Terri's wishes.
If Terri's mental state is as judge Greer accepted it as, then why were two of the court appointed "doctors" known advocates for euthanasia and not doctors with no known strong opinions, one way or the other. Judicial Misconduct.
If Terri's state was "irreversible", then active physical therapy would have shown that to be true and there was no basis for the court allowing Michael Schiavo to prohibit it. Permitting it would have proven Mr. Schiavo's position, not hurt it. Judicial misconduct.
If the examiners had incontrovertible evidence of Terri's state, the state that judge Greer accepted, then MRIs and Pet Scans would have been of no harm to anyone except Terri's parents, who want the "evidence" of such tests. For a judge to have this kind of case, with opposing family memebers, and not insist on such tests, which were in his power to do, he became an active advocate, taking sides and not a judge. He should be impeached for judicial misconduct. The outcome of the tests is not the point. The fact that he refused to have the tests done, leaving his "evidence" open to legitimate question, and then refusing to concede the lack of harm and "evidenciary" need for those tests, constitutes misconduct. He took a side in a case before him and from that point on he proceeded to impede the possibility of arriving at any finding other than the one he chose. Judicial Misconduct.
If you know of a Florida state rep, send this to him.
What were her wishes about what was to be done in a situation like this?
It's amusing to witness spiritual/religious dimwits like this fellow, and Garrison Keillor, lecturing Christians on our own belief systems. It would be something like Jerry Falwell giving lectures on all things Wiccan.
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