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 ...
Deists--Founders who believe in God--would hardly approve of the secular juggernaut imposed on Americans of faith.
Deism, is a word that comes from the Latin word “Deus” that means God. So, Deism means a belief in God.
Deism has come to mean a religion or classification of believing in God b/c those who are Deists believe that they can best understand God through reason and nature.
Demonstrating in her wheelchair with a "Feed Terri" sign in Florida this week, Eleanor Smith--a self-described lesbian, liberal and agnostic--told Reuters: "At this point I would rather have a right-wing Christian decide my fate than an ACLU member."
Your post #160 was well said, perhaps you missed my sarcasm tag on my post to you;)
Ok, so it is by your authority (via elected representatives) that this human being will be killed. I have a problem with that, but as a practical issue what if your assessment of her physical condition is wrong? It is hotly disputed you know.
How can you hate our misguided teenagers? They grow up to be good republicans.
And anyone allowing it a dozen years ago, would have faced charges, since she was not "dying."
It is no wonder the Left shies away from the religious Right.
When those who espoused less government a mere three weeks ago begin to scream bloody murder because big government won't solve their percieved problems, it becomes evident they are, to a point, unhinged and unreliable.
For us to lovingly take care of her until God calls her home. Which He will, when He is ready. We went through this with my great-grandmother so we know the routine. I could not, in my wildest dreams, imagine thirsting my grandma to death much less watching my child having it done to her.
"While your reply was garbled in transmission you seem to believe I am not likely to consider what you say. All I want is a hint as to the authority of a president to get involved in matters like this. Just a hint."
There are several legal bases on which the President can intervene.
First of all, Federal Law may be being violated. Specifically, Terri Schiavo has rights under the Constitution of which she is in danger of being denied. Specifically, there are broad questions of due process of law and possible judicial abuse.
Whenever a person is murdered or assaulted, there is state law claim, but there is also potentially a federal law claim for a civil rights violation. Terry Schiavo is a disabled American and there are troubling questions concerning due process in her trial. President Bush is the Chief Law Enforcement officer in the nation, and due process rights and disabled persons' rights are not just state law issues, but also Federal.
That is one ground.
A second ground, which highlights the due process problems highlighted above, is that Congress issued subpoenas. No Federal court quashed those subpoenas. I have heard lots of people screaming that Congress has no "right" to (a) pass individual legislation, (b) use such legislation to establish specific appellate jurisdiction in a case, and (c) issue subpoenas on such a matter, but all of those arguments are pure ideological piffle. In fact, Congress DOES have the power to pass individual legislation, and the Congressional Record is chock full of such acts for over 200 years. Congress DOES have the power, right there in the Constitution, to establish the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Courts. And Congress most certainly DOES have the power to issue subpoenas.
It is arguable that a FEDERAL Court has the power to reverse any such Congressional law, or the quash such subpoenas, but crucially THAT DID NOT HAPPEN. No Federal Court has overturned the special jurisdiction law requiring the Federal Courts to review the Schiavo case.
And no Federal Court has attempted to quash the Congressional subpoenas.
Now, again, folks are screaming like agony aunts that Congress has no RIGHT to do any of these things, but the Judiciary does not agree, two centuries of precedent don't agree, and even the text of the Constitution itself doesn't agree. What Congress did was legal, including issuing the subpoenas.
A STATE Judge in Florida IGNORED a Federal Congressional subpoena, and instructed all concerned parties in Florida to ignore those Federal subpoenas. Now, once again, we need only look to the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution. States Righters may scream that we live in a Confederacy, but the Constitution does NOT say that. The Constitution says that Federal Law is universally superior to State law. So, IF a Federal act is constitutional in the first place, it automatically overrides ANY contrary state law or act. STATE officials, including judges, have absolutely no legal power or authority to override FEDERAL directives. That is not legally debatable. FEDERAL Judges do. State judges do NOT. Ever. Under any circumstances. The Supremacy Clause is not some strange new act. The Founders wrote it into the Constitution in 1787. We have a government of limited powers, yes, but WHERE the Federal government has power, it's power is absolutely supreme over contrary state law. The Constitution has ALWAYS said that, and always been interpreted that way too.
This is not a debatable point.
A FEDERAL Court can decide that Congress has overreached, but no STATE court can. John Calhoun said that there was a doctrine of "Nullification", but there is no such doctrine. States cannot nullify Federal acts. Federal courts, and not State courts, determine if Federal acts are constitutional and legal. No Federal court quashed Congress' subpoenas. Therefore, they are binding federal acts.
Judge Greer in Florida overrode Congressional subpoenas.
Illegally.
The President of the United States has the authority to use Federal power to enforce the supremacy of Federal law over defiant acts of state officials, including state judges, at least unless a Federal court says otherwise.
Congress alone CANNOT enforce its subpoenas or its contempt rulings. Only the Executive has the power to do that.
There's three separate and independent grounds:
violation of constitutional rights of due process,
violation of the Federal rights of a disabled person under highly questionable circumstances, and
violation of Federal subpoenas by state officials.
To this, I would add a fourth.
Congress passed a law extending specific jurisdiction to the Federal Courts to do a de novo review of the Schiavo Case.
Whatever one thinks of the law, no Federal court struck down the law, therefore, the law IS Constitutional, as a matter of law. People may think Congress had no "right" to pass such a law, but Constitutionally, it certainly has the POWER to do so, and no Federal court said otherwise.
However, the Federal Judges did NOT comply with the law. They subverted it. Rather than giving a de novo review of the facts for consideration of an injuction, they deferred to the state judge on the facts and looked merely to procedural matters. They did not overrule Congress' law, which means they agreed that the law WAS Constitutional. But then they VIOLATED the law that, by their own failure to strike they admitted was Constitutional, by not obeying its terms.
When Federal officials violate Federal law and irreparable harm is about to be done thereby, the President has the authority to step in and prevent the harm from taking place. The President CANNOT remove the judges, but he most certainly has the authority to prevent judges (or any other public officials) from breaking the Federal law.
Those are four separate grounds on which the President could act.
There are others, but you said you wanted a hint.
The arguments against these acts are not legal but ideological: the President SHOULD not do this, or SHOULD not do that.
My counter is that the President has the legal authority to act, on Federal grounds, and when one balances the equities, he absolutely SHOULD act.
Of course, my true opinion is that the Federal Judges should have obeyed the law and given the de novo review in the first place. That would have resulted in a temporary restraining order while a different set of eyes studied the problem.
Should we all be expected to defend ourselves from say and invading foriegn army?
For those that would delete a message that dared to contain the word God I've been sending them this from Orson Scott Card:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1369848/posts
Nary a mention of religion, but powerful words and logic. It's moved some people but a handful have asked me never to speak to them again. I wonder if it's from guilt but I don't discount the possibility they are convinced I'm outright crazy.
I don't discount that as a possibility, but if this be lunacy I'll take it.
"The truth is still the truth, and I have no problem saying that there are many, many, here who have shown that they are verbally willing to assassinate whomever won't go along with them."
You may be right. They help keep the moderators busy, I suppose.
I can see it here in FR. The religious right is treated at times like the minorities are in the DNC.
ROFL!!!
That's just plain silly. The religious right is dominating this once conservative forum.
Yup. And I can live with that. What I can't live with is them telling fellow republicans who don't agree with them on every social issue that they aren't REAL republicans. It's the flip side of the radical left taking over the democratic party and then attempting to purge it of any members who don't want to skip down the road to Hippie Land.
Well, you're fulfilling your grandmother's wishes, and TS is having her wished fulfilled. What's the problem?
Are you willing to stake your children's lives that this is exactly what Terri wanted? I am serious here, stake everything that is near and dear to you?
I do not think that someone who is shacking up with another woman and has children can have Terri's best interest at heart. Plus, why did he wait 7 loooong years to tell us Terri's wishes? Why did he think he needed to go to nursing school to help take care of Terri when he apparently knew she did not want to live like that?
Why would I want to do that?
"I don't think the defining issue for conservative Christians is Terri Schiavo's situation. Terri's case only highlights the need to reign-in an Imperial Judiciary. The defining issue may be whether the Republicans, with a 55 seat majority in the Senate, decides to crush the Democrats' obstruction on Bush' judicial nominations. If the GOP decides the "civil" thing to do is to fold in the face of the Democrats' unconstitutional filibuster, Christians may walk."
I agree with your post.
I also agree that it's not the Schiavo Case per se, but the Nuclear Option, that is the real problem.
That said, the Schiavo case has been independently devastating to Christians for the following reasons:
At the state judicial level, Judge Greer is a Republican.
At the federal judicial level, as many Republicans as Democrats have reviewed the case. Republican judges have been as prone as Democrats to kill this woman. This is deeply troubling to Christians. Will changing the composition of the Judiciary even matter, if Republicans who get there won't be pro-life.
At the state legislature level, it was key Republicans in the State Senate whose refusal caused the last vote on Terri's life to fail. The DEMOCRATS did not prevent the legislature from acting at the State level. The Republicans did.
At the national legislature level, Congress passed its law and issued subpoenas, but then made no move to enforce them when defied by a state judge.
Also, most crucially of all, key Republican Senators last week, at the height of the Schiavo case, started backing off the nuclear option. McCain is reported to have waffled.
At the Executive level, two Bush boys made it clear they understood the moral importance of the case...and then having stated it with such clarity, played Pontius Pilate.
That all of this happened during Easter Week dramatically highlighted the religious overtones of the whole thing, and kept Christians more focused than ever. (Likewise, that the Pope is also on a feeding tube brings in even more external events that bear).
The Schiavo case itself didn't do it.
But the simultaneous failure of Republicans in 6 separate branches of government, during Holy Week, on an issue of passionate Christian interest, coupled with waffling on the nuclear option, created the political "Perfect Storm".
Come over to Free Republic, and it becomes very clear that economic conservatives really have no intention of EVER giving the Christian Conservatives what they want on abortion or even judges (the two really amount to the same thing). They want Christian votes, but they do not want to actually have to cast the powerful and controversial votes to advance the Christian pro-life agenda.
Because of the Schiavo "Perfect Storm", lots of Christians are calling on the Republicans to fulfill their promises and do what they have said they would do. And the non-Christian pro-life Republicans' response here has been "STFU you babies". Nationally, it has been not just letting Terri die (and denying possession of the manifest power to save her), but giving the Christians the finger on the Nuclear Option.
The only way Republicans can recover from this is to pass the Nuclear Option. And if Terri dies, the Bush brothers are NEVER going to regain the esteem with which they were once held by millions of committed Christian "sacred lifers".
The economic right does not see the wheels coming off the train here. Or maybe they do, but truly despise pro-lifers so much that they NEVER intended to allow the pro-life agenda to really advanced, and are angry that this case was allowed to become the "Perfect Storm" for them.
Whatever the sources of the angst, the bottom line is that the Christians have only been asking for ONE thing for 30 years: overturn Roe. They understand this has to be done via the courts. Which means they've been asking for the judges. The Democrats are filibustering the judges, which means the nuclear option. If the Republicans, with 55, won't pass it, they will have betrayed the Christian right, and the Christians are not going to listen to any excuses.
Then taxes will go up and the agenda of the economic right will collapse in a resurgent Democratic country, but the Christian right will be no further behind than we are now. We're already at zero. If Republicans with the power won't actually do anything to change that, they are not preferable to Democrats just because they say nicer things to Christians.
The calculation seems to be that the Christian Right are the Republicans' Blacks: roped dopes who will vote Republican no matter what. "Where else can they go?"
The answer is home.
And that doesn't hurt them worse: they're already defeated and heartbroken.
The people who REALLY get hurt, who actually LOSE something they've got, are the economic right.
In the end, to keep your tax cuts and deregulation, you have to allow the judges who will pare back abortion. That means the nuclear option.
Come on MM, you've been here long enough to remember the palestine/Israel and conspiracy theory slugfests on FR. There are thousands of religious right folk on the board NOT being edited by moderators.
Take a look at these two videos and tell me she is a vegetable.
http://web.tampabay.rr.com/ccb/videos/Terri_Big_Eyes.rm
http://www.blogsforterri.com/video/ConversationWithTerri.wmv
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