The Tragedy Of Terri Schiavo And The Need To Overthrow Judicial Tyranny (Don Feder Alert)

When it comes to a judiciary run amok, the other two branches of government are in a persistent vegetative state.

Terri Schiavo died today. Her fate was sealed by an adulterous mate, a homicidal judiciary and conservative politicians who could pass for eunuchs.

Whenever a judge – almost any judge, anywhere – issues an edict (however bizarre or detached from reality and the law), elected officials lose bladder control when contemplating the possibility of actually doing something about it.

In San Francisco earlier this month, California Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, with a wave of his imperious hand, reversed a decision of 61.4% of the electorate.

Kramer struck down the state’s marriage law and redefined matrimony in California to include homosexual couples. In so doing, he also nullified a 2000 referendum, passed overwhelmingly by the voters, defining marriage a la Genesis.

Stripped of its legalese, Kramer’s reasoning came down to this: I think it’s a denial of equal protection for individuals whose unions are characterized by acts of sodomy not to be able to wed. Therefore, bleep you -- state voters, Judeo-Christian morality and the obvious meaning of words (like “marriage” and “family”).

At least no one is dying (as yet) from Kramer’s decision. The same can not be said in the Terri Schiavo case.

The starvation death of Mrs, Schiavo was an exercise of a family’s right to privacy, judges tell us. Interesting.

The same mythical privacy right (alleged to be lurking in the First Amendment’s “penumbra”) which gives a woman the right to kill her unborn child, now gives a husband – claiming he’s fulfilling his wife’s wishes – the power to have his disabled spouse put to death in a way in which we don’t even kill dogs in this country.

Terri Schiavo wasn’t comatose. She didn’t need a respirator to breathe. If she was being “kept alive by artificial means,” so too is the dialysis patient, and the diabetic, who will die without regular injections of insulin.

Terri was conscious much of the time. She smiled and seemed to recognize her parents. She tried to form words. Experts testified that, with therapy, her condition could improve.

Dr. William Cheshire, an eminent neurologist employed by the state of Florida, believes Terri was misdiagnosed and that instead of being in a persistent vegetative state, she was in a state of minimal consciousness, and that she felt pain and visibly reacted to it.

But, in his omniscience, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer has ruled that Terri was a non-person kept alive with a feeding tube, and that, if she could communicate, she’d say: “Oh, please kill me. How I long for the excruciating experience of being starved to death over two weeks.”

The judicial demigod further determined that Terri’s parents (they who gave her life and valiantly fought to sustain it) should have no say in deciding Terri’s fate.

Instead, Greer ruled, the adulterous spouse (who prevented Terri from receiving therapy and who a nurse testified would lovingly inquire, “When is the bitch going to die?”) should speak in her behalf. (“That right, your honor, my wife repeatedly told me that if she was ever disabled – and I was living with another woman and stood to benefit financially from her demise – she’d want to die a slow and agonizing death.”)

The urge to play God isn’t limited to this Pinellas Court pipsqueak. The Florida Supreme Court, U.S District Court, 11th. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court all either concurred with Greer’s Auschwitz decision or refused to consider the case.

In the meantime, Republican politicians went through the motions. The Florida Legislature passed and Governor Jeb Bush signed Terri’s Law, providing for the protection of Mrs. Schiavo’s inalienable right to life. Greer and his colleagues declared the law unconstitutional.

Thereafter, Congress passed a special law giving federal courts the power to review the case independent of precedent. The federal courts declined. (Honor among tyrants?)

Congress even took the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena for Terri, to keep the brain-damaged woman out of the clutches of her judicial executioners. Greer ruled that the Congress of the United States lacked the authority to thwart his will.

Then, throwing caution to the wind, Governor Bush went to Judge Greer and argued that he should be allowed to take Terri into protective custody, under a law giving a state agency the authority to intervene in behalf of a vulnerable adult “suffering from abuse or neglect that presents the risk of death or serious physical injury.”

Greer held the governor had no such power. (Now there’s a shocker!) Instead of sending state troopers to the hospice to rescue the starving woman – thus fulfilling his mandate – the twice-elected governor went, hat-in-hand, to the man who’s been doggedly trying to kill Terri, to ask for permission to save her life.

The Florida Constitution provides: “All natural persons, male and female alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty … No person shall be deprived of any right because of … physical disability.”

As the state’s chief executive, with primary responsibility for enforcing its laws, Bush took an oath to “support, protect and defend” Florida’s Constitution. What part of that duty did he not understand?

In a test of wills, Bush failed. When attempting to stare down judicial autocrats -- legislators, governors and presidents almost always blink.

I know of only one man who didn’t – former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was willing to lose everything (except his integrity) for constitutional principle.

Known as the Ten Commandments Judge, Moore had the courage (in the face of successive Supreme Court misinterpretations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause) to display a massive Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Judiciary Building.

You can’t do that, Federal District Court Judge Myron Thompson squealed. Putting the Decalogue in a public place violates “separation of church and state” (words artfully inserted into the First Amendment, by successive liberal courts). Thompson’s assault on the Constitution was upheld by the 11th. Circuit Appeals Court. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?) On appeal, the Supreme Court let the judgment stand, but will soon rule on other Ten Commandments cases.

You can see why judges (who’ve assumed godlike powers) wouldn’t want God’s law – with its injunction against murder – publicly displayed. To do so would acknowledge that our legal system, our Constitution and our nation were established on the Creator’s covenant first enunciated at Sinai – just as the Founding Fathers said they were.

Judges prefer a relativistic universe, governed by their personal philosophies and whims, to one anchored in eternal rules of right and wrong.

When he refused to bow and grovel before the federal judiciary, Moore was suspended as Alabama’s chief justice. In November 2003, he was tried before a judicial ethics panel.

Moore’s position was elegant in its simplicity: I took an oath to defend the Alabama Constitution, which acknowledges God as the foundation of our laws. Therefore, as the state’s chief judicial officer, I am bound to affirm that truth, which I have done with my Ten Commandments statue. And, by the way, I’m not required to go along with the federal judiciary’s convenient misinterpretations of the Constitution.

If Jeb Bush had followed Roy Moore’s example, what exactly could Judge Greer have done? Held him in contempt (surely not in the same degree that most sane people hold Greer)? Sent Pinellas County deputies to arrest him?

It would have provoked a constitutional crisis, fainthearted conservatives wail. Good.

In case they haven’t noticed, we are in a constitutional crisis created by activist judges intent on mandating homosexual marriage (thereby deconstructing the American family), taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, abetting pornographers in flooding the country with filth, enshrining abortion-on-demand as the penultimate right, making Americans subject to foreign laws, and rewriting our history to transform America into one (secular) nation, under their heel.

To save the Constitution and representative government will take a thousand Roy Moores, all echoing the words of Thomas Jefferson (author of our nation’s founding document) “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” It has.

"It would have provoked a constitutional crisis, fainthearted conservatives wail. Good.

Exactly!

You are right that I'm really uncomfortable with withholding food and water from anyone. I don't think it's right at all.

Yet, (not "but") I don't see any way that we can save all people. The Schiavo case is a really awful one in so many ways, but I can't see not letting family decide under most cases what happens to their loved ones.

Personally, I'd want to have the option for my family (including wife) to make that decision for me if the time comes, but I'd rather be given a big dose of morphine or something than be denied food and water. Is that euthenasia? I really don't know.

I don't mean any disrespect to you, but that's how I see it. The courts as a whole are asked all the time to make awful decisions because life is filled with awful decisions sometimes.

The Schiavo case is an especially nasty one, but I really believe deep in my heart that the framers of our constitution were being very wise when they established the protections for the judiciary. I believe we're already so filled with anger and hate right now that being able to "control" the judiciary would be a nail in our coffin.

Our country is in a "triage" mode as it is. We haven't even seen the beginning of how bad it is, financially. We're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and with each of those stopgap transactions, someone is stealing 20%. I personally know people who are fully living and breathing and intelligent and kind who have DIED because the money doesn't exist in the system to pay for their care. Some of them have had children.

It's an awful thing, and Terri is a victim of so much, but there are thousands of Terri's out there (about 35,000 in a vegistative state) and countless more that have full facilties that are also dying.

I guess the symbolism is what troubles me. It's as if the "issue", once "won" will actually help people. I fear it will not.

I don't think everything is hunky-dory in the Schiavo case at all, but I think we don't serve anyone by going overboard (not to say AT ALL that I don't care about this tragedy)

If Michael Schiavo ignored the sanctity of his marriage, then there has to be a law that addresses that issue for a judge to rule that way. I'm not saying there isn't such a law now, but I haven't heard about it. I mean look. there are people in jail for LIFE under the 3 strikes you're out laws for stealing a few drugstore items and such (not saying it's right). The law says X and judges attempt to rule within those laws.

As for you calling the children of Schiavo "bastards", I think that's out of line completely. They did nothing wrong and are probably suffering right now because of all this.

What I'm really interested in is why you think there is no comparison in the baby "Sun" case. Sure there are differences, but isn't the crucial issue the same? A little baby is taken off life support over the objections of her MOTHER and all other family members. Forget the soap-opera qualities of the Schiavo case, What reason do you see that makes the death of baby "Sun" different?

Just wondering.

First, the "Schiavo "b*st*rds" comment was Not mine. I don't know who made that remark. But that isn't a comment I'd ever make.

Now....you seem to not understand that a judge has discretion. It's not black and white. And you don't allow any room for a judge who may have a conflict of interest, or may not be acting honestly or properly.

As for "life support" in a terminal case, and food & water for a disabled person, well, if you don't see a difference, I can't help you.

sorry about attributing the bad word to you. my apologies.

Actually I do understand that judges have discretion in most cases unless knee-jerk legislation takes it away from them in such cases as 3 strikes you're out and mandatory drug sentencing. Discretion is an important part of the process. I personally feel that after all this time in the courts and so many judges reviewing the case, it's safe to say that charging them with conflict of interest or dishonesty is rather bizarre. These aren't satan-worshipping monsters. They are people trying to do their job.

I'd allow room for questioning any individual I guess on anything, but I'd have to see some PROOF first. So far I haven't seen any.

As to the baby "Sun" case, thanatophoric dysplasia has had a better rate of survival into childhood than those in a persistant vegetative state have of recovering their conciousness after so many years.

I'm only saying that...Look, I watched Rev. William Thornton here in Chicago lose limbg after limb and finally his life over diabetes. The only thing that kept this wonderful father of SIX from still gracing our world was the cost of healthcare and the lack of funding for those without insurance. I submit that the lives to be saved are GREATER than our ability to save them. It is terrible but true.

Had we jumped on the bandwagon of Rev. Thornton, I would be fully in synch with you. he had CHILDREN who needed him, his carewas a FRACTION of the cost of Terri's care, and his dilemma is played out every day without a camera being trained on any of them. Does that mean I wish Terri her fate? No.

I am not you or your point of view. I just see a greater question, a more troubling question than simply Terry and against the evil, rioting corrupt judges.

I'm just against hypocracy in general. Left and Right both want things their way. If someone isn't furthering their own agenda, or trying to, then they're a pretty rare bird.

Yes, I gathered that.

I was just curious if:

A. You knew how many federal judges there are

B. You knew what phrase the Associated Press begins most of its black-robed clown alerts with

I'll point out in advance that the AP feed is what most newspapers rely on to publish "news" stories.

Thanatophoric dysplasia by definition is a lethal, terminal condition.
What Terri had was NOT. Period.
That's the difference.

You keep going back to money. Why?
Terri's parents, with the help of donations had money to care for her. That ends that debate.

You already said that you don't think starving/dehydrating her was right. Then why are you continuing to support that decision and order? It was Wrong. It was barbaric. It was Not euthanasia. It was Not a tragedy.
It Was an Atrocity.

I go back to money because it's what we use as a medium of expressing our priorities.

I'm only trying to express that, you'll always find enough money in a case like Terri's when every news source is on the story.

Most people live outside of the spotlight. People die quietly every single day because the needed procedure/medication/etc. is beyond their means. They die quietly - there is no song composed for them, no midnight votes, no comment from Rush.

As sad as it is, as a society we're making life and death choices every day for people. Let's face up to that, OK?

You may call me a hypocrite or cruel, but I believe we HAVE to make hard decisions. It's too easy to go for the symbol and ignore the hard thinking. As the the big crunch starts in state-funded healthcare continues, we'll be making more and more decision like : "do we save these 7 diabetics from dying slowly with dialysis treatment, or do we spend the money putting a new liver in the guy in bed c-3?

Facing the truth is hard, but I don't see how we remain moral people without addressing it.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.