Posted on 04/09/2005 3:48:54 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Top conservative leaders gathered here a week after Terri Schiavo's death to plot a course of action against the nation's courts, but much of their anger was directed at leading Republicans, exposing an emerging crack between the party's leadership and core supporters on the right.
And yesterday they issued an ''action plan" to take their crusade for control of the nation's courts well beyond Senate debates over judicial nominees, pressing Congress to impeach judges and defund courts they consider ''activist" and to limit the jurisdiction of federal courts over some sensitive social matters -- a strategy opposed by many leading Senate Republicans.
''This is not a Democrat- Republican issue; it is a liberal-conservative issue," Rick Scarborough, a Baptist minister and chair of the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration, sponsor of the gathering, said in an interview. ''It's about a temporal versus eternal value system. We are not going away."
In the charged battle over the future of the nation's courts, conservatives so far are outgunned financially. Last week, liberal groups mounted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign designed to build support for the filibuster and thwart Senate confirmation of nominees they consider extremists who will pursue a ''radical agenda and favor corporate interests over our interests," as one MoveOn.org radio advertisement intoned.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
A majority voted for Gore and Nadar in 2000. 50.61% to be exact. That's how liberal the country is. My recollection isn't in error. It doesn't even require recollection to see this. The data is readily available today.
Really, I don't care what you think of my judgment. Let the facts speak for themselves, not spin on biased data collected by liberals with an agenda.
I haven't used "biased data collected by liberals with an agenda". That's the third time now you've made something up about what I've said.
To do so three times now shows your judgment to be -- poor -- again, again and again. Imply such again and I will demonstrate your poor judgment for a fourth time irregardless if you care that I do so.
BTW, our elctoral college victory in 2000 was by the smallest of margins -- several thousand in Fla.
Respectfully, i think you are cross circuiting issues. I am adamant that the trial court judge played legal games and felos' own death views made reasonable compromise impossible.
however, i just do not see how this is going to be negative upon the GOP. I do not think Jeb could have "done a waco" and snatched terri and kept her.
As i said, I do respect your perspective. I do think we need to work on getting the future changed so we never have another Judges Greer or Judge Whitmore AND so that no judge can play these BS games.
Until 2006 you will never know what will be the lynchpin issue. There are too many positives to counter the percieved negatives.
And PVS is MISdiagnosed 35-43% of the time, according to several medical studies.
And I can, as well, demonstrate your error in judgment by repeatedly stating "compromise" when I said "backroom deals." Had I meant, "compromise" I would say such, as there is a difference. I repeat, again, I in fact know it is backroom deals between one Rat, one pubbie, and the Governor, NOT compromise. Now, go play your little head games with someone else that you can try to twist nonfacts into your version of truth.
I know that you said "back-room deals". I called it compromise. Do you understand why? If I thought it was a back-room deal (with the nefarious implications that it implies) I also would have called it such. But I didn't. Get it?
Now, go play your little head games with someone else that you can try to twist nonfacts into your version of truth.
I disagree with you. Without insult I then tell you why I disagree with you. You then start making false accusations based on nothing that I said. So then I defend against those false accusations by demonstrating that your judgement was wrong. The more I do this the more insulted you got. Now you accuse we of playing a game.
You're posts are twisted.
Yes, that's why everyone needs a living will. The mind wants to die, but it is gone and the shell of the body lives on. Bad situation. Thankfully, for Terri, it's now over. Too bad it took 15 years of debasement before she was released from that awful body.
On this you believe to have claim to the only credible conservative position? On a case where the state demanded the withdrawal of food and hydration based on the hearsay evidence of spousal relatives and over the objections of close friends and family, you are looking to claim that only one side of the debate stood for personal freedom and against strong government control over life's most personal choices? On a case where a judge, in granting the petitioner authorization to "discontinue artificial life support" bolstered hearsay evidence with the testimony of a priest and an expert witness (testifying to what people would want) who had never met Terri Schiavo, you believe the most personal aspects of one's life represented?
This case was about substituting judgment for an incapacitated citizen. It was about all of our personal freedoms and federal due process rights.
Two different issues. For myself, I am the one to decide. That's why we all need living wills to try to diminish the opportunity for well-intentioned, but misled people to get involved and try to frustrate our wishes. As to Terri (or any person other than ourselves), we have a two-step analysis. We have to have a societal mechanism (we call it 'law') to determine what they wanted for themselves. That is precisely what was done in Terri's case. Those are the legal processes. We can keep tweaking the process, but the determination always has to be their wishes.
Then. we have to move to the misguided "moral" arguments about implementing her wishes, our own desires again become relevant because Christ told us, "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets." So, in any moral analysis, our own desires for how we would be treated is critical.
She may well have determined that, while it was not the best way to live, that she still wanted to live anyway.
Sure, all things known to human experience are possible, but there is absolutely no evidence that she changed her mind before the cardiac arrest. Moreover, this was not a woman who simply lost the power of speech and kept other cognitive abilities by which she might have changed her mind after the cardiac arrest. Her brain was destroyed, so she could no longer think and she was incapable of changing her mind (once the cardiac arrest occurred). Very sad situation. But to protect the sanctity of her earlier wishes, we have to have system that makes a good determination of her last known wishes.
So you have personal experience with this as...? I worked with hundreds of these type of patients (and she was not PVS) for thirty years. Believe me the mind has lots of control over the body. If she was depressed and wanted to die it would have been over quick.
It's amazing how well one can adapt and even become happy in a situation such as Terri's especially if she had received some sensory stimuli. In my experience the survival instinct is very strong in most people, even under the most adverse circumstances.
But if she was PVS as so many believe then she didn't have any awareness and as such couldn't be suffering. So why kill her?
Oh I get it, it's for OUR convenience.
Suppose the Democrats are trying to create some new $10B program. The Republicans have two choices: agree to a $5B "compromise" program, or let the program pass for the full $10B over their objections. Which course of action is better?
I would posit that the first course of action is pure folly. If the program works at all, the Democrats will take all the credit and the Republicans will be blamed for not having let it work even better. If the program doesn't work, the Republicans will be blamed for not having allowed it the necessary funding. In either case, the inevitable result will be that the program will get at least $10B/year forevermore.
By contrast, if the Republicans say the program is a completely horrible idea but the Democrats nonetheless give it full funding, then if the program fails to live up to its promises, the Republicans will be well positioned to argue that it failed because it was a bad idea and it should be cut entirely. The Democrats will not be able to deflect any blame for the program's failure, since they will have gotten exactly what they asked for. The Republicans, having been consistent in their uncompromising opposition to the program, will be vindicated. And while the program's first-year appropriation will have been $10B instead of $5B, the future appropriations will be $0/year instead of $10B/year. So the sacrifice of the initial "extra" $5B will repay itself double in the second year, and will pay off 200% every year thenceforth.
Well, there is hearsay/declarative evidence that she "changed her mind" (wanted to live) after. Had Michael allowed Terri to be examined by truly impartial doctors and made unedited videotapes available to all for impartial observation, perhaps she could have been asked what she wanted. I know you claim she was braindead yadda yadda yadda, but that claim is hardly beyond dispute. The CT scans show significant but not total cortical damage, and clinical observations were inconsistent with the legal definition of PVS.
Of course, in today's legal climate it's possible for a patient to clearly and unambiguously state a desire to receive food and water and have it denied on the basis that they're supposedly not competant to overturn their earlier "living will".
"Sure, all things known to human experience are possible, but there is absolutely no evidence that she changed her mind before the cardiac arrest. Moreover, this was not a woman who simply lost the power of speech and kept other cognitive abilities by which she might have changed her mind after the cardiac arrest. Her brain was destroyed, so she could no longer think and she was incapable of changing her mind (once the cardiac arrest occurred). Very sad situation. But to protect the sanctity of her earlier wishes, we have to have system that makes a good determination of her last known wishes."
One question. What if the court made the wrong determination and she always wanted to live?
Hey, people put these things in their living wills all the time...
The lawyer gives you a list of what sort of measures you want taken under what circumstances to keep you alive. And you check them off.
Actually I have a big family and I trust them to make the right decisions when that time comes.
I'm not trying to be insulting. I am really impressed.
I rarely get more from you than one-line wisecracks.
...because unfortunately Terri was unable to speak for herself.
bump with no comment
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