There's a Crack In Our Foundation - (Terri Schiavo; America betrayed her)

GOPUSA.COM ^ | APRIL 12, 2005 | DEBBIE DANIEL

[CHARLITE]

Wake up America . . . the alarm clock just went off and we keep turning over and going back to sleep. There's an "uprisin' on the horizon" and we refuse to face it. Sleeping through it might make it easier, but the end result will be devastating. We've had a lightning bolt cut through the very core of our foundation forming a crack so deep we could topple by our weight of indifference. This ship is listing badly; so tilted we may never be uprighted again.

Our love affair with America is "breaking apart" because our foundation is cracking. The winds of hatred are blowing hard; the thunderous protests have challenged our will, and the disease of apathy is eating away at our very root system. Go ahead and tell me I'm crazy. I'd actually rather hear that than to believe what I know to be true. I can handle my portended lunacy, but the reality of what I see happening before my very eyes is worse than a Shakespearean tragedy.

Last week was one of the most painful times of my life. I have never been on such a roller coaster of emotion and I can't seem to get beyond it. That's an admission I'm not proud to proclaim, but it's the truth. For a person who's always ready for "NEXT, one-two-three, GO," . . . I was stricken with a paralysis. My country was in great distress over a situation that caused everyone to lose. The visuals still play clearly in my mind and are more painful than I can express.

I was one of those people who wanted Terri Schiavo to live. I was one of those people who could not find any joy in Michael's Schiavo's relentless desire to fulfill his wife's "suddenly remembered" request seven years later. And lastly, I was one of those people you told to sit down and shut up. So I did. I needed just a little more time to mourn; it wasn't that easy for me.

With the passing of the Pope two days later, I could not move away so quickly from thoughts of Terri Schiavo's passing. I knew the Pope would be okay, but I wasn't sure about the rest of us.

I've cried in my quiet moments - not only for Terri - but for my beloved country, America.

My own quietness has brought about much anguish for me because I am not a quiet person. It is frightening . . . it is terrifying, for I realize the line has been drawn. The "crack" was so loud when Terri Schiavo died, I believe the Pope hung his head even lower and gave up his own will to fight any longer. He had been so deeply passionate about her life that we may have cast a blow to his. What a tragedy for all of us. What a sad commentary on mankind.

The "crack" became an earthquake forming a deep divide as a line drawn in the sand. Americans are standing strong on the side of what has become their truth. We are no longer able to discern what the truth really is because the clouds have become so dark. There is an expert on every issue arguing both sides, so what is the truth anymore? The steel that crumpled on that fateful day in September of 2001 may be dwarfed in comparison to the crumbling of our nation's structure -- its foundation. It's a slower fall, but it's happening nonetheless, and could be just as fatal. Our "spirit of steel" -- layer by layer, floor by floor -- is crumbling.

It's not only that Terri Schiavo died . . . it's the way we sent her to her death. We stood by watching it happen as if on a daily countdown. We recorded and showed on the nightly news parents and children trying to give her water. I guess we feared she might stand up and walk. That very act defined who we are and makes me ashamed. Those are the pictures that haunt my heart.

Even if you believe Terri Schiavo had a right to die; and even if you believe her husband Michael had the right to stand by her decision to "not live like that;" and you believe her parents were pathetically selfish in not giving her the dignity she deserved in death, do we truly believe she would not want her parents at her bedside when she breathed her last breath? Do we believe that Terri would have refused her own mother's desire to hold her in her arms one last time and say, "I love you, my precious daughter?"

Then we would also have to believe that Terri would tell her family: "You cannot have a funeral with my body -- I want it burned to ashes immediately -- so go have your own service without me." For some strange reason, this was not the Terri who was portrayed to us as the young vibrant woman who went "religiously" with her family to church every weekend, and not the same person who would refuse a funeral service of her own faith?

It's also mystifying how fervent Michael was to carry out her wish of "not wanting to live like that," never considering how he made her die. But he seemed to know his wife so well -- these were surely her wishes.

Her family could not have her in life, nor could they have her in death. We can argue all day about who was right or wrong, but in the end, we became damaged goods. What we did to each other is unforgivable. What we did to Terri is a sin. And where we go from here is petrifying.

The Pope's death has been a celebration of life, but America has suffered a death that can never be celebrated. A part of us died with Terri.

Yes, the Pope is in a better place, and so is Terri Schiavo . . . but not America.

We have lost our way.

Debbie Daniel can be contacted at: dddtx@yahoo.com

[bvw]

Outside of idiocy, one can make no sense of your posts. Except a love of murder.

[bvw]

You were wrong about the sister and brother, and wrong too about the certainty of Terri's diagnosis. And now you claim that Terri's parents suggested he date by providing dates for him.

Follow that logic then. If Micheal took their advice about dating while still married, why could he not later take their (far wiser) advice that he divorce Terri, or that he turn guardianship over to them? His consistensy was only to having total control, and here that meant murder.

[Sioux-san]

Your dad was on a respirator, which kept him going, until you all decided that there was no hope for him. I am sorry for your loss. If you truly believe that withdrawing someone's food and water is the same thing, then there is nothing more to be said. Terri only needed the feeding tube. She was not comatose. She was not end-stage or terminally ill. She wasn't a veg as the media portrayed her. If you think what happened to her is okay, then the 10s of thousands of others who are disabled or just plain old had better start hiding under their beds.

[68 grunt]

... And you really think that Schiavo, Felos and Greer let Terri "die with dignity?" ...

And you think her parents have any concept of 'death with dignity'? They made it into a circus. They made this into an emotional brouhaha. Every court, sans emotion, found she was a veg and her husband credible. Y'all outta concentrate on supporting the cleanup of the courts, not wasting your rage as emotional tools.

[bvw]

Being against the death penalty puts you on the side of murderers too. You say you want to feed the poor!

Why then could you not feed poor Terri?

And what exactly do you call "sanctity of marriage" -- it seems to you to be nothing more than the ability to legally murder your spouse.

And against abortion? Why? You're completely aboard aborting Terri. Why not abort babies with major cases of Down's syndrome, or spinal bifuda, or rarer genetic diseases that guarentee only a few months of life? If you could abort Terri the vegetable, why not baby Timmy, the Down's syndrome vegetable?

[bvw]

sans emotion

Althought your handle indicates you've seen combat and horror, I'm thankful for you that you've not made the acquaintance of sociopathic killers.

[68 grunt]

Sure, give all the thanks you like.

[atlaw]

Lots of hyperventilating in this article, but not much else. The author seems to be saying that root problem in the Schiavo case was allowing the court system to resolve the issues in the first place. This, of course, opens up the field to alternative methods of resolving the issues (which are conveniently left unidentified).

Is the author suggesting that the life of Ms. Schiavo should properly have been subjected to a popular vote? And if so, should a thumbs-up/thumbs-down vote of the general populace be resorted to in all end of life decisions?

This seems to be the direction in which those railing against the judicial system are headed, with all the talk about the "will of the populace" and the "tyranny of the judiciary."

[bvw]

You are against abortion and pro-choice too. Many would call that being confused.

G-d also requires that men establish systems of justice. And in those systems there must be ways of dealing with crimes so terrible and so well-proved that capital punishment is proper and necessary.

What does well-proved mean? Beyond the shadow of a doubt. More than just beyond reasonable doubt in these days where people are as light-headed as you -- but beyond any whisper of doubt to invoke capital punishment.

Yet Terri was slaughtered on mere hearsay, and not just hearsay but old and dubious hearsay, hearsay that was countered by other hearsay of a less dubious quality.

So you oppose the death penalty! But a court ordered execution based on dubious hearsay is just fine with you.

Against abortion and pro-choice. Against capital punishment for murderers, but for court orders to execute the innocent.

I hope you do not drive or operate heavy machinery -- you should really not leave your room without competent escort. JMO.

[HKMk23]

...my fear is that these decisions will be taken from the family, and given to the government.

WAKE UP!  That evil day is fast upon you!

The decision for Terri was handed down by a judge who chose to give credence to the word of a lying, unfaithful, untrustworthy tramp and a brace of in-laws and shrug off relevant and competing testimony from everyone on Terri's own side of the family.  Terri's case is the harbinger of the impending ascent of your worst nightmare: court-ordered euthanasia.

What you fear is precisely what most all of us have been decrying in this case: that government unjustly intervened and forced the decision over the outcry of family members and despite serious inconsistencies, irregularities and glaring conflicts of interest.  We are one thin line from this becoming a milestone in the blood campaign of the death cultists.  The severely disabled are now in "Check", and the next move will be "Checkmate".

This must not be allowed to happen.  Not now; not ever.

RANT ON
There was therapy that Terri had been receiving; to the point that she was beginning to learn to walk, again.  After the HINO won his malpractice case, and the money hit the bank, the therapy was halted; snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  Ironically, he had claimed that the awarded money would be required to pay for the therapy that Terri needed.  Did it?  No.  Not one thin dime.

We commonly see people who have a spouse in dire medical straits, and these people, though emotionally taxed, by and large stand by their spouses "for better or for worse".  Not Michael Schiavo.  Yet the court conveniently overlooked his depraved behavior and gave no consideration as to what that said about his character.  He had two bastard children by a woman not his wife with whom he maintaned an ongoing affair during the last years of his wife's life; plainly stating his intent to marry after his wife's death.  Of course, because his little porn star wants a proper Catholic church wedding, he absolutely couldn't divorce Terri; that would have spoiled the effect entirely.  Nevermind that it would have also given the Schindler's their daughter back -- alive.

Frankly, had I been in Terri's place, seeing my husband turn into a self-absorbed, philandering, nymphomaniacal, whorehound like Michael Schiavo would make me want to die just to be rid of my marital bond to his perverse and disgusting self.

There's more, but we've hashed it through a thousand times, already and, if you don't get it by now, you probably never will; unless, perhaps, you end up on a situation like Terri's.  Oh, you'd really get it, then.  And how.  Of course, then it would be far too late, wouldn't it?
RANT OFF

[HKMk23]

...she stopped eating and drinking and we did nothing about it.

So, then, she was capable of making the decision to die on her own; at least on some level. She voluntarily stopped eating and drinking, and you and your family gave tacit approval to her unspoken request that she be allowed to die.

I do not see anyone on these boards arguing that a case like this be altered in any way. Nor do I see anyone suggesting that any government entity should be dragged in to "evaluate" cases like this where there is no dispute about the wishes of the dying. FWIW, I think your family did exactly the right thing, as difficult as I imagine that it was.

Please, be at peace about the choices you have made, they are not in dispute, here.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

If she didn't feel anything, how come they were giving her morphine for the pain?

She wasn't brain dead. Part of her brain was fluid. Not all of it.

You really need to study this case and know what you are talking about. I mean study it, not just what you've heard from the MSM or Schiavo.

WPPFF?

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

If I were trying to save my child from an adulterous spouse who wanted my child starved to death/murdered then I'd make a rucous too.

How else were they supposed to try to save her? By being quiet? Wishing quietly? Hoping? Whispering? Heck no! They yelled it from the rooftops and I would, too.

As it was they were able to save her for 13 years from what her husband wanted.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

And, also, I don't feel that what the Schindlers did had anything to do with how Terri died. They didn't cause her to "die without dignity".

They were trying to save her life so that she could die when it was her time, with the dignity of a human being.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Only Greer's court was how you said. The other courts only looked at the process not the facts.

Most sane people don't find Schiavo, Felos or Greer credible in any way.

Sheesh Felos even talks telepathically to those in comas and PVS, so he thinks and says.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

You aren't thinking straight.