Barack Obama Would Take Back Vote Helping Terri Schiavo

LifeNews.com ^ | February 26, 2008 | Steven Ertelt

[SErtelt]

by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor February 26, 2008

Cleveland, OH (LifeNews.com) -- Senator Barack Obama debated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night and said his biggest mistake was voting to help save Terri Schiavo. Terri is the disabled Florida woman whose husband won the legal right to starve her to death.

[dbehsman]

Congratulations. After a couple of posts, you still have failed to back up your original assertion. Since reading comprehension seems to escape you, let me ask again. Do you care to point out precisely where in the Constitution it says that a husband has the right to starve his wife to death? Can you please tell us where in the Constitution it says that in controversies involving life and death decisions, we should error to the side of death? Can you please tell us where in the Constitution it says what the IQ level of a person is before they loose their human rights?
I believe those passages in the Constitution are right next to the ones condoning the drowning of kittens.

You know, if you keep up this level of pathetic stupidity, you'll get nominated to the Supreme Court one of these days by a democrat president.

You pointed out a couple of lines in the Constitution about due process and appropriate legislation.
Yes, I did. You and other posters are pretending you're arguing the case before the Supreme Court--you're not. They REJECTED the case.

I'm arguing with you. I do not let the Supreme Court do my thinking for me.

YOU were the one who said originally in post #33
and I applaud Obama on his new opinion Congress’s role in the Schiavo case, which is based on constitutional law. (emphasis mine)
Us pro lifers are asking you to back it up.

That does not answer my questions, it only raises new ones. Didn’t Terri have a right to a trial by a jury of her peers?
She didn't commit a crime, why would she have this right?

See was given a death sentence by the court. It would have been nice if she would have gotten a trial. I suppose though that you think that brain damaged people should not even be given that consideration.

Didn’t Terri have protection against cruel and unusual punishment?
Yes.

REALLY?!?!?! So how do you square that away with execution by starvation?

What crime did Terri commit that warranted the death penalty?
She didn't receive the death penalty. She wasn't 'executed'.

Why don't you try reading your response a couple of times until the ridiculousness of your statement sinks in?

No I can see why some are so emotional about this - they believe Terri was executed for a crime she didn't commit. How ridiculous.

It was a court mandated death. Execution is another name for it.

[8mmMauser]

Congratulations, Swordfished! You actually did it, sticking around. It takes guts to expose yourself like that, akin to running naked into a church service where you show all the real you. The analogy to bot flies may not fit perfectly but they buzz all around just like librarians. Usually the scent of death attracts more than one.

Now, I apologize for a heavy bias. I have always had a problem with librarians. Perhaps it was when I was shushed to my huge embarrassment, and reduced to a whisper. It caused me to hate Dewey Decimals as much as paying late fees.

Our librarian wouldn't help me find my favorites back in school, like Bobby Burns. He wrote a wonderful poem, "Ode to a Louse..." You really should read the whole poem but the last stanza (the poem, not the Nissan car...)is all I pose.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us,
An ev'n devotion!

You are really a great help and one fine sounding board for us. I realize you really do not comprehend what it is all about but, hey, it's you.

Oh yes, I will answer your comments if you really wish, but it looks like O.B.E., overtaken by events.

[dbehsman]

Do you care to point out precisely where in the Constitution it says that a husband has the right to starve his wife to death? Can you please tell us where in the Constitution it says that in controversies involving life and death decisions, we should error to the side of death? Can you please tell us where in the Constitution it says what the IQ level of a person is before they loose their human rights?

Your assertion that Obama 'lied' is meaningless - he expressed his opinion and I agreed with him, that doesn't make us liars.

No, it just makes you guys into a bunch of blood thirsty savages.

[dbehsman]

Not only was she executed, it was done by the cruelest and most unusual of means.
This we can agree on - there ought to have been a better and less potentially painful means.

A less potentially painful means?!?!?!?!?!?!

I thought you idiot libertarians were holding the position that Terri was brain dead. Your buddies were telling everybody that she was a vegetable. Your buddies were telling everybody that she couldn't feel anything. The libertarian position was that Terri was a "vegetable", that she couldn't feel anything, that she didn't deserve to live.

NOW your saying that there should have been a less painful method?!?!?!

What on earth difference would it make?

Aren't you admitting that she was sentient, if you think that she should have been given a "less painful" execution?

And it happened because a tinpot probate judge, a local Republican poohbah, ORDERED that it WOULD be so.
The system isn't perfect, nor ever will it be.

Well, now there's a comfort. That would've looked really good on Terri's tombstone.

You deathbots got what you wanted. You folks got to execute an innocent woman in the slowest and cruelest way possible. Enjoy your victory while it lasts.

[Swordfished]

...despite the fact that she had committed no crime.

Why do you continue to believe this is relevant? You've built up a whole set of loaded-word verbage to talk about this case. You've made it impossible for yourself to accept any disagreement because you are so emotionally dependent on your deluded understanding of it. You don't need to use the most outrageous hyperbole to make an argument.

To continue to insist this was an 'execution' you're showing the weakness of your argument. You could be reasonable in saying, "wow this was so horrible it reminds me of an execution", or "this has a lot of similarities with an execution". But you are wrong to state that it was an execution.

There are tens of thousands of similar cases where life support is pulled or 'extraordinary means' are stopped - do you contend all of these were also 'executions'?

[floriduh voter]

Inspiration on loan from t'wit?

"stanza (the poem, not the Nissan car...)" 8mmmauser

[Swordfished]

What it comes down to is you believe Terri was deprived of her life without due process, and thus you believe that Congress and/or the Florida governor could have intervened.

I believe there was due process and precedent is on my side...not to mention the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court.

Your argument is technically conceivable, but amounts to a 'Hail-Mary' in terms of plausibility. It's so unlikely that it attracts mostly 'true-believers' in the same way that conspiracy theories do. Your argument was tried in many courts and legislatures in the Schiavo case, and it lost. You're swimming upstream trying to convince me you are wiser than all of the individuals and entities who rejected it.

[Swordfished]

It doesn't matter if they "put her to sleep" peacefully. It's still murder. I find your blase attitude toward her killing to be repulsive.

It's always tragic when someone dies, but I'm glad Terri got what she wanted - not to continue life-prolonging measures. And the courts found that she would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures.

[Swordfished]

Please ping them. I'm always looking for an opportunity to show libertarians what a bunch of blood thirsty savages they are.

I have no desire to 'call in reinforcements' as some do. This isn't a war game.

You've only strengthened my own resolve in your failing attempts to convince me I'm a 'blood-thirsty savage'. Pretty laughable actually.

You and others show your hand - you're not looking to win people to 'your side' or have a respectful discussion - you're looking to bully and beat up on people just because they don't fall in line with your gang.

[Swordfished]

Enjoy your victory while it lasts.

It's like a football game to you, isn't it?

[Swordfished]

Aren't you admitting that she was sentient, if you think that she should have been given a "less painful" execution?

She wasn't executed - that's a childish assertion. A 'less potentially painful' method would help quell people like you, that seemed to have really freaked out and lost it about this whole case.

[EternalVigilance]

It's always tragic when someone dies, but I'm glad Terri got what she wanted - not to continue life-prolonging measures. And the courts found that she would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures.

"Life-prolonging measures," ie "food and water."

Your heart is so hardened that you can't use the brain God gave you.

Terri Schindler Schiavo never asked to be tortured to death. And even if you're crazy enough to believe she did, it is a breach of the most foundational principle of American republican governance, the unalienable nature of the rights to life and liberty, to suggest that anyone has the right to do so under any circumstances. The word "unalienable" came from European property law, in which a subject was granted a piece of property to use as they please. No one but the sovereign could take it from them. However, they also COULD NOT GIVE IT AWAY.

[wagglebee]

What it comes down to is you believe Terri was deprived of her life without due process, and thus you believe that Congress and/or the Florida governor could have intervened.

Read the Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Depriving a person of their life, with or without due process, IS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT and capital punishment REQUIRES a grand jury indictment.

Your argument was tried in many courts and legislatures in the Schiavo case, and it lost. You're swimming upstream trying to convince me you are wiser than all of the individuals and entities who rejected it.

You and your liberaltarian ilk would probably be running around talking about how "wise" decisions like the Dred Scott Decision, Plessy v. Ferguson and Buck v. Bell were if they hadn't been overturned.

You are entirely unwilling to accept that in clear cases of right and wrong, courts do not always make the right decisions and in so doing you exhibit incredible hubris and hypocrisy.

I find it disturbingly ironic that in another major court case of 2005, Kelo v. City of New London, NONE of the liberaltarians were talking about how "wise" the Supreme Court was in its decision. This demonstrates one thing and that is that you only consider a court decision "wise" when it agrees with your agenda and in Terri's case, your bloodlust.

[EternalVigilance]

A 'less potentially painful' method would help quell people like you,

Right. "Just step right into the showers. You won't feel a thing..."

[8mmMauser]

Don’t get excited now. You got so excited you forgot to address my last post. You may get so loud you don’t hear yourself. Go back and read our Terri Daily threads and you will realize your comments are not very original and not at all those of a conservative.

Terri was murdered slowly, killed by a most inhumane torture. Her death sentence was declared by a sitting judge and she was put to death in a classic but cruel and unusual way, an execution. Thirteen days of thirst without even a drop of liquid hurts. You may want it when your turn comes but Terri didn’t.

I am happy to see the death penalty carried out on the deserving even if it hurts a little, but not on the innocent.

I also side with the bikers here who don’t wear helmets. You see we conservatives don’t fit into boxes you librarians like to construct.

Calm down or you will start to sound like a troll. Stick to logic instead of knee-jerk and see how that does ya.

[wagglebee]

She wasn't executed - that's a childish assertion.

Then what exactly WAS done to Terri? Under court order, at the point of a gun, Terri underwent a court ordered procedure that could ONLY result in her death.

A 'less potentially painful' method would help quell people like you, that seemed to have really freaked out and lost it about this whole case.

"People like us" who "freaked out and lost it"? How EXACTLY should a person react when an innocent human being is being killed?

This statement by you tells me that you fit into one of two categories:

1. You are so devoid of any sense of compassion that you simply don't care that an innocent person is being killed.
or
2. That you actually WANTED to see an innocent person be killed.

So, which is it? Did you just not care or did you just want Terri to die?

[dbehsman]

Why do you continue to believe this is relevant?

I think the willful execution of an innocent woman is something that should be talked about. Besides, you're still here talking about it.

You've built up a whole set of loaded-word verbage to talk about this case.

Yeah, and you've avoided questions. Why don't you try answering some?

You've made it impossible for yourself to accept any disagreement because you are so emotionally dependent on your deluded understanding of it.

Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?

You don't need to use the most outrageous hyperbole to make an argument.

Why don't you try answering some questions instead of avoiding them?

To continue to insist this was an 'execution' you're showing the weakness of your argument.

It was a court ordered death. Execution is another word for it.

You could be reasonable in saying, "wow this was so horrible it reminds me of an execution", or "this has a lot of similarities with an execution".

It was a court ordered death. Execution is another word for it.

But you are wrong to state that it was an execution.

It was a court ordered death. Execution is another word for it.

There are tens of thousands of similar cases where life support is pulled or 'extraordinary means' are stopped - do you contend all of these were also 'executions'?

If that statement is correct, then:
A- It is perfectly relevant and acceptable to talk about it, as it is a national ongoing disgrace.
B- "Extraordinary means" in medical practice now includes food and water.
C- if these deaths are caused and directed by court order despite family objections, then yes they are executions.

[dbehsman]

It's always tragic when someone dies, but I'm glad Terri got what she wanted - not to continue life-prolonging measures. And the courts found that she would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures.

Wow, no kidding. You have proof that Terri wanted to be executed by starvation? You have video tape of her saying that in the event that she mysteriously collapses on the floor and becomes severely brain damaged that she would want to be starved to death. You have a written directive from her?

I mean, because we all know that the husband could never be lying. (/sarcasm)

[wagglebee]

Why don't you try answering some questions instead of avoiding them?

Most deathbots vastly prefer repeating the culture of death's talking points to actually answering questions.

It's very typical of liberals to just avoid subjects for which they don't have a "boilerplate" response.

[dbehsman]

I have no desire to 'call in reinforcements' as some do.

YOU were the one who said in post number 107 "I'm perfectly happy here - there are numerous libertarian-leaning Freepers out there, I'm not the only one." If there are other deathbots out there in Freeperland, I was telling you to feel free to invite them.

This isn't a war game.

It was for Terri, and she paid the ultimate price.

You've only strengthened my own resolve in your failing attempts to convince me I'm a 'blood-thirsty savage'. Pretty laughable actually.

YAWN.

You and others show your hand - you're not looking to win people to 'your side' or have a respectful discussion - you're looking to bully and beat up on people just because they don't fall in line with your gang.

I think you and your buddies are accomplices to a judicial murder. Pardon me if I'm a little pissed.