Posted on 03/26/2005 10:22:59 AM PST by wto8585
When Life Becomes an Inconvenience--Jan Markell Olive Tree Ministries, Inc. www.olivetreeviews.org
Semi-Weekly Review of the News - March 21, 2005
I have a built-in radar system that registers a warning when it comes to "mercy killing." My Jewish grandparents fled a section of Russia about ten years before Hitler came to power as they sensed trouble was in the wind. This heritage actually caused me to research the Holocaust and write a best-selling book about it, "Trapped in Hitler's Hell" available through my Web site or print newsletter.
In October, 1939, Hitler ordered "mercy killing" of the sick and disabled, mainly children. The sentiment was to eliminate "life unworthy of life"--kids who would become an inconvenience if they lived. The deaths would soon include adults who were also inferior, feeble, or just too much trouble.
The Nazis made decisions without diagnoses or medical records. They were a part of a barbaric system, and yet when the death camps were finally liberated, many felt that such atrocities were finally thrown on the ash heap of history. They don't understand human nature or the Bible: Only when Satan is cast into the pit will evil end. In the meantime people who stand for righteousness are doing all we can to check it.
No, America isn't Nazi Germany! Yet what is happening here makes me very uncomfortable. Terri Schiavo wants to live. Her parents want to take care of her. But Terri is an inconvenience to her husband and "the system" has favored him thus far. But this battle isn't just for Terri. It's a battle to stop America from going further down a slippery slope that disregards human life. If America's leaders, doctors, lawyers, and judges, allow her to die in the terrible "prescribed manner"--by starvation and dehydration--have we sunk to the level of barbarians?
Terrorists have gotten better treatment and a greater outcry than Terri. Two terrorists killed over 240 people in Africa in 1998. They were brought to America for trial and after seven months of court pleading, their lives were spared in spite of the fact that they had been planning to destroy us indiscriminately.
Timothy McVeigh was a co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. He was given a quick, painless, lethal injection that brought almost instant, peaceful death.
Criminals and terrorists at Abu Grhaib prison were humiliated by a few bad apples in the U.S. military and the world collectively excoriated America at the inhumane abuse of these men.
Civil liberties' activists are characteristically set into hysteria the moment an al-Qaida terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without dinner.
Do you get the point?
If Terri Schiavo is executed--and yes, that is a proper word--next week or next year, how much better are we than the savages we are fighting in the war on terror? If America and the world have pity and mercy on thugs and terrorists and not on a defenseless woman who has not had a proper diagnosis or treatment (thanks to her husband), I shudder to think of the repercussions that could come upon our nation.
Also keep in mind that this could come upon you some day as well if "pro-death" activists speak more loudly than "pro-life" activists. Pro-life judges cannot even pass the confirmation process anymore. In America only half the states will impose the death penalty, but strangely, the kind of "progressive thinking" that brought about the near abolition of the death penalty now champions euthanasia and abortion. The Left claims to stand up for the underdogs in life, but I sense they follow the pattern of Ezekiel 33:31: "With their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain."
What is characteristic of a last day's culture is culture decline which the Bible predicts. Good will be called evil and evil good (Isaiah 5:20). Evil men will be "seducers, waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (II Timothy 3:13). But who would ever have thought that such perilous times would have come to a simple hospice room?
In our evil generation God is also moving mightily because some people are remaining "salt and light." There is still time for good to trump certain aspects of evil. The end is not yet. God sees the heart of the righteous and is merciful.
To better understand this "slippery slope," visit my Web site, www.olivetreeviews.org, then visit the category of "Culture Decline."
Awaiting His return, Jan Markell You may pass along these items or have folks sign up on the "Home" page of my Web site, www.olivetreeviews.org. We update "Current Headlines" twice a day and you can access radio programming under "Radio Archives" for the last two years. Our March-April print newsletter, "Understanding the Times," is now out and is free for one year to U.S. residents. Please remember us prayerfully and financially. Contact: Olive Tree Ministries, Box 1452, Maple Grove, MN 55311.
Another winner.
That's what I'm afraid of.
I'm not sure I see any similarities. If Judge Greer did not believe that Terri herself wanted to end her life in this manner, she would still be on feeding tubes. I doubt that Hitler made such a distinction. BTW, others on this thread are making the comparison with the holocaust.
I am Jewish, half of my family was murdered in the Holocaust, and I do not consider this article on the murder of the disabled to be offensive in any way.
The issue is not whether you personally are offended, but how the majority of Americans are interpreting these kinds of comparisons. It would appear that Terri Schiavo's life or death issue cannot stand on its own merits but must be somehow pumped up either with the death of Christ on the cross or with genocide issues. This kind of lunacy merely feeds the MSM's insatiable desire to discredit the right in any way it can.
"The murder of 6 million began with the murder of 1."
And I bet everyone who killed during that reign had at some point in their lives eaten carrots too.
"You're worse that Hitler. Terri is G-d, sent to test us."
He was hungry, and we offered Him no food. He was thirsty, and we gave Him no drink. Who will deny Him before the cock crows thrice?
Who, Hitler?
Where you see the least among us, there also is He. No worries....
The Nazis did kill disabled people, and Terri Schiavo is being killed. That is a similarity.
Many do believe this is not what she wanted, and that she is not in the PVS state being used as a predicate to kill her.
I agree that the Holocaust analogy could be misused, but I don't see any harm in people pointing out that the Nazis killed disabled people using justifications that are being offered now. I have read many people here and elsewhere saying that people "shouldn't live like this" which is not much different from saying people "like this shouldn't live".
My problem with this thing is that we don't know for sure what she wanted, we don't know if she is in a PVS, and I'm greatly bothered killing someone under these circumstances.
I do believe we will see more of these type killings and it's a legitimate thing to be concerned abuot.
WE are sinking into Hell...since Roe V Wade made it a 'right'
and no longer sin to kill your preborn child..
We will continue on towards Hitler and Stalin's version of Society...this is Satan's world and Satan's world system will for a time prevail until Messiah comes back to separate the sheep from the goats..
There is NO OTHER name under Heaven whereby men MUST be saved
Those that reject Christ reject God and embrace either the desire of their own evil nature or Satan's way..
Broad is the way to destruction and many go therein. Narrow is the gate to salvation...and few will find it...
Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation..this is not an intolerant view..simply the truth..
It's in His book...
We, as a nation, are torturing someone to death. It is not clear whether she is semi-conscious or not. Who among us will defy this wicked nation's decision in various ways? We can choose to please men, or we can choose to please God. We have only one true master. Just as Thomas Jefferson wrote the foundation of the Free World, her right to live is inalienable. That's America. This is not. I hope that the Bush Family can right this wrong, or the path of this nation will flounder. FReegards....
Wow, you are a genius! Damn! We better ban carrots!
Yeah, it sure is.
Bump.
"They're here."
And did the Nazis give their victims thousands of man-hours of legal representation by state and federal courts for years deciding whether or not the evidence of her wishes was sufficient? When we make comparisons like this we cheapen history and tell the world that Terri's plight cannot stand on its own merits.
My problem with this thing is that we don't know for sure what she wanted, we don't know if she is in a PVS, and I'm greatly bothered killing someone under these circumstances
I'm on Terri's side on this issue, but nevertheless, the courts have ruled, and unfortunately, if Terri would not have wanted this, it is done.
But it is not a religious, political, or above all, a historical issue.
The average German of that time wasn't some Snidely Whiplash-type character, rolling the tip of his handlebar mustache between his fingers.
People forget how close we always are to slipping over the shallow edge that separates a humane culture from one like Nazi Germany.
The Germans that started executing the disabled, first with the consent of the families, later without, had convinced themselves that they were doing the right thing. They thought it was a merciful, good act.
This goes along with the Pope's characterization of a "disordered sense of compassion." We must always examine our motivations carefully, and maintain respect for life in all cases.
The Nazis did not land from outer space one day and take over. Hitler and his ilk took advantage of the cultural disintigration that happened after WWI -- they were part of the process of cultural disintigration. Certain legal elements of the Third Reich were already in place when the Nazis took over. Then the definition of "life unworthy of life" was ever-expanded. Who is to say that there is not some Hitler-like person today who is eagerly working to undermine just and humane standards in America or many other countries? If a country adopts a culture of death this is fertile ground for the next Hitler to appear.
Killing the disabled is a very Nazi-like behavior. There will be more of it.
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