Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

Renew America ^ | May 29, 2006 | Kevin Fobbs

[KevinNuPac]

Terri's Day and nation's independence protects life culture

Kevin Fobbs May 29, 2006

America's Culture of Life is truly the legacy of one woman whose death forever changed our nation because of actions that were not in her hands but in those of her husband and his lawyers. Yet for millions of Americans we will forever link our own celebration of our nation's independence to the courage of the Schindler family to go forward past the tragedy, past the personal sorrow, past the searing anguish to help America draw a distinct line in the sand, to issue a clarion call to America.

Our 4th of July is coming... Our Culture of Life Independence Day is on its way. Our month of Independence is a message that March 31st (Terri's Day) will signal, that July 4th will signal... and that the month of July will signal to defend the Culture of Life before we lose it forever.

When we talked with our family members or even our neighbors or our friends we may have spent but a moment reflecting upon why we are even gathered on a Memorial Day afternoon. Do we think about the sacrifice of our soldiers and of their families? Do we think about the long goodbyes which are never long enough... as the military families send their loved ones to war, to battle, to stand firm for our freedoms... for our life... for our nation and its values of faith?

How does Terri Schiavo and her legacy tie into this? Terri's legacy and Terri's Day is a representation of a right to live, and freedom to have the liberty to not have it compromised away, devalued by inconvenience, or litigated away by judges who celebrate a culture of death that would rob life from the womb, steal life from a hospital or hospice bed, and destroy and shatter a family's love for a daughter, a sister and aunt who was given a gift from God, but had it separated from her as easily as an ant would have its life take by an uncaring shoe... extinguished forever.

The families who send their loved ones off to war have to wonder as well, does America value their sacrifice? The families of the military have to wonder just where does its society draw the line on its values? A soldier who is in battle in Iraq or Afghanistan has to wonder if a Florida judge can take away the life of an innocent, what is the measure of his life? Would a judge in America suddenly decide that if he were injured, if he had to sacrifice a limb that the protesters outside his hospital bed would have more rights than he would or his family? Would this soldier have to wonder that if he or his fellow soldier were killed in battle, that upon their return that the protesters who would stand outside of his funeral... have more rights to be protected than the rights his family would have to a military burial with honor?

You see, the Culture of Life is about Terri Schiavo, because Americans now have to examine the life of our culture itself. We have to wonder if we as a nation of Christians and of a nation of faith and of a nation of compassion would allow for a state to murder an innocent woman and strip her family of their loved one then as a nation would we allow America to have other symbols of life, of our nation to be peeled away as well, all in open sight and in plain view of a dispassionate nation?

What does our American Culture mean if we allow millions of illegal aliens to literally browbeat us into submission by demanding that because they have stolen across our borders, demanded and received protection from local law enforcement in numerous cities throughout the U. S., obtained free or reduced educational opportunities by state public colleges that our own children could not qualify to receive the same financial aid assistance for. Are we that defenseless to let illegals strip our state coffers of housing assistance for loans and mortgages when tens of thousands in almost every state in America have legal citizens who are homeless, impoverished, or working poor or middle class Americans who need similar assistance but cannot receive it. And they are legal! They are citizens! They are Americans.

What is so wrong about our nation when we are so ready to compromise our freedoms, our culture's life, the life of an innocent and the taking of any life is the taking of our own children's life and their child's. And with each successive generation the nation and its life, its values, its traditions, and its language will disappear because we as Americans were too preoccupied — too narrow — to see that an illegal alien was taking your child's education, that a crusading death culture judge was preparing a bed, a room, a legal precedent to take your child, grandchild or sister or parent.

That is why I have stayed my course to defend the Culture of Life and to ask my fellow Americans to begin to understand that as Terri Schiavo's life was slowly ebbing from her body and as her mother Mary, father Bob, sister Suzanne, and brother Bobby waited in the Florida early morning air on March 31st, 2005, America was having part of its soul ebb away as well.

What will it take to spark an interest, a concern, and a passion for protecting one's own life? Some may say that it would take a clear and present danger — like tanks rolling down your neighborhood street or another 9/11 that strikes at the heart of America. Do we have the convenience to wait? Do we wait until a state legislature in Maine or California or Delaware or Ohio or Illinois decides that your mother's decision to live is determined by a hospital "bean counter" who decides that your mother's life is not based upon a "Will To Live" but an ability to pay her bill? What about a baby, not born, but already set for murder in the womb — not because the mother is pro-life or pro-death but because "the law" says the unborn baby's life is expendable because the baby's genes are determined to be part of a class or a group or a race or of an ethnicity which pre-programs the child, un-born, to death?

America is being murdered in small pieces. It is seeing its values, its life, its culture disemboweled with the finesse of a skilled surgeon. And it is America's poll takers and its legislators and its uncaring, disinterested, and uninvolved who are handling the scalpel. Take the scalpel away. Contact www.Terrisfight.org to join the Foundation's battle to educate America about the right to live. Go to Terri's Day on www.kevinfobbs.com to learn about new updates on Terri's Day and the event to celebrate the Culture of life.

So on Independence Day and Independence month of July will we have any Americans who will sign up and join the Culture of Life movement in their community? Even if it is to sign a pledge, hand out a flyer, become aware of legislators and judicial candidates who have agreed to stand firm for the Culture of Life — a crusade that is based not only upon the life of Terri Schiavo's legacy but equally crucial based also upon the legacy of the right to live, to defend our culture and the life of its values.

Terri's Day is not the end of a national movement but the beginning of a national contract with itself to stand for a future that our nation can guarantee for its children and for a culture that will insure life. The right to live will be Terri's legacy — our legacy... one nation under God. Join us in your homes, on your family picnics, out camping and celebrating July 14th and 15th ... Our American Culture of Life belongs to each and every one of us... We must protect it. Let's celebrate together.

Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the host of The Kevin Fobbs Show: go to: ,www.kevinfobbs.com. To contact him go to: kevin@kevinfobbs.com.

© Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060529

[BykrBayb]

I remember reading about Timothy Sutton's diving accident. I wondered at the time if he'd be bioethicked, as so many are. Thankfully, he wasn't. Unfortunately, he has died from heart failure. His children are looking for donations to pay for his funeral. Teens Struggle To Find Funds To Bury Father
Timothy Sutton Paralyzed In Diving Accident

[8mmMauser]

Now playing at the Kennedy Center, a play on themes like Terri's Legacy...

"This is exalted time," Lia insists about the end of a man's life in Don DeLillo's new play, "Love-Lies-Bleeding." But not everyone -- in the drama or in the country -- agrees with her. That sets the stage for a debate in both realms on what it means to die with dignity and whether we can, or should, hasten the process.

The production at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater is a joint one between Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays. It explores a very timely question -- Terri Schiavo's case is still fresh in our minds -- while avoiding cheap platitudes and easy answers on either side. But in its effort to be fair, it leaves the viewer dissatisfied. Mr. DeLillo, a literary postmodernist beloved of academic critics, does such a good job of not manipulating our sympathies that he leaves us, in the end, without any for the man whose life is at stake.

Playing God on stage

8mm

(this includes Ohioan from Florida's ping list, update to May 17.)



Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.

[T'wit]

>> while avoiding cheap platitudes and easy answers on either side.

I suppose they regard "Thou Shalt not Kill" as a cheap platitude.

[8mmMauser]

Father McBrien talks about "Christianists". Are any of us "Christianist"? There are new little boxes for us to fit in...

Father has a greater faith in Time Magazine than do I which equals zero.

"The distinctions between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque."

Andrew Sullivan was careful in his column not to accuse Christianists of favoring violence. Indeed, not all Islamists are violent, he pointed out, and only a tiny few are terrorists. In his rendering, the Christianist simply believes that "religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike."

Pro-birth vs. pro-life

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[8mmMauser]

More on priests who see Terri's Legacy through different eyes...

Boston College Prez Leahy is at the helm.

That, alas, is par for the course in today's American Catholic theological guild, in which Fathers Himes and Hollenbach are prominent members. Another member of the guild, Jesuit Father Drew Christiansen (now editor of America), has gone so far as to propose revising the Catechism of the Catholic Church to establish, not a parallel magisterium of theologians, but a shadow government of theologians who would determine when the criteria for the morally justifiable use of armed force has been met. No small ambitions there, either.

I certainly don't wish to suggest that Father Leahy's hopes for Boston College are misplaced or untoward. Still, the B.C. commencement follies came in the wake of some other --- shall we say --- peculiarities in Golden Eagle-land. Another member of the B.C. theology department, Jesuit Father John Paris, publicly supported the campaign to euthanize Terry Schiavo. B.C. has also been home to efforts by prominent and wealthy Catholic laymen to reinvent Catholicism as Catholic Congregationalism, under the rubric of improved management practices.

There are great teachers and great students at Boston College. Unless Father Leahy gets his faculty to understand that the Sixties are over, however, his honorable ambitions are going to be, and should be, frustrated.

The Boston College follies

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[8mmMauser]

Florida Bar...

Florida voters approved tort reform initiatives in 2004 that are still being sorted out by Florida’s Supreme Court, and conservative legislators have attempted to blame the Bar for everything from high insurance rates to Terri Schiavo’s death.

It will be essential for Coxe to build relationships with Florida’s next governor and attorney general, said Liles. Both offices are up for election this fall. That could steer the Bar’s relationship with the governor’s office in a less antagonistic direction than was often the case with current Gov. Jeb Bush.

Coxe follows well traveled path

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[T'wit]

A brief snapshot of liberal reality :-)

>> His second wife, Toinette, and his son from his first marriage, Sean, arrive determined to convince his fourth (and current) wife, Lia, to allow them to end Alex's life.

What is it about liberals that they can't keep their marriage vows? A vow is our most holy promise to God. Keeping our vows is our most solemn duty. Let us (with Paul Harvey) celebrate the fortitude of couples who love and care for each other all of their days. And let's not forget that Michael Schiavo stomped his vows into the dust as soon as he got his hands on the "malpractice" money.

Btw, "Toinette" sounds like the chat room for F.A.O. Schwarz.

[8mmMauser]

Mor on Peter Singer, through ProLifeBlogs...

........................

According to a post in First Things, Peter Singer is telling half-truths. In a letter to The Nation, Princeton University's outspoken defender of infanticide claims that fellow Princeton philosopher (and pro-life advocate) Robert George refuses to debate him on whether human life is sacrosanct.

Here's what Singer said:

Great universities thrive on the contest between deeply opposed positions, so I welcome the presence of conservatives like Robert George on the Princeton campus. For Princeton’s undergraduates, a debate between someone like myself and George on whether human life is sacrosanct would be a stimulating educational experience. What a pity it is, therefore, that it has never happened. On several occasions over the past years, student organizations have tried to set up a debate between George and me. I have always accepted. George has always refused. Which of course makes me wonder: If George thinks it is so important to challenge the liberal hegemony at universities, why won’t he do it in the time-honored arena of a public exchange of ideas before the university community.

Robert George is Right not to Debate Peter Singer

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[8mmMauser]

You touched on one of the greatest dismays in our march through the years. When we married, divorce was an anomoly, even a stigma and now generations since see it as but one more arrangement while living together becomes the norm, the successful hammering of liberal values into their soft skulls.

[T'wit]

Sorry, I gagged on the first sentence and quit.

Pace, Fr. McBrien and Andrew Sullivan -- anybody can "coin" words, but that doesn't make them valid. Or honest. Language is a great democracy and general usage determines which coinage we accept or reject. "Bling," e.g., has been accepted. "Christianist" will find favor only with God haters, and not for long. The cat will cover it with kitty litter.

[8mmMauser]

Ping reminder to visit the thread of BykrBayb on Senator Sam Brownback...

Legislator takes reins against assisted suicide

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[8mmMauser]

Shucks, I gagged on the first sentence, too, and on the following sentences as well. Poor Fr. dithers about the word "Christianist" and then tries to coin his own term. New words are an effective weapon for those who try to lead us down another path.

We are seeing lots of successes these days of the liberal side succeeding in hijacking fundamental and traditional faith.

"He who stoops to conquer conquers stupes."

[T'wit]

The only divorced person I knew as a child was a woman who, in her shame, was reduced to giving ballroom dancing lessons. She was nice and everybody was nice to her; her classes were well attended (including me). But the stigma was unmistakeable.

No one supposed that marriage was for everyone. There was no shame in being a spinster. "Miss" was an honorable title. My piano teacher was a spinster and a pillar of the community. (It wasn't HER fault that I was as inept at the piano as I was at ballroom dancing :-) )

Into this happy world rode the Enemy Harridans, led by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Dykes on Bikes. When they were done, marriage was "no fault," vows were scrapped, municipal benefits were the goal, bunk buddies could be one sex or multiple partners or a domestic animal, chivalry was dead, and the harpies think they are "liberated." (So why do they go on whining and whining?)

[T'wit]

>> If George thinks it is so important to challenge the liberal hegemony at universities...

Lookathat! Next thing you know, somebody in the presstitute biz will admit to the "liberal hegemony" in the media.

[T'wit]

>> "He who stoops to conquer conquers stupes."

:-)

[8mmMauser]

It slipped out as Singer sang his one note.

[8mmMauser]

As I recall that was a quote from Pogo. Lyn Nofziger frequently quoted Pogo, so it may have been echoed by him.

[T'wit]

>> Coxe follows well traveled path

Yeah, the one paved with good intentions.

[T'wit]

Pace, Lyn, I do not miss Pogo. Never cared for the strip. I will say this much for Walt Kelly -- he was a liberal but at least he had a sense of humor. He didn't try to pass off sour indigestion as a cartoon the way Gary Trudeau does in Doonesbury.

[Dante3]

I have a problem with the way the phrase "death with dignity" has often been used. If anyone calls Terri's death a "death with dignity" that person has mental problems at best. The implication that using medical science to try to save someone's life is "undignified" is just perverted.