In a terse, one-page decision, the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Terri Schiavo’s parents to order her feeding tube reinserted.
The appeal went first to Reagan appointee, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has responsibility for cases emanating from the 11th Circuit. He then referred the case to the full nine-member court. This marks at least the fifth time the SCOTUS has declined to get involved in the case. According to the AP, the court’s decision was not surprising:
Not only had justices repeatedly declined to intervene in the Schiavo case on prior occasions, but they routinely defer to state courts on family law issues. Judges in various Florida courts have sided with Schiavo’s husband in the 15 years since she suffered brain damage.
Meanwhile the New York Times has an interesting profile on Dr. William Cheschire, the man at the center of Jeb Bush’s last ditch attempt to seize control of Terri Schiavo’s fate: “A Diagnosis With a Dose of Religion.”
I don’t think the feds should be involved in an individual situation. The Congress sounded as bad as our State legislatures when they try to create a one size fits all statute.
Horrible travesty here, but politics shouldn’t be involved here, except maybe to clarify who has a right to say in these situations.
If the legislature (Congress) doesn’t come up with rules, then the judicial branch will and heaven help all of us.
The precedence HAS been set.
1. patient’s wishes
2. spouse’s wishes
3. children’s wishes
4. parent’s wishes
Seems very clear.
Barring any reason to NOT follow these rules, Where is the problem?
If the problem lies with the “state” of the individual, that again, is up the the doctors, and guardian, and hopefully, all family members concerned.
Its a private matter.
The only way this will ever turn into some type of “genocide” as the wackos claim, “IS” by getting religion, and government involved.
I think the courts have done an excellent job on this difficult case over the last 12 years. You don’t always end up with the verdict you want, which is why we have appeals and other avenues of redress. The fact that 20+ judges have sided with Michael Schiavo (either by ruling in his favor or declining to review an earlier court decisions) proves that this case has been properly considered and litigated.
Salon had a post this morning talking about the fact that the judges in this case (including the Federal ones) have been split evenly between being Democratic and Republican appointees – which should avoid even the suggestion of partisanship on their part.
As a side-note, I wonder how many Republicans who are demanding extra-judicial measures be taken on the off-chance that some evidence has been overlooked would support the same in all the death penalty cases. More than 100 death penalty cases have been overturned by new evidence, and yet you don’t hear Republicans regularly calling for extra time in those cases.
On the political front, I now firmly believe that the Republican Party has shot itself in both feet by kowtowing to a handful of religious zealots and making a political cause celebre of the Schiavo case.
Yesterday’s CBS poll, which said EIGHTY-TWO PERCENT of the American people objected to the Bush Administration and the Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case — including an actual majority of Evangelical Christians — is the handwriting on the wall here.
Once that poll came out, Pres. Bush himself backed away from Schiavo, as did Sen. Frist. Even Tom DeLay went quiet. Only baby brother Jebby still seems interested.
This misstep by the GOP hierarchy, in thinking they had a winning issue, will cost them dearly in the next round of elections. Bush’s own approval rating fell 7 points in a week and Congress’ (make that Republican leadership) plunged 9 points.
The era of religious influence in American politics has now, I believe, ended, but the Republican Party will be tarred with that feather for the forseeable future.
Their hubris and arrogance boomeranged on them, big time.
Jeb and George, are attempting to force-feed their religion, poke it down everyone’s throat. They don’t trust the courts or the judges decisions, ignore the laws of the land which by the way is AGAINST the Bible they cling to which says, “OBEY THE LAWS OF THE LAND.” Their actions have revealed their personal religious convictions are at play and that stance should not be operating in government seats of power. Both are listening to what they call a higher power, which is their religion, making it a mix of Church and State. They are feeding us their religion. Time to pull the plug and oust them both.
Chee@5
OK Goofy show me where religion figures into this? Where does the “bible” that you reference have that quote? Tell me where? Oh no you are just shooting your mouth like Don arent you!
Try again Chuck – http://story.news.yahoo.com/ne.....olitics_dc
Your side injected religion into this debate.
Chuck @6
Chee is right on the money, and his view — and mine — are in agreement with 82% of the American people.
The intervention by the GOP in the Schiavo situation was ALL ABOUT RELIGION and ONLY ABOUT RELIGION. And that religion was promoted by a rump handful of far right wing religious zealots and isn’t even supported by mainstream EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS!
If you can’t see that you need to get a new pair of reading glasses.
This case was not about Terri’s suffering. This case was not about a family dispute between the husband and the parents. This case was not about due process.
THIS CASE WAS ONLY ABOUT A HANDFUL OF RELIGIOUS FANATICS TRYING TO IMPOSE THEIR WILL ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
jcricket@7
You are like the man that lets his ass override his mouth, article doesnt discuss Jeb and George, nor does it discuss the “scripture” or rules or whatever chee@5 was making reference to…I ask for bannannas you give me raisins!
Here ya go chuck:
God advises us to obey the laws of the land. It’s in the Bible, Romans 13:1-2, TLB. “Obey the government, for God is the one who has put it there. There is no government anywhere that God has not placed in power. So those who refuse to obey the laws of the land are refusing to obey God, and punishment will follow.”
Nelson@8
You are the same as the rest of these nuts, I am not religious…it has no bearing on my feeling about the case. As a matter of fact, if I was religious I would support the killing so she could meet her maker and go to whatever utopia is in front of her.
Diggindude@10
…so you are saying that Jeb and George, as well as Delay are going against the bible on this? Doesnt sound like radical religion to me. I think that is the same bible that those three claim to honor….
I am religious and I have posted on this topic yesterday, I agree that The husband should have the right to pull the plug on this non-functioning woman. Having said that I don’t agree with the views that this is just a religious case, there are some on both sides of the divide that are both religious and non-religious, alot of you need to ask people in the real world what they think insted of asking only fellow bloggers. There is no reason to douse religion in lighter fluid and try to throw matches, in in case you didn’t know that is exactly why Bush is in office again. Will you Dems ever learn that Religion is still huge in this country?
Chuck, do you have to read posts in one room, and make them in another?
The “3 STOOGES” , are against almost everyone on this.
What part of 82% is confusing you?
Will you Dems ever learn that Religion is still huge in this country?
Comment by Adriel—
Religion is big, as a result of the tactics bush, and all religious fanatics use to KEEP religion “BIG”.
Fear is big, theres no two ways about it.
And lets face it, who spreads more fear than right wing wacko religious wingnuts?
If science were taught in as many venues, as religious fear mongering were, there would be a much smaller audience.
But i digress.
It isn’t JUST a religious issue, or religion wouldn’t be trying to distance itself from the cronies.
Its a political football, first and foremost, then to add a heaping pile of fear on top, gwdummy and crew, evoke the mighty “OZ”.
Diggindude@14
What the hell are you talking about?
Adriel, the issue isn’t religion, it is the way some people try to interject religion into politics and public policy. As the polls show, even evangelicals are at best split on the Schiavo case. So like you, I don’t view this as a religious issue.
I hope you understand how secular Americans feel when our political leaders cloak themselves in the bible to justify their actions. The implication is that our honest political positions make us less moral.
Its probably over your head, by the sounds of your rants chuck.
Should i decend?
Chuck@6 IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BIG BLACK BINDER. Your BIBLE has a concordance, so will be easy for you to find or go online or check in a hotel, they may have a copy of the Gidion on the nigtstand. You can take it for free, read it at home.
Adriel@13. Point is, religion has no place in government. Religion is a personal matter, personal choice and personal freedom to worship as you please the God of your liking. What you do is between you and your own ideolgy, that being the image of God you worship. Holy Wars evolve when the state of one God and government collide.
Everyone here who says that the case is NOT about religion is correct. I concur with that.
As I stated previously, the case is about A HANDFUL OF WRONGHEADED RELIGIOUS FANATICS who are far away from mainstream religious beliefs, imposing their will on a bunch of genuflecting Republicans who THINK their constituency agrees with those FANATICAL WRONGHEADED ZEALOTS.
That is why the Bush brothers and the GOP Congressional leadership is being CRUCIFIED in the polls by the vast majority of the American people.
The Bushies acted out of knee-jerk reaction to political pressures put on them by those few fanatics, thinking it the usual Christian right constituency.
In actuality, it wasn’t, as evidenced by the CBS poll which said even most traditional evangelical Christians oppose government intervention.
But the Bushies are so used to kowtowing to anyone who has an “Rev.” in front of his name that they missed the boat completely on this one.
And, boy, are they paying for their stupidity!
As well they should.
“Adriel@13. Point is, religion has no place in government. Religion is a personal matter, personal choice and personal freedom to worship as you please the God of your liking. What you do is between you and your own ideolgy, that being the image of God you worship. Holy Wars evolve when the state of one God and government collide.” Comment by Chee— 3/24/05 @ 11:16 am
As a true anti-religion liberal you regurgitate others words flawlessly but blindly to the laws. Seperation of church and state does not mean that laws can’t be passed to aid religion or beliefs of religious, it just means that Government can’t interfere with the way people worship. Sorry to burst your bubble It also doesn’t give freedom “from” religion like Newdow wants, it guarantees freedom to “practice” religion.
A little religion never hurt anyone. For many, it is a real mainstay in their life that works and their works show it. Bush and his brother have shown how over-zealous they are by exerted and usurped their power and position.
Adriel@22. OH OH..! Bible says, judge that ye be judged not.” You do not know what religion I am or if I am or am not religious. Judgement call.
Adriel @ 13,
I don’t think your views and Nelson @ 8’s views are incompatible. There are many religions that truly are about a “culture of life”. For example some Catholics, most Quakers, some Buddhists, some Hindus value human life unconditionally, based on consistent religious principles. This means avoiding war, no abortion, no death penalty, and keeping people alive at all costs. People who disagree with their viewpoint can still respect them for their consistent principles.
The “culture of life” embraced by some right wing politicians have none of these consistent convictions. In particular, the fundamentalist religious zealots provide no consistency about the value of human life, whether a blastocyst, a mass murderer, a baby born without a cerebral cortex, a brain-dead woman, or innocent civilians (who always seem to be shorter and darker skinned than most Americans) whose leaders we dislike.
I am sure I will be ridiculed as a FemiNazi for this, but I see a much darker subtext to the extremist religious zealots in their activism to keep Terri Schiavo “alive”. Terri became brain-dead in the prime of her life. She can no longer function with human cognition, but the extremists have never valued women for their intellectual functions. No. . . Terri’s brain is gone, but her body is not. More specifically, she has intact ovaries and a uterus, which means that she can still fulfill “God’s purpose” for a woman. I am not implying anyone wants her to actually fulfill this purpose, only that she has not lost her most important capabilities. The ultimate motivation for the fanatical fundamentalists is a world view that believes the proper role of women is to procreate.
The vast majority of non-radical fundamentalists follow their radical shepards without being encumbered by philosophical consistency or even an understanding of the subtext of their leaders. Poor saps.
The bottom line is that there is no single religious stance. Some stances I can respect and some I find to be completely repulsive.
Hugs and kisses!
The hell with religon. Whatever happened to the separation of church and state anyway? Let the poor gal die in peace! Thanks.
Why don’t we use thirst and starvation as the official method of state execution of condemned murderers, instead of death by lethal injection? If it is humane for folks like Terri Schiavo, then why not for criminals? Doesn’t require any elaborate mechanism — just lock the cell door and turn off the water. The inmates time of passing will then be in the hands of God and not man. (Keep the traditional last meal — it will be memorable for the inmate and encourage planning and creativity.)
And if death by thirst and starvation is so humane, then why are people prosecuted for letting it happen to their cats and dogs? Certainly, a pet owner has an unquestioned right to take their kitty or puppy to the vet, no matter how young or healthy, and have the animal instantly put to sleep by lethal injection. So why punish death by thirst and starvation of a pet, whether by accident or design?
On the other hand, many people reading these two hypotheticals will think that death by lethal injection is fairly humane, while death by thirst and starvation is incredibly cruel. If this is the case, why isn’t Terri Schiavo being put to death by lethal injection, instead of thirst and starvation? The courts have obviously decided that it is appropriate for her to be put to death. That important threshold decision having been made, why shouldn’t the most humane method being utilized to achieve this result?
Adriel. Reason for freedom of religion and reason for separation of church and state differs, not even close to being the same issue. Off base!
no chee you are off base like I previously stated, just as you misquoted the bible above.
Seperation of church and state does not mean that laws can’t be passed to aid religion or beliefs of religious, it just means that Government can’t interfere with the way people worship. Sorry to burst your bubble It also doesn’t give freedom “from” religion like Newdow wants, it guarantees freedom to “practice” religion.
Comment by Adriel—
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Main Entry: es·tab·lish·ment
3 a : the act of establishing b : the state of being established
Pronunciation: is-‘ta-blish-m&nt
Function: noun
1 : something established : as a : a settled arrangement; especially : a code of laws b : ESTABLISHED CHURCH c : a permanent civil or military organization d : a place of business or residence with its furnishings and staff e : a public or private institution
2 : an established order of society: as a often capitalized : a group of social, economic, and political leaders who form a ruling class (as of a nation) b often capitalized : a controlling group
Now , can congress make any laws about religion?
The constitution is interpreted by lawyers.
I didn’t say “about religion”, I said to help religous views YES they can.
congress shall make no law respecting an “establishment” of religion, or “prohibiting” the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Check the keywords, they don’t say that religion can’t get involved in laws, they just say government has no place in religion. Check and mate.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”
In case you don’t understand this, it means The US can’t say you have to believe this religion because it is the only one we are allowing. They can’t do what England did to the Pilgrims before they came to the US.
Adriel
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
Not that it matters, but this has been interpreted in the past to mean, congress shall make “NO” laws, regarding any “establishment” of “any” religion.
this is where separation of church and state came from.
this is the argument for removing in god we trust.
This is the argument for removing the ten commandments.
To take it at its most basic meaning, is naive, and innaccurate.
swatter @ 1
Heaven help anyone who would rather have Congress than judges figure out issues like this.
Diggindude @ 33
Your right, you are a liberal which gives you freedom “FROM” logic.
Don, is the constitution “INTERPRETED”?
Adriel @ 22
“As a true anti-religion liberal”
I nominate you for this month’s Mindless Stereotyping Trophy. If you put even one neuron of your gray matter to active use, you would realize that political liberals come in all religious stripes from atheist to devout just like the rest of the population.
Adriel @ 30
“Seperation of church and state does not mean that laws can’t be passed to aid religion or beliefs of religious, it just means that Government can’t interfere with the way people worship. … It also doesn’t give freedom “from” religion like Newdow wants”
No constitutional lawyer would agree with any part of your statement.
Diggindude @ 36
Everything any lawyer or judge says about every constitutional provision, statute, or regulation is an interpretation.
adriel@32:
That is a very conservative application of the first ammendment. I keep thinking I’ve heard that interpretation before.
While we are sitting and parsing the meaning of every word of the First, I might want to interject a bit as to what the law allows and what propriety dictates.
There is no law that prevents me from walking around on the street wearing a g-string, two band-aids on my nipples, and nothing else. Once I have covered the goodies dictated by nudity statutes, I’m fine in Washington State.
Modesty, respect for others, and an age and waistline that makes such a display of flesh more disgusting than sexy keeps me from doing this.
Yes, I suppose the First Ammendment might allow you to make laws of a religious nature. It also allows you to print obsecenities, burn flags, make pornography, and a lot of other things that, like a 35 year-old walking around in next-to-nothing, are legally permitted but generally not a good idea.
What is the purpose of a law based on religion anyhow? Do you think you will legislate people into being good Jews/Muslims/Christians/Taoists? Protestantism is based very heavily on an individual’s relationship with our Lord and Savior. You can not (and should not) attempt to force a person into such a relationship, and to do so makes a mockery of the faith.
Further, how exactly do you propose to implement such law? My community is somewhere around 80% Asian, and as such, is predominantly Taoist/Buddhist. Should school open with a daily banging of the gong and bai bai to Jin Jia asking for sucess with exams?
Quit thinking that secularists are trying to take your religion away. I for one want nothing of the sort. Keep your faith with your home, your church, and your family, and I promise I’ll spare you the dizzying reek of incense and burning ghost money and do the same with mine.
Uh well as far as I know Don our money still says in God we trust, and there are still courts with the ten commandments on display, and Newdow keeps losing all his cases, so maybe THEY are all wrong.
Maybe we should let one of our leading conservative commentators have a say in this:
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Thursday, March 24, 2005
THE CRACK-UP [Jonah Goldberg ]
I think this reader’s got it pretty much exactly right. Conservatives argue all of the time about first principles. As a few serious liberals have recently noted , liberals spend most of their time arguing about strategy and “framing” while conservatives often have knock-down drag-outs about first principles and philosophy. The liberals (and some conservatives) look at these arguments as a sign of internal tensions when they’re really signs of internal health. Anyway, from a reader:
Jonah,
Your remarks on the conservative crack-up were right on (Andrew Sullivan’s banging the drum now, too, I see). The thing that kills me about such perennial reports is that they’re usually sparked by a phenomenon that the left doesn’t quite seem to recognize — honest disagreements between people arguing in good faith.
While internal debate and disagreement can, of course, be a bad thing, it’s more usually a sign of good health. It’s when such debate/disagreement stops when you should worry (e.g. today’s liberals). I am an atheist, libertarian philosophy professor who disagrees with many of the conclusions of cultural conservatives — but I appreciate the fact that conservatives still feel the need to support their conclusions with reasons and the fact that a good opposing argument generally receives a respectful hearing (Exhibit A: The Corner posts on Terry Schiavo over the past week or so).
The same just cannot be said for the left today (Exhibit B: Larry Summers). Disagree with them and you’re a heretic.
Keep up the good work and don’t print my name (I’m trying to get a job
in academia).
Posted at 03:32 PM
MORE ON SCHIAVO [Rich Lowry ]
A very compelling piece in Slate, by a disability-rights lawyer named Harriet McBryde Johnson–although reading good cases for keeping her alive just makes what’s happening all the sadder. I was struck in particular by the argument in these two points (she makes ten all told):
4. There is a genuine dispute as to Ms. Schiavo’s awareness and consciousness. But if we assume that those who would authorize her death are correct, Ms. Schiavo is completely unaware of her situation and therefore incapable of suffering physically or emotionally. Her death thus can’t be justified for relieving her suffering.
5. There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can’t justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.
Posted at 02:47 PM
PSYCHIC FLAME [John Derbyshire]
Not to beat a rather inconsequential point to death, but there are some aspects of national vitality that no-one has yet figured out how to quantify. Rodney Gilbert, writing from China in the 1920s said: “In China the psychic flame burns low, for want of fuel.” Modern Britain presents somewhat the same spectacle in relation to the US. The psychic flame burns rather low over there.
Now I am trying to recall a quote by, I am pretty sure, Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary in the late 1940s. An American diplomat asked him, in some context or other, what the desires of the British people were. Bevin: “The British people have no desires.” (Or something close to that.)
It’s stuck in my mind. If anyone knows the actual quote & context, I’d appreciate it.
Posted at 02:38 PM
FEEBLE, LANGUID, SEMI-SERIOUS DEFENSE OF THE BRITS [John Derbyshire]
Don’t know why I should bother, since I’m not one of them any more: but to your reader’s “Select Few with True Vision,” Jonah, I should think that by anyone’s standard, that phrase is much more applicable to the American lady I quoted (“Republicans want to force me to have babies!”) and to her mirror images, the people on the Right who make it a dead-on certainty that, if I express my mildly pro-abortion views on NRO, I shall get emails calling me a murderer.
I don’t suppose I shall ever get into step with the forced-pregnancy/Derb-is-a-murderer mindsets. They continue to strike me as weirdly hysterical, and I suppose always will. Political equivalent of not being able altogether to lose your foreign accent. I came here too late in life. I *am* now enough of an American, though, to see that there is indeed something unpleasantly smug about Brit-conservative condescension, and I apologize if I have been guilty of it. (Brit-lefty condescension is another matter — but lefties everywhere are appalling, what else can one say?)
Posted at 02:36 PM
BRIT-PICKING: FATALISM [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah, I think we need to bear in mind that what is deemed “hysteria” by the cool natured British would more likely be referred to as “a little riled up” in our American parlance. We are a fighting nation. Our forebearers struggled tremendously to overcome great odds and create this magnificent nation, and that fighting spirit is still alive and well in a goodly portion of our society. It’s isn’t hyteria to be passionate about something you believe in. I consider it a point of honor. I also believe it is the reason we have the greatest military in the world (my husband included!). The British are far too quick to resign themselves to whatever fate appears to be their lot. I find this sort of fatalism irksome in the extreme.
Posted at 02:29 PM
KYRGYZISTAN [Jonah Goldberg]
I’ll try to read up on all that tonight. But I do hope Al Jazeera has a camera crew at the scene.
Posted at 02:24 PM
NOT A JOKE [Byron York]
Air America, the liberal radio network, has announced that Jerry Springer will have a program on the network beginning April 1. Springer will apparently fill the spot vacated by the abrupt and unexplained departure of host Lizz Winstead last month.
Posted at 02:17 PM
PICK ON THE BRITS, CONT’D [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Remember Britain’s Daily Mirror headline following the Bush victory: “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?”
http://www.plasticbag.org/imag.....mirror.jpg
Or consider any of the anti-War screeds originating in Britain. As bad as the American MSM press is at times, its major organs never reach anywhere near the level of hysteria that is common in Britain.
What Derbyshire and other current and former Brits want to believe sounds suspiciously like the tired old “nuance” cant we hear routinely from the left. Only to Derbyshire & Co. it’s not conservatives in general but Americans who see only “Manichean certainties” and are incapable of recognizing any shades of gray.
Must be pleasant to know you’re among the Select Few with True Vision.
Posted at 02:12 PM
DENIED [K. J. Lopez]
CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — A state judge has ruled Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida’s social services agency don’t have legal ground to take custody of Terri Schiavo.
Posted at 02:08 PM
RE: BRITS [Jonah Goldberg]
Another view, from a reader:
How about this: British conservative no longer have the slightest idea of what they are trying to conserve, mainly because they have so little to choose from and still can’t decide. Privatizing a coal mine in a milieu of entrenched Fabian socialism and a widespread conversion to what is essentially cultural Marxism doesn’t quite do the trick.
And they’ve been baffled by Tony Blair. What more needs to be known?
And like the rest of Europe they’d love to drag the U.S. down into death with them.
Posted at 02:01 PM
FIFA — PHOOEY! [Jonah Goldberg]
In a decent, civilized, society this man would be disemboweled on national television for such thought crimes:
You rube. You hick. You maroon! Let me let you in on a little secret. You stating unequivocally that cashews are the best nut to accompany adult beverages is a little like the college freshman pontificating to his Budweiser drinking high school friends that Corona is what knowledgeable people drink (not realizing that Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is the finest beer available in the States).
Sure, cashews are better than peanuts and almonds, but did you ever hear of Filbert nuts? Or maybe you know them by the alias Hazel nuts. As President of the Foundation for Increased Filbert Awareness (“FIFA”), I can assure you that Filberts are far, far superior to cashews. FIFA has conducted numerous scientific alcohol/food consumption tests which have proved conclusively that Filberts are the greatest accompaniment to adult beverages out there.
Live. Eat. Drink. Learn.
Posted at 01:55 PM
BRITS [Jonah Goldberg]
Just for the record, I’ve found British lefties to be just as capable as American lefties of performing pirouettes of hysterical jackassery. British animal rights activists, for example, are far more batty on the whole than American ones.
I do think, however, that Derb is on to something about British conservatives. But I think this has something to do with what British conservatives want to conserve versus what Americans wish to conserve. As Hayek and Sam Huntington have both argued, American conservatives are among the only conservatives in the world who wish to conserve fundamentally liberal, even radical, notions and institutions. When Hayek wrote his essay “Why I am not a Conservative” he was referring mostly to continental conservatives, but also to some British conservatives. In America, however, conservatives were still defenders of liberty because we seek to conserve and defend our constitution, the principles in the Declaration, property rights, liberty, etc.
British conservatism, which does have a lot going for it, is much more rooted in temperment and tradition, and is eager to defend such institutions as the monarchy which, needless to say, is not an institution America’s founders had much use for.
Posted at 01:51 PM
“THE COWS SUFFERED TREMENDOUSLY.” [K. J. Lopez]
Vermont farmer prosecuted for starving his cattle to death.
Posted at 01:43 PM
WEIRD AND HYSTERICAL [John Derbyshire]
I dunno about that, Ramesh. The USA has thrown up its fair share of (to use the appropriate Thatcherism) “wet” conservatives; you can fill in the names yourself. And the “weird, hysterical” strain is evident as much on the Left as the Right. When a well-educated young woman tells me, as one actually did, that she could never vote Republican because “Republicans want to force me to have babies,” I know I’m in America. On the moral issues that stir such passions in the USA, neither Churchill nor Mrs. Thatcher had much to say — though I grant you that the opposition of both to Soviet communism was morally grounded, not mere Great Game statecraft.
Posted at 01:39 PM
ARE WE WITNESSING A CONSERVATIVE CRACK-UP, AGAIN? [Jonah Goldberg ]
Glenn Reynolds tackles this perennial lament and links to others as well. The smart bet must be, “no” if for no other reason than people have been lamenting or celebrating the “conservative crack-up” for decades and so far reports of conservatism’s demise have been accompanied with a boom in conservatism’s prospects.
This is an old and rich topic, but I think one part of the problem with “conservatism’s over” school is that people confuse intellectual conservatism for popular conservatism generally. They are overlapping and mutually dependent movements, to be sure, but less so than most of the disgruntled intellectual types think. If the popular political movement does something at odds with the intellectual precepts of the eggheads, someone invariably yells “aha! the movement cannot sustain such internal contradictions!”
The problem is that all serious and large political and ideological movements contain internal contradictions. Internal contradictions come with growth. Perfect internal consistency comes with contraction and insularity. Small cults are internally consistent on every point. Large movements must deal with coalitions of competing interests.
This doesn’t mean such contradictions don’t create problems and challenges, but if you’re looking for a major coalition to fall apart, you should look less for intellectual contradictions and more for conflicts of interests between major segments of the coalition. The intellectual conflicts are interesting to intellectuals — that’s why we call them “intellectuals” — but they don’t always reflect concrete antagonisms within the movement. Frank Meyer’s fusionism — the marriage between traditional or social conservatism and anti-state or libertarian conservatism — never really worked on paper very well. But despite this internal contradiction — capitalism versus stability — the conservative movement prospered because it believed such a marriage would be useful ideal even if it couldn’t be attained in practice.
Those who want to find in the Schiavo case proof of a movement-splitting schism need to demonstrate that a major constituent of the conservative movement — free marketers, for example — can no longer abide by fighting side-by-side with pro-lifers or social-conservatives. I just don’t see that there’s much evidence of this, which is one of the reasons I think the political consequences of the Schiavo case will be minimal.
Posted at 01:38 PM
NOT PVS [K. J. Lopez]
More on doctors who think Terri Schiavo is not PVS patient.
Posted at 01:38 PM
LET HER DRINK [K. J. Lopez]
A Massaschusetts doctor says he thinks Terri Schiavo could eat and drink orally:
THE CHIPS ARE DOWN. We have had a surfeit of due process. It is now well past time to consider the facts which process has willfully ignored. There is no reason, medical, moral, or legal, to refrain from an attempt to provide Terri Schiavo with orally administered liquids….
Posted at 01:30 PM
IRAQI FORCES… [Rich Lowry ]
…with US help, take down insurgent training camp.
Posted at 01:28 PM
WOLFOWITZ… [Rich Lowry ]
…gains ground.
Posted at 01:28 PM
NRODT ONLINE [K. J. Lopez ]
The new issue of National Review is up for subscribers and with it a whole new digital display—a lot more user-friendly than it’s been. You’ll like it.
If you don’t have access now, I hope you’ll consider signing up. You can subscribe to NR Digital only here. You can subscribe to the paper version, which includes digital access, here. Here’s the cover of the new issue, which has an important cover piece by Otto Reich.
Posted at 01:27 PM
GOOD FRIDAY [K. J. Lopez]
Tomorrow is Good Friday which means, among other things, Fr. George Rutler’s world-famous three-hour meditation on the last words of Christ in NYC (he wrote a book on it, too). It’s from noon to three at the Church of Our Saviour on Park, full location details here.
Posted at 01:23 PM
BRITAIN AND AMERICA [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Let me get this straight: Iain Murray thinks that Leon Kass should be canned over some trivial offense, and it’s the people who say he shouldn’t be canned who are the hysterics?
It may very well be that Murray’s general point is correct: that there is an element to the American national character that is absent from the British, and that this element is what an opponent of it would describe as a “weird hysterical strain.” It may be that this difference in national character has something to do with the popular vitality of conservatism in America, and its pathetic weakness in Britain.
Posted at 01:15 PM
TAKE THAT LEGUME-O-PHILES [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah–
The legume-o-philes will have to give this one up. Despite their superficial resemblance to the vile peanut, cashews are not legumes. They belong in the family Anacardiaceae, along with pistachios, mangos, sumac, and poison ivy. By any reasonable view, of course, you’re right: “nut,” like “bug,” is a term of function, not biology. But those who want to insist on foolish pedantry can at least be accurate about it.
Posted at 01:07 PM
CONSERVATIVES IN BRITAIN [Peter Robinson]
Britain produced two great Conservatives in the twentieth century, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Often accused of being “hysterical,” to use Iain Murray’s word (see “Abortion in Britain,” below), both insisted upon moral clarity, disdaining pragmatism. One crushed Hitler. The other transformed the British economy and played a critical role in the defeat of the Soviet Union.
Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, Harold MacMillan, Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, and John Major? All “tend[ed] toward the pragmatic,” to quote Murray once again. What did they accomplish? Broadly speaking, nothing.
Posted at 01:07 PM
SOROS [Jonah Goldberg]
From Armand in Paris:
One reason to have no doubt Soros is guilty indeed : when it comes to insider trading, we in France REALLY know what we’re talking about.
But I don’t want to indulge your favorite vice
Posted at 01:01 PM
PARENTAL GUSH [John Derbyshire]
May I gush, please? Thank you.
A few weeks ago I posted a brief paternal gush about seeing my 9-year-old son sparring for the first time down at the local boxing gym. Well, yesterday I took my camera along. It’s a cheapo digital number so the picture quality isn’t great, but here is my boy in action against trainer & former champ Tony White.
Posted at 01:00 PM
ROLL OVER MENDEL [Jonah Goldberg]
No one will fall out of their chair in shock when I admit I don’t know a lot about genetics, specifically plant genetics. Nonetheless, I can’t shake the vague sense that the story yesterday about the possible revolution in our understanding of the laws of inheiritance could — if upheld — have far more dramatic repurcussions than anything we’ve been discussing lately. Obviously, I could be incandescantly wrong about this, but it just seems like a really big deal to me.
Posted at 12:58 PM
RE: SOMETHING WE CAN ALL AGREE ON [K. J. Lopez]
Yeah, so, where’s the scotch, Jonah?
Posted at 12:41 PM
“PROFOUND SADNESS AND DISAPPOINTMENT” [K. J. Lopez]
Release:
DeLay, Sensenbrenner Statement on Supreme Court Ruling
WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) issued the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s decision today:
“Like millions of other Americans, we received word of the Supreme Court’s decision not to grant relief to Terri Schiavo with profound sadness and disappointment. The House and Senate met in extraordinary circumstances to ensure that Terri Schiavo received a federal court hearing to determine whether her federal or constitutional rights had been violated.
“Sadly, Mrs. Schiavo will not receive a new and full review of her case as the legislation required. I strongly believe that the court erred in reaching its conclusion and that once again they have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Congress. While federal remedies have been exhausted, I urge Governor Bush and the Florida legislature to continue examining all options to save Terri’s life.”
Posted at 12:40 PM
“SHUT UP” [K. J. Lopez, American Hysteric]
Believe it or not, I’ve spared you most of my e-mails, but here’s one, of a sentiment that keeps rolling in:
Dear Kathryn,
I didn’t at all mind that you kept up the commentary when there was hope (and I appreciate that you made the Corner pretty much the best place to go to follow the situation with Terri) but things being what they are now, I wish most of you would just shut up for a while. Really. Said with all due respect and etc. etc.
Shutting up would be the absolute wrong thing to do if the power you’ve got is use of a media that runs on doing anything but shutting up. As has been expressed below, these defining life-and-death issues are not killed with this woman.
Posted at 12:38 PM
SOMETHING WE CAN ALL AGREE ON [Jonah Goldberg]
Cashews are the best nut to eat with scotch, whiskey and other grown-up cocktails in civilized settings, hence they are the best of all nuts. On this there can be no debate.
Update I knew the legume-o-philes would pile on to note that cashews are not strictly nuts . I suppose I could have anticipated the email and said they are the best legumes/nuts, but I chose not to for the same reason I call spiders bugs even though they aren’t.
Posted at 12:28 PM
WEISE ON THE NET [K. J. Lopez]
Michelle Malkin’s doing some disturbing Internet researching on the Minnesota school shooter.
Posted at 12:26 PM
LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE FRENCH [Jonah Goldberg]
French Court find George Soros guilty of insider trading.
Posted at 12:23 PM
ABORTION IN BRITAIN [John Derbyshire]
Iain Murray at the Competitive Enterprise Institute comments: “I’ve been following the debate on The Corner and have been struck by the intensity of the arguments levelled at you. I was similarly nonplussed when James Q Wilson reacted (overreacted in my opinion) so hostily to my suggestion last week that Leon Kass may have made an error in judgement. Why do Brit conservatives always tend towards the pragmatic in moral cases and why does this annoy American conservatives so? I think Stuart Reid has an excellent summation of the reason in the new Spectator: ‘We don’t have the moral intensity of Americans, nor do we have their Manichaean certainties. In other words, we are not as good as the Americans, but neither are we as hysterical.’ … (but I think you need a subscription).
“I think I’m fine with not being as good but being less hysterical. I think this fits with the fact that I had never heard the expression ‘Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good’ until I came to this country. It’s a very American failing.”
This is very characteristic. One of the stock topics of conversation among Brit expats in the USA is the weird hysterical strain in US politics. This seems as peculiar and foreign to Brits and Brit-raised (so I’m going to include myself here) as the War Dance of the Sioux, and we can’t understand how it came up in a fundamentally Anglo-Saxon country. The way I look at it, it’s just the mildly annoying downside of the earnest and passionate American desire to be good, and to be known to be good. I suppose Brits want to be good; but they don’t want to half as much as Americans do, and they don’t give a fig whether anyone else thinks they’re good or not. I have always thought that the phrase (now extinct, unfortunately) “no better than she should be,” spoken of a loose woman, is very British.
Posted at 12:17 PM
RE: JUDICIAL MISCHIEF [Andy McCarthy]
Jon,
1. The point of my post is that it was inconsistent to critique the mischief of courts resorting to legislative history to get around statutory commands when that’s exactly what the Eleventh Circuit itself did in this case. I take it you agree with that as you seem to have dropped the subject that prompted me to respond in the first place.
2. The fact that equitable authority is malleable doesn’t mean its use is improper. On a life-and-death issue in connection with a matter as to which congress directed a de novo review, it would have been appropriate to use this equiatable authority to maintain the status quo. If it turned out after a reasonable time for filing claims that there was no cognizable federal right, then that would have been the end of it. But the courts, like the congress, belong to the American people, not the Schindlers. Regardless of whether the Schindlers can prevail (a matter on which requiring of them a pre-demonstration that they were likely to prevail is certainly reasonable), the public has an independent interest, when its congress gives its courts jurisdiction and direction to conduct a plenary review of a matter, to have that matter fully reviewed in the courts absent third-party interference, unless and until someone demonstrates that the statute providing jurisdiction and direction is unconstitutional.
3. I am not shrinking from the substantive due process charge. I readily cop to it. I haven’t been avoiding you on it. I think it’s an important question and deserves as thoughtful a response as I can give it, and I’m working on that. Admittedly, the Supremes have just knocked the wind out of my sails a bit, so I’m less than inspired to keep plugging away on this. But I’ll try to buck up.
Posted at 12:10 PM
JAILHOUSE COVERSION [Mark Krikorian]
The Supreme Court yesterday refused to overturn the death sentence of a murderer who said the jury should have been able to take into account his newfound Christian faith in deciding his fate. This is something that has long bugged me – any attempt by a supposedly remorseful murderer to overturn his death sentence ought to be prima facie evidence that he is not, in fact, remorseful. Part of remorse is accepting the fact that you deserve the law’s punishment for your heinous crime – in fact, if you’re a Christian, you deserve damnation, which you hope you will be spared by God’s grace. As the penitent thief at Calvary rebuked the other thief who mocked the Lord, “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.”
Posted at 12:08 PM
UNION CHEESECAKE [Mark Krikorian]
Try to imagine what the cover of the magazine of the International Association of Machinists would look like – maybe beefy men with wrenches or power tools? Then look here at their spring issue. I think organized labor is in more trouble than I thought.
Posted at 12:07 PM
NEUROLOGISTS DEFER TO COURTS [K. J. Lopez]
From USA Today:
“Terri Schiavo has had no food or water since Friday, which has led her parents and their supporters to complain that she could be experiencing a painful death. But neurologists on Wednesday said that based on court findings of her condition, her body gradually will shut down in a painless process that will lead to death.”
Posted at 12:03 PM
TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS [Jonah Goldberg ]
Oh, on that I agree with Kathryn and Derb entirely. I think the longterm challenges and problems represented by the Schiavo case are enormous and hardly unique to her.
Longtime readers know this is an issue I’m really interested in, if not particularly expert on. I think the big changes in politics are often — but not always — driven far more by technology than by ideas. As Chesterton said, “progress is the mother of problems” — or something like that. This is a point I’ve tried to address many times. I think first here and most recently here.
Posted at 11:41 AM
STRANGE POST [Ramesh Ponnuru]
from Andrew Sullivan. Is the point that nobody who objects to same-sex marriage can sincerely believe in civil rights in another context? That it’s wrong to make the case for feeding Terri Schiavo if you’ve received $250,000 from the Bradley Foundation? That the conservative movement 30 years ago would have been pleased as punch about her death by starvation? That when you want to associate your opponents with straw-man arguments, you can just say they’re making those arguments “subtly”? This isn’t Sullivan at his best, I think.
Posted at 11:26 AM
THE CASE AGAINST PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION [John Derbyshire]
Reading about the school shooting in Minnesota, I can’t get out of my head the name of the cult the homicidal teenager signed up with: the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party. Their emblem is a swastika on a green background.
Pop quiz: Would you describe this party as left-wing, or right-wing?
Posted at 11:14 AM
ABOUT JONAH’S PREDICTION [John Derbyshire]
I am very glad that for once in this sorry business I can agree with Kathryn. At both ends of life — the very beginning, and the very end — we have some serious collective thinking to do. Technology is going to push Rauch’s “hidden law,” which we have muddled through with up till recently, out to the margins.
By way of illustration, note the rising prominence of the abortion issue in Britain — the very home and hearth of muddle-through social policy. This is technologically driven — by improved prenatal imaging devices.
Posted at 11:12 AM
COULD BE? [K. J. Lopez]
One usually sharp observer of things e-mails me:
There’s a significant cohort of folks out here in flyover country for whom this is a watershed moment. Just as the Elian Gonzalez case harmed Gore among Cuban- Americans in Florida 2000, the Terri Schiavo case has energized those people enraged by courts and politicians perceived as taking either a passive or adverse position on preserving Terri’s life.
Yes, most people will return to their daily lives, but highly motivated subsets of the electorate often make the difference in elections l–and in this case the passion is overwhelmingly on the side that views the courts as the problem, not the solution.
Posted at 11:06 AM
RE: OUGHT VS. IS [K. J. Lopez]
As I said, I do think you’re unfortunately right about the is part. Though if we can do anything to sway that…a little standing athwart history feels in order.
Posted at 11:05 AM
OUGHT VS. IS [Jonah Goldberg]
Kathryn – Just to be clear I wasn’t necessarily saying it’s good news that this will change little of the political landscape but that I simply think it is so.
Though I should add I think the pro-life movement is now much more committed, publicly, to “life” issues across the board and not just abortion. Obviously this was largely the case before, but not so much in the public’s eye. How that affects the internal dynamics of the right and how the right is perceived politically in the long run I don’t know. But as for the electoral issues, I think this is largely a flash in the pan — at the national level.
Posted at 11:00 AM
TV ON TERRI [Tim Graham]
MRC’s Rich Noyes discovered looking at the evening newscasts that 59 percent of soundbites (including the statements of network reporters) attacked Congress for acting in Terri Schiavo’s defense and 60 percent of soundbites presented the husband’s kiss-her-goodbye case to only 40 percent presenting the parental counterargument.
Posted at 10:53 AM
POLY-POSTING [Stanley Kurtz]
As a sequel to yesterday’s polyamory piece, here’s a fascinating post on the connection between gay marriage and polyamory by a pro-polyamory activist.
Posted at 10:50 AM
RE: PREDICTION [K. J. Lopez]
Jonah writes, ” most Americans on both sides of the issue will be relieved to say goodbye to the topic entirely.” I hope that’s not entirely the case. She’ll be dead, having not gotten a fair hearing, and we’ll have a lot of unsettling questions we should be dealing with for a long time to come. Do we err on the side of life or death? It’s a question that hits us on a lot of fronts. And, while I know Jonah’s right inasmuch it’s all so uncomfortable and unsettling and complicated in it’s ugly details that most people don’t have the time or mental energy to fully deal with them when we all have our own closer to home problems and decisions and tragedies to deal with. But, as a society, we need to be facing these issues, especially as technology only makes it easier to both end and create life.
Posted at 10:44 AM
PREDICTION [Jonah Goldberg]
The negative political consequences in the long term for the Schiavo manuevers by the GOP will be near-zero, even though a majority of Americans will view them negatively. This episode is simply too unique, awful and conflicting for anybody except a very small number of people to hold a grudge about it. Recall, liberals insisted that the Republicans would pay dearly for impeachment, that really didn’t pan-out either. Also — as Ramesh has pointed out many times — every “sophisticated” student of American politics has insisted for decades now that abortion politics hurt the GOP even though there is scant evidence to back that up either. Regardless, while some significant number of pro-lifers will carry the Schiavo cause for a very long time (and the GOP leadership can claim to be true to the cause), most Americans on both sides of the issue will be relieved to say goodbye to the topic entirely and few will remember it come the next election and virtually no Democrats will use it against Republicans in their campaigns.
Posted at 10:37 AM
SCOTUS [KJL]
just refused to take the case.
Posted at 10:28 AM
JUDGE GREER [K. J. Lopez]
just denied a motion from Florida to unseal records in the Schiavo case.
Basically, how about I just tell you if a judge ever says yes to something?
Posted at 10:24 AM
RE: JUDICIAL MISCHIEF [Jonathan H. Adler]
Andy — I believe the 11th Circuit majority properly appled the relevant legal tests and standards of review. Judge Wilson’s only real arguments to the contrary relied upon the courts’ equitable authority — not the strongest ground given the malleability of equitable principles — and, as I noted before, no federal judge has yet to suggest that there is any merit whatsoever to the underlying federal claims. We can agree that there was real judicial mischief in the Florida state courts. The problem is that not all state-level judicial mischief merits making a federal case out of it — even when a life is at stake. Indeed, that was part of the point of the habeas reforms that conservatives championed. It takes much more than judicial mischief to create a constitutional violation remediable in the federal courts. Again, this does not mean that Terri Schiavo should be killed (I’m not in Derb’s camp on this one), but that there may not be a valid federal claim. Speaking of constitutional violations, Andy, I’m also still wondering how your claims from before are anything other than substantive due process arguments.
Posted at 10:22 AM
HERE’S THE AMICUS BRIEF [K. J. Lopez]
the House of Representatives filed yesterday.
Posted at 10:08 AM
ATLANTA DREAMING [Kate O’Beirne]
Are my other NRniks looking forward to our Atlanta event as much as I am? I think we agree that it has been really enjoyable meeting our unfailingly smart and likeable readers. I know that each time we have gotten together I have learned something important and interesting. That doesn’t happen when I hang out on Capitol Hill. So, y’all come, y’hear? Maybe I’ll do my southern accent in person.
Posted at 10:06 AM
RE: STAY AWAY, SEAN [K. J. Lopez]
For a lot of the media, this is another feeding frenzy, not doubt. But, from the little I’ve seen, Hannity’s been able to undo some of the damage some of the other not-paying-attention or hostile types have done with their disinformation. I, for one, am grateful to him and no doubt the Schindlers are. And I know many NRO readers are, too.
Posted at 09:54 AM
STAY AWAY, SEAN [John Derbyshire]
One of the depressing — I am not being facetious, it really does depress me — features of the past couple of days has been watching the talking-heads left-right programs on the telly and wishing I could cheer on the righty — the side of any argument I would instinctively support — but not being able to.
Watching Hannity & Colmes Tuesday night I found myself nursing a devout hope that if I ever enter a persistent vegetative state, Sean Hannity is nowhere in the neighborhood.
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....asp#059136
Thanks don
I had a political science teacher, that was a 30 years veteran chicago police captain, retired.
He was always very clear on contitutional interpretation.
I was blind to the full meaning of the constitution before this person woke me up.
Richard@27:
Interesting question. I for one am horrified not so much at Terri’s impending demise, but the way that it will happen.
Of course, the short answer is that the law does not provide for her to be put to death by lethal injection. If she were in Oregon, there is a process in place to make that happen. She’s not.
I actually find it to be pretty much the final test of the argument over Terri’s volition. Being fed is pretty basic, as anyone who has ever had a newborn around the house will attest. If there is anything going on inside, being deprived of food for several days should bring it out.
So far no word.
It is by now becoming obvious to even the religious right that the Republicans are never going to give them anything concrete to really enforce their beliefs on the rest of us. This Schiavo thing is about giving the religious right the impression that something is being done about their concerns and mis-directing everyone else on what they’re really up to.
Don @34-
You gotta be kidding me!! I know Congress is bad, but I don’t want judges making rules.
Anyway, the slow painful death will soon be over and as Americans, we can jump to the next big issue and never look back. Sad commentary, but true.
And as someone up above said, why don’t the liberals who are against the death penalty and wish the courts to keep delaying the execution, jump up and say let’s error on the side of the dying woman?
It’s because you want to play politics!!
Adriel@32:
While you are parsing the First Ammendment to try to give it the most latitude to regulate religion, let’s step back for a minute and look at what is proper, versus what is legal.
In the State of Washington, there is no law that prohibits me from walking down the street wearing thong underwear, two band-aids on my chest, and nothing else. It covers the letter of the law on indecent exposure. Modesty, a respect for other people, and the fact that I am of an age and waistline that provides little excitement in me walking around like this keeps me dressed. Not law.
Likewise, legislating religious values, while perhaps legally allowed, seems to be about as good an idea as a 35 year-old walking around in his altogether.
Do you intend to legislate people into being good Muslims/Buddhists/Taoists/Christians? The Christianity I know puts a lot of emphasis on one’s personal relationship with our Lord and Savior. We have volition to accept God or to reject Him. I find attempts to write religion in to law to be a way of saying that volition doesn’t matter.
Further, how exactly do you intend to make the law work? My neighborhood is somewhere around 80% Asian, and as such, is overwhelmingly Taoist and Buddhist. Should my daughter open her day of school with ten
minutes of chanting and prayers to Jin Jia for sucess in her examinations?
Quit thinking that secularists want to keep you from being a good Christian. I certainly don’t. Keep
your interpretion of the Bible with yourself, your God, your family, and your church. In exchange, I
will do the same and spare you the horrible smell of burning incense and ghost money.
Terry Schiavo has been dead for 15 years. And,as a liberal, I don’t want judges making rules either–like the one the Supreme Court made in 2000 about who won the presidential race. Is that the kind of judicial interference you’re opposed to, or just the kind where you don’t like the result?
You know the funny thing is we agree on an issue and I still get my ass chewed, Why do Liberals feel they always have to be the devil’s advocate, what a disagreeable bunch.
Adriel@49:
Why do Liberals feel they always have to be the devil’s advocate, what a disagreeable bunch.
While we may agree on Schavo’s right to die, you were getting into a chest-beating about the First Ammendment and what it does or does not permit one to legislate in the name of religion.
I don’t agree with your interpretation of the First even a little bit.
richard @ 27, jsa @ 44
Richard, starvation is not the same for people at end of life as it is for healthy people. It is a fairly painless process, actually. The body goes into a uremic state, and the organs begin to shut down.
jsa, what you describe, Oregon does not have. That would be a euthanisia law, where you would have the right to administer lethal medicine. What Oregon has is assisted suicide, whereby a person of sound mind requests lethal medicine, and takes the direct action to receive it into their bodies. Only if they are completely physically incapacitated is anyone allowed to help them, I believe.
The key difference is that in OR you have to be able to request it. Terri can’t.
I’m not sure what happened at 42, but I only intended to paste in last paragraph above the link. The rest of it shouldn’t really be there. Sorry about that.
torridjoe@51,
I sort of suspected that. I stand corrected.
jsa–
your point remains, of course–as far as the law is concerned, they’re not killing her; they’re ceasing to try to keep her alive.
torridjoe@54:
Yes, but it still doesn’t seem to be a very good way of going about it.
I really don’t think there’s much going on in Terri’s head. Her soul, if you will, has left the building.
I wouldn’t put any other sort of animal in a box without food to watch it die. Why do that to a human being, regardless of her current state?
Interesting new tidbit from Mark A. R. Kleiman’s blog:
(oops, excuse the extra bold)
Mark also links to this report prepared by Jay Wolfson, the latest of the three guardians ad litem appointed for Terri Schiavo.
http://abstractappeal.com/schi.....Report.pdf
I wouldn’t put any other sort of animal in a box without food to watch it die. Why do that to a human being, regardless of her current state?
Two simples reasons:
1) Euthanasia and assisted suicide aren’t legal. Even if Schiavo were able to ask for it, no doctor would be allowed to prescribe (except in Oregon) a fatal combination of drugs that would insure a nearly instant death.
2) Courts have previously confirmed that patients have a right to refuse to be fed through a tube (similar to their rights to refuse breathing machines and other artificial live prolonging measures). Even Catholic liturgy confirms this – that there comes a point when even something that seems as normal as a feeding tube becomes an extraordinary life-prolonging measure that patients are not under a moral obligation to continue.
See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7276850/site/newsweek/
Steven @ 42
Wow! You need to learn how to edit.
lucy @ 48
For the first 150 years of our country’s history most of the rules that governed commerce and daily life were judge-made. It was called “the common law,” and was based on a variety of factors, including actual practice or custom, and the application by judges of a reasoning process to factual circumstances. In many ways, common law was common sense: In the words of Justice Holmes’ famous dictum: “Even a dog knows the difference between being stepped on or kicked.” And common sense drove common law.
Over the last 75 yeas or so, and particularly in the last 40 years, much of our historic common law has been replaced by statutory and regulatory law. I have now been a Washington lawyer for over 30 years, and drawing on my experience, I can’t say that legislatures are wiser than judges, or that statutory law is preferable to common (sense) law. My impression is the reverse.
While judge bashing may be a popular avocation for some, don’t forget that if you discard the judiciary as a source of society’s rules, what you get in its place is the legislature; which brings to mind Murphy’s dictum: “Nobody’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
Nuff said.
steven @ 52
Please disregard my post at 59.
cricket @ 57
I just got done reading the Wolfson GAL report (sent to me by one of my Republican e-mail correspondents) and while lengthy it provides an objective discussion of the case you can’t get anywhere else. A must-read for those who wish to get beyond the rhetoric and myths to learn what is really going on. Here is another link to it.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q.....8;ie=UTF-8
headless lucy (I was going to use another term for headless) @ 48
The Supremes had to act in 2000. It was a federal, and in fact, a presidential election. Unlike the governess, if we had no governess, no big deal, but we can’t be without a president. Sorry, different situation.
Don, good one. common law=common sense if made by a judge? And you say you are a retired Goldwater Republican?
Don @ 62, others
Go to Bloggerman, Keith Olbermann’s blog. He interviewed Wolfson last night, and there’s a transcript today. He gave the single best expert interview I think I’ve ever seen. The transcript doesn’t do it justice–he was empathic, reasoned, neutral and objective. It was amazing.
jcricket@58:
The legality or illegality of something, by itself, is of little concern to me. Which is to say, you don’t murder because it’s illegal, or because a tablet appeared on a burning bush in the book of Exodus saying “thou shalt not kill”. You don’t murder because a society which tolerated people arbitrarily killing each other for slights real or imagined would not be much of a civilization.
Euthanasia is illegal because it deeply disturbs a certain percentage of the population. Hearing Christina Aguillera sing deeply disturbs me. Regretfully, I don’t have enough allies that we can make it illegal for her to be on a stage. [1]
I understand the rationale for pulling a feeding tube. It is just disturbing because unlike turning off other vital functions, (i.e. respiration, circulation), it’s a pretty slow way to end it all.
I understand the rationale for pulling a feeding tube. It is just disturbing because unlike turning off other vital functions, (i.e. respiration, circulation), it’s a pretty slow way to end it all.
First, my point is that if that’s disturbing, but you understand the rationale for removing the tube, there are quicker alternatives (see Oregon). If those are unacceptable, for other reasons, then this is what you end up with in cases like this.
Second, medical professionals and nurses will tell you that terminal patients (even ones who are concious) will choose “death by starvation” as it is a far better way to die than through the pain and suffering they face while slowly dying through “natural” means. Here’s but one example:
http://www.latimes.com/feature.....;cset=true
As morbid as it may sound, nurses who work in the terminal wards of hospital will refer to death due to starvation/lack of water as a “high quality death”.
(you may have to cut and paste that link into your browser – sorry). Here’s a good quote:
jcricket@66,67:
I’ll file that information away for future reference, thank you.
So far, I have not been responsible for any hospice decisions. My parents and siblings, and spouse are all relatively young, and healthy. My friends who have tell me that while the Oregon solution is nice, it can frequently be done outside of Oregon.
Essentially, if the doctor trusts the family members, and vice versa, it is very common that people in hospice care receive painkillers to alleviate pain and suffering.
A little extra can frequently be arranged if everyone agrees that’s for the best.
On the subject of natural death and morbidity, I just finished an interesting book on dead bodies called “Stiff” by Mary Roach. With cheer and humor she describes potential end scenarios for your carcass once you’ve departed. There is burial, cremation, various forms of medical research, composting and recycling and so on.
Most of it was interesting and amusing reading. It was only when she got to “natural death” (i.e. a body laying in a field and all God’s creatures doing their work on it), that it got to be a bit much to stomach.
jcricket@67. (1) Terri was a Catholic. (2) Michael was respiration therapist. Catholic beliefs and Bush Brother’s beliefs differ a great deal. I am sure Terry and Michael spoke of death and dying a lot due to Michael being a respiration therapist. What is most concerning now is how Michael’s name have been scandelized by those who feel the need to inflict more pain upon pain. He should sue a few of those sinners for defamation of character. Make an example out of them. I have found that people who shout the most about religion usually have the least.
steven@42. Did sound politics get you to sabatoge the board? I gave up on the thing half way. I thought it was by Mr. Cyncial.
adriel@29. Pardon me. I forgot you interpret to your own liking. Dust off your Bible and grab the Constitution. Find a preacher and historian that can help you. Whether you know it or not your WRONG.
swatter@48. Course Jeb and George and posse are not playing politcs with Terri’s life. Mayeb you should should consider taking a class in Braille if your blind to who started all this and still is entrenched up to their eyeballs. Sure as hell wasn’t the liberals. You get one more guess.
Chee @ 70
Michael Schiavo was a restaurant manager when Theresa Schiavo suffered the heart stoppage in February 1990 that she never really recovered from. He only became a respiration therapist years later.
Theresa Schiavo *is* a Catholic. There is no evidence that she abandoned her faith or anything like that.
The Catholic Church has spoken out very strongly against disconnecting Terri Schiavo from the feeding tube, including recent statements from top Vatican officials.
Jeb Bush is a Catholic. George W. Bush is a Methodist. I don’t know how much George W’s beliefs differ from Catholic beliefs, especially on the feeding tube issue. Jeb’s beliefs seem to be very strongly Catholic, at least on the feeding tube issue. Jeb doesn’t seem to share the Catholic beliefs against the death penalty however.
By the way, regarding Goldy’s last comment in his posting, about Dr. William Cheshire’s supposed religious beliefs. Dr. Cheshire happens to be an Episcopalian — a church without strong official views one way or the other on the matter. Whatever beliefs Dr. Cheshire may have, he would have probably developed on his own, and not because of blindly following a religious leader.
I don’t think Michael Schiavo is all that upstanding of a character. The same polls that show 82% of the people supporting his position only show about 70% thinking that he deserves sympathy. These same polls show the high 80’s of people thinking that Theresa Schiavo’s parents deserve sympathy — at the same time the vast majority are opposing their position.
Why is this? Once Michael Schiavo had the malpractice award in his pocket, he had the vet put Theresa’s cats to sleep. The cats probably weren’t that old or anything. He melted Theresa’s engagement and wedding rings to make a ring for himself. He stopped Theresa’s therapy treatments. He started living with another woman and has two children by her. He won’t divorce Theresa however. Logically, this is so that he will legally inherit everything she owns as her “husband”, instead of it going to her parents. He also has a strong self-interest in Theresa dying soon, so that more of her medical malpractice award will go to him, instead of being consumed in medical bills.
WARNING! Speculation (just throwing out a few thoughts, oh, that is what everyone else is doing):
I don’t know about the character of either Mr. Schiavo nor the Shindler’s (nobody here has proven anything for or against either). Not sure that is relevant. What I am considering in this case was the method of trial in court. Did Schiavo’s case go to court with only a judge looking at the evidence? Making a ruling?
I wonder what a jury trial would have done for this case. Consider: A jury of your peers has never heard the evidence presented at trial?
I still think there is no reason for the Legislative and Executive branches of our federal government to get involved in this. But for future cases, should it be just a judge deciding such a case, knowing how the judge’s hands are tied by narrow legislation?
Richard Pope@70. Please! Put her cat to sleep and melted down wedding ring for a ring fo himself. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. What a bad boy he is! Micheal also gave therapy to Terri, no mention of that. Just because Terri was a Catholic doesn’t mean she has to have 40 kids cause the Pope’s mulitple-the-flock birth control called the ryhthm system, does not work or be one of the living dead Two years ago Michael sent an independant report to Gov. Jeb and the judicial system saying,”the evidance is incontrvertible that he gave his heart and soul to her treatment and care. He never got the money, it was placed in trust for medical care. Terri is now on state aid. In Wolfson’s report,it says, “there is no evidance in the record of the trust adminstration documents of any mismanagement and records are excellently maintained. Micheal took Terri to California in 1990 and had a thalamic stimulator implanted in her brain, no mention of that aid. The stimulator is an obstacle in brain. Why MRI is not being done. But..how about that bad boy and cat and ring thing? The headlines tonight read, “Schiavos huband demonized, but evidance shows he cared.” This whole shitload of demonizing him is crowd mania. Crowd psychology expert, professor from Ritgers Univerity said, that in highly emotional issues this happens and the stronger the beliefs the more exageration OF ALL THAT IS WRONG and intensifies over time. EXACTLY what is going on. Micheal is the whipping post and dehumanizing him makes it all right. No..it does not. My heart goes out to Michael, Terri and her parents. There is a poll going about what % symoathizes with Micheal. How sick can people get. Rutgers professor answers that question nicely. As the judical decisions keep coming down against those seeking to prolong Terri’s life, decraesing options” clearly fuel the fire.” AMEN.
Mark@75. WARNING. Forget the jury of your peers. How would you like christmasghost, Mr Cynical, Adeil and anonymous anonymous anonymous and more anonymous to make up a jury to decide your fate? What an anomalism that would be. You better take that idea back. :-)
Richardpope@70. Wake up Please. There is law to consider here. You can not divorce a vegtable. Who do you serve the papers on, her feeding tube.
MArk@75. Now don’t come up with the dispute that they heard evidance beforehand. You know they never hear anything. :-)
Chee @ 76 and 78
Actually, in Florida, you can divorce a vegetable. In fact, you are encouraged to do so. There are only two grounds for dissolution of marriage in Florida: (1) marriage is irretrievably broken or (2) one of the parties has been mentally incapacitated for at least three years:
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Sta.....38;Title=->2004->Ch0061->Section%20052#0061.052
RichardPope. Good gleaning. I did not have Florida law. I think that is a fair law, some states still have older standards that prohib. Go to the head of the class. Thanks.
richardpope@80. Reading Florida law it appears Terri’s guardian being Micheal, the court appointed guardian ad-litum for Terri would be served, a report said she does have one. I don’t have problem with Michaels starting anew life and family, he has a right to a life to in spite the fact others may think he should throw away his chance for a life and vegetate right along with Terri. I haven’t see a lot of protestors out carrying around a lot of signs and fury about anyone else that shacks up or bears children out of wedlock when it comes to anyone else doing it. The world has been doing this for years. Then there is Prince Charles in his knickers and all the other throwned ones down through history who had mistresses and affairs outside the their marriage. The overkill on Michael reminds me of the days of stoning where Jesus said, He that is without sin cast the first stone. Sure is a lot of people without sin casting stones at Micheal.
Richard Pope @ 74
Terri Schiavo *is* an uninhabited carcass. A brain-dead person can’t have a faith. If there’s a heaven she’s been in it for years; if not, there’s only a black void where her conscious being used to be.
For God’s sake man, get some facts before you go off. The malpractice settlement awarded $300,000 to Michael for loss of consortium and $700,000 to Terri for medical expenses. I don’t know if that’s before or after attorney fees were taken out. Terri’s settlement was put in a trust NOT controlled by Michael and he didn’t get one cent of that money. She’s been in care facilities for 15 years, do you know what nursing homes cost? Do you honestly think there’s any of that money left to inherit? Her care costs $80,000 a year. Given your other inaccuracies and half-cocked parroting of right-wing slander, I’m not going to waste any of my time looking up your allegations about putting cats down or melting wedding rings. Sounds like typical right-wing blog excrement to me.
BTW — Terri’s parents encouraged Michael to start dating again. You don’t expect him to be a monk, do you?
marks @ 75
This case has been studied to death by dozens of judges. The court record is 30,000 pages long. Juries don’t decide questions of law.
That’s a joke right?
I have now framed and asked the SAME question over a dozen times:
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Are you totally incapable of giving a one word answer?
PICK ONE… ONE LITTLE WORD… THAT DEFINES THE PHILOSOPHY GUIDING *YOUR* EXISTENCE …
LIFE or DEATH?
Choose.
Comment by anonymous
Sorry kiddo, NO ONE agrees with you…or disagrees with you… YOU ARE TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO TAKE A STAND.
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Comment by anonymous
Words, words, words, blah, blah, blah, still saying nothing.
The corner you’ve painted is REFUSING to answer a simple damned question.
A simple one word question… LIFE or DEATH??
WHY ARE YOU AFRAID TO ANSWER IT?
See duuuuuuude your problem is this…
If you are such a COWARD that you can’t even call something by its name, you can’t even begin to discuss it honestly.
So come on duuuuuuude, we’re all waiting….
Define your the philosophy of your existance….
LIFE
or
DEATH?
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Comment by anonymous
You do realize, don’t you duuuuude that even your liberal pals are sitting at their screens laughing at you:
When you refuse to answer, as you are so studiously avoiding doing, you look like a complete FOOL and/or 2yr old trying to deny reality.
If you answer LIFE you will be humiliated by exposing your hypocrisy of pandering in the litterbox of your liberal pals.
OR
If you answer DEATH even you won’t be able to run from the repugnancy of your own beliefs.
Quite the nice corner you’ve painted yourself into.
Please turn around so we don’t have to see your ugly yellow streak.
Comment by anonymous
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
And remember… not answering is an answer and reveals much about what you are… or aren’t.
Comment by anonymous
That’s a joke right?
I have now framed and asked the SAME question over a dozen times:
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Are you totally incapable of giving a one word answer?
PICK ONE… ONE LITTLE WORD… THAT DEFINES THE PHILOSOPHY GUIDING *YOUR* EXISTENCE …
LIFE or DEATH?
Choose.
Comment by anonymous
Sorry kiddo, NO ONE agrees with you…or disagrees with you… YOU ARE TOO MUCH OF A COWARD TO TAKE A STAND.
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Comment by anonymous
Words, words, words, blah, blah, blah, still saying nothing.
The corner you’ve painted is REFUSING to answer a simple damned question.
A simple one word question… LIFE or DEATH??
WHY ARE YOU AFRAID TO ANSWER IT?
See duuuuuuude your problem is this…
If you are such a COWARD that you can’t even call something by its name, you can’t even begin to discuss it honestly.
So come on duuuuuuude, we’re all waiting….
Define your the philosophy of your existance….
LIFE
or
DEATH?
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
Comment by anonymous
You do realize, don’t you duuuuude that even your liberal pals are sitting at their screens laughing at you:
When you refuse to answer, as you are so studiously avoiding doing, you look like a complete FOOL and/or 2yr old trying to deny reality.
If you answer LIFE you will be humiliated by exposing your hypocrisy of pandering in the litterbox of your liberal pals.
OR
If you answer DEATH even you won’t be able to run from the repugnancy of your own beliefs.
Quite the nice corner you’ve painted yourself into.
Please turn around so we don’t have to see your ugly yellow streak.
Comment by anonymous
We are no longer talking party preference here kiddo.
No longer talking Terri or conservative or liberal or religion or husband rights or states rights or judicial activism or the Constitution.
We have boiled this discussion down to one single question… one which you refuse to answer.
Are you coming down on the side of LIFE or DEATH – which culture do you want to be associated with?
LIFE or DEATH?
And remember… not answering is an answer and reveals much about what you are… or aren’t.
Comment by anonymous
Anonymyass get off of your damn high horse and get a life. No one here gives a flying shit about what you think and rant about. Get a life little girl…..the real world has already passed you by……….
Anonym”ass” and chardummy, are playing a game.
They think its funny.
I think its funny too. If they dont stop it, they might get banned.
anonym”asshole”, why dont you go to scrounge politics, or christmasghosttown where you belong.
HEARSAY
HIS STATEMENT OF HEARSAY IS PRESUMED VALID
YET FAMILY AND BEST FRIENDS IS INVALID.
Coming this fall, made for TV movie
HOW TO LEGALLY MURDER YOUR WIFE
comment by chardonnay
that came directly from the nurses affidavit. the very same affidavit that Judge Greer did not allow. The nurse reported to her administrator, that she found a needle and needle marks on Terri in 3 places, she was sweating, her blood sugar was low, after Michale had been in the room with Terri withthe door locked.
She then called the police, they came to her home and took a report. The next day she was fired.
the affidavit is available for the world to see at terrisfight.org
http://www.blogsforterri.com
I suggest you read codeblueblog.blogs.com
everyone is lying except michael, right? 4 neuologists, 3 nurses, 2 speech pathologists, 2 internists, 1 neuro psychologist, all lying.
Dr Cranford, 45 minutes with Terri, he is the star witness and totally believable, right?
comment by chardonnay
Theresa Marie has NEVER had a MRI, you can say EEG as many times as you want, it means nothing without more conclusive xrays, tests. all of which have been denied.
yes, lets all just butt-out and let allow the kavorkians to kill people, legally. we shall just sit back and mind our own business. it is a private family matter. just like abortion. just like our property rights, just like how we discipline our children, just like how we should allow gay marriage.
what is the governments business? who is the government? what are we, this population, a citizenry, we the people? A society, a whole body.
A nation of laws not men. last time I checked, murder was still against the law, well at least for now. Once Terri dies we can add a constitutional amendment…the husbands property, he can beat his property into a coma, or shake his property senseless, then call Dr Cranford, George Felos and quickly transport “his” property to the “correct” hospice facility, where the Judge has ties. wink wink!!
soon it will be the norm and the left will abolish the death penalty and pedophiles will become members of the teachers union. what a lovely world.
butt-out? I shall not.
comment by chardonnay
Chardonny. I finally get it after going to your link. Let’s see think this is how it goes. The police, hospital and judges are in a huge conspiracy with Michael. The nurse was fired from her duties at the hospital for no reason at all and has not filed unfair labor practices. The police were called to her home and didn’t give a shit, no criminal charges were filed. Sounds about right to me. I have read about those over practical nurses that try to aid the dying, they usually get caught and charged unless they make up a good story. I wasn’t very impressed with her mug shot and less impressed with that frantic blog site. Reminds me of anti-abortionists who are right-to-lifers. Why do they always want to kill the abortion docter if they are right- to-lifers. I never could figure that one out either but I bet you can.
Chardonny. And now for the rest of your story. The insurance was willing to pay out all that money because Michael strangled his wife. You have to be kidding, you think they don’t fight to get out of paying, their lawyers looking for any way our they can. Later down the line sometime Micheal went to Terri’s bedside, locked the door and shot her up with insulin to kill her; three shots, three needle marks. Unbelievable. With all the forsensics of today Michael and the spouse always being the first suspect in any crime scene, it is a wonder of wonders that Micheal is still at large. Scott Petersons dad is still in denial dispite the verdict, he thinks Scott is innocent. Rather reverse here, you think Michael is still guilty even without charges and a court trial. It is you who have tried Micheal and found him guilt.
Comment from the “honorable” Tom Delay (CynicalIdiots illegitimate twin it seems)
“Mrs. Schiavo’s condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media, but far more often has simply gone unreported all together. Terri Schiavo is not on a respirator; she can breathe on her own. Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life-support.
If needing tubes to get nutrition is not life support what is? Just think, if she was in Texas and her money ran out the ‘Texas Taco’s Law” would allow them to pull the tube for lack of possible payment. Nice roll model all of your wingnuts!
and more on YOUR Roll MODEL the dis-honorable Delay
“Mr. DeLay moved yesterday to file a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court asking that Ms. Schiavo’s feeding tube be restored while the federal court is deciding what to do. But as he exploits this one sad case, Mr. DeLay has voted to slash Medicaid by $15 billion, denying money to care for poor people in nursing homes, some on feeding tubes.” Wow what a totally religous, extremely nice, two faced lying bigot this guy is
jpgee@94. G.W. declared war on Iraq. Lives are snatched from from families during war. American men and woman and Iraq’s men, woman and cildren both lost lives. What happend to his “thou shalt not kill.” You can’t have it both ways. Bush speaks with forked tongue. How easy is this Bush: Either you direct the killing by a declaration and believe killing is right or you don’t direct the killing by an order cause you believe killing is wrong. Just doing a dirty war duty I suppose. Killing is killing, sending men and woman to kill is what war is about. Bush sanctions killing by providing weapons to kill. Bush had no duty in the Shivavo case other than try to be cover his war-mobger image and relieve the pressure from his soul for loss of lives. His looming guilt is the over 1,500 mother and father’s sons and daughter who have been killed due to his order to war, KILL. Two wrongs don’t make a right nor will his guilt go away by championing for Terri. Bush’s HAS a double standard. He also lies.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/new.....d=84439559
The false framing of this debate is that it’s about life or death. The truth is it’s about whether you want a government run by religious zealots to decide your fate based on whatever they think their Bible says.
I can only hope that “moderate” Republicans wake up and realize there’s no room for them in the modern-day GOP. Your party is now now the party of reckless spending, theocracy-based government intervention and non-reality-based science. Here’s someone who gets it: http://www.balloon-juice.com/
Chee@95
Just like you, you takew
ONE quote from the most violent book in history and say that is the single one that should be followed….
jpcricket@93. G.W. likes to intrude and interfere. The annointed Bush has made himself the Holy Intercessor. First invade and interfere in Iraq, Second invade and interfere in the Schiavo and Third, We all are Next. Global Bush wants it his way or the highway and Condi better get it for him.
chuck@97 Throw out the law. Throw out Bush’s Bible. How convenient. Bush is to uphold the law and the words of God he so freely preaches about. Reality is tough for you.
http://www.drcarole.com/news.htm
signs of domestic violence up until the day of Terri’s collapse.
CHUCK….try a simpler quote. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Bush has fallen from his own faith; fallen on his own sword. Bush’s hoof and mouth disease got the best of him so he decided to shoot himself in the foot.
Chuck@97. You posted: “ONE quote from the most violent book in history and say that is the single one that should be followed….” Many share your same thought. Right outof the book. I never mentioned the far over the edge moral rights fanaticals being violent but I am glad you did.
chardonny@100. EVERY time the hands of the clock tick, someone is struck by violence, either abused mentally, abused physically, murdered or killed by a drive-by. We are a country of violance that professes In God We Trust to protect us from ALL EVILS. Your riding a dead horse. Praying to a dead GOD? So God can’t fix it and protect life and BUSH can. Deprogram yourself.
chardonny@100. You keep wanting to forget the fact we have free will. Free to be attracted to evil or good, free to do evil or good and to pay the price for either for of our actions. By the law of attraction, we choose. It is plain you have not got a degree in psychology. Co-addiction is just what it says, addictive personalities seek their own level and couple-up, co-existing together to act out the drams that allow them to feel. Never is a one-sided thing in spite of you trying to rewrite Psych. 101. First Martyrs were the Christians. Blame Blame Blame Michael won’t wash, takes two to tango.
Chee@102
You know, throwing a quote or two out of a book that you dont heed to yourself (join the club I dont either) is like reading one or two sections out of an automotive manual
1. Disconnect battery
2. Drain coolant
and then expecting your car to have a new camshaft installed after doing those two things…kind of moronic…makes you sound like an idiot, doesnt it?
Chuck@105. It is moronic and idiotic for BUSH to not practice what he preaches. By golly, me thinks you finally got the message but the wrong messanger. BUSH is the messanger that fails to abide by THOU SHALT NOT KILL. No taking it out of contents Chuckie. It is one of the BIG TEN commandments most learned in Sunday school that Bushy has mindlessly in his own mind stricken from the Big Black Book. The thou-shalt-not-kill commandment is what it is and says what it says. If your a Christian believer, if the shoe fits wear it.
The evil-Michael argument is so typical of wingnuts. There’s gotta be a conspiracy under the bed, it’s here somewhere. When facts and logic are against them, they lie and defame. Anything to keep from losing an argument. We should collect names so Michael can sue all of you.
Chee@106
OK like I said you look stupid making reference to part of something you dont follow
Psalm 82:4 commands us to “Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked.”
Chee, are you saying that there are no victims in a domestic violence relationship? The victim wants to be abused? The signs are exposed from the beginning to the future victim?
That in fact they are both sick and deserve and need each other?
wow, thats deep. how do you conclude this?
Terri was frightened to object to Michael’s pathologically controlling behavior. For example, he would monitor her odometer to control where she went. He tried to isolate her from her friends and family. She had to account for every penny, though they often lived on her income, since he would be fired, sometimes only after two weeks. He would splurge on $400 suits for himself, while she had to economize. He called her at work 3-4 times a day, often complaining of hating his job because no one appreciated him. He was often observed scolding her.
http://www.drcarole.com/news.htm
she had told friends and family the day before and that day that she was leaving him. what about the st petersburg police report?
CHUCK108. YOU HAD A BRAIN FLASH. Deliver us from Bush.
Thank You chardonnay@110
Now really all of you supporters od Terri’s husband, call Bush and get Scott Peterson released! The man only did the same thing to Lacy…Terri’s husband had the food removed, Scott simply wouldnt throw a lifesaving rope and allowed her to drown….
Chee@111
Then I guess out of two leaders you choose Saddam over Bush? You can pull your foot out at any point now….
CHUCK@108. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thy rod and they staff comforts me in the presence of mine enemies.” Bush has enemies. some think he is God, others think he is the anti-Christ. This is all way over your head, your not a Bible scholar but trying to knock heads with one. Forget that.
All the lurkers out there – watch the escalation of the rhetoric against Michael Schiavo, and think what would happen to you in the same situation.
There isn’t an ounce of compassion, humility, honesty or shame left in the supporters of the Schindler’s who are willing to peddle any lie and prop up any charlatan in their absolutist quest for their side to win this case. The intervention and remedies they suggest is truly staggering, disgusting and shameful. Hopefully reasonable people will be given some pause when they consider who now runs the “conservative” party.
http://www.randomfate.net/archives/001096.html
More simply put: “Judge not, lest ye be judged”
chardonny109. Your conclusion is not supported by anything. Do some more discovery. It is not my conclusion that you need to address. I did not draw the conclusion. It has been drawn over the years. Abuse clinics and social workers know what choosing to be the victim means. There is a pattern in co-addiction that runs in families. There is that wonderful honeymoon stage, then abuse stage enters, then the honeymoon stage returns followed by the abuse stage as the cycle heats up and the yo-yo keeps going on, things escalate and get worse. You have said here you were in a abusive relationship at one time. You should know what the roles that go on and what part you played and how long you stayed.
chardonny@110. Not disputing that all that is not possible I am not saying it is so. Pattern, yes.
Sounds to me like Chardonnay is imputing her own experience to Terri Schiavo, in which case Char needs additional counseling.
http://www.democraticaction.or.....ce=r2email
Chee@114
No when dealing with you I actually seem to need to step down a few rungs….
Milking Terri for Dollars
Apparently some right-wing groups think Terri Schiavo is a cow.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032505Y.shtml
The Indians are on the warpath, anger with Great White Father in The White House. Native Americans across the country–including tribal leaders and rank-and-file tribe members over the fact that Bush re-empted his vacation to say somethin about Ms. Schiavo and can’t take the timre to address the 2nd-deadliest school shooting in U.S at Red Lake, Minneapolis. Bush has been silent, the Indians are bitter given his high-profile, late-night intervention on behalf of Schiavo. When the Coumumbine shooting went down in 1999, President Bill Clinton was swift to publicly express his condolances and few days later later addressed it on radio, promising to do what he could re gun control and safety at school. Bush just proposed cutting Indian programs by $100 million next year. Condolances came from all over the world and Ree Cross, while the White House remained silent. Clyde Bellecourt, Chippewa Indian said this, ” From all over this world we are getting letters of ondolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great white Father in Washington hasn’t said or done anything.”
There you have it! Special treatment. At the Red Lake Urban Indian Office, Westerbrook said, “I don’t feel he cares about the American Indian people.”
chardonay @ 110 and Michael made her become obsessed with her weight, he made her start abusing her body to lose weight, he made the chemical imbalance that caused her problems………wish you could marry him. you and he would make a great couple. lmao@rottenwine
Chuck@120. There are cases where it is better to keep the after-birth than the baby. Watch your footing on your extended elevated ladder when you stoop to my level. Don’t want to you to fall off your ladder too soon. You know what the Apple pickering rule is, wait till the end of the season.
Why aren’t these same people worried about the poor kids in the ghetto who have as much of a chance of a “good life” as Terri Schiavo has?
May God take Terri Schiavo soon and end this.
P.S. get your living wills set up asap.
reggie@125. Your word were echoed by a black gentleman, a member of the House Of Rep, at their midnight session to save Terri. He said more or less…where were you Bush, our poor black children are dying from starvation and your cutting health care. Your post is short but the message is profound.
Chee@126
Ask Don, Chee about the kids in the ghetto, like Terri they bring their problems on themselves, guns violence and such. Problem is if the ghetto kids got another chance, they would pick up another 9mm and go again. Terri would probably make the most of it…but in all probability wouldnt kill anyone…or even rob anyone…
chuck@127. Mixing apples and oranges. No comparsion at all. Children are not adults. Walk a mile in the ghetto in those kids shoes before you spit on them.
Chuckie @ 127 very profound statements. Typical of your absurd type. Brand someone as a criminal because of who they were born to or where they are raised. Extremely closed minded thinking on your part chuckie…..but for you, very typical
Problem is if the ghetto kids got another chance, they would pick up another 9mm and go again. Terri would probably make the most of it…but in all probability wouldnt kill anyone…or even rob anyone…
Comment by Chuck
Although, this may have a hint of truth to it, the kids you refer to, are a small minority, and they weren’t born this way, they were taught to live that way, by their emvironment.
Obviously not aquainted with the inner city youth.
As far as repeating by habit, would terri, given the chance to re-do, still choose to stick her fingers down her throat, and consume laxitives, to the point she couldn’t hold solid food inside anymore?
Would she sense this time, that something may be amiss, or would she return to the fruit bowl, she now resides in?
Diggindude@130
No she would in all likeness not…after she left her abusive husband that brought this on…..
http://www.drcarole.com/news.htm
I dont think you would have trouble convincing her….
Surely you’re not falling for that.
You believe that, and you dont believe the republicans were passing that memo around?
Gimmee a break!
Anything that char, or christmasghost, or anonym”ass” are touting, is much more than likely to be made up.
Nice how easy it is for you to throw stones and kill someone….
jpgee@129. Your right one…course there is that mico benefit of the doubt factor to figure in. Maybe, UP-Chuck was born in a barn and has some sorted sense that tells him Terri’s hubby as an abuser, all the while with straight face, doesn’t have to mean he has a bad-ass mouth and is an abuser himself. Goodness-sake, land-of-the living, what have I described, I didn’t mean to say it could also fit others besides UP-Chuck. I better change my screen to MICKYMOUSSSE.