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The GOP's big tent got a bit smaller this weekend, as Smilin' Tom DeLay -- that big-hearted state-rights conservative -- chastised Michael Schiavo for wanting to "let his wife starve to death." Our medical expert on the Hill, Bill "Cat Man" Frist, declared that Terri likely had cognitive function as a result of watching a heavily edited videotape. Kudos to Frist for his courage in this, as rumor has it that watching videotape causes AIDS. You think that having a HCDPOA would've made DeLay, or Frist, or our prinicpled President have the political courage to stand up to the Christian Right, and tell them about state's rights? Yeah, me too. Now rewarded with a comfy four year term of handling every lever in federal government, the GOP establishment is looking more every goddamned day like the liberal othodoxy that they so enjoyed sneering at from outside the gates. Federalists and libertarians, lay back, join the beleagured deficit hawks and the others, and enjoy your new GOP. |
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The Florida STATE legislature did get involved - and act - on behalf of Terri and her parents. Then the Florida judiciary intervened. In this case, the Fed is acting in furtherance of the actions and will of the state. Not against. |
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Round one looks to be a victory for life. Sadly a few dems in the House could ensure that the trigger gets pulled. Typical of the Democrats party to support the death of the innocent. No wonder these guys get so bent out of shape about the War on Terror-its directed at evildoers not the helpless. With Dean at the helm of the DNC steering its amoral course with a general disdain for Christian values we can only hope and pray their ship ends up sinking under the weight of its own sinful corruption. Am I alone in thinking these dems would make good radical Islamics? |
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I look forward to your reasoned analysis of how the Florida Supreme Court fucked up their state constitutional analysis and ruined what I'm sure was a perfectly legal statute designed to -- as you and your apparent compatriots on this issue have put it -- save Terri's life, by placing the govenor first in line in making these health care decisions. Until then, forgive me if I see your argument, such as it is, as the imposition of a tired ideological shorthand to justify the end result. It used to be that federalists would argue for the strength of state rights, and limited federal power, even while acknowledging the risk that state legislatures, courts and officials may come to substantive results that one might not otherwise agree with. (So much for that.) True, in Florida you've minimized those risks with a Republican govenor and legislature, but goddamnit if those liberal judges didn't fuck it up again with a ruling that no one might have read, but still, it just smells like judicial activism. Thank God we'll fix this meta-problem soon enough with some lifetime appointments of people who understand what the founders really had in mind. Until then, if this judicial fuckup isn't reasonable justification for the feds to step in and fix this problem by hook or by crook -- whether by asking Terri to be wheeled in on life support for some questions by a Congressional committee, or by referring the matter to federal court -- I don't know what is. |
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The Right will mince no words on these namby pamby liberals, the right to live will be preserved. As the Bible tells us at Isaiah 5:20, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Verily! http://tinypic.com/2agvu1 |
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On a separate note, I was reflecting on today’s sermon on this holy Palm Sunday and came to the thought that there are disconcerting parallels between the (in)actions of Pontius Pilate in “washing his hands” of the fate of the Christ and the excuses of Governor Jeb Bush that his hands have been tied by the evil Greer. Instead of wallowing in his feigned impotence isn’t it time for Jeb to walk the walk backing up his talk and send in the Florida National Guard to save this young lady’s life? He has the power to settle this matter once and for all, I pray he does not wimp out and join Pilate in the halls of eternal vilification. |
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____ Torturing Terri Schiavo She’d be better off if she were a terrorist. by Andrew C. McCarthy A few months back, I wrote an article for Commentary arguing that we ought to reconsider our anti-torture laws. The argument wasn’t novel. It echoed contentions that had been made with great persuasive force by Harvard’s Professor Alan Dershowitz: that under circumstances of imminent harm to thousands of moral innocents (the so-called “ticking bomb” scenario), it would be appropriate to inflict, under court-supervision, intense but non-lethal pain in an effort to wring information from a morally culpable person — a terrorist known to be complicit in the plot. As one might predict with such a third rail, my mail was copious and indignant. Opening the door by even a sliver for torture, I was admonished, was the most reprehensible of slippery slopes. No matter how well-intentioned was the idea, no matter the lives that might be saved, no matter how certain we might be about the guilt of the detainee, the very thought that such a thing might be legal would render us no better than the savages we were fighting. Well, lo and behold, a court-ordered torture is set to begin in Florida on Friday at 1 P.M. It will not produce a scintilla of socially useful information. It will not save a single innocent life. It is not narrowly targeted on a morally culpable person — the torture-victim is herself as innocent as she is defenseless. It is not, moreover, meant to be brief and non-lethal: The torture will take about two excruciating weeks, and its sole and only purpose is to kill the victim. On Friday afternoon, unless humanity intervenes, the state of Florida is scheduled to begin its court-ordered torture-murder of Terri Schiavo, whose only crime is that she is an inconvenience. A nuisance to a faithless husband grown tired of the toll on his new love interest and depleting bank account — an account that was inflated only because a jury, in 1992, awarded him over a million dollars, mostly as a trust to pay for Terri’s continued care, in a medical malpractice verdict. In this instance, though, deafening is the only word for the silence of my former interlocutors — -civil-liberties activists characteristically set on hysteria auto-pilot the moment an al Qaeda terrorist is rumored to have been sent to bed without supper by Don Rumsfeld or Al Gonzales (something that would, of course, be rank rumor since, if you kill or try to kill enough Americans, you can be certain our government will get you three halal squares a day). Not so Terri Schiavo. She will be starved and dehydrated. Until she is dead. By court order. Terri is a 40-year-old woman who suffered brain damage after a diagnosed heart attack when she was 26. In state legal proceedings dominated by macabre right-to-die activists, a judge found her to be reduced to a permanent vegetative state (PVS), drawing on examinations that appear grossly inadequate to the task of what objective specialists say is a complex diagnosis. Whether she would technically be found a PVS case by a court that was honestly interested in getting a real fix on her condition — rather than breaking new ground in just how far the Left can go in deciding whose life has value — is beside the point. She is alive and, periodically, both alert and responsive. Her parents love her and want to care for her. Imagine if you had a child who was defenseless, dependent, and vulnerable — many of us, indeed, need not imagine — and the state told you not only to step aside but that you had to watch, helpless, while it took two weeks to kill her. That’s what’s happening in Florida. Starting Friday. On another Friday, seven years ago, Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali and Khalfan Khamis Mohammed blew up the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 240 people. They were brought to the United States for trial. They were given, at public expense, multiple, highly experienced capital lawyers, and permitted extensive audiences to plead with the Justice Department not to seek the death penalty. When a capital indictment nevertheless was filed, they were given weeks of voir dire to ensure a jury of twelve people open to the notion that even the lives of mass-murderers have value. They were then given seven months of trial and sentencing proceedings, suffuse with every legal and factual presumption that their lives had worth and should be spared. And so they were. That’s what the law says we must do for terrorists seeking to destroy our country and to slaughter us indiscriminately. What is the law doing for Terri Schiavo? What kind of law is it, what kind of society is it, that says the lives of Khalfan Khamis Mohammed and Mohammed Daoud al-`Owhali’s have value — over which we must anguish and for the sustenance of which we must expend tens of thousands annually — but Terri Schiavo’s is readily dispensable? By court-ordered torture over the wrenching pleas of parents ready and willing to care for her? What kind of society goes into a lather over the imposition of bright lights and stress positions for barbarians who might have information that will save lives, but yawns while a defenseless woman who hasn’t hurt anyone is willfully starved and dehydrated? By a court — the bulwark purportedly protecting our right to life? The torture starts Friday, at 1 P.M. Unless we do something to stop it. link |
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Again, take me off the fucking feeding tube if anything remotely like this happens to me. |
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This is obviously tied in to the abortion debate, and so the sides are the same as in that one. I can only say at this point: 1. If I'm ever in the state she's in, unplug me. I'll make it possible by signing the right stuff in advance. Would that she had done so. But, if my family would somehow derive strength, or hope, or joy by keeping me plugged in, fine. Like I'd know about it, anyway. 2. In the absence of that step, I am amazed - befuddled - by learning, once again, that the fastest way to be demonized here and in our society is to interfere with people's perception of their right (right?) to kill those whom they deem it correct to kill. Nothing divides our society as violently. The people here who come out stridently in defense of their moral certainty of the correctness of killing certain groups of other people - people who are, in other respects, generally thoughtful, gentle-seeming people - well, their resoluteness and drive on the issue are scary. 3. If TS truly is an amoeba - if there's nothing there - and this is a necessary precondition to those calling stridently for her death - what's the harm in humoring her parents, and just handing her over to them, at their expense? Someone here said "dignity", but I suspect they meant their own, as I can't see how killing a life can give that life dignity, while I can see how it might make it easier to argue that such a life is undeserving. Once they're dead, how much defense can they deserve, after all? 4. A strong urge to fight allowing her parents to simply take her away is morbid, and bespeaks either an intensely strong ego that cannot let someone else have their way, or an intensely weak ego that couldn't stand for not getting their own. Why not just stay out of it, and let a parent who is concerned and maybe hopeful do what they can? In the face of a choice of "let her live, on our dime", and "kill her now - I'm sure that's what she wants", why would we ever not simply err on the side of not killing someone? And why do otherwise reasonable people feel so strongly the other way? I truly don't get this one. Not Bob wants her dead. Ty wants her dead. RT wants her dead. They ridicule people who don't. From where do they derive a moral sanction to make and impose this judgment? Is it merely consistent with their longstanding fight in favor of capital punishment? |
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(1) I don't recall ridiculing anyone over this. (2) Declining to have a feeding/hydration tube keep you alive is ok with the law, and apparently it's eveb ok with bilmore. It's not ok with the Catholic Church, and that's something I respect. Frankly, I agree that there is a difference between shutting a ventilator off and unplugging a feeding tube. But there apparently isn't a difference under the law in Florida. People get the choice over whether they want the tube or not. (3) It sure would be nice if she had signed a living will, but she didn't. And, under Florida law, a written document isn't necessary. (4) Nonetheless, there was a trial to determine if Terri wanted or didn't want the feeding tube. The judge (a conservative Republican, by the way) made findings that she did not want a feeding tube. He made these findings after hearing testimony from live witnesses, including court-appointed medical experts. (5) These findings have been upheld on appeal. (6) Should the husband not go with his wife's wishes that she not be kept alive? Why doesn't he just let mom and dad take over? I dunno and I dunno. Although, given the judge's findings that Terri didn't want the tube, his wishes are really no longer relevant. (7) I understand where the parents are coming from. Their religious faith and their belief that as long as Terri is breathing there is hope for a miracle is why they are fighting. Most of the people supporting them probably feel the same way. I have a child, and I can see myself feeling the same way. I can also see myself in the husband's shoes -- wanting to do what my wife wanted, and not sentencing her to life as a vegetable. My heart aches for all of them. (8) Maybe this is where bilmore sees ridicule -- I think that the Republican leadership in Congress has behaved despicably. As bad as Delay has been (I imagine some of his comments about the sancity of life, and the need for certainty, will be used in future debates over federal habeas review of death penalty cases), Frist has been worse. He's a doctor, for christsakes. He knows what the medical reports from the court-appointed doctors mean. (9) I'm done. |
OK kids. I would like to pose a question. Does everyone know who Dr. Helen Caldicott is? If you don't you are lucky. She is an anti-nuclear activist that started Physicians for Social Responsibility. She was nominated for a Nobel Piece Prize. She has written many books, and has recently been on a book tour about her new book. I think it is called “If You Love This Planet”. She is a darling of Hollywood, hanging out with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford all the time. A documentary about her life, “Eight Minutes to Midnight” was nominated for an Academy award.
Her new issue is that the “Cold War is Not Over”. She is working with the Nuclear Policy Research Institute on this issue. She believes that both Russia and the United States nuclear forces are on a hair trigger alert and that we are on the brink of nuclear annihilation. She believe that if a warning comes that Russian missiles are on the way to the United States, Bush would only have three minutes to make a decision, and if such a launch is detected, that our current policy is to respond with overwhelming nuclear attack, just as if we are still in the Cold War. In other words, the world is still on the brink of nuclear annihilation. Dr. Caldicott and my mother are best friends. I just had dinner with her and my mom and as usual, the good Doctor and me got into a political debate. I told her that the United States and Russia were not on full-scale hair trigger alerts anymore. To show me that I was wrong, she called Robert McNamara on her cell phone, and had me talk to him. Talk about bizarre. I don’t know when these two hooked up but I guess he is now working with her on her project. I confronted McNamara, and McNamara told me that he thought a mistaken US Strike against Russia was unlikely and that our missiles were no longer aimed at Russia. When I got off the phone with him Dr. Caldicott told me that I had intimidated the former Secretary of Defense so he backed down and changed his tune, and that he was lying (can you believe this woman). She has a big beef with Bill Clinton because she thinks that he did nothing about this situation. He could have changed what she calls the SIOP plan but would not stand up to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (for some reason the Joint Chief’s of Staff are insistent on keeping the whole world on the brink of Nuclear Annihilation). She believes that because Clinton is such a wimp, the US is still on the brink of a nuclear exchange with Russia. I used to be the advisor to the Stanford Republicans when Condi Rice was still at Stanford. We had many events with Condi and in one of them Condi told a student that the US and Russia were no longer poised for a nuclear confrontation. When I told this to “the Doctor” she flipped out. She told me that Condi did not know what is going on. Yes – the current Secretary of State does not know what the US nuclear policy with Russia is. I asked her to cite me some support of her position, and she showed me some cites from her book, but none of them were primary cites. Her footnotes just cited what other liberals had said. We made a deal. I told her that if she could show me some primary cites (official Pentagon policy positions etc) that the US and Russia were on the brink of nuclear annihilation, I would pass them onto “Condi”. However (now the good part) she told me if I could show her evidence that she was wrong about the current nuclear situation between Russia, and the US she would move back to Australia and forget about politics. She told me that if I could show her that a nuclear exchange with Russia was a remote possibility she would give up politics. She would give up her radio show in Manhattan and move back to her cottage in Brisbane. Here is chance for the people on this board to do something practical. We can get rid of this woman. Does anyone want to help me find primary cites on what the current nuclear policy with Russia is so I can send this woman back to the land down under |
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It does amaze me though, the lengths that you, who should be entirely against this kind of political grandstanding bullshit, will go to justify whatever the right was. What's happened to your independent streak, man? |
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Here are some recent emails she just sent to me to back up her position.
-----Original Message----- From: Helen Caldicott [mailto:hcaldic@bigpond.com] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 9:07 PM To: mark@herrick.org Cc: 'Bea Herrick' Subject: hair trigger alert Mark, I suggest that you google hair trigger alert and read the many learned articles referring to the situation. Go to the Center for Defense Information and read Bruce Blair’s numerous columns on the situation. I will send you more stuff but do this as starters Helen -----Original Message----- From: Helen Caldicott [mailto:hcaldic@bigpond.com] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 9:28 PM To: mark@herrick.org; 'Bea Herrick' Subject: more Mark, Google the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, then search for hair trigger alert and read the numerous articles which also address this subject Helen -----Original Message----- From: Helen Caldicott [mailto:hcaldic@bigpond.com] Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2005 9:34 PM To: mark@herrick.org; 'Bea Herrick' Subject: more Mark, Google Federation of American Scientists and hair trigger alert. I tried the DOD web site, not so easy to find hair trigger alert at their site Helen |
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____ http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/Terri/mythsvsreality.htm TERRI SCHINDLER-SCHIAVO—MYTHS vs. REALITY By Megan Dillon Director of Media Relations National Right to Life mediarelations@nrlc.org For the latest updates on Terri Schindler-Schiavo’s case, please visit www.nrlc.org. This memo seeks to clarify several misconceptions that have been circulating throughout the media in the case of Terri Schindler-Schiavo. MYTH Terri is in a coma or comatose-like state. REALITY None of Terri’s doctors currently maintain that she is in a coma. Some doctors believe that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state while others disagree and believe that she is “minimally conscious.” Most Americans have seen footage of Terri interacting with her mother by now and it is hard to ignore the way in which she appears to light up at the sound of her mother’s voice. Important note: The definition of PVS in Florida Statue 765.101: Persistent vegetative state means a permanent and irreversible condition of unconsciousness in which there is: (a) The absence of voluntary action or cognitive behavior of ANY kind. (b) An inability to communicate or interact purposefully with the environment. MYTH Terri is on life support. Terri requires machines to live. REALITY To state that Terri is on life support or that she requires machines to live implies that Terri is dependent upon what has traditionally been considered life support, such as a ventilator, heart machine, or kidney dialysis. Terri is a healthy woman with a disability and she is not hooked up to any machines as has been widely reported. She breathes on her own and merely receives nutrition and hydration through a feeding tube, much the same as a baby is sustained by the nutrition he or she receives through a bottle. MYTH Terri’s parents refuse to let her go and allow her to die. REALITY Terri is not terminally ill — she is a healthy woman with a disability. To induce someone’s death by denying him or her nutrition and hydration is an act of starvation. Terri’s parents have asked for Michael Schiavo to step down as her legal guardian and allow them to care for their daughter. MYTH Terri’s case is a right-to-die case. REALITY This claim is disputed. Terri’s parents and siblings say that she does not want to be starved to death and are asking the courts to allow them to care for her. MYTH Death by starvation and dehydration is painless. REALITY Florida law does not allow a dog to be subject to death by starvation, so why should Terri, a human being, be sentenced to such a death? In Wesley J. Smith’s book, Forced Exit, St. Louis neurologist William Burke said: “A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death.” |
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I'm willing to concede that courts may have erred, but I tend to doubt it (here and with Mumia). |
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It is truly pathetic, and demonstrative of how much you have drunk the conservative cool-aid that you can't see the difference. Quote:
And again, who, exactly, is "stridently calling for her death?" Quote:
And to be clear, it's your arrogance that annoys me, not some depraved desire to kill someone. But I fully expect you to ignore that as it is far easier to believe that some people are just "evil." Quote:
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Except for Democrats up for re-election. I'm guessing not a one will want to say they voted against Terri's right to live - if in fact they let her die. |
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ETA - I see almost half the party stepped up: "156 Republicans and 47 Democrats voted yes; 53 Democrats and 5 Republicans [Ginny Brown-Waite (Fla.), Mike Castle (Del.), Charles Dent (Penn.), David Reichert (Wash.), and Chris Shays (Conn.)] voted no. |
a new low
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He is truly in a vegetative state. |
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Funny that you talk about the courts getting it right - and certain Democrats unending fight to free the murderer Mumia - within 2 posts of each other. |
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And I think most Dems would -- like me -- vote to stick it to Mumia. |
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Of course, other rumours claim he retired to the blogosphere. Either way, good riddance and thank g-d Congress has not intervened to preserve his presence here. |
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In other news: On Monday, March 21, 2005, the President signed into law: Quote:
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Schiavo Case Vote
Can anyone find which Senators voted yay or nay on the bill? I found the House bill vote here
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll090.xml To the extent a husband automatically assumes the role of Guardian in deciding what the wife "would" have wanted, with no rebuttable presumption for cases where the husband has moved on and is with a new woman and has kids with her, stands to benefit from a life insurance policy, he is the sole person who wants her dead, the "machinery" here is just a feeding tube and he is the only one who heard the wife's offhand remark about "not wanting to be kept alive by machines".....well, that seems enough to rebut any presumption. |
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