Since this is related to the case but a tangent, I’ll post it separately since it could likely engender a whole different discussion.
What occurs to me is that if the person in a coma were one half of a gay married couple, if the spouse were advocating that all extreme measures SHOULD be taken to keep the comatose mate going, and it was the parents who were saying the patient should be starved to death…
Congress wouldn’t touch it with a ten meter cattle prod.
PAD
• 
You people can’t see past your own fears and hatred to realize that a person may be slowly, painfully (because we all know brain damaged people and animals don’t feel pain…) dying against her wish.
Our fears and hatred are well founded in that the courts have ruled in favor of the husband, and there are those that are not only respecting the wishes of Terri, but of Michael and the MANY rulings of the court.
But, hey, do we know she is dying painfully? Is she feeling any pain at all?
Have you, with all YOUR fear and hatred, ever considered that she may be screaming bloody murder to get it over with already? That she actually didn’t want to live like this? That she’d pull the plug herself if she could?
Or does that offend the sensibilities, that somebody actually wants the right to die?
And, as for the other comment: seperation of church and state was never intended to abolish all references of god or spirituality from our government. I’m so sick of that ill-advised argument. If God is to be banished from all legal documents, then the freakin Declaration of Independence itself must be thrown out!
Such an extreme argument is comfortably in the minority you know.
You know, the very document that started this grand experiment:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
It also says:
>You people can’t see past your own fears and hatred to realize that a person may be slowly, painfully (because we all know brain damaged people and animals don’t feel pain…) dying against her wish.
My thoughts on this case have nothing to do with fear or hatred, but utilizing brain damaged people and animals to make your case for a person in a vegetative state, is like arguing that Liefeld should continue to get work because George Perez has a regular gig.
-peeks in door quietly-
Hey guys, I just wanted to look in and see if this blog had degenerated like the other one into another argument about Iraq and how God like/Evil Bush is.
Has it?
JAC
Not totally. Although there was some discussion of whether or not the Declaration of Independance should be tossed because it refers to God.
And I’m spent….
And, as for the other comment: seperation of church and state was never intended to abolish all references of god or spirituality from our government. I’m so sick of that ill-advised argument.
What makes the Pledge different is that the law adding the words “under God” was passed EXPLICITLY for the purpose of promoting religiousity. It isn’t just the words, but the INTENT of the law, which is unquestionably establishment.
ANYWAY, my point is that the Declaration of Independence embodies the spirit of this nation, and if this nation no longer holds god (in any denomination) as a higher power than you may as well just throw it out the window. For if there is no god, no Creator, then we have no inalienable rights; which is rather important to our notion of government, yes?
You will note that Jefferson said “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The Deistic view was not of a “higher power” controlling the universe, but a universe bound by natural laws. Man’s rights do not come from the creator, per se; they are a part of the creation. They are part of man’s natural state. The creator, at this point, is irrelevant. Which is why nature get’s mentioned before its god.
You’re probably right, PAD. Most likey, there are probably 10 layers of screeners between any senator and any publically posted email address.
It was prior to mass use of email, but I was an intern briefly in a congressman’s office. This was back in 1990. I, and other interns, opened his constituent mail. There was a database of text for answers to specific topics/bills. We cut and pasted, altered only to smooth transitions, and then presented the final draft to a Legislative assistant, who then passed it on for the signature. Theoretically, the congressman had already basically approved all the text, or at least the majority of it, so he didn’t have to read the letters, just sign them (after making sure the constiutent wasn’t someone he knew who needed a more personal answer).
I suspect it worked pretty much the same in every Senator/Congressman’s office, and probably still does today.
The only thing that was handled differently were the postcards that were massmailed through organizations. They were just counted.
Gee, maybe that’s because Allah is not as ambiguous and nondenominational as ‘god.’
“Allah” is the Arabic word for “god”. It is a cognate of the Hebrew “Elohim”, the word translated “God” in most English Bibles, and it is the word Arab CHRISTIANS and JEWS use when refering to their god. An Arabic New Testament would say “Allah” everywhere yours says “God”, as would an Arabic translation of the Pledge.
That and we are a Judeo Christian country….
I don’t recall that in the Constitution. Regardless, Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same god, and are part of the same tradition. Within a decade, there will be more Muslims and Buddhists in the US than Jews, based on current trends, and there are more non-religious people than either group, so calling the US a Judeo-Christian nation wouldn’t make much sense.
Religious countries are the ones where the women are forced to wear burkas and can’t drive or vote…
WEEELL, to be fair, England, Norway and Denmark all still have state churches, and they haven’t imposed Sharia yet. Some argue that the state sponsorship of these churches does more damage to the churches than the governments, which is all the more reason to keep the separation.
so calling the US a Judeo-Christian nation wouldn’t make much sense.
Well, unless you pay attention to history.
I think there are about seven million jews (not sure about that number, could be off by three million in either direction I think).
2.8 Million, in 2001. 1.3% of the population. To be fair, it is the second largest single RELIGION, but only one-tenth of the number of people who profess no religion at all. There are about 1.1 million each of Muslims and Buddhists.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
“Judeo-Christian” is appropriate more when discussing overall religious traditions, and even then “Judeo-Christian-Islamic” would be more accurate.
Second, Bladestar, whether you like it or not this country and it’s government are based on judeochristian ethics and creeds.
Really, no, it isn’t. Our legal system itself is derived from English Common Law, itself drawn from Roman Law and Germanic Customary Law. It is thuroughly pagan in its heritage.
The structure of our government is based on various Enlightenment philosophies which were ambivolent about Christianity at best, and generally rejected Christian notions like the Devine Right of Kings, and grounded political and moral theory on the powers of the human mind to understand the natural world, rather than devine inspiration or religous doctrine.
The founding fathers were largely Deists and Unitarians, not traditional Christians, and many were vehemently critical of organized Christianity. While the majority of Americans, then as now, probably considered themselves Christian, the actual foundations of the nation had no specific Christian flavor.
Well, unless you pay attention to history.
I think you missed my emphasis. Calling the US a Judeo-Christian nation doesn’t make sense when there are only 2.8 million Jews. One might call it a Christian nation based purely on demography, but not on the basis of its government or legal systems, as I’ve explained. If you are going to go by pure numbers, we would also be a “white nation” and a marginally “female nation”, but similarly, whiteness and femaleness are not considered intrensic parts of our government or legal system.
Personally I have no problem with “under God” being in the pledge only because I think there are many much more important things we need to worry about. If that’s one’s greatest concern then one is worring about the wrong things.
Agreed, in general. In an ideal world, I’d like to see “under God” taken out of the Pledge — of course, in an ideal world, I’d abolish the Pledge entirely, since I think subjecting children to loyalty oaths is abhorrent.
However, and I said this to friends right after the appeals court ruling a few years ago, I think the Pledge is the wrong battle right now. It’s a distraction away from the REAL church-state separation issues, and as such is sucking resources away from fights that are a lot more important.
I think I’ll pass on any response to “Sane”‘s various posts, though, given that he’s already decided to take his toys and go home. This particular monkey has better things to do than watch someone outside the cage throw crap in.
TWL
If it was wrong, or illegal, it wouldn’t have been done.
Yes, because politicians have never done anything wrong, or illegal….
The whole Schiavo case comes down to one simple question.
Quality of Life versus Quantity Of Life.
Sane posted:
“Any part of the Constitution, well, how about the entire Constitution and framework of our government itself?:
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/government/state/index.html
National, ie Federal, is supreme law of the land. You can quibble that there is nothing in the Constitution expressly stating that Congress can intervene, but there is nothing in the Constitution stating the converse either. So, until this legislation is deemed unconstitutional it is law and therefore must be followed.”
Um,WRONG ANSWER. Thank you for playing and please try again.
Seriously, though, there is a little aspect of the Constitution known as the 9th and 10th Amendments which detail EXACTLY the relationship between the States and the Federal Government.
The 9th simply reads
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
The 10th reads
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
And as for the actual powers of Congress as detailed in the Constitution, reference Article I, Section 8, none of which allows for the Congress to step in and issue a law for the sake of ONE SINGLE INDIVIDUAL.
As for the legal expert’s opinion, what the Federal courts have ALWAYS done in the past is to rule on matters brought before the Federal court through a formal appeals procedure which begins at a LOCAL Federal court. Congress overstepped its authority by forcing a Federal court to look at a matter which had not gone through the proper venues. To compare it to a capital criminal case, if the initial State’s court decision leads to a death sentence, it must then go to the State’s Appeals Court for review; after the State’s Appeals Court, the State’s Supreme Court may hear the case. From there, it can be appealed to the Federal court at the District level, then to the Circuit level, and finally to the Supreme Court. If the process has played through to the Circuit level, and the petitioner has been denied in each case, the attorney may then request an appeal to the Supreme Court (but that is NOT an absolute guarantee that the Supreme Court will accept the case, although the Justice assigned to cover the Circuit in question may issue a stay until a full review can be heard; if memory serves, it only takes 2 or 3 members of the Supreme Court to decline the case for the case to be tossed). As I said, Congress, not Terri Schiavo’s parents, put the matter into the Federal courts which is a grievous overstepping–quite tantamount to the Republicans’ general complaint about “judicial activism”.
Here’s the thing about the Shiavo case: I had been through the entire process JosephW described. It went through the entire state system all the way to the Florida Supreme court. The parents then appealled to the US District Court, then to the Circuit court and finally, the US Supreme Court, all of whom declined to overturn the Florida state court’s rulings. At every level, they failed to prove that Michael Shiavo was unfit to be Terri’s guardian and they failed to prove that a lower court committed a legal error that warranted a reexamination of the case.
This week, for the sake of political grandstanding, Congress decided to shout “do over!” and force the federal courts to take another look. And the same thing happened because the facts of the case haven’t changed.
The Schindlers have had their day in court and then some. They failed to prove their case. There are thousands of people all over the country in a PVS and families make decisions all the time about whether to continue with a feeding tube. To upend our entire judiciary system for this one case is ludicrous. It isn’t what the Founding Fathers intended in the Constitution.
Den, what’s worse than all that is that Congress’ actions display a desire to take away the power of all those other families dealing with a member stricken with PVS or similar injuries to decline treatment for their loved one. If Congress, either state or federal, follows up with a law that prevents the removal of life support of any kind without the express, written or otherwise, consent of the patient, not a legal guardian, thousands of families will effectively lose this right.
And for those that will say “simple solution: get a living will,” that’s not the answer. There will always be cases where no living will is available. Are we to get children to create a living will? What happens if the will is destroyed by fire? Or if you happen to change your mind, but not your living will?
No, this is an area that the government needs to stay out of.
“Her mind is gone, has been for 15 years. No wonder Bush can relate to her”
Hmmm, Could we maybe disconnect HIS feeding tubes? One of those feeding tubes would be the uplink from FOX NEWS, I believe the other feeding tube would be an oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia…
>> Their reaction will be an autoresponse
>> thanking you for sharing your opinion, but
>> go right ahead.
> You’re probably right, PAD. Most likey, there
> are probably 10 layers of screeners between
> any senator and any publically posted email
> address.
I-šhìŧ-you-not True Story:
When I lived in Belleville, Illinois, I wrote a paper letter to then United States Senator Alan Dixon, who was from Belleville. I didn’t mail it. As Sen. Dixon was speaking in Belleville the next day, I took it to the meeting to give it to him in person, figuring that if I could it would be more likely that he would read it.
I gave him the letter, in an envelope hand-addressed to him. The envelope literally went from my hand to his hand to his inside suit coat breast pocket, as he put his other hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank you, friend.”
Six weeks later I got a form-letter response clearly written by a staff member who just as clearly had only read the first page of the two-page letter.
They really don’t give a dámņ about what we think as individuals.
>> Their reaction will be an autoresponse
>> thanking you for sharing your opinion, but
>> go right ahead.
> You’re probably right, PAD. Most likey, there
> are probably 10 layers of screeners between
> any senator and any publically posted email
> address.
I-šhìŧ-you-not True Story:
When I lived in Belleville, Illinois, I wrote a paper letter to then United States Senator Alan Dixon, who was also from Belleville. I didn’t mail it. As Sen. Dixon was speaking in Belleville the next day, I took it to the meeting to give it to him in person, figuring that if I could it would be more likely that he would read it.
I gave him the neatly typed letter, in an envelope hand-addressed to him. The envelope literally went from my hand to his hand to his inside suit coat breast pocket, as he put his other hand on my shoulder and said, “Thank you, friend.”
Six weeks later I got a form-letter response clearly written by a staff member who just as clearly had only read the first page of the two-page letter.
They really don’t give a dámņ about what we think as individuals.
> While I can’t say for sure about Congress, I
> can say with certainty that the Christian
> conservatives, such as James Dobson or
> myself, would be just as loudly and strongly
> protesting ANYONE being starved to death
> in a similar circumstance. There is a
> fundamental right to life that is true,
> regardless of the “lifestyle” of the person
> involved.
I don’t know you, Iowa Jim, so I hesitate to call you a liar. Maybe you actually believe this statement. Maybe for you yourself it’s actually true.
But I do not believe that James Dobson and other national fundamentalist Christian Statist politicians of his ilk would grieve for even one single second if every gay man or woman in the United States were to suddenly die a horrible, painful, humiliating death.
While he might not say so publicly, as he is, first and foremost, a politician, I have no doubt that in his secret heart, visible only to himself and his God, that he would be rejoicing that God finally gave those queers what they deserved and why didn’t you do it sooner, Lord?
And a lot of his followers wouldn’t hesitate to say so publicly.
> Why does the concept of god, life, and spirituality
> scare you people so freakin much???
Not scared of them in the slightest, myself.
What frightens me is mere Humans who purport to know what goes on in the mind of God and then try to force those merely Human notions on the rest of the populace by the armed might of the State, claiming that the unknowable mind of God thinks the same limited way they do.
> (I promise you, if some judge somewhere censured
> a teacher for obligating his public school class to
> perform school prayer, there would be a hue and cry
> from members of the Religious Right protesting the
> wrongness of it…unless, of course said teacher was
> a Muslim or Buddist teaching a sura. Then not only
> would said members not protest, they
Well to groups such as these the First Amendment means ‘seperation of non-Christian Fundamentalist church & state’
I don’t know who first said this, but
“Keep your church out of my government & I won’t think in your church”
delurking to say hi
there is no way I am going to read all these posts. To everyone who wants her to die. What about the 6 comatose inmates in California that tax payers are paying 1.27 million dollars for the last six weeks and 1,000 per guard-per day to keep THEM alive. Also, if starvation is such a great way to die, why did they put a feeding tube in the pope’s nose?
Dejauu, Terri Schiavo is already dead, and has been for fifteen years. Her body is being tormented into maintaining a hideous semblance of life, because her parents are too weak in their purported faith to believe their daughter would really go to Heaven – despite receiving the Last Rites twice. Her brain, however, and all that made her who she was, is already gone. Pope John Paul II, on the other hand, still seems to be alive and conscious (all the obvious jokes aside…).
On another point, Jesse Jackson is defnitely backing a bad horse here. If he’d care to think about history so recent that he lived through part of it, Brother Jesse would realize that if legislative bodies could override the courts simply because of popular opinion, there would still be states where it would be legal to lynch him.
dejauu, (1) there’s a medical difference between persistant vegitative state (Terri’s condition) and a coma.
(2) Terri’s legal guardian, as determined by over 30 judicial rulings now, has presented credible evidence to which there has been no credible or substantive contrary evidence presented that Terri’s wish, if she could express it in this PVS state, would be to deny sustained artificial live support, including a feeding tube.
Those inmates you mention are probably wards of the state, and may not even have the legal capacity to decline treatment. So, unless they get incarcerated in Texas, they have a legal right to medical treatment, same as anyone. You don’t forfeit that right upon conviction.
In TX, the courts could rule under the Bush passed Futile Treatment law, which says if a team of doctors determines that treatment of a terminal patient is futile, they can deny that treatment, even over the objections of the family. And I’m assuming the patient, even, although the case I’m aware of that has used the law involved a terminally ill infant, and his life support was terminated against the wishes of his mother.
It’s all well and good if you don’t want to read the whole thread, but at least do some research on the topics you’re going to discuss.
David,
Just read your comments about James Dobson (and someone else’s about Jerry Falwell somewhere else) suggesting they would love it if every gay person dropped dead. Let me flat out tell you that you are wrong. I’ve met both men, spent several days with James Dobson, and your view of them is so far off the base it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. You assume their stance against sin means they are full of hate when that is far from the truth. Both are compassionate men capable of great humor. I’ve watched Falwell minister to a gay man who was full of anger and Falwell never said a single condemning word. He told him that Jesus loves him, and focused the whole confrontation on the character of God, not the sin of this man, other than to say that one sin isn’t any worse or better than another. For you to misrepresent them so much is as bad as Spider saying PAD wanted to see Bush dead.