Yesterday, the brain-dead woman had to be kept alive because pain does not matter. The Pope said that life is infinitely precious, so everybody who is brain-dead must be kept alive while their families are financially ruined, children’s futures are destroyed, and many Americans have no basic medical care.
Yesterday doctors could not end a life of agony because life is infinitely precious.
That was yesterday. Now the Pope has a new medical opinion. He says the brain-dead woman is dying in agony.
Today, pain is everything.
#1 by Bedford on 03/25/2005 - 8:56 am
Bob, you do not have suffiient information about the case. The correct terminology may be brain damaged, not brain dead. I also do not have sufficient information because it is too time consuming. I think a huge mistake has been made in this case. I think the creep who is married to her killed her. However, I do not know for sure.
#2 by Bob Whitaker on 03/25/2005 - 10:52 am
And I KNOW that several hundred little boys and girls will be molested and some killed by perverts this week.
Too bad we’re too busy to bother with that.
#3 by Derek Humphrey on 03/25/2005 - 11:45 am
This is indicative of our new American “culture”. Our individual comforts are more important than the lives and freedoms of others.
#4 by Bob Whitaker on 03/25/2005 - 12:34 pm
Derek: which comforts? Shiavo’s or the murdered children’s?
#5 by Don on 03/25/2005 - 12:37 pm
RE: Too bad we’re too busy to bother with that.
Bob is absolutely right about this. But why worry about little children whose lives are on the line when we can keep another pair of lungs breathing. I mean, first things first.
#6 by Don on 03/25/2005 - 12:43 pm
We could consult Bill Buckley about this. I am sure the Great One could ruminate and pontificate about this matter for many long hours. The woman would probably be gone before he finished talking.
#7 by Don on 03/25/2005 - 2:16 pm
David Duke is expressing a common sense approach to this issue on his web broadcast today. Bob, grab a quick flight to Spain and join him.
#8 by Bedford on 03/25/2005 - 7:19 pm
Any alleged judge who has seen the pictures of Terri Schiavo and can order water and food turned off is a cold inhuman creature with no conscience. May he suffer the same fate. Deo Vindici.
#9 by H.S. on 03/25/2005 - 7:02 pm
As long as we’re comparing apples to oranges, let’s bring in tomatoes and turnips too. Yeah, just think of all the really important things we could pin that power on. Damn, those slackers. They should be out marching for sentencing reform and car seats and child death-by-abuse and cross-fire kills from gang warfare and no medical coverage, and, and, and. The Schiavo case has been a LEGAL case going for so many years, working relentlessly through the system that it is finally at the end – and death-by-abuse/ attempted murder and the judicial system battles have come to the final place. No duh it’s going to ignite enough emotion to FORCE newswhores to write about it – and every word will be written or censored to further agendas that NONE of us supports.
In all my (added to the many others statewide) years of sleepless night hours of deep-level citizen lobbying, campaigning, organizing, educating and even drafting legislation, the pro-life and pro-gun people were the only ones that could EVER BE COUNTED ON to work any children’s issues (those without a voice). Others who stood to gain money from any source related to the outcome might jump on the band-wagon and we didn’t wrinkle our noses – but knew they would cease to exist if their money source left. Because of the constant network vigilance and good coalition-building with people we would consider pretty “leftist” (whatever that useless term means), we saw some of the best reforms put through on repeat offenders and sentencing in the U.S. Bob could tell you a 100 times that many stories with not that good an ending.
And even when in ‘99 a grade-school girl 2 miles from our home was picked up off a sidewalk waiting a few minutes for the school bus by a guy who drove her to the nearby state forest area, and repeatedly raped her, then (thank God) actually was still not able to kill a victim yet, did as she asked and pushed her out of the car again within a half a mile of her home – a large number of us could NOT move those residents to make even the simplest of moves.
Death begets death and once foundational justice and law structures begin to collapse, and you embrace that at its weakest level, it must be accepted at all levels, starting within families themselves.
OK, Bob. OK, Don.
Yes, it is too bad you are too busy or physically not able to respond. I’m sure you would each have much good to do down in Florida to affect their legislature. None of us gets bonus points to use in the future earned against yesterday’s good. I am sure that father could use your help. I can get you several numbers to start with – and then some in their Senate I have worked with personally. I’ll bet the only help you’ll get is the street-level pro-lifer or pro-gunner and the national media won’t cover it. The same as they WOULDN’T cover the endless trial of the putrid sodomite rape-killing of that 13-year-old boy in Arkansas.
Enough whinning about Schiavo already. She’ll just shrivel up and die and you can cluck, cluck at the ballgame about it. Get your living will in place.
Let’s get back to storming and fighting the schools and universities, shall we.
#10 by Bedford on 03/25/2005 - 9:19 pm
It seems that Terri Schiavo would not be euthanized in the Netherlands because there are 5 requirements and she does not meet any of them. The individual who offered a million dollars to the husband should have done it in private.
#11 by Bob Whitaker on 03/26/2005 - 12:13 am
There are a thousand issues more important.
But everybody is too busy for them.
#12 by Bob Whitaker on 03/26/2005 - 12:15 am
Don, I visited Dave in Russia in the middle of winter. So it makes sense I would visit him in Spain in the summer.
I heard his common-sense approach. It sounds a lot like mine: let’s get on with the important issues.
#13 by Bob Whitaker on 03/26/2005 - 12:28 am
Bedford, power IS responsibility. We have the power to keep people alive who would have died in any other culture.
Do we have the RIGHT to do it?
Since we ignore this simple fact, we turn on the machines and then we have to decide to turn them off. THAT is what involves the suffering. We feel we have every right to extend life, but when it comes time to do what nature woud have done, we leave the person to die slowly.
The power of medicine to keep “life” going grows daily. By “life” I mean a beating heart, not a functioning brain or a life worth living, going on. Do we have the RIGHT to do this, in defiance of nature?
We will have to face these questions. Just saying that the only question is cutting off feeding tubes won’t do it.
Power IS responsibility. We have new power. We have new responsibilities.
There is a great responsibility on those who turned ON the feeding machines.
#14 by Bob Whitaker on 03/26/2005 - 12:37 am
HS, Joe Sobran wrote me that he was getting suspicious of the anti-white side of the pro-life agenda, and he is as solid a pro-lifer as ever existed.
The pro-lifers were the first anti-liberal movement to face down the national media. I give them full credit for that.
But I dealt with their leaders, and I found them very slippery.
I was also on the street with working people, a lot. The Religious Right took over the populist tide we mobilized and turned it over to the neocons.
The people are one thing. The movement takes on a life of its own and claims all the grassroots support and begins to grow like a cancer. I think that has happened to the pro-life movement.
Even the media are afraid to attack the pro-lifers anymore. The neocons love that movement now. It has ceased to be a grassroots movement and has become useful to and usable by those who have their own goals, just like the people you are talking about.
This happens all the time in politics. It is a disease we must always look out for.
#15 by Bedford on 03/26/2005 - 7:43 am
There were no machines keeping Terri alive – she possibly could have been hand fed, but that would have been too labor intensive for the facility that she was in – her hubby never claimed that he knew about her desires on life and death until recently – symbols are important and Terri is now a symbol of a country that keeps becoming more and more foreign to me. This country keeps changing so that about every 50 years, it is very different – think about it – consider 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 – all very different. I expect 2050 will be a full blown George Orwell America. Conservatives want a limited government because it limits corruption and waste and power abuse of government. However, we have a government that is a huge monstrosity that will not even protect its own border or the life of a defenseless handicapped person, Terri Schiavo.
#16 by Don on 03/27/2005 - 10:28 am
RE: Let’s get back to storming and fighting the schools and universities, shall we.
I do agree with that sentiment.
#17 by H.S. on 03/26/2005 - 11:37 am
Hey, majority rules. PC (alternative morality religion) is going to protect and allow every little dirty thing – so what else is new. But, you can’t murder what doesn’t exist, that is the key. PC has no conscience morality, no guilt response (the only competing, real religion does). Most people really like that, even the people who hawk real morality. Ask their family members.
When particularly bloody, violent and grisley 1st degree homicide is daily applauded and protected and supported or even just simply ignored, of the youngest and the most helpless of a people, don’t complain when the surviving people are not moved by mere sex assault. People only cared about the girl because she got murdered. Rape (sex) is no big thing, regardless of age. If murder is fine, sex is better. Damn one law, damn them all.
One white collar criminal is as another. Genocide is genocide. People are people no matter their age, so if babies are sliced and diced by moms and dads and grandparents, who cares who has sex with whom. Who cares if an unconscieous woman who is NOT brain-dead and NOT on life-support systems is forced by PC temple guards and priests to be starved to death.
Can’t complain – it’s just an opposing religious doctrine – and you cannot serve two Masters.
People are morons to accept public and government religious indoctrination. But, they really do like their Master. He never picks on little dirty habits.
Yep, technology brings responsibility. The rules regulating it have already been LONG established by the First religion. But we like it a little dirty, everyone of us.