Letters to the Editor
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Frist and Santorum
should be crapping their pants about now. This is one of those issues where people on both sides, not just the religious right, care enough to vote the issue.
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Few things get me viscerally angry
as the way the right abused Terri Schiavo and her family. There many be many who feel very, very strongly on their side. But I believe there are more of us. I am very pro-life in my personal beliefs but more moderate on the issue politically, simply because I think the nitty-gritty realities of government enforcing any kind of prohibition is very disturbing. But I get physically ill just thinking about how crass and cruel and invasive the whole Terri Schiavo episode was.
I thought about writing a living will that contained specific directives that opportunistic politicians leave my husband alone, and wacko protesters not try to break in and feed me, but I thought people reading it might think I was just being cute or snarky. After this, though, how can we say such a thing may not seriously be needed. It is shocking and appalling what they did to that poor woman.
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Time to counter rather than tolerate religious wingnuts
Sam Harris is right about religious extremism in public affairs. It is costly and dangerous to an extent that it should not be tolerated. Moreover, it should be clear that there can be no true freedom of religion without freedom from religion.
Tolerance is a virtue except when costly destruction is involved, in which case it can be a vice. Feigned tolerance when opposition is called for is a failure of courage.
Religious pluralism is perhaps as wise as religious freedom is valuable. But when religious moderates tolerate the efforts of religious groups to restrict freedom of AND FROM religion they are part of the problem. It does not matter if the destructive religious extremism derives from an arrogant ignorance not amenable to enlightenment or the intelligent, articulate purveyors of delusion or from the pathetically uninformed, misinformed and mislead (no matter how educated they may think they are), it is time for religious moderates and religious apathetics to stand up for what is right.
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PAC for profit?
I looked at the TerriPAC website. The cause seems noble, and judging by some of the preceding posted responses, is likely to excite liberals into contributing. Unfortunately, the website does not make clear what portion of the money donated will go towards political actions and what portion might go to compensate the staff. The fine print is vague about what could happen to my money and the website is unspecific about what it plans on doing.
Is there a resource where potential donors can research a PAC and find out, for example, how much compensation its executives receive? How closely regulated are PACs?
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Michael Schiavo
I wish Michael all the luck and success in the world for his newly formed PAC and I urge everyone who see's the GOP bible beaters for the hypocrites they really are to donate. The "Christian" clowns in congress are not real Christians. Just what kind of Christian lets millions of American children go without access to medical care? What kind of Christian gives tax cuts to billionaires while denying an out of work pregnant woman pre-natal care? What kind of Christian cuts money from meals on wheels for the elderly? What kind of Christian starts bloody wars? What kind of Christian leaves people stranded and dying in New Orleans? Just where in the New Testament does it say that Jesus is Pro-war and Pro-rich? These "Christians" in congress don't support a culture of life;they support a culture of corruption, greed, and depravity.
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All PACs are public
All PACs are regulated by the Federal Elecions Commission (FEC) and their expenditures are public (and on-line). www.FEC.gov
There's no need to worry about such things. It's sounds much more like you have a problem with Michael Schiavo than you have a problem with PACs.
Even if Michael Schiavo is keeping this money, which I am sure he is not, who cares? The right used his family as a political punching-bag and he deserves whatever he can get.
But I am 100% confident that my dontation will end up right where it should it be - in Tom Delay's living room. And the irony of that is perfect for me.
Where do I sign?
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About Time
All I can say is: sign me up!
There has to be an organized response to the religious fascists who wear their bigotry, greed, and intolerance on their sleeves, call it 'Christian' and insist anything is tolerable in the name of religious freedom provided that 'anything' is acceptable to them.
One would think the mainline Christian denominations would stand up for what Christianity is really all about, but they are all consumed with the wars over homosexuality and gay marriage.
We need more PACs with the purpose of defeating these power hungry and dangerous morons.
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Bravo, Michael Schiavo!
Finally, something good may come of the right's despicable interference in the Schiavo matter.
I am thoroughly sick of the religious right trying to dictate matters of conscience to the rest of the country. My own conscience works just fine, thank you, and I suspect most Americans can say the same.
Culture of life, my left elbow. The casualties of the right's war of choice in Iraq give the lie to that.
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Tail wags dog
My father passed away on Memorial Day after a 30-year, losing battle with multiple sclerosis. Watching the unimpeded devastation of that disease was heart-wrenching. Due to repeated pnuemonia and infections�his completely rigid, twisted, and wasted body nourished by a feeding tube�there were ample opportunities to sit by his hospital bed and whisper in his ear that it was okay to go. When he finally passed away, I was devastated, and relieved. Doctors, nurses, and attorneys involved all saw the blessing in the cessation of a brutal and dehumanizing slow-motion downward spiral. Feeling increasingly compelled to intervene on his behalf to end his misery, we reluctantly began wading into the legal formalities that would've been necessary to lay the groundwork, so to speak. He died on his own, in the meantime, removing that most terrible of all decisions from our hands.
Yet his mother, before she died, lived by his bed, forsaking her own health and friendships, in a devoted vigil by her only son's side. She could not abide the inevitable. She was a mother, she could not find it in herself to sign a "Do not resucitate order," and turned the decision to my bother and I, and tacitly accepted our decision in his first deathbed hospitalization. Her devotion was deeply touching. Her denial, completely understandable, yet it only served to prolong his suffering. Improbably recovering the first time (and several thereafter), grandma could not imagine that having a feeding tube inserted was not in my father's best interest. Who among us could reply with certainty that "letting nature take its course" was something that wouldn't haunt us?
All through the political grandstanding surrounding Terri Schiavo, I couldn't help but thank god that we weren't enmeshed in the same lunacy. Had some outside agent intervened in our deeply conflicted deliberations regarding my father's situation, I would've come unhinged. Had my father's, and his children's, private hell been turned into a political football by the religious fundamentalists he abhored I don't think I could've mustered Michael Schiavo's demeanor.
I was raised in a fundamentalist church, and left, and know well the beseiged mindset of the righteous who delight in the slings and arrows of the "un-saved". They, like all fundamentalists, are dangerous in their misguided, selective, and incomplete apprehension of the teachings they proclaim so loudly. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of living without an instruction book ... They are motivated by the one thing god promises to take from them. The world is a scary and sad place, oftentimes, and they need a magical father figure in control of it all for things to make sense. I do not begrudge them this. But I'm deeply angry at how they would impose their own system of sense on all of us, and enraged at the politicians who pander to them.
I'm glad to see Michael fighting back. It could amount to nothing. It could be a turning point. But I'll be pulling for him, and contributing, and hoping in the meantime that somehow god will find a way to refocus the extreme among his flock. It is ironic that those supposedly hewing closest to what they believe are god's wishes are in many cases acting in ways diametrically opposed to Christ's teachings. It is also ironic that these Christian fundamentalists are so oblivious to their obvious kinship with their Muslim counterparts. God save us all from these True Believers.