Letters to the Editor
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Good News!
This is just the sort of BS that Bugman needs to keep saying to ensure his defeat in November. Keep on digging, Tom!
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DeLay
Tim, that last line was great.
As for DeLay, what exactly does he mean by that last comment? Yes, there are three branches of government, and it's something that his leader doesn't get. The judges are doing their job just fine. If his Xian extremist base doesn't want their plug pulled then all it takes is a living will, but keep their noses out of other people's decisions.
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No, that's wrong
Terry Schiavo wasn't "allowed to die." She was starved to death. Whether that's an appropriate way to deal with the seriously disabled is open for debate, but let's be honest about it at least.
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gavel him
Maybe when one of those people in black robes sends his fat ass to prison Tom Delay will finally learn just how much they do "get it."
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Starved to death?
Kate, Schiavo wasn't about death, it was the right to bodily integrity. It was also about who makes marital decisions - the spouse or the spouse's parents.
It had absolutely nothing to do with starving to death because there is no law about starving to death. While that was the effect, any judge touching the issue would have completely change all marital laws and all tort laws.
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Kate
Please explain how you can "starve to death" a brain-dead woman. Perhaps you mean that her body was allowed to die. Whether that's an appropriate way to deal with people with brain-death who could not live on their own is open for debate, but let's be honest about what game you're trying to play, at least.
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Terri
Just for openers, her name was Terri. If you would presume to speak for her, you should care enough to spell it correctly.
The real "Terri Schiavo" was long since dead before the medical community made her a zombie and the wingnuts made her a poster child.
Considering that her brain was not only dead but half of it was missing, the fundamentalists' sense of affinity is understandable.
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Not brain dead
Terri Schiavo was not brain dead. Her brain was severely damaged. A lot of people think that's a distinction without a difference, but no doctor ever declared her brain dead.
If you read my posts, you should note that I have not advocated a position on the life-or-death issues, merely stated facts, but I've been labelled a fundamentalist none-the-less. How easy to apply labels, how difficult to deal with real choices, when life is not black and white.
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Arrogant SOB
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy... those people in "Black Robes" are not devil worshippers or occult leaders. They are the judi ciary branch of this thing we like to call our "Government" (for better or worse).
The arrogance of people like DeLay really shines when it comes to critizing the Judiciary. They like to judge but not to be judged.
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some people insist on believing what they want to believe
Sadly, Kate is just one example of how some people who were sucked in by the misinformation PR campaign around Terri S continue to believe that nonsense, in the face of all facts.
Saying Terri was "seriously brain damaged" is like saying the World Trade Center had "serious structural damage." You're playing games with words to avoid admitting the reality.
Terri's brain was utterly nonfunctioning, even down to the many of the most basic bodily functions. She wasn't "brain damaged," which sounds like a stoke victim who has the capacity to get better. Her brain's ability to function even at the most minimal levels was gone, and she had been like that for a very long time.
That's what the doctors said. That's what the autopsy found (funny, you never heard a big fuss in the media about the autopsy results -- because the results contradicted the PR-fueled fantasy story about Terri, so nobody had a motive to whip them up in the media).
Her parents combined their strong religious beliefs, their grief over their daughter, and their resentment of her husband, and baked all of that into a fantasy story about how Terri was still "there" and had some level of consciousness, and her evil husband was trying to kill her off. Then they successfully attracted a lot of PR-savvy people to promote their story in the media, to Congress, etc.
It was one of the Nazi leadership who said something like, "What you tell people doesn't have to be the truth. You just have to said it loudly and repeat it over and over and over, and then people will come to believe it wholeheartedly."
Thus Terri's memorial in the public mind is as an example of how easily many people can be manipulated by a clever PR campaign. Sad, sad, sad.
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That would be the Big Lie
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. - OSS report page 51
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
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Pretty liberal, on the whole
What an enlightening experience.
On the whole, I'm a fairly liberal person, even radical on a lot of issues, generally considered rather far to the left. But here, I failed to toe the liberal line merely by stating facts, and have been given some rather amusing labels.
I do have a medical background and do know the difference between "brain dead" and "severely, irrevocably brain damaged." I also know the difference between "allowed to die" and "euthanized." And even though I have expressed no opinion on Terri Schiavo's right to live or die, or her husband's right to make that decision for her, I have been branded a fundamentalist for even noting that there is a difference.
Guess the Republican president is not the only person who can resort to the "straw man" tactic.
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Delay? Schiavo?
Mme Justice O'Connor made her remarks over the arrogance of Tom Delay assuming to judge the judges of the Supreme Court. This should be the theme of discussion, not the final demise of Terri Schiavo. Delay seems to be kissing up to his friends of the fundy right; afraid of sharing your friend Abramoffs cell one of these days?