Bedtime for Democracy

J

JediStryker

Member
Messages
255
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

There already is precedent for this type of action. Think back to the civil rights drama of yesteryear. Some southern states fought for their laws that promoted discrimination, and the federal government stepped in and enforced it's own will on these states. THAT did not start a civil war, nor did it signal the downfall of state's rights anymore than this will.

If this were back in the day, would you be for or against these states and their right to discriminate?

It's not an easy question to answer, and shows that these situations are not always black and white (no pun intended).

If the Federal Court overturns the state's decision, and Florida disregards the Fed's decision? That wouldn't happen, of course, but if it did, then there would be federal intervention and Schiavo could possibly be moved out of Florida for her protection. There would be a hub-bub over it for a few weeks, then it would be forgotten by the public at large and we would move on.
 
G

gantech

New Member
Messages
9
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

...Lot's more than Time Travel here....

First off, the husband should be taken out, canned, horsewhipped then shot.
I really don't have an argument about his live in girlfriend, etc. His wife, though physically alive cannot "be a wife" and after years of living in a near vegatative state I can't hold him to fault for wanting some normalcy in his life.

BUT

The unadulterated hypocrisy of his story of wanting to get married in the church! Hey, it's OK to shack up and kill your wife so you can get married in the church...just don't get divorced...it's a SIN. Not to mention holding out for the life insurance policy..."she's worth more dead than alive".

He is a cretin of the lowest denomination.:angry:

I sit here in an OR writing this I wonder...Where are the DOCTORS?

I had a patient in the 1980s and a mother in 2000 that had nonrecoverable brain insults. The only decision I COULD make was to let them go. There are cerebral flow studies which can help make the decision. Remember the woman in the news last month that woke up from a 20 plus year coma?
It happens. If the situation is one where the body is only "organ donor" status, it is humane to "pull the plug". In a situation where there is even the slightest hope for improvement, you cannot ethically end the life.

If there is any hope at all and the parents want to care for her, let that happen. The sad part of this story is that the Federal government got involved in something that should be in the realm of the family and her physicians. Of course, legally her husband is the responsible party, but from his numerous statements, clearly does not have her best interests at heart.

I will state for the record that I haven't had the opportunity to see her personally, review her medical records and base my opinion from that.
All the information I have has been filtered by the news media. Another interesting point. What just exactly IS suffering.
It's a whole lot like pornography...I have a hard time defining it, but I know it when I see it.
 
Z

Zoomerz

Member
Messages
218
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

There already is precedent for this type of action. Think back to the civil rights drama of yesteryear. Some southern states fought for their laws that promoted discrimination, and the federal government stepped in and enforced it's own will on these states. THAT did not start a civil war, nor did it signal the downfall of state's rights anymore than this will.
Click to expand...
There is one very major difference in the way the fed intervened then, vs. now. Congress did NOT debate an isolated situation as this is. It addressed a constitutional question first, then (as it should), legislated it, and passed it into law, AND THEN tested these laws in the judiciary.

In this case, the legislative branch has done nothing to pass legislation, which can, in turn be signed into law, and adjudicated. The matter is simply being put before the federal judiciary without jurisdiction. It simply has no authority to do so. And I vehemently disagree with "bending" or "breaking" the rules to accomplish this goal either. That creates a VERY dangerous precedent that, mark my words, WILL come back to bite us.

I really have no problem with Congress deliberately undertaking legislation on the issue. As a matter of fact, I think that would be a good idea. However, I doubt that it would be of high enough priority in that scheme of things to help Terri Schaivo.

Z-
 
Grayson

Grayson

Conspiracy Cafe
Messages
1,117
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Zoomerz\")</div>
I've had this debate before, and respectfully, you are wrong. This is not a \"moral\", but a \"policy\" or \"institutional\" argument. It is not based on any \"moral\" argument at all. There is no \"law\" that the federal government cannot intervene (as we see), but there are prudent, practical reasons why it should not. Those reasons are NOT based on \"morals\", but on \"jurisdiction\".


Morals are morals, whether assimilated through judeo christian belief or not.[/b]
Click to expand...

The arena of morality is one of the primary spheres where human beings utilize their rational mind to manipulate other human beings. We may refer to another person as evil in order to prod him to mend his ways and to modify his behavior to our liking. We may also refer to another person as evil if we wish to prevent other persons from emulating him or associating with him.

We may even go further and refer to another person as evil in order to justify depriving him of his property, or to kill him. This manipulative strategy is an integral part of propaganda during periods of war or during religious conflicts.

We frequently obfuscate the term morality by the clever use of words. Morality becomes somewhat more transparent if we replace the emotion-laden word morality with the emotionally neutral synonym Code of Conduct.

In this context, it becomes clear that our discussion of Morality revolves around the manner in which persons conduct themselves in relation to other people. Morality pertains to concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral. Our morality tells us how to act under specific circumstances.

It is important to differentiate between morality and related terms such as ethics and legality. We may apply the term ethics synonymously with morality but this word may also refer to laws or to quasi-laws, such as the ethics of a particular profession. Some varieties of ethics may convey merely an informative context, such as the lack of ethics of a politician. Other designations of ethics have the force of laws. The ethics of the legal profession, if flaunted, can result in disbarment.

The term ethics can be ambiguous and it is best to avoid it in the context of moral issues. We should also avoid any potential confusion of morality with actual laws, either common laws or codified laws.

Morality and laws are definitely not synonymous: A specific act may be moral, valued and lawful in one country, while the identical act may be punishable by death in another country. This disparity in moral values is evident in many conflicts arising from divergent religions. Salman Rushdie discovered this truth when he published the "Satanic Verses".

A society of persons, in the sociological context, is the conglomeration of individual human beings who have come together for their mutual protection, welfare or communality of interests. All such individuals search for individual happiness in their own way, as is the nature of all individuals.

One person may wish to pursue a tranquil lifestyle; another person may be intent on accumulating wealth. In order to function smoothly, society must apply common denominators, common values that large numbers of people share, in order to achieve order, safety and predictability for all of its members. The emotional and physical well being of a society and its members depends on a common code of conduct, a common morality among all of its members.

It is not necessary for all members of a society to subscribe to the identical morality. However, it is important for all individuals to be aware of any differences in conduct that may exist among various groups. This consensus enables individuals to cope with, not only other individual members of their own society, but also with groups of non-conforming persons beyond their own society.

In the interest of the internal cohesion of a society, it is imperative that all individuals and groups within the society adhere to fundamental rules of moral conduct, which we will call the Three Natural Laws of Morality. We call these laws natural, not because they are immutable Laws of Nature, but to indicate that these laws have evolved from the innate nature of man.

The most fundamental law of the Three Natural Laws of Morality is the dictum: All persons within a society must refrain from killing or injure other members of the society, except in self-defense. This law is so simple and self-explanatory that all societies throughout human history have adopted it and vigorously enforce it... until is suits us to do otherwise.

Should a Government interfere in matters such as this?

Websters Dictionary definition states: A government exists to exercise political authority, direction and restraint over the actions of inhabitants of communities, societies or states.

Restraint... what an interesting word. Is the US Government, faced with 2 choices, going to restrain a Husband from helping his ill wife die. Or is that same Government set upon restraining a those who would prevent this woman dying with a modicum of dignity as here husband sees it?

Governments should never be involved in the details of our lives, I feel.
 
J

Judge Bean

Senior Member
Messages
1,257
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

Congress has exceeded the law, and thus (predictably so, when its members can't wait to publicly announce that their chief duty is to enact presidential will) violated the Constitution. The president violates the Constitution by urging the government to step in and save Schiavo's life-- whatever the life is actually worth, and regardless of her apparent stated desire to end it when it became that thin and narrow.

First you have the hypocrisy of the president, who gets worked up into high dudgeon at the direction of Rove about "activist judges," and then (as the citation to Brown v. Bd. of Education above shows) pulls out all of the stops to get the judiciary to take radical action to overturn the entire system. The president, once again, places his own impatient, brainless "resolve" before the law, and violates the Constitution for his own gain.

Next you have the illegal exclusivity of the government action. Remember that this is a nation of laws, "not men," and is founded on principles of due process and equal protection. These principles only work when every individual is subject to the same laws, and only when the government cannot exceed the regular and predictable course of procedure in depriving anyone of rights.

Now, some States have decided that a person has a right to die. Inevitable, under the circumstances, such a decision may have to be made by proxy. This is why the idea of a living will caught on a few years ago: you let everyone know ahead of time what you would prefer about your fate if it ever came down to the wire-- or rather, down to the tube.

Mr. Schiavo, as I understand it, claims that she made a clear statement to him about her wishes. This statement has apparently not been overturned or impeached in court. The State court was asked to obey the wishes of the president, but the judge (unlike the Senate and the Supreme Court) apparently does not consider his or her duties to include consideration of the president's wishes in interpreting and applying the law.

She is neither dead nor alive, apparently. Things are not so clear-cut. It's the same kind of scientific problem as the one posed by the consideration of first-trimester fetuses: dead or alive? Human or not in the loop? Somebody has to make these decisions, and doctors have been making them throughout history; mothers make them all the time, people make them about their loved ones.

Don't let the government make them.
 
D

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

Does this seem to anyone else to be a setup to set a precident? It is a highly emotionally charged issue which will cause alot of people to say that whatever means used to solve the problem are ok. Now that it is set, when and where will they use it next?
 
C

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Darkwolf\")</div>
Does this seem to anyone else to be a setup to set a precident? It is a highly emotionally charged issue which will cause alot of people to say that whatever means used to solve the problem are ok. Now that it is set, when and where will they use it next?[/b]
Click to expand...

Yep Darkwolf, that's what I've been thinking. Kind of a test case so to speak. Jose Padilla is another "test case" IMO.

Cary
 
J

JediStryker

Member
Messages
255
Re: Bedtime for Democracy

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Grayson\")</div>
Restraint... what an interesting word. Is the US Government, faced with 2 choices, going to restrain a Husband from helping his ill wife die. Or is that same Government set upon restraining a those who would prevent this woman dying with a modicum of dignity as here husband sees it?[/b]
Click to expand...

Dammit, Michael Schiavo is NOT interested in the dignity of his wife!

Michael Schiavo is 6\'-3\" tall and weighs 250-pounds. Here is reported evidence of abuse concerning Terri: Terri\'s medical records show multiple broken bones. When she collapsed in 1990 he failed to perform CPR. He has had her medical records sealed -- even from Terri\'s parents. Seven months after receiving $1.3-million for Terri\'s medical care, Michael prohibited antibiotics for infection which could have killed Terri (1993 & 1995). Despite medical records and witness reports that Terri is responsive, Michael has not allowed therapy since receiving the cash. He has prevented swallowing tests, despite medical testimony that Terri can be taught to eat. Ordered caretakers not to clean Terri\'s teeth (five teeth removed in 2004). Since 2000, refuses to allow Terri to leave her room. Refuses to fix her wheelchair. Orders the window shades down at all times in Terri\'s room, denying natural sunlight. Removed family photos from Terri\'s room, denies flowers, won\'t allow her to hear music. Won\'t allow visitors unless approved by him. Denied visits by her parents for eight-months. Denies all requests for Terri to attend nursing home functions and refuses to allow therapeutic animals to visit, knowing she is an animal lover.
 

Top