Re: Bedtime for Democracy
The point is, really, that the court and the family have thrashed it out and come to one of two really bad available conclusions. Whether Mr. Schiavo did anything wrong is a matter of local criminal investigation based upon reasonable suspicion-- the affidavits may provide the suspicion needed to investigate him, but that is a decision for local law enforcement.
It is not a case for, and none of the important decisions involved are appropriately the domain of, President Bush, the Congress, or the higher federal courts. If you make it a federal case of that type, you are doing two things, and I believe that Bush has done them both:
1. You are denying the privacy rights of individuals, and supplanting some sort of federal moral will in their place, and
2. You are usurping local law, power, and law enforcement, abandoning the rules of separation of powers, federal preemption, States' rights, and reserved rights of the States and people.
Both acts are incredible in light of the complaint of the neocons about "activist judges," and their purported beliefs in smaller government and that local governments should pay for their own rural firefighting, charity, and police protection.
Both acts are in violation of multiple sections of the Constitution and contrary to standing Supreme Court case law.