Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

Darkwolf

Active Member
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713
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

Supreme Court involvement in this case would not necessarily be an interference, but any Congressional or Executive action about it is definitely interference and a dangerous, alarming new kind of federalism.
Pre-cisley. To bring this back to the question posed by the topic, it is that kind of new federalism that is leading us toward some kind of civil conflict. This one won't be the last straw, but its certianly a straw.


Dark, we may both get our wish. I just heard on the news (haven't found the link) that Terri's family just has filed with the Supreme Court. The Court has not said whether or not they will hear arguments.

I hope I didn't come off as too much of a cold bastard there, hopefully they decide to save her.
 

sosuemetoo

Active Member
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Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

Paul,
I was hoping you would jump in because I respect your opinion and I have some questions.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Paul J. Lyon\")</div>
When Ashcroft was leaving office, he took one last pot shot at the Constitutional structure of state and federal powers and ordered an appeal to proceed challenging Oregon's right to die law. Mind you, this is after federal court involvement upholding Oregon's clear right to pass a law in an area not preempted by federal law.[/b]

I do believe in the right to die. I believe it is a personal decision that should be proven with a signed DNR or a Living Will. I should have the right to lay in a hospital bed and ask the medical staff to stop all food/water/meds or anything else that keeps me alive. I believe the government should keep their mits off and leave me to die the way I wish.

However, this matter seems a bit different. Terri never expressed her wishes. Her husband waited 6 years to say that this was Terri's wish though there is no proof. There's no plug to pull.

Wouldn't pulling a feeding tube be forced starvation. Is forced starvation an act that one would assume to cause death? An act committed that one would assume to cause death would be murder. Therefore, is Terri's husband allowing her to be murdered?
 

sosuemetoo

Active Member
Messages
723
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Darkwolf\")</div>
I hope I didn't come off as too much of a cold bastard there, hopefully they decide to save her.[/b]

No, I didn't take it that way. I'm hoping for an answer that allows for her (and those that are like her) to live, without our rights gradually taken away once again.
 

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

Wouldn't pulling a feeding tube be forced starvation. Is forced starvation an act that one would assume to cause death? An act committed that one would assume to cause death would be murder. Therefore, is Terri's husband allowing her to be murdered?


That depends on entirely on Flordia's homocide statute. They might (since they are going through this I assume they do have an exception for things like that.
 

Crosstika

Member
Messages
264
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

I think "if" congress fails.. due to all the politicizing, this matters gonna inspire a lot of right wing extremists to extreme measures..
 

CaryP

Senior Member
Messages
1,432
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"StarLord\")</div>
First off, This is sick. If you have made a decision to 'let' a person pass on, where is the sense of having that person starve to death? A simple shot to knock her out, and then another shot to stop the heart. Very safe, very painless.

This poor lady's tribulations have been a long journey. I think someone escalated and some how got the govt. involved via 'connections'[/b]

I'm no legal scholar, but giving the woman something to "put her down" may be considered homicide. Starvation may not be pretty but it is an alternative. My father was dying of inoperable cancer, and this is the route he chose to end his life. He was very Catholic and wouldn't consider suicide. He ordered that all tube feedings and intraveinous feedings stopped. He couldn't eat because of blockages in his intestines. He slowly starved to death over about a two week period. Very painful to watch, but it ended his life, of pain, morphine addiction (for the pain) and debilitation. Good choice IMO.

Cary
 

Anders

New Member
Messages
15
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

I hate having to be the one to draw the historical analogy, but way back in the 1930s there was some leader in north/central Europe who advocated and implemented the euthanizing of the deformed, mentally unstable, those of mixed ancestry, and anyone not conforming to his own ideal of a desireable citizen. I seem to recall history judging this particular leader rather harshly.

A society is ultimately judged by how it treats its weakest members. I know that there are other examples of this kind of thing happening in the country and maybe Terri's situation will draw attention to these as well, but she is the one currently living in the early hours of Good Friday, so our focus is there.

I personally can't wait for the Law and Order episode that takes its lead from this situation. I want to see how Jack McCoy takes Michael Schiavo apart on the stand.
 

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

I think \"if\" congress fails.. due to all the politicizing, this matters gonna inspire a lot of right wing extremists to extreme measures..


It very well could do just that. That would probably lead to a crackdown and a nationwide hunt for "militia nuts" and "right wing domestic terrorists" which leads to retaliation and so forth. Unfortunatly congress suceeding in sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong could lead to the same thing. This situation is definatly another match tossed in the direction of the gas can.
 

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

They just arrested the wrong guy.



FairOpinion</span><a href=\'http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1366314/posts\' target=\'_blank\'>


PINELLAS PARK, Fla., March 19 - The morning after Terri Schiavo\'s feeding tube was removed, supporters of her parents sought new avenues in their fight to keep the critically brain-damaged woman alive, while police arrested several of the protesters who gathered outside Ms. Schiavo\'s hospice when they tried to force their way inside.

At midmorning Saturday about 30 people prayed and waved signs outside the Woodside Hospice, and the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said that later in the day that he would lead as many protesters as he could gather to Tallahassee, where they would spend the next few days lobbying the State Legislature and Gov. Jeb Bush to somehow force the feeding tube\'s reinsertion.

Just before 11 a.m. Saturday, three protesters were taken into custody when they tried to force their way past officers guarding the driveway to the hospice and to take bread and water to Ms. Schiavo. The three men - led by James (Bo) Gritz, a former Green Beret commander from Nevada - were arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charges, police officials said.

Ms. Schiavo cannot eat or drink without a feeding tube, but the protesters said the action was meant to be symbolic.

Shortly after the arrests, a man who described himself as a spiritual adviser to Ms. Schiavo\'s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, emerged from the hospice to say they did not want any civil disobedience. The man, Paul O\'Donnell, said the Schindlers were inside and wanted \\"everything to remain peaceful\\" adding that they were \\"devastated but hopeful.\\"

Mary Schindler, who rarely addresses the news media, emerged from the hospice around lunchtime to say that Ms. Schiavo \\"is my life.\\"

\\"I am begging Governor Bush and the politicians in Tallahassee, President Bush and the politicians in Washington, please, please, please save my little girl,\\" she said.

Doctors removed the feeding tube from Ms. Schiavo on Friday afternoon. They said that the 41-year-old woman, who suffered extensive brain damage when her heart failed 15 years ago, could live up to two weeks without the liquid meals that were provided through a gastric tube.

She has been the focus of a seven-year fight between her husband, Michael, who is her legal guardian and says that he is fighting to protect her wish to die, and her parents, who reject court findings that she has no cognition and would not want to be kept alive artificially.

Mr. Mahoney, one of several conservative religious leaders trying to rally national protest of the tube removal on grounds that no life should end prematurely, said he hoped more people would travel here as Ms. Schiavo\'s condition deteriorated.

\\"We want a spiritual prayer witness sort of thing in Pinellas Park and a more political front in Tallahassee,\\" Mr. Mahoney said.

He added that protesters would pressure Governor Bush to visit Ms. Schiavo at her bedside, as her husband has angrily invited him to do. Mr. Schiavo sued the governor in 2003 after the Legislature passed a law empowering the governor to order Ms. Schiavo\'s feeding tube reinserted six days after it had been removed.

Mr. Schiavo, appearing Saturday morning on the \\"Today\\" show on NBC, said that he was at his wife\'s side shortly after the tube was removed Friday afternoon and that he knew it was what she wanted.

\\"It felt like some peace was happening for Terri,\\" Mr. Schiavo said in the television interview. \\"And I felt like she was finally going to get what she wants, and be at peace and be with the Lord.\\"

Mr. Mahoney - who believes, as Ms. Schiavo\'s parents do, that she can think and feel and could improve with therapy even though the courts have accepted medical testimony that she cannot - said visiting Ms. Schiavo could prompt the governor to take drastic action.

\\"It\'s important for him as a chief executive to see what\'s being done to one of his residents,\\" Mr. Mahoney said. \\"Governor Bush might be her last practical hope. We believe he could take her into protective custody or otherwise use his executive privileges.\\" Mr. Mahoney and Randall Terry, the founder of the antiabortion group Operation Rescue, said they would continue lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would require a federal court hearing in cases like Ms. Schiavo\'s to evaluate whether the state had followed all requirements for judicial due process. They also said they still hoped the Florida Legislature would pass a law requiring the tube\'s reinsertion or forcing the replacement of Mr. Schiavo as his wife\'s guardian.




[/b][/quote] [/b]</span>
</a>





Col Gritz is well known around right wing and militia circles. He is an ex special ops soldier with connections to resistance groups within the military as well as outside of it. Not the kind of guy I'd like to tick off.
 

Darkwolf

Active Member
Messages
713
Re: Could this be the rift that starts the civil war?

This gives a little more info on Gritz. I find it interasting that he was involved as a mediator in all of the incidents Titor refers to.

<H1>'Bo' Gritz hospitalized with gunshot wound

[font=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Gritz recently led a search for bombing suspect Eric Rudolph [/font]</span>
Gritz is probably best known for his role as negotiator in the FBI siege on the Randy Weaver family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992. He also briefly was a mediator in the Montana Freemen standoff in 1996.

Recently, he led a team into the North Carolina forests, hoping to persuade suspected women\'s clinic bomber <a href=\'http://www.cnn.com/US/9809/21/gritz.01/link.sketch.rudolph.jpg\' target=\'_blank\'>Eric Rudolph</a> to give himself up.

Gritz also is the developer of Almost Heaven, which he calls a \"constitutional covenant community\" near Kamiah in northern Idaho. He has a national following for his short-wave radio talk show, \"Freedom Calls.\"

Gritz ran for president in 1992 and is a leader in the so-called Patriot Movement, which rails against a purported United Nations-led \"New World Order\" and accuses the government of corruption and violence.

The <a href=\'http://www.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html#AP\' target=\'_blank\'><span style=\'color:#0000ff\'>Associated Press
</a> contributed to this report.
</H1>
 

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