Stoopid Stuff

It's Finally Over

Terri Schiavo has finally gotten her wish. Requiescat in pace. So while her ordeal is over, we must not forget the idiocy and criminality that the American Taliban committed over and over in her name, and the crimes of their lapdog congressmen must also not be allowed to disappear. American Taliban? Why do you call them that? When you think about it, the difference between an Islamic fundamentalist extremist and a Christian fundamentalist extremist is just about zero. And yes, I do enjoy the irony of the fact that they are brothers who hate each other. They all believe that the entire universe was successfully described in a mythology written down over a thousand years ago. They both believe that god talks only and directly to them, and that they are the final arbiters of all that is moral. And they both believe that it is not enough for them to follow their beliefs, they must force everyone else to follow their beliefs also, even under threat of imprisonment or death.

The evil, pandering, political crimes that were committed in her name are too many to be named here, but a few are worth noticing. First, the irony of having liberals and conservatives switch sides just to be certain there was nothing they could ever agree on. Conservatives have always been vocal supporters of states rights and limited federal government and liberals have always been willing to find another role for the federal government. Suddenly, Florida state law is not getting them what they want, so Conservatives blithely hand over jurisdiction to the Federal Courts. And to whatever minimal extent the Liberals in congress were willing to stand up to them at all, it was nothing more than a half hearted states rights diatribe.

You know, that's at least the second time this congress has violated their oath to uphold the constitution of the United States. The first was when they handed over to Bush the power to declare war in 2003. The constitution places the power to declare war with the congress for very good reasons. The president, as commander in chief, must then prosecute the war, but congress must authorize the use of the US Military in the first place. Nowhere in the constitution does it allow the congress to give this power to anyone else, least of all the president who the founding fathers specifically did NOT want to have it. Then there's "Terri's Law". My God, you'd think these congressmen had never even READ the tenth amendment. Hey, it's not complicated. Here's what it says:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So in a matter clearly in the state's jurisdiction, and adjudicated fairly over many years, somehow congress decided to change the jurisdiction of this single case for political gain? They should all be impeached.

The press has been tremendously complicit in this debacle also. In an effort to sound "fair and balanced" (sorry) they gave voice to the most radical, uninformed and extremist views, allowing them to appear to have equal weight with the science, medicine and courts. They do not. These are the voices of a few fundamentalist extremists, creating the illusion of controversy when there is none. The way these people lashed out at Michael Schiavo was unconscionable, calling him the foulest of names and accusing him of the most heinous of crimes. His calm patience and courage was the only honorable part of the whole undertaking. I saw one of the protesters outside the hospice interviewed for a mainstream news show. Here was a highly indoctrinated teenage girl who believed she had the wisdom and life experience to describe judge Greer as "evil" and "immoral". Now, if we have come to a place where home-schooled teenagers are the arbiters of morality, I'm pretty sure it's a place I don't want to live. The press could have done a much better job of explaining that many medical experts had done careful studies and many courts had heard untold hours of testimony and ALL reached the same conclusions: That Terri was in a persistent vegetative state, that Michael was the person with the right, and the responsibility, to speak for her, and she had every right in the world to want to end the torment of living as a shell. Did anyone see anything like that? I sure didn't.

I'm told the outcome of the Schiavo case is that the Right Wing zealots in congress will be taking on the judiciary. Their position is that "activist" judges are "legislating from the bench" and somehow making the world a worse place. I, for one, would like to thank my lucky stars for "activist judges". In my lifetime, by forcing venal, greedy, bigoted and self-interested politicians to adhere somewhat closely to the constitution, they have made America better, more free and stronger. Whether it was civil rights, abortion, women’s rights, workers rights or search and seizure rules, these judges made a huge difference when the legislators were pushing their own agendas, or merely pandering to the worst in their constituents in order to get re-elected.

posted by mikey @ 1:51 PM