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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 26, 2005 12:08:18 GMT -5
From the HabsRus Code of Conduct: 4. Please refrain from personal insults. This seems like a no-brainer to most people, but the definition of “insult” can vary from person to person. Keep in mind that this is a visual medium, and thus the tone of your post can be easily mis-read at times. “You’re crazy, you’re nuts, you’re insane, your mother wears army boots” are just some of the insults that will not be tolerated.
We realize that this is a fine line that is often crossed, particularly by those bozos who think they run this site, and we also realize that this can be quite fun and entertaining. But you must be absolutely certain that person, or any other person for that matter, will not be offended. If you are not sure, do not do it.
5. By definition, an opinion can never be wrong. Do not say it is. There is a certain poster on this site, we’ll call him BadCompany, who once stated that he believed that Patrick Traverse would become the Habs #1 defenceman. Strange as it may sound, he is right. He did believe that Patrick Traverse would become our #1 defenceman, silly man that he is. However, a belief can never be wrong, because, well, it’s a belief. If BadCompany says that he believes Patrick Traverse is a #1 defenceman because he once scored 40 goals in the NHL, then you can tell him that his fact is wrong, Patrick Traverse never scored 40 goals, and you can then hope he changes his belief. But there are no right or wrong opinions, and we do not want to see you saying so. Unless you are discussing a very specific fact, we suggest you avoid the use of the phrase “you are wrong.” This is the second warning. Take a time-out and cool down.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 26, 2005 13:22:59 GMT -5
I said I would pull the plug on Schiavo, not on anyone else. If it were up to me. You are extrapolating, generalizing and exaggerating based on that one case. That is both unrealistic and verging on the hysterical in tone. Each case is unique, as is each individual. Once you have accepted the eugenic argument, you have accepted the eugenic argument. Every human being has a right, an inalienable right to ordinary means, food, warmth, cleanliness etc. What you fail to see is that the fundamental issue is that you are declaring her to be non-human, no longer a part of the human family, a nothing. For all anyone knows she might well wake up as misdiagnosis occurs in 40% of such cases. When hunting, you can't shoot into an area where there is a chance you might hit a fellow huner. If you do and there were some grounds to believe there might be a person there, you would be guilty of gross megligence and manslaughter. Those who would kill people incarcerated for past deeds, ignore exactly the same principle in their desire to kill. They are firstly wrong in seeking to kill someone who presents no immediate threat to one's life and further, wrong in applying irrevocable means on the basis of opinions as to culpability. Anybody catch the OJ trial? Why not now cull our hospitals? Why not? If we find old dying people, why not just kill them off. many of the very old will have less theoretical chance of returning to a full human life than Terri. Think of the money we could save "for worthwhile purposes". Dr. Mengele understood this clearly and was not swayed by pathetic human sentiment or the principles of human rights. He culled the useless who were such a drain on resources that could be better spent in advancing his eugenically purified race. In Canadian hospitals the well-heeled regularly turn their backs and walk away from designer babies with defects. They starve them to death as most are still too squeamish to cut their throats or "inject" them, which is much nicer looking, almost medical in the appearance it presents to the world. ny more than Bush was swayed by the principles underlying and rule of international law. It us not a matter of keeping warm meat alive. It is you who label her thusly arbitrarily just as people label as "embryos" the very youngest human beings they are determined to kill. This is not a battlefied traige scenario here but rather a statement of ennui. Too much bother. It is well said that one must first kill someone in one's mind before you do it in the flesh. She is not even "brain dead" I caught David Suzuki lamenting the fact that he has in many respects become a "scold". a role he reluctantly had to accept because to the issues at stake. everybody, myself included, gets tired of being scolded, but the role of the prophet or truth teller is a necessary one. (For anyone with overly sensitive religious radar antennae, the word prophet shares the same etymological root as 'professor' and 'profess' and 'fess up') Is zeal in the defence of human life vicious or ia it rather, the lack of it that is vicious? "Animal Farm" that critique of capitalist societies, considered similar issues of degrees of species. Species do not admit of degrees. Aristotle discovered the idea of "substantial form" and "prime matter" to distinguish between ordinary changes that occur to existing things and that unique type of event wherein a new living entity is created. In "de Anima" (concerning Souls) It is a different type of change in that something that did not exist in time-space, comes into existence. He in fact argued that such an even cannot occur "in time" but rather must occur "instantly" as there would be no difference between saying that a person exists and saying that one's parents existed as teenagers like any other accidental change. his argument will not be likely beimmediately (or perhaps ever) apparent to anyone reading this. It is based upon an analysis of the nature of raltiy and change. It is not offered just to show that I know a lot more about Aristotle than most, as has been suggested, but rather it is a plea and encouragemnt to examine the 17th century premises of your world views. They are very seriously dated. To see Terri as she is, as your sister who needs your help is easier to see once removec from philosophical materialism which always reduces to social darwinism. As in this instance. I am suggesting the intellectual illuminationn of a much less obscure view of reality thatn the post-enlightenment obseeion with material efficient causality. It lacks completely in the possibility of meaning and therefore purpose. One must step aout of Plato's cave. The decision to support killing her, this false sympathy argued from expediency as is often the case with from death "penalty" proponents, is exactly on the same continuum of what is at root human indifference. This is exactly the same variety of reasoning that preceded that rise of fascism in Germany in that neo-pagan culture of the thirties. Case by case? Does this phrase not give you a bit of a shiver? It should. Again, who's next? Is it you. You are very and seriously wrong on this issue.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 26, 2005 14:05:33 GMT -5
You're right. Time to whack a few tennis balls.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 26, 2005 14:41:19 GMT -5
From the HabsRus Code of Conduct: 5. By definition, an opinion can never be wrong. Do not say it is. There is a certain poster on this site, we’ll call him BadCompany, who once stated that he believed that Patrick Traverse would become the Habs #1 defenceman. Strange as it may sound, he is right. He did believe that Patrick Traverse would become our #1 defenceman, silly man that he is. However, a belief can never be wrong, because, well, it’s a belief. If BadCompany says that he believes Patrick Traverse is a #1 defenceman because he once scored 40 goals in the NHL, then you can tell him that his fact is wrong, Patrick Traverse never scored 40 goals, and you can then hope he changes his belief. But there are no right or wrong opinions, and we do not want to see you saying so. Unless you are discussing a very specific fact, we suggest you avoid the use of the phrase “you are wrong.” [/i][/quote] You are very and seriously wrong on this issue. No I am not. Your opinion is noted. It carries no less or more weight than anyone else's on this board. However, you continue to over-step the boundaries of conduct laid out for participation on this board. Warnings have been posted and the appropriate sections of the Code of Conduct have been quoted.
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Post by blaise on Mar 26, 2005 16:07:22 GMT -5
To what end is Terri Schiavo's vegetative state being maintained? The real question we are all addressing here, is "What is the end or purpose of human life, of life itself, of the universe"? He will reintroduce you to the deep intellectual stream of Western civilization in dealing with these question. Blaise, you are the enlightenment guy here. Don't make the mistake of taking this as a compliment, because it is not so intended, but you would view this as a good thing. You are the disciple of the world view known as "materialism", based upon the fundamental and massive errors of Descartes and Kant. Materialists, having failed completely to understand the nature and roll of sensation in knowledge. Our culture is almost completely infected with this error beautifully revealed by Rizzi. I to find the theologically and philosophical naivete of the fideistic right wing quite repugnant as anti-rational, and dangerous as grossly simplistic and, frankly absurd .e.g. viewing the book of revelation, written by John from the isle of Patmos concerning the Roman emperor Domitian (his name in numerological cirlces has the value "666") as some kind of desperately dumb perspective on a future shrouded in fear. That said, most of the greatest minds of Western civilization have sprung from christian Europe, the very birthplace of science and the fertile ground of its flourishing. Gallileo and Descartes included. You Blaise take exception to the idea of religion and that it should be, as it is, a most powerful agent of human endeavor. Your favourite target is the anti-rational fundamentalist, but in this, you are more than a little anti-rational and fundamentalist yourself. Your prescription is to consider only the material and then loudly shout that only the material exists. Therfore there can be no God, no Justice, no Love, no purpose and no hope for mankind, but that reserved for all biologicalo phylums, extinction. That, like death is just fine if there is no reason to believe otherwise. The world abounds with very serious cogent evdence and very well reasoned arguments, like Aristotles' and Aquinas, Maritain, and for that matter, Rizzi. A book by Mortimer Adler, "Six Great Ideas", dealing with the ideas of Truth, Beauty, Justice and others is an easy read and will expand your horizons. Their values when it's time ot be counted mirror the main value system of north americans....corporation values. Media's job is propaganda, and all the banal cliches and slogans, carefully masking the truth we all know, serve thissub-human survivalism. To insist that every human being has a fundamental dignity is not the statement of mindless emotion. That all have a God-given, (and there can be no other reasonably compelling basis for human rights) to ordinary care is EXACTLY the voice of reason. To M. Beaux Eaux, the issue is about final cause. It is about the big question. If a Nazi or secular humanist without a moral compass had you and your poor mother in a cell and said either shoot your mother or he would shoot you both, and there was no escape, would you kill your mother? If not, why not. A faithful theist should have no problem with this and should say "Go ahead and shoot you poor desperate pathetic creature." It's kind of like an existential "kling-free". Are heros mad, to surrender their lives, or is the universe so-ordered that they are the very wisest. Is the consecrarted virgin the dupe or the courageous adventurer, pushing past the safe to the dimly apprehended horizon. You reach unsupportable a priori conclusions, the first being that immaterial things exist and supersede the material. To reach these conclusions you have to accept iffy premises. You speak of God-given rights and attribute to them the sole basis for human rights. I can't think of anything that is so blatantly exploited as invocation of God. Human rights are human, period. You attribute all virtue to believers when the believers are the ones who post bounties to kill Michael Schiavo and physicians who perform abortions and stem cell researchers. Those who justify euthanasia and abortion do not sanction "hits" on those who disapprove of their practice. On the contrary, they are more humane than the believers, who are the ones who would burn your body to save your soul. Believers slaughtered natives in North and South America and elsewhere who did not convert. European Protestants and Catholics murdered each other for centuries. The advent of Christianity was the worst thing that has happened to the Jews over the past two millenia, and anti-Semitism is all too rampant. Galileo was persecuted and compelled to recant. The fundamental and massive errors of Descartes and Kant are bugbears that exist largely in your seminarian outlook. You could only wish you were as brilliant as they. Whether or not I agree with Thomas Aquinas or Jacques Maritain, I don't dismiss them with such cheap disdain. That amounts to intellectual 'punkism'. You imply that M. Beaux-Eaux might shoot his mother to save himself. I sincerely doubt that he would. I know quite well that I would take a bullet to save each and every member of my sons' families without the arrogance of considering myself a martyr, much less a saint. People of conscience, religious and otherwise, fought against Nazi rule in Germany and elsewhere. Pope Pius did not speak out against the Holocaust. He certainly didn't meet the criteria of Christian martyrdom. Hitler was born to a Catholic family. Stalin was educated in an Orthodox seminary. In short, I reject your thesis for its presumption and inconsistency.
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Post by blaise on Mar 26, 2005 16:13:42 GMT -5
There is more to the Terri Schiavo story than meets the naked eye, such as bad blood between the Schindlers and the Schiavos. I read just today that when Michael Schiavo won a malpractice award of $700,000 against the obstetrician who treated his wife, Bob Schindler asked for a cut. This is not a monochromatic case of good against evil by any means.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 26, 2005 16:57:30 GMT -5
No I am not. Your opinion is noted. It carries no less or more weight than anyone else's on this board. However, you continue to over-step the boundaries of conduct laid out for participation on this board. Warnings have been posted and the appropriate sections of the Code of Conduct have been quoted. Having only just reread the item 5 of your posting, I would agree that I have indeed overstepped the bounds of the board, along with just about everyone else, but I will and usually do try to avoid giving offence to anyone. I frankly never imagined that telling someone that one believes them to be wrong on an important issue could ever be construed as an insult or slight. It is implicit in all disagreements. I took considerable exception to Observer's "inquisition" remarks and would again. I don't think I have too often overstepped reasonable bounds. Law is predicated upon the belief that people can in fact engage profitably in discourse concerning reality, including what is moral and what is not. To engage in philosophical discussion per se is the cure, not the disease. Modernism is based upon a serious error of Descartes, the consequence of which is ably expressed in item number five. Post modernism denies that we can know anything, leaving us with the cult of sincerity. I am not a member. These are not intellectual fashions but how we steer our way through llife. The third reich had its' enlightenment philosopher in Nietche as the gulag had theirs in Hegel. We swim in the same intellectual soup. it is only right, a duty in fact to address this insofar as one is able. You too have a duty to speak the truth insofar as you are able to apprehend and convey it. You have a laudable patience and conciliatory manner about you . These are real gifts which I genuinely admire. In moderation these are good things the non-Marthian sense of the phrase, but I really do hope that item no 5 is meant as a gentle reminder of civiltiy and not an epistemilogical principle of the human intellect's capacity to know. If it were true, then all three learned opinions of my orthopaedic surgeeons, though in contradiction, would all be equally true and their advice if followed would result in equally good results. A very unlikely proposition, no matter how sincrerely professed. It does give rise to an idea for a new thread however
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 26, 2005 17:44:59 GMT -5
You reach unsupportable a priori conclusions, the first being that immaterial things exist and supersede the material. To reach these conclusions you have to accept iffy premises. You speak of God-given rights and attribute to them the sole basis for human rights. I can't think of anything that is so blatantly exploited as invocation of God. Human rights are human, period. This begs the question, if there is nothing beyond the material, then where do "human rights" come from and on what basis can we define right and wrong?
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Post by blaise on Mar 26, 2005 18:48:18 GMT -5
This begs the question, if there is nothing beyond the material, then where do "human rights" come from and on what basis can we define right and wrong? Basic common sense. If you shoot at someone, the victim (if he survives) or his clan will attack you. If you are cruel or dishonest to to others, what can you in turn expect? It is better for all concerned to show self-restraint. Prehumans practiced enlightened self-interest. So did idol worshippers and polytheists. It is preferable to choose order over chaos. We don't have to bring the supernatural into it. It is more comfortable for eveyone if you don't believe you are doing God's will. If you do, anything wicked you do becomes justifiable. Many animal species work for the overall good of the community. There is no ant-god or dolphin-god, and they function quite well without it. Is there any virtue in celibacy that coexists with preying on children? What good does it do to read St. Augustine and memorize Matthew, John, Luke, and Corinthians? Does that automatically make you a better person? Would the world be worse off if Martin Luther had recruited an army, burned the Vatican, and hanged the pope? Henry VIII was not a moral man, but divorcing Catherine so that he could remarry in defiance of Rome were his minor sins.
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 26, 2005 21:18:09 GMT -5
1. There has been no observable brain activity in over a year. 2. They are in a persistant vegetative state. 3. Remove the feeding tubes and allow Bettman and Goodenow to go to a better place.
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Post by franko on Mar 26, 2005 21:24:47 GMT -5
Franko What theological argument are you referring to? I don't remember making one. An argument from theism, which I consider on evidence, to be the only full satisfactory worldview, is not a theological argument. Oops . . . poor editing. And this is not a theological arumenet, still an arguement from the realm of morality. And it doesn't necessarily follow, because your morality squeezes into the argument. Your use of the word "kill" shows your preconceptions and prejudices in the matter. Rather, you must say "we must feed this woman" . . . but Jesus would not force-feed anyone, but merely offer food, much like He does not force anyone to follow Him, but offers all His love and invites them to follow. And with that . . . Happy Easter
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 26, 2005 22:43:32 GMT -5
You have a laudable patience and conciliatory manner about you . These are real gifts which I genuinely admire. In moderation these are good things the non-Marthian sense of the phrase, but I really do hope that item no 5 is meant as a gentle reminder of civiltiy and not an epistemilogical principle of the human intellect's capacity to know. It means that I, and others of the inner sanctum, exercise control over the plug in this universe. Such power has been granted us by this universe's founding principles and our selection as agents of their enforcement. It is a solemn and serious charge, and one I do not take lightly. However, I have no fear in exercising my power in this regard, for here I am like unto he who elected me, and I have full knowledge of good and evil as it has been put forth in the HabsRus Code of Conduct, and have absolutely no fear of passing judgement based on it. Capice?That said, I wish you a positive and fruitful existence in our dominion.
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Post by UberCranky on Mar 27, 2005 0:35:19 GMT -5
It means that I, and others of the inner sanctum, exercise control over the plug in this universe. Such power has been granted us by this universe's founding principles and our selection as agents of their enforcement. It is a solemn and serious charge, and one I do not take lightly. However, I have no fear in exercising my power in this regard, for here I am like unto he who elected me, and I have full knowledge of good and evil as it has been put forth in the HabsRus Code of Conduct, and have absolutely no fear of passing judgement based on it. Capice?That said, I wish you a positive and fruitful existence in our dominion. With that......enter the cranky Dragon! All kidding aside guys, HabsRus has been built on respect for each other and letting the issues go after a few rounds. In this thread, posters are going round after round after round AT each others opinion and we need to cool off for a day. I or one of the mods will re-open it on Monday or sooner. Please guys, I know it's a sensitive and emotional subject but let's cool off a little bit.
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Post by UberCranky on Mar 28, 2005 10:27:30 GMT -5
The topic is open again. Be extra cautious NOT to be critical of the person who hold a different opinion. This thread reaches to the very core of our beliefs and everyone is hyper sensitive about that. Be equally hyper sensitive in how you respond.
Remember our code of conduct.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am disgusted how the media splashes Mrs. Shiavo picture every second of the day. The media must let the poor woman die with dignity and stop using her face to justify their existence. I have seen death come and whittle a body away far too MANY times. It HURTS to see it. IT HURTS BAD.
I don’t want it on my TV screen every second of every hour of every day.
LEAVE HER ALONE WITH HER LOVED ONES.
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Post by franko on Mar 28, 2005 11:59:11 GMT -5
I am disgusted how the media splashes Mrs. Shiavo picture every second of the day. The media must let the poor woman die with dignity and stop using her face to justify their existence. I have seen death come and whittle a body away far too MANY times. It HURTS to see it. IT HURTS BAD. I don’t want it on my TV screen every second of every hour of every day. LEAVE HER ALONE WITH HER LOVED ONES. Unfortunately, there is no dignity once the media gets involved. Who cares about people/feelings? Let's sell papers/ad space. I've quit reading about it -- enough has been said. In a few days it'll be over . . . her family will be able to start picking up the pieces of life again . . . and the media will find another focus.
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Post by blaise on Mar 28, 2005 20:18:22 GMT -5
Unfortunately, there is no dignity once the media gets involved. Who cares about people/feelings? Let's sell papers/ad space. I've quit reading about it -- enough has been said. In a few days it'll be over . . . her family will be able to start picking up the pieces of life again . . . and the media will find another focus. I agree about the media. They are coarse and insensitive. I also object to the "vigils" of the activists, who also foul the air, and to the intrusiveness of the politicians and the special interest groups that egg them on. The object lesson of this sorry story is that people should draft valid living wills.
It was interesting to read the comments of Robert Veatch, a professor of medical ethics at Georgetown University (a Catholic institution). He said, "The idea that all life is valuable or sacred has in almost all settings been qualified in some way." Prof. Veatch cited a Roman Catholic judgment from the Middle Ages that if a patient needed to travel 300 miles by donkey cart to a shrine in the hope of being healed, that was too much.
Returning to the central issue of what constitutes human life, I am dissatisfied with the Aristotlean argument that biological existence is inviolable (which by definition precludes capital punishment). The Cartesian "I think therefore I am" satisfies me better than "I pump (substitute breathe, grow hair, or fart) therefore I am." The latter underlies the weasel-worded rationalizations that Terri Schiavo is merely "handicapped" and that her "civil rights are being violated." Those arguments are laughable in a country that honors living wills and permission to donate organs. Would that mean that making a living will or entering assent to organ donation on a driver's license is a voluntary surrender of civil rights? Absurd!
Descartes defined human life as consciousness. A living warthog or toad satisfies Aristotle's criteria but not those of Descartes. The only religious philosophy that views all life as precious is Vedanta (Hinduism). Logically, launching a Crusade is a sin on a monumental scale.
I wish Michael Schiavo had turned Terri over to the care of the Schindlers at the time he took another woman as his common law wife or when he he had children with her. That would have avoided this deplorable scenario, but unfortunately he didn't.
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 28, 2005 23:05:12 GMT -5
Basic common sense. If you shoot at someone, the victim (if he survives) or his clan will attack you. If you are cruel or dishonest to to others, what can you in turn expect? It is better for all concerned to show self-restraint. Prehumans practiced enlightened self-interest. So did idol worshippers and polytheists. I initially felt that this wasn't good enough, but having thought it over some more, I think it does suffice as a definition of right and wrong. But I'm not sure it explains why any of us feel so strongly about this issue.
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Post by blaise on Mar 29, 2005 13:55:15 GMT -5
I initially felt that this wasn't good enough, but having thought it over some more, I think it does suffice as a definition of right and wrong. But I'm not sure it explains why any of us feel so strongly about this issue. Perhaps because it's a hot religious and political issue. The Right-to-Life movement has coopted this tragedy to advance its own cause. Advocates of maintaining abortion rights can see through this ploy and try to thwart the Right-to-Lifers as a countermove. The intervention by Bush and the Republican Congress simply adds fuel to the fire. My own feeling on the matter is that while I accept the evidence that Terri Schiavo is alive but totally and permanently out of it mentally, I would have preferred that Michael Schiavo turn over her care to her parents and siblings. They are deluding themselves about her attempts to 'communicate' with them through eye movements and grunts. But so long as they rather than the public are paying for her care, let them live in their fantasy world. It's a good thing that Michael has agreed to an autopsy. It should corroborate the many opinions of unprejudiced neurologists that her cerebral cortex is mush (I saw her CAT scan images on TV, and all of the gray matter is now black except for a thin border, which is good enough for me from what I have seen of other brain scans). The Dr. Cheshire the family and their supporters cite for support 1) has never dealt professionally with persistent vegetative states (his specialty is facial neuralgia due to irritation of the trigeminal nerve) and he has never examined her, and 2) he is an active (actually, an activist) member of the Christian Medical Association, an organization that is categorically opposed to euthanasia, abortion, and stem cell cell research. He calls himself a bioethicist but he always comes down hard on one side of every issue. The statements he has made in interviews reveal 1) that he is biased and 2) untruthful.
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Post by blaise on Mar 30, 2005 16:34:43 GMT -5
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Post by HardCap on Mar 31, 2005 12:52:36 GMT -5
Killed by Euphemisms
There was an honest, forthright case for ending the life of Terri Schiavo. It was that her life no longer had any value, for herself or others, and that ending it — the quicker the better — would spare everyone misery. We disagree with that view, holding it wiser to stick with the Judeo-Christian tradition on the sanctity of innocent life. But the people who made this case deserve some credit for straightforwardness.
But while the public may have agreed with the removal of Schiavo's feeding and hydration tube, apparently there are limits to the public's willingness to tolerate euthanasia — and apparently its defenders recognized these limits. So we saw euphemism after euphemism deployed to cloud the issues.
Perhaps chief among these was the fiction that we were "letting her die." On March 18, Schiavo was in no medical danger of death. She was profoundly brain-damaged (although just how profoundly remains unknown), but she was not in a coma or on a respirator. She was not being kept alive by artificial means, any more than small children are kept alive by artificial means when their parents feed them. Her body was functioning, there is some reason to believe she was minimally conscious, and she was responsive to stimuli (it's been reported she was actually being administered pain medication). She had devoted parents and siblings who were willing to care for her. She could easily have gone on in these conditions for many years. She was not close to dying. For death to arrive, she would have to be killed.
And for that to happen, the use of words like "starvation" and "dehydration" would have to be discouraged. Those words might, after all, have reminded us that what was done to Schiavo would be criminal if done to an animal and provoke cries of "torture" and "cruel and unusual punishment" if done to a convicted capital murderer. And "killed," of course, was totally verboten. Schiavo was being "removed from life support," not denied basic sustenance. The phrase "persistent vegetative state" had to be repeated constantly — never mind that basic tests were never performed to establish this diagnosis, and such diagnoses have a very high error rate — and treated as though it meant "brain death."
We were told that her "choice to die" was being "honored," although the evidence that she had, at age 26, given any considered thought to her own mortality and potential incapacity was thin and highly suspect — its lone source being a husband who incongruously proclaimed his solemn fidelity to this purported wish of Terri even as he started up a new family, denied Terri basic care, and insisted on denying her heartbroken parents their desire to care for their child.
The charade here was not performed to protect Terri Schiavo's dignity but to increase the public's comfort with the devaluation of life. So it was that Michael Schiavo's lawyer, the euthanasia enthusiast George Felos, sketched for the media (which was naturally not permitted to observe Terri's deteriorating condition) a rosy portrait of Terri's extremis: radiantly beautiful, soothed by soft music and the comfort of a stuffed animal.
The scene, of course, was not set for her. By Felos's account, she was just an insensate, post-human corpse, for whom such tender touches were irrelevant — the comforts that would have made a difference, food and water, having been mercilessly denied. This was theater for the American people.
Why not kill Mrs. Schiavo quickly and efficiently, by depriving her of air to breathe? In principle, that would have been no different from denying her the other basic necessities of life. Why not give her a lethal injection? The law would not have allowed those methods; but the reason nobody advocated them was that they would have been too obviously murder. So the court-ordered killing was carried out slowly, incrementally, over days and weeks, with soft music, stuffed animals, and euphonious slogans about choice and dignity and radiance. By the time it ended, no one really remembered how many days and hours it had gone on. The nation accepted it, national polls supported it, and we all moved on to other things.
Next time it will be easier. It always is. The tolerance of early-term abortion made it possible to tolerate partial-birth abortion, and to give advanced thinkers a hearing when they advocate outright infanticide. Letting the courts decide such life-and-death issues made it possible for us to let them decide others, made it seem somehow wrong for anyone to stand in their way. Now they are helping to snuff out the minimally conscious. Who's next?
(this appeared as an editorial)
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Post by HardCap on Mar 31, 2005 14:25:45 GMT -5
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion. Under the windings of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shan't crack; And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion. No more may gulls cry at their ears Or waves break loud on the seashores; Where blew a flower may a flower no more Lift its head to the blows of the rain; Though they be mad and dead as nails, Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, And death shall have no dominion.
-Dylan Thomas
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 31, 2005 15:15:02 GMT -5
Posted on Thu, Mar. 31, 2005 COMMENTARY Facing reality is not betrayal of faithBy LEONARD PITTS JR. ''Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him'' - Job 13:15The tears surprised me. I pulled over, blinded by them. The incident is sharp in memory because it was a turning point: the moment I finally accepted the unacceptable. My mom was going to lose her battle with breast cancer. She was going to die. My sisters and brother had already come to terms with it. I was the one still clinging, stubbornly and defiantly, to an expectation of miracles. To do otherwise felt like a betrayal of my mother. And of my faith. But that day back in 1988, acceptance finally forced itself on me. Cancer had made her a stick figure. It had clouded her mind with hallucination. And it had reduced her to a toddler, her hand feather light in mine as she tottered down the hall. I left her bedside at a trot. Got in the car and drove until I couldn't see. As you've probably guessed, I'm writing about Terri Schiavo, who died today. And I'm doing what I guess we all do when we contemplate her tragedy. I am personalizing it. - www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/11277900.htm
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 31, 2005 16:28:16 GMT -5
I agree about the media. They are coarse and insensitive. I also object to the "vigils" of the activists, who also foul the air, and to the intrusiveness of the politicians and the special interest groups that egg them on. The object lesson of this sorry story is that people should draft valid living wills.
It was interesting to read the comments of Robert Veatch, a professor of medical ethics at Georgetown University (a Catholic institution). He said, "The idea that all life is valuable or sacred has in almost all settings been qualified in some way." Prof. Veatch cited a Roman Catholic judgment from the Middle Ages that if a patient needed to travel 300 miles by donkey cart to a shrine in the hope of being healed, that was too much.
Returning to the central issue of what constitutes human life, I am dissatisfied with the Aristotlean argument that biological existence is inviolable (which by definition precludes capital punishment). The Cartesian "I think therefore I am" satisfies me better than "I pump (substitute breathe, grow hair, or fart) therefore I am." The latter underlies the weasel-worded rationalizations that Terri Schiavo is merely "handicapped" and that her "civil rights are being violated." Those arguments are laughable in a country that honors living wills and permission to donate organs. Would that mean that making a living will or entering assent to organ donation on a driver's license is a voluntary surrender of civil rights? Absurd!
Descartes defined human life as consciousness. A living warthog or toad satisfies Aristotle's criteria but not those of Descartes. The only religious philosophy that views all life as precious is Vedanta (Hinduism). Logically, launching a Crusade is a sin on a monumental scale.
I wish Michael Schiavo had turned Terri over to the care of the Schindlers at the time he took another woman as his common law wife or when he he had children with her. That would have avoided this deplorable scenario, but unfortunately he didn't.
I will attempt to avoid responding in kind to the above offering. It is difficult to even approach the content without bringing up terms like perjorative, inflamatory slander. One wonders at what passes for fair comment for nmoderators. On another post of the same authorship, I was reminded of a converstation I had with a guy in a bar in Florida who went to great lengths to decry calumnise, misrepresent, insult, degrade, and dride blacks. He was not a bigot you see. It was just fair comment. This dishonest fake delineated his disttorted biile in example and illustrations depicting every conceivable evil he could dig up an spread. But he was not a bigot he told me in deepest sincerity. One more time in memoriam. Foul the air comments about people who are standing upo in solidarity with the woman killed, is to vulgar and repulsive. Politicians and "special interest groups...you must be kidding. It's jus that they mobliize against your indiffereence. Professor Veatch restates the obvious. He was not speaking about basic nutrition. The analogy is false. Vile terminology isn't required in an honest critique. Disgusting terminology is merely disgusting and while it indeed says something, it says little about the issue. The handicapped indeed fear your type of "fart" comments and as they did in Hitler's time, they tried to fight against persuasions of your type. Living wills calling for immoral and unlawful acts are merley paper. Perhaps obscured by derisive terminology, or perhaps in haste to insult and mislead you make statements of simply no cogent content. What on earth are you taliking about.? Aristotle never held any opinions within a mile of your comments. Words in syntactical order to not a meaningful statement make. Descartes never defined human life as any such thing either. You abuse his phrase as well, an he was an honorable man. You are forgetting again. Criticize the post, not the poster. Doing the latter cheapens your words and could well earn you a trip to the penalty box. - M. B-E
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Post by HabbaDasher on Mar 31, 2005 16:54:51 GMT -5
It's over now. She's with God (if you believe in Him). The money used to keep her alive can now go to others who can't afford proper medical care. So in passing she will indirectly help others.
It is an important debate. I can't really argue against either side.
Now I would urge those who opposed letting her die to focus on how many people George Bush has indirectly killed with his stupidity, and perhaps put a stop to that....
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 31, 2005 19:16:00 GMT -5
And Death Shall Have No Dominion And death shall have no dominion. Dead men naked they shall be one With the man in the wind and the west moon; When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone, They shall have stars at elbow and foot; Though they go mad they shall be sane, Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; Though lovers be lost love shall not; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. Under the windings of the sea They lying long shall not die windily; Twisting on racks when sinews give way, Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break; Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through; Split all ends up they shan't crack; And death shall have no dominion. And death shall have no dominion. No more may gulls cry at their ears Or waves break loud on the seashores; Where blew a flower may a flower no more Lift its head to the blows of the rain; Though they be mad and dead as nails, Heads of the characters hammer through daisies; Break in the sun till the sun breaks down, And death shall have no dominion. -Dylan Thomas A beautiful poem by the Welshman, to be sure, but written as an elegy to those who fought and died in war to protect and preserve certain values, and so elegiac and respectful. The human being Terri Schiavo, God bless her soul, was denied eternal rest for a time triple the span of the war whose victims Dylan Thomas commemorated in his poem. Thomas' poem "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" will be remembered, has already been remembered longer than the American media creation called "Terri Schiavo." Let her go, let her go...
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Post by UberCranky on Mar 31, 2005 19:47:26 GMT -5
Rest in peace.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 31, 2005 20:00:59 GMT -5
Perhaps because it's a hot religious and political issue. The Right-to-Life movement has coopted this tragedy to advance its own cause. Advocates of maintaining abortion rights can see through this ploy and try to thwart the Right-to-Lifers as a countermove. The intervention by Bush and the Republican Congress simply adds fuel to the fire. My own feeling on the matter is that while I accept the evidence that Terri Schiavo is alive but totally and permanently out of it mentally, I would have preferred that Michael Schiavo turn over her care to her parents and siblings. They are deluding themselves about her attempts to 'communicate' with them through eye movements and grunts. But so long as they rather than the public are paying for her care, let them live in their fantasy world. It's a good thing that Michael has agreed to an autopsy. It should corroborate the many opinions of unprejudiced neurologists that her cerebral cortex is mush (I saw her CAT scan images on TV, and all of the gray matter is now black except for a thin border, which is good enough for me from what I have seen of other brain scans). The Dr. Cheshire the family and their supporters cite for support 1) has never dealt professionally with persistent vegetative states (his specialty is facial neuralgia due to irritation of the trigeminal nerve) and he has never examined her, and 2) he is an active (actually, an activist) member of the Christian Medical Association, an organization that is categorically opposed to euthanasia, abortion, and stem cell cell research. He calls himself a bioethicist but he always comes down hard on one side of every issue. The statements he has made in interviews reveal 1) that he is biased and 2) untruthful. It's a hot irreligious and political debate as well. Most pro-life people, myself included, subscribe to a fundamental belief that we are to love our neighbor. Christianity is fundamentally about this. "I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me. Whatever our human failings this does not change the most basic tenet of life's ultimate goal. It is about compassion and mercy. It is a fundamental human duty to defend the rights of others and seek to assist them. This inludes the human person at all stages of life. That a great many are unwilling to pay that price is hardly shocking if one reads a little history. Pro-life people did not co-opt this issue. It is the issue. Stop killing innocent human beings. We do not accept a killing fake liberalism that parades about, ranting about this and that, many worthwhile things in fact. while ignoring human life when it is most vulnerable. Such a stance loses all integrity when it permits the powerful to violently take the life of the powerless. People of integrity oppose them as they are morally bound to do. This is labelled fanaticism. And of course to such a person, it is fanatical to stand up and put yourself on the line for a tiny humn being or one terribly incapacitated in the course of life. Klaus Barbie, a Nazi whose members were the first in modern times to advance abortion was sorry only that he had not been been more efficient at killing Jews. His conscience was not informed by good will, or reason. Ethics is a practical. not speculative science. It is to be done. The good is to be done, informed by reason. An informed conscience rejects killing innocent human beings. Barbie and his quite irreligious and political pals did not. That's the difference. Those who embrace the culture of death, the killing of innocent human beings do so as Hardcap's excellent piece show practice deception, employing euphemism and derisive, dismissive terminology to misleead. Terri was human. She lived as a human. She sufferred as a human. She has the rational soul of a human and the concommitant spiritual nature of a human, even if she had lsot the capacity to exercise it normally. She was human. She was our sister and they and those who supported them, killed her. She was hungry and they gave her no food. She was thirsty and we gave her no water. Ever met a pregnant mother on the street who says "The embryo's doing fine" "I have a blasotocyst" Birth is not referred to as "eliminating the product of "conceptus ". Abortion is a crime against humanity and this was a very similar act wherein a human being like blacks before them are declared subhuman. G.K. Chesterton once observed that "paradox is truth standing on its head to attract attention" Christ said that whatever we do for the least of these, we do to him and that the last, shall be first.
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 31, 2005 20:28:28 GMT -5
I initially felt that this wasn't good enough, but having thought it over some more, I think it does suffice as a definition of right and wrong. But I'm not sure it explains why any of us feel so strongly about this issue. It fails completely. Your intuition is correct. Human beings are endowed with an inate sense of justice, at least as far as they themselves are concerned. As deliberating, reasoning entities capable of discerning moral principles and experiencing their own free wills, moral agency is in fact the key differentaiting element in the human makeup. The argument from basic dumb animal convenience is valid in the same way that some people refrain from robbing banks only because they fear getting caught. Many who might perhaps be described as living up to their human dignity understand that good is to be done and evil avoided. Not stealing from others is a matter of conscience. Socrates observed that thieves or other malafactors never argue that they should not be held to account when caught, but that they didn't do it. Kant used the fact of the universality of conscience to try to prove the existence of God. He was right about the conscience part. but having made Descarte's mistake his argument failed. If he had argued that I. the senses give us the real world. 2 The senses are of the particular but the intellect abstracts the universal and non-material content, in an analogous way to the way mathematics strips all material things of every thing but extension in timespace or quantity. The intellect therefore does non material things and is threfore nonmaterial in nature. 3. Whatever is in the effect (us), must be in the cause of all that exists, or it would not show up as effect. (A hammer leaves hammer marks, and tires, treadmarks) 4. Therfore whatever made and makes this universe msut have free will and an intellective power, and in short be personal, though necessarily trasnscending reality. 5. This we commonly call God. The argument from simple expedience is not compelling. It is along the lines of the sophists arguments that were generally looking for agreement not truth. Their specialty wsa rhetoric, not reasoning. If a considerable material advantage were to be gained (Look up under "conquest") without a commensurate fear of discovery, then there is absolutely no reason to be "Moral". This is a classic nihilist bit of sophistry. Your intuitiion of moral agency is accurate and goes way beyond co-operative expediency. Expediency's goal is only material expediency whatever you have to say or do. Hence the rhetoric.
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Post by blaise on Apr 1, 2005 0:07:09 GMT -5
It fails completely. Your intuition is correct. Human beings are endowed with an inate sense of justice, at least as far as they themselves are concerned. As deliberating, reasoning entities capable of discerning moral principles and experiencing their own free wills, moral agency is in fact the key differentaiting element in the human makeup. The argument from basic dumb animal convenience is valid in the same way that some people refrain from robbing banks only because they fear getting caught. Many who might perhaps be described as living up to their human dignity understand that good is to be done and evil avoided. Not stealing from others is a matter of conscience. Socrates observed that thieves or other malafactors never argue that they should not be held to account when caught, but that they didn't do it. Kant used the fact of the universality of conscience to try to prove the existence of God. He was right about the conscience part. but having made Descarte's mistake his argument failed. If he had argued that I. the senses give us the real world. 2 The senses are of the particular but the intellect abstracts the universal and non-material content, in an analogous way to the way mathematics strips all material things of every thing but extension in timespace or quantity. The intellect therefore does non material things and is threfore nonmaterial in nature. 3. Whatever is in the effect (us), must be in the cause of all that exists, or it would not show up as effect. (A hammer leaves hammer marks, and tires, treadmarks) 4. Therfore whatever made and makes this universe msut have free will and an intellective power, and in short be personal, though necessarily trasnscending reality. 5. This we commonly call God. The argument from simple expedience is not compelling. It is along the lines of the sophists arguments that were generally looking for agreement not truth. Their specialty wsa rhetoric, not reasoning. If a considerable material advantage were to be gained (Look up under "conquest") without a commensurate fear of discovery, then there is absolutely no reason to be "Moral". This is a classic nihilist bit of sophistry. Your intuitiion of moral agency is accurate and goes way beyond co-operative expediency. Expediency's goal is only material expediency whatever you have to say or do. Hence the rhetoric. As to Terri Schiavo, should we be compelled to finance the upkeep of a permanently unconscious former person forever while we forsake healthy children who are malnourished and not receiving medical care because Medicaid funds are being diverted to a totally losing cause? How about exercising some presumed brain power and exercising triage of resources instead of indulging ourselves in sloppy sentimentality? We can't see those suffering children and parents because they're not shown on TV. A lamentable confusion of metaphysics with physical reality! Catholic and evangelical sophistry gone berserk!
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Post by blaise on Apr 7, 2005 16:55:56 GMT -5
The cat is out of the bag. It was finally confirmed that an aide to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla) circulated an anonymous memo gloating over the political bonanza provided to the Republicans by the Schiavo case. Like herd animals, the Congressional Republicans blindly followed Tom DeLay into a political disaster. Conservative, bellowing the 'Culture of Life' cant, but less than brilliant.
Postscript: The aide resigned his position. Sen. Martinez claims he knew nothing about the memo, but that's what they always say when confronted with the evidence.
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