Republicans?

[toasty]

As a former card-carrying member of the republican party who got tired of non-republican behavior, I've got to know if any of you are starting to get irked with your party yet. For a party that is fundamentally based upon an idea that government ought not intrude upon citizens and states' rights, Bush and his buddies seem to be doing the exact opposite. Honestly, holding an emergency session of congress to push through a bill to see to it that the Terry Schiavo case, which has already been litigated ad infinitum in state court, would also be routed through the federal system, is the polar opposite of the party I once called my own.

I do find it ironic that the federal judge that ruled upon the issue declined to restore the feeding tube. Bush, through McClellan, has indicated that the administration would have preferred "a different ruling" and hopes that the family is successful in their appeal to the 11th Circuit. Good to see that the checks and balances system can actually work, although I'm sure some will view this as another example of "judicial activism."

[toasty]

Re: Republicans?

I didn't realize it when I had posted initially, but the bill that was signed into law actually mentions Terri Schiavo by name and refers to her case specifically. That is friggin' amazing. Who says the government doesn't care about individuals?

[MJDub]

Re: Republicans?

Who says the government doesn't care about individuals?

LOL. Me.

[krelm]

Re: Republicans?

Yeah, this shit cracks me up. Republicans trying to pass pointless unnecessary laws like Democrats. Democrats sucking the corporate dong like Republicans. What are the ideals of these two parties again??

I have found it quite ridiculous how one of the fundamental tenets of the Republican party (or so as I thought) was shrinking the government and giving more rights to the states, but it all goes out the window when it is something involving appeasing the religious right...

- constitutional ban on abortion
- constitutional ban on gay marriage
- special midnight laws passed specifically for one brain-dead person on life-support

I respect the ideals behind the republican party (even if I don't agree with all of them), but you guys really need to take your party back.

[thesightless]

Re: Republicans?

this whole thing is digusting. completely disgusting. her family wants her, her shady husband cant wait to let her go. and everyone with a slight interest in politics, prolife vs nonproilfe, rep vs dem, all of you. this is a human being who will die, just leave ehr family alone. so many people just throwing thier agendas down the throat of the law on this. i really feel bad for her and her parents. gotta be fucking terrible to bury a child. this really is fucked up.sosososo sad. i only wish that if she is gonna die, they youthanize her, no need to torture her body into death. just be humane and put her to sleep so she can die quickly and peacefully......

[BSully828]

Re: Republicans?

When it comes to issues concerning foreign policy and the economy I've agreed, for the most part, with republicans - but when social issues are brought up I have a hard time trying to find common ground with the right. And this disgusting circus that has been revolving around this poor girl is a perfect example.

I'll just be repeating what everyone else has already said, its a terrible situation this family is in and the sheer number of politicians, analysts, zealots and pub hounds that have leeched onto it is sickening. Let this poor girl die in peace and give her family the time and space they need to grieve. If they really wanted to treat Mrs. Schiavo like a human being (which has been what the Christian right has been clamoring for all this time) they would lose the cameras, the vigils, the speeches and the grandstanding and let this young woman go quietly and peacefully.

[Yao]

Re: Republicans?

this whole thing is digusting. completely disgusting. her family wants her, her shady husband cant wait to let her go. and everyone with a slight interest in politics, prolife vs nonproilfe, rep vs dem, all of you. this is a human being who will die, just leave ehr family alone. so many people just throwing thier agendas down the throat of the law on this. i really feel bad for her and her parents. gotta be fucking terrible to bury a child. this really is fucked up.sosososo sad. i only wish that if she is gonna die, they youthanize her, no need to torture her body into death. just be humane and put her to sleep so she can die quickly and peacefully......

Putting her to sleep is actively intervening, and punisheable by your laws...what they're doing now looks inhumane, but in fact she won't notice much of it. First of all because she's not aware anymore, second of all because she'll be sliding into a real coma like this, and then die in her 'prolongued sleep'. Not ideal, but the best given the circumstances.

[dtgunslinger]

Re: Republicans?

The sociological value to the attention this case is receiving, it makes us all aware of our very different views on death and it's meaning and how a person 'should' die. Does not matter if you are Republican or Democrat.

This case is about a family not willing to let a daughter die and an ex-husband claiming he remembers Terri's views of her possible desires if she were ever living a very position she now inhabits. It, for some reason, became a political platform to jump up and down on. Why certain issues have to bear the a political, racial, religious or other stigma is beyond me.

I do not know if I could sit back and watch my girls die. I hope to never visit this issue. I still see two persons I held with one hand, fed, laughed with and hugged. I do know I will impress upon them the idea of making a decision of they want remain alive.

As for me, I have a living will, pull the plug.

[face]

Re: Republicans?

this whole thing is digusting. completely disgusting. her family wants her, her shady husband cant wait to let her go. and everyone with a slight interest in politics, prolife vs nonproilfe, rep vs dem, all of you. this is a human being who will die, just leave ehr family alone. so many people just throwing thier agendas down the throat of the law on this. i really feel bad for her and her parents. gotta be fucking terrible to bury a child. this really is fucked up.sosososo sad. i only wish that if she is gonna die, they youthanize her, no need to torture her body into death. just be humane and put her to sleep so she can die quickly and peacefully......

it's funny how a braindead woman can somehow be transmuted into a politcal football overnight. i keep seeing this shit on TV and i'm thinking to myself: why is this even an issue?

then again, if she remains as-is, she will slowly die, and we treat our abu ghraib prisoners better than that. and euthanasia (sorry sightless, your spelling sucks =) is not exactly legal, now is it?

but, as was pointed out above, the bush administration does owe some 'political bones' that it needs to throw to the christian right. and somehow this fits their bill...

on that note, we have better shit to worry about than baseball players shooting steroids and a braindead vegetable. no offense, but our country is in dire need of reform right now and i think our priorities need to be assessed.

[HoneyBearKelly]

Re: Republicans?

From http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
Terry Schiavo Must Die:
The time has come for the inevitable end of this story, this miserable lot of the last fifteen years for Terry Schiavo. Brain-damaged and rubber-boned, barely human anymore, Schiavo has the indignity of having her nerve-reflex smile paraded out every time the moment comes close for her to have to sink or swim, to learn quickly to feed herself or starve. She is the unfortunate child of narcissistic parents who have pathetically deluded themselves into believing that, at some point, the rock that rolls around in her head will once again become a brain. She sadly lives in a culture so driven mad by religion that people will gather and pray for her to go on "living" (if by "living," you mean "devolving into a gelatinous mound with a nerve-reflex smile"). Anyone even barely touched by the rationality that is supposed to mark us as the most advanced creatures on the planet know this to be true: She must die.

And it doesn't matter at this point how. Take out the feeding tube. Wheel her into the alley behind the hospice and put three bullets into the back of her foamy skull. Put her on a raft on Tampa Bay and send her out to the lovely Gulf of Mexico. Hell, a merciful nation would rejoice at this act and make sure there's fireworks and live music on the bayfront to accompany her on her last journey. A merciful God would have sent avenging angels to smite all those preening idiots outside the hospice with Gabriel announcing, "Are you all out of your fucking minds?" before setting the whole place, Schiavo and all, on fire.

But we are not a merciful nation, for we believe that suffering is a gift from God or some such bullshit, and if you are chosen to suffer, then suffer you must. If you're dirt poor, single, and homeless and you get pregnant, you must keep your baby, even though the overwhelming chance is that you and your baby will be hungry, cold, and miserable for the rest of both of your lives. Despite the fact that virtually every competent medical person who has walked into Schiavo's room and smelled the shit-scent of death has declared Schiavo a cabbage or, on a good day, a pea pod, the right smells opportunity to distract people from the gutting of programs that actually do good for the living . Other "experts" who have witnessed Schiavo's eyes follow a balloon on videotape are nonsensical idiots (and that includes Senate Majority Leader and noted cat-disemboweler Bill Frist).

Way back in 2000, before Schiavo became the rallying call for people who have nothing better to do, here is how the St. Petersburg Times described Schiavo's end: "If [the feeding tube] is removed, Mrs. Schiavo would die painlessly in a week or two. She does not feel hunger or thirst, and she would just drift away, doctors say." That fact, that Schiavo will not actually experience anything differently, is now left out of most media stories on her. The distorted face of Terry Schiavo is now merely a canvas upon which ideology has been writ large, where the notion of "life" has been perverted to mean "a heartbeat," and where the cruel vicissitudes of politics now rear their ugly, hydra-heads.

The right loves this. This is better than Elian Gonzalez. The National Review's Andrew McCarthy (who was so good in Pretty In Pink, but has really let himself go) rants like a baboon about to tear out the liver out of a fallen baboon enemy about Schiavo, saying that "she'd be better off if she were a terrorist." Schiavo's fate is like manna from heaven because anyone who dares to say, for instance, "Terry Schiavo Must Die," can instantly be labelled as uncaring and cruel and then you can go on Fox "News" and Hannity'll show that reflex-smile of the damned and everyone can say they are doing "what's best" for Schiavo.

Terry Schiavo was a vain woman, driven to bulimia by a sad desire to be thinner and thinner, afflicted, as so many women are and so many women aren't, by pop culture standards of thinness. Chances are it was the bulimia that led to the heart attack that led to the brain damage that led to the gooey being that is Schiavo being prayed over by the President and his brother. Now ask yourself: if Terry Schivao saw herself right now, knowing what we know about who she was and how she felt about looks, would she want to stay alive? You who know men and women like the pre-gelatinous Schiavo understand of what the Rude Pundit writes.

Now the Congress is involved. And the Republicans want Schiavo brought into the hearing room. What a spectacle that's gonna be. What a fucking horror show. What an embarrassment to this nation. All those righteous members of Congress, weeping because Schiavo can't answer their questions, listening to her machine sounds, the suckings, the gurgles. They called Schiavo before the committee in a little over a week because "it is a federal crime to harm or obstruct a person called to testify before Congress." Another person, another prop. Those fuckers in the GOP know what they're doing: force Democrats to vote against the bowl of jello in front of them and then use that as immunity in elections against charges that the Republicans are eliminating Social Security. What these disgusting, dirt-covered worms won't do to eat the flesh off the body politic.

The only comfort in any of this is that Schiavo won't know a fucking thing that's going on. She is an object, not a subject. She is acted upon. If Bill Frist wanted to test her reflexes by pulling up her gown and raping her in front of the gathered media, she would not care. If Tom DeLay wanted to pick her up and dance her around like a puppet, she would not care. She will never, ever care again. There is only one caring solution. She must die.

[Yao]

Re: Republicans?

[thesightless]

Re: Republicans?

after sunday's and monday's news about the whole cremation thing, i really am beginning to think about the husband as being a complete fucking scumbag. i mean, i guess im ok with letting her go, it might be the better thing, i dont know, im not in the hospice room with her for 15 years, but the cremation and burial in an area she was never from, i dont know, there really is something fishy about this guy.......

such a sad situation.. they should just fly terry, her family and the husband to an undisclosed location and let what's gonna happen, well, happen, in quiet peace rather than having to fish your way through media, protestors and scores and religious fanatics just to watch your sister/daughter/wife die...... :?

[Yao]

Re: Republicans?

I party for one weekend and instantly I miss out out everything...lemme catch up....

[thesightless]

Re: Republicans?

my highschool had a familiar problem like this, cept there was no spouse and no family for the marianist brother at the time.

read this..

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lideath0328,0,5555817.story?coll=ny-topstories-headlines

[Yao]

Re: Republicans?

Interesting read...thanx sightless.

Well...all I hope is that Terri dies before there can be any decisions made now that force the hospital to put the tube back in. That would just be crazy, like that subpoena thing CNN mentioned...jam the tuba back in, put her in a wheelchair and roll'er out to face the congress. Like a fucking circus. Have the congressmen(women) stare at her, make them pose questions to that thing that once was a thinking person.

It is a fucking parody of life they're trying to 'save'.