March 21, 2005
WHERE DO THEY GET THAT RIGHT TO LIFE HOKUM?:
Activist Legislators: The boundless overreaching behind Congress' new Schiavo bill. (Dahlia Lithwick, March 21, 2005, Slate)
Whether Terri Schiavo will live or die in the coming days has come down to this: Can federal district judge James Whittemore set aside virtually every bedrock constitutional principle on which this nation was founded, just so members of the United States Congress may constitutionalize the nowhere-to-be-found legal principle that a "culture of life" is a good thing?
Here's a principle that seems to cover the matter:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government...
Or, as John Adams put it:
You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
And, of course, one of the stated purposes of the Constitution is to secure these Blessings.
Perhaps you forget the bedrock if you stand on it too long?
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2005 11:12 PMI would never have thought we would see so many women defending the right of a man to kill his estranged wife to collect the insurance.
Democrats - the party of death. Would make a nice billboard.
Posted by: Randall Voth at March 22, 2005 8:00 AMThe Republican Party is the party of hypocracy. Tout states rights until it's inconvenient. Show themselves to be the champion of one sick woman and do nothing about 50 million sick Americans without health insurance. There are over 35,000 other patients in the same physical state as Terri Schiavo, many rely on goverment programs which the Bush administration and Republican fundementalists have cut to the bone. They speak of their great concern for Terri's situation while the Party calls it "a great political issue" that would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters." They see it as an effective way to attack Democratic Senator Bill Nelson who is up for re-election next year. Mr. Judd highlighted the wrong section in his piece, he ignored "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Unfortunately, the Fundementalist Republicans see themselves as the the sole voice of "the Great Legislator of the universe" beyond any need for the consent of the governed. As to Randall Voth's complex political commentary maybe "V" is for Vapid.
Posted by: Timothy Schmidt at March 22, 2005 10:21 AM"50 million sick Americans without health insurance" Yeah, ever single person without health insurance is sick. Yeah, everyone. Lack of insurance = lack of care. I wear glasses but I don't have vision insurance. Do I lack vision care?
"goverment programs which the Bush administration and Republican fundementalists have cut to the bone" As noted last week, the Senate budget resolution cuts out nearly all proposed cuts. The money spent goes up every darn year.
Liberal logic. Most people would call it stupidity.
Posted by: Bob at March 22, 2005 10:45 AMMr. Schmidt:
Welcome to the blog. We hope you'll stick around for awhile. I'm afraid, though, that you're comments are not well-taken.
1. This is a conservative blog, not a Republican blog, though there is quite a bit of overlap. To expect the Republican Party to act other than as a political party seems unrealistic.
2. Of course we're hypocrites, if you mean to say that we fall short of our own standards. So is everyone who is not a psychopath. If you mean to suggest that we don't really believe in the standards we set, then you are in the business of attributing motives to your opponents. Not only is this likely to be wrong, but it can't possibly be persuasive.
3. In any event, we're not being hypocritical in this instance. Rather, we support several different values, including among many others a reverence for life and a limited federal government. At times, as happens to anyone with a complex ethos, our various values appear to conflict. Trying to tell us which value we should prefer in any particular instance -- especially when a life hangs in the balance -- is, again, not likely to be effective persuasion.
4. The other problem with charges of political hypocrisy is that they are almost always two-edged swords. If one side of the political divide finds itself between two conflicting values, then they other side will likely find itself in the same situation. For example, liberals are now arguing against federal interference with state law to prevent the killing of Teri Shiavo, but strongly favor federal interference with state law to allow abortion. Someone less charitable than I might suggest that this seeming conflict is resolved by assuming that what liberals really value is death. Of course, being only human I sometimes fail to live up to my strong standards of charity and good humor.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 22, 2005 11:12 AMLikewise, Sen. Nelson has a choice. I don't know his opinion or even his vote on the 'Schiavo' law, but he will have to defend it to the voters of Florida.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 22, 2005 12:15 PMMr. Cohen,
Exellent reply.