Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Thanks, Stephen. Here’s more on the meaning of “de novo”

From the link:

De novo review is a common type of review in which the lower court’s decision is reexamined in its entirety. No deference is paid to the lower court’s conclusion, and the appellate court decides for itself whether it reaches the same conclusion the lower court reached. Importantly, though, in a de novo review, the appellate court looks only to the record produced below to make its decision. The appellate court does not accept new evidence. The court can review transcripts, exhibits, and whatever else was before the lower court.

Not accepting new evidence is what distinguishes de novo review from a de novo trial. A de novo trial is essentially a do-over. Whatever the issue was, it is relitigated entirely. Witnesses can testify, new evidence can be offered.

So, “de novo” can mean two different things, depending on the noun being modified, review or trial. Unfortunately, the use in the law itself was “[T]he District Court shall determine de novo any claim…” The law didn’t specify which form!

Look, this was political grandstanding. A large number of the Congresspersons, as well as Bush’s advisors are lawyers. They new it was futile to try to change the law FOR the Schiavo case, as well as to change federal law regarding right to life, since, many who voted Yea on directing federal review of the Schiavo case, would vote no on a bill requiring the state to keep people alive after their time when family can’t afford it, or refuses to incur the expenses.

You can readily see what a debacle that kind of law would create, and CongressPersons of the ‘keep the body alive at all costs’ persuasion are insufficient in number to ever pass such legislation today. It would alienate huge numbers of constituents facing aging parents and put the cost burden on their children to keep them on life support, in some cases for decades.

So, given that our lawyer Congresspersons knew exactly why their actions would go nowhere, it is logical to conclude they spent taxpayer money and wasted the public’s representative resources on a grandstand play for the political purpose of not alienating any constitutents. Your tax dollar hardly at work.

Stephen:

Thank you for your article. My take is a bit different than “it’s all politics”. There seems to be some just plain sloppy work. The testimony received to show that she did in fact want to be allowed to die, seems pretty thin.

Coming from the “save Schiavo side”, I have a hard time granting a husband who has a committed relationship with two children final say. I am not judging him for moving on. It seems very odd to have him move on and behave as a husband to a new woman and demand rights of husbandship to his current wife. He has a conflict of interest. He benefits by his wife’s death by being able to move on with his life. I am not accusing anyone. As the bible says “flee the appearance of evil”. It “appears” conflicted.

From the legal side, (not being anything near a legal scholar) I don’t know how this case could be determined any different. It would seem the law is all on Mr. Schiavo’s side, even if justice may not be.

It would seem that there should be a point where a spouse of a handicapped person who cannot defend themself, needs to make a decision, which person they are going to be loyal to. I do not want to get into bedrooms and be to fine on morality of people with disbled spouses, but certainly two children by a new woman is clear evidence that Mr. Shiavo is a “spouse” to the new woman morally if not legally. It would seem that the law could make a provision that would remove the obvious conflict of interest.

I think instead of going down the road of “all of the judges in this land are of the devil”, we need to correct what appears to be a situation that current law does not well address. Of course this will create new problems which is the nature of the beast.

In terms of how this applies to “de novo” review, since I assume the court can read, and can understand the intent of congress, I wonder if they looked at the case and quickly understood that with denovo review, the same judgements would be made, only with even greater agony on the country. I also assume that several judges had serious questions of constitutionality of the whole concept but felt since the verdict was not going to get to first base anyway there was no need to review from a constitutional basis.

In the end, I believe Mr Shiavo is “morally” married to his new “spouse”, and justice would be better served to grant the parents custody. I hope at a future time laws will be written so that when this event happens again in the future, our law is better able to bring about a just resolution, with less pain for all.

Craig Holmes

Craig Holmes

It appears to me that everyone involved in the Terry Shiavo case has forgotten one of the major players - Terry, herself.

While I would not presume to put myself in her place, and know what she felt or feels about her situation, I still can not help but wonder what might happen should her parents be right.

What kind of life might she lead if she were to “wake - up”. She would have lost 15 years of her life, and all the knowledge that has accumulated during that time. She would most likely require major physical therapy, as well as mental therapy. There is a probable chance that she would have to be re-educated again, in even the most basic skills, let alone the larger ones such as reading, writing and math, etc.

Imagine the humiliation and embarrassment she might feel should she be competent enough(which I question) to even understand the televised production of her life made by the media, via her own parents.

What will happen to her once her devoted (I say this also with a question mark) die?

And what happens to her should her family be worng, and she does not “awaken”?

It would seem to me that allowing her to die is the most humane and loving act one could do for her.

This should never have been a political cause, and frankly I am ashamed that our elected politicians would involve themselves in what is most clearly a personal matter.

I can understand the fight that was played out in the courts, although not to the extent that her mother and father have gone to, but for our “President” and “Congress” to involve themselves in this matter, was far more than beyond their role as representatives. Who represented Terry when Bush pushed the law through?

I think that both Bush and Congress crossed the barriers between elected officials and trying to play God.

Linda:

It would seem to me that allowing her to die is the most humane and loving act one could do for her.

From the outside it would seem that way. I am hearing so many issues that range from abuse and worse. It seems that this is a very troubled family even without this tragedy. There are some terrible quotes from Mr Schiavo over the years.

I don’t so much question the decision whatever it is but rather who should make it. Legally of course it is Mr Schiavo’s. Morally I think it is the parents. Morally Mr. Schiavo is no longer her husband as he has taken on a new family and fathered two children by her. I don’t fault him for moving on.

He was quoted the other day of saying he had to stay with this fight because he had “vowed” to take care of her. He also “vowed” to “keep only unto her as long as they both shall live”. He has released himself from one vow, he can release himself from his other vow.

Legally I agree with the courts, morally, I think Mr. Shiavo should “recuse” himself as I believe that would be the honorable thing to do.

Craig

Craig, it is on the record that a hospice caring for Terri at one point threatened to call the police and have an injunction placed against Michael from entering the premises. Reason: he was insisting that they give her better care than he was witnessing and he was constantly badgering them for more and better care for her.

Frankly, if I had another woman and two kids, for a decade while having a wife in a nursing home incapable of communicating and interacting with me, my motivation for spending time with the wife and working for the best possible care for her might very well have diminished over the years, if I had felt no commitment and responsibility and love for my wife in the nursing home.

I believe Michael’s feelings for Terri have been highly commendable and his committment to her most likely born out of fidelity to his promise to care for her and respect her wishes. Love is very hard to fake for that long a period of time. I certainly would not have been able to fake my feelings for that long.

To continue on the digression… I think that a lot of commentary/coverage of the Schiavo case has been unfair to Michael. This seems to have devolved into a reality show where Terri’s parents and her husband compete for guardianship in the public eye. In “real” reality, the choice was made by Terri when she got married.

I believe that Terri’s case has broader implications in terms of the GOP. Does the Republican party object to state’s rights interference in principle, or only in response to Democrat use of power?

I think this is a serious issue, because Democrats are called upon by their constituents to exercise power on their behalf, and if this is not about Republicans representing their constituents, but instead about grabbing power by demonizing the other side, that is a serious issue of transparency.

Legally of course it is Mr Schiavo’s. Morally I think it is the parents. Morally Mr. Schiavo is no longer her husband as he has taken on a new family and fathered two children by her.

I wonder how you would feel if it were Terri’s parents who wanted to pull out the tube and Michael who wanted to keep her alive. Would you (honestly) want him to recuse himself and let her parents remove the tube?

The legal issue is not “right to life”, it is Terri Schiavo’s right to die with dignity. At issue is whether she wanted to be kept on life support in her condition. The court system, characterized as liberal by the ignorant, is extremely cautious. They must abide by the rule of law. Can Terri be forced to keep “living” by her parents? The courts have said, resoundingly, “NO!” Those not familiar with the issue or even the history of the case have formed brigades to warp the public understanding under the guise of “right to life” promotion. It is sad and shameful. In the process, Michael Schiavo has been libeled and slandered repeatedly, Terri’s privacy totally destroyed (in part by her parents’ release of videotapes!)

Meanwhile, as this circus goes on, many children and adults who want to live cannot because we fat, wealthy US citizens can’t quite pony up enough charity to feed them and prevent their preventable diseases.

I grieve for this country.

Back to the main point… I think this case really illustrates that what we call conservatism has at least two (and probably three or more) distinct factions: the Christian Right and what you might call the “Federalist” or limited-government wing. As long as the issue was abortion, these folks were in perfect harmony. Both wings agreed that Roe v. Wade was an abomination, but for different reasons.

The Schiavo case really exposes the fault lines. There is really no way for an advocate of “limited government” to defend the actions of Congress and the Bush administration. I know that people have tried, if you consider that multiple polls show majorities saying that Congress and Bush should NOT have gotten involved, it really becomes an absurd exercise.

It will be fascinating to see what happens next. I really doubt that the Schiavo case can be translated into federal legislation. One thing that has become clear from this case is that most people don’t want the federal government mucking with their end-of-life decisions. (Contrast this with abortion, where there really is no consensus.) Any proposal the GOP comes up with is going to alienate a lot of people.

On the judicial end, I am sure the GOP will use this to try to push through those deadlocked nominations, but I will be curious to see what kind of language they use. Saying they want judges who will “strictly interpret the Constitution” may not cut it anymore. The “judicial activism” trope may not work either. The judges in this case ran afoul of the GOP precisely because they were concerned with defending the law rather than a nebulous “culture of life”.

I believe that the reason he has not legally divorced Terri is to keep his legal claim on her to make the decision she wanted. A divorce means her family gains legal custody and, apparently, will go against her original wishes.

As stated above, the main issues for the U.S. aren’t morality check here, but simply who, in this case which likely isn’t so uncommon, should decide, and should that decision be arguable. Terri is, from all justifiable reports, unresponsive to external stimuli. What makes this case difficult is that her eyes are open and appears “awake” if not “aware”. Turning off a breathing machine for brain dead patient is one thing. Watching any living creature slowly starve to death is something most people are not prepared for. It just feels wrong.

Should the case even go to the courts? How could it not when you’re fighting for the life of your sister or daughter? But how far should it go - and even though the judge is bound by law to give over to the husband, who can legally decide, it is the judge who effectively decides life or death, merely by performing his job correctly. And therein lies the problem.

Life is a tough legal issue, and is moved by emotion as well as reason. And generally, in the end, it is emotion that changes laws, not reason.

Woody-
I don’t think they will moderate their rhetoric about judicial activism or strict construction. My sense is that they’ve identified those with an interpretation of things, rather than real world practice, because for many, their religious or cultural persuasion advocates activism and action above obedience to the law and restraint of behavior.

To some degree, they have a point, but to another degree their tactics can often reflect poorly on them to outsiders and backfire in terms precedent the liberties taken create. Jesus said those who live by the sword die by the sword, and those who act without restraint invite a lack of restraint from their enemies.

This, in some fashion, is about respect. In some ways, politics is a game we play to negotiate the outcomes to our mutual self-interest. Some play to have complete losers and complete winners, but that’s not always realistic or desirable, if the aim is the common good. At some point, compromise must come into the picture, and unfortunately a large chunk of the Republican party is not skilled at or able to engage in compromise.

CANYON LAKE, Texas — A family tragedy unfolding in a Texas hospital during the fall of 1988 was a private ordeal — without judges, emergency sessions of Congress or the raging debate outside Terri Schiavo’s Florida hospice.
The patient then was a 65-year-old drilling contractor, badly injured in a freak accident at his home. Among the family standing vigil at Brooke Army Medical Center was a grieving junior congressman — U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
…
In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

“There was no point to even really talking about it,” Maxine DeLay, the congressman’s 81-year-old mother, recalled in an interview last week. “There was no way he (Charles) wanted to live like that. Tom knew, we all knew, his father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way.”

Doctors advised that he would “basically be a vegetable,” said the congressman’s aunt, JoAnne DeLay.

When the man’s kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. “Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated,” said his medical report, citing “agreement with the family’s wishes.” His bedside chart carried the instruction: “Do Not Resuscitate.”

1. Should religion—as opposed to faith in a god or gods—be discouraged?

1.1 Let’s rid ourselves of the pernicious tendencies of religion and get our religion dividend.

Beyond the history of religion as a pernicious force, with its inquisitions, holy wars, and other such historical charms, and beyond its continuing ability to divide (consider President Bush’s quote, “God is on our side.” versus President Lincoln’s milder, “I hope we are on God’s side.â€), religion exacts a heavy tax on the development of our civilization that can be measured in lives lost due to wasted effort. How much time, money and effort has gone into filling the coffers of Jimmy Swaggart and charlatans of his ilk, or popes and other such more mainstream religious leaders? Could not the monies for building and maintaining glorious new churches instead be donated to cure cancer? Science does work. Childhood leukemias, for example, are now highly curable, whereas a mere 50 years ago they were nearly always fatal death sentences. Or how about putting some of that wasted “church†money into education for better schools and higher paid teachers? There are likely thousands of worthy causes struggling for cash that is otherwise wasted on religion. But wait you say! Religions do contribute to good causes. Certainly some nominal amount of church monies do go into cancer research and other good causes. But what fraction of it? Half? I doubt it. So cut out the middle man and send 100% of the cash to the good causes. Then instead of wasting time at church functions, people could put time into their communities. Again, yes I realize that some nominal amount of church time is spent on improving communities. But what fraction of it? Half. I doubt it. Cut out the middle man, and while you’re cutting out the middle man, cut out the hypocrisy as well. Why do good members of faith X, Y or Z do their good deeds and donate their coins of silver, or some of their hours, or even their very own lives? Is from out of the goodness of their own hearts, or for the reward of life after death for Christians or a harem for suicide bombers, etcetera? One can never trust that the religious do good deeds—like Christianize savages or pray to their god(s)—strictly out of the goodness of their own hearts. One must always suspect that the religious are to some degree motivated to save their own skins and, perhaps, the skins of those they care about. Although I don’t believe the phrase that there are no atheists in foxholes, I must always believe that the motives of the faithful are suspect at best, if not altogether disingenuous.

2. What is wrong with morality based on religion?

2.1 NO DOUBT there is trouble with religion.
This, NO DOUBT, is what most religions are predicated on. No doubt equals faith and conversely, and having NO DOUBT is the innate trouble of most religious doctrine. I believe that history shows that Hitler could not have come into power without the support of Christian peoples, and that if he had succeeded, it has been argued that he would have pushed for a new Nazi-based religion against the traditional religions to make his views more palatable. In this way religion, by its very own construct of NO DOUBT, is innately pernicious, because only under a moral philosophy of NO DOUBT can entire hordes of religiously motivated people throughout the ages, by reason of their NO DOUBT faith, become holy warriors, KKK nuts, al Qaeda members, witch burners, lynchers, homophobes, misogynists, child molesters, and other numerous types of nefarious -obes, -ists and -ers in order to raze entire civilizations, pillage, plunder, murder, maim, destroy, burn books, imprison scholars, discriminate, rape, butcher, segregate, and slowly eviscerate other peoples. And the vast majority of these religiously motivated people committed these crimes and atrocities against humanity without a doubt in their minds for they were following the will of their god(s) NO DOUBT.

2.2 Does lack of religion imply degeneracy?
If there is no religion, no faith in God, then what? Can there be no morality as Immanuel Kant would insist? Why does religion have to equate to morality? How many millions of atheists are there out there following the same basic morals of the faithful? Don’t kill, steal, cheat, help others, and so forth, these kinds of ethical rules need not have anything to do with religion. These morals, which try to hem our wanton natures, make good sense if one wants to enjoy the fruits of civilization. Does the lack of religion make the enforcement of such morals impossible? Ask the millions of atheists who aren’t busy chopping tens of thousands peoples with machetes or molesting children.

3. Can there be alternative, less dangerous moralities?

3.1 Morality based on the scientific method is less arrogant and thus less dangerous.
The scientific method is based on doubt up to reproducibility and error bars. Cold fusion so far has turned out to be some much bovine poop, as cannot yet be reproduced in other, independent labs. Newton’s law of (scalar) gravity, on the other hand, worked well within a large range of scales and phenomenology. Experiments and/or observations began to show cracks in Newton’s law of (scalar) gravity. The planet Mercury, with its exposure to a stronger part of the sun’s tensor (curved space-time) gravity field could not be made to jive with Newtonian gravity. Einstein’s more general theory of gravity, namely general relativity, took care of this and other discrepancies with Newtonian gravity, and we know of no experimental violations of this theory to date! Yet we doubt Einstein’s theory is complete. Of late, Gravity B probe is out and about testing general relativity as I type this essay, and though it is expected to verify general relativity, physicists fully expect that someday, with sufficient technology, the experiment will come that shows cracks in Einstein’s general relativity. Personally, at least a small part of me wouldn’t be completely surprised if, suspecting some deeper physics, the force of gravity just plum quit working one day. Still, if NASA, or a working space agency offered me a ride to Mars, I’d take my chances with Sir Newton.
Getting back to human morality, the innate doubt of the scientific method, should, if we adopt it as a basis for our general morality, make us more humble citizens of the universe. In a world where people shunned NO DOUBT religious faith, and instead searched for demonstrable, defendable, repeatable facts both scientifically and logically, it seems likely there would be less risk of committing holy war and other such crimes. People would categorize their belief systems according to their applicability, testability, utility, reproducibility and probability over other competing models within the error bars. They would realize that there can be no ultimate theory of truth, just models with certain ranges of utility. People such as these would, hopefully, be decent people in the conventional sense of not stealing, cheating, killing, etcetera., and would, recognizing that humans also have wanton tendencies, bind themselves to secular laws designed to prevent crime and corruption for the better good of civilization. Please don’t cite the failed Soviet Union (and other such “godless†experiments) as a case in point that godless people can be evil as well. Religion didn’t die in the Soviet Union. It went underground. I agree however that godless peoples can be as evil as god(s) fearing peoples, especially if they have substituted one kind of NO DOUBT faith for another kind—say sports—but it seems less easy to incite a bunch of doubting Thomas’ to bash people’s brains in than Christians or Muslims say over a game of soccer or some holy relic.

4. Must we believe in god(s)?

4.1 One can’t prove existence or non-existence of God. One must have faith! Or not.
Immanuel Kant proved that we humans can’t prove the existence of God. Still, he thought faith (if not proof) of God’s existence made sense. He used a design type argument. If a watch needs an intelligent watch maker, then our complex world too, it seems, needs an intelligent creator. He could not have been aware of modern, corrected versions of Miller’s experiments that show that within weeks or less—forget about a billion years—complex molecules required for life as we know it can form from primordial soups, or be dumped on our unwary heads from meteorites. Immanuel Kant also thought that lack of faith in god(s) would make it impossible for civilization to arise. We’d all be killing each other off like godless Native American savages, the very way the millions of today’s atheists…errr God fearing warmongers…are wont to do all the time.
In its simplest form, Occam’s razor states that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. Kant, ignoring Occam’s razor for one reason or another, failed to consider the possibility that we humans inhabit only one of infinitely many universes, with this one universe allowing for the spontaneous evolution of life from a primordial soup of chemicals. Again, amino acids, which can be found in meteorites and cold, blue balls of space gas, can get “created†in simulated, corrected primitive Earth environments. In this case (infinitely many universes), we don’t need an intelligent creator. This is not to say, however, that god(s) cannot exist. One can no more prove the existence of god(s) than their non-existence, but of this more will come down below.

4.2 Occam’s razor, it’s not a close shave man.
Imagining a world without religion, I would hope that its people would prefer, using Occam’s razor, to think of their existence as having no explanation, and of having no special purpose—Steve Martin’s special purpose aside—other than what they made of their own existence while they lived. They would be godless, and they would, hopefully, be driven to help each other out, not for eternal life in, say a harem, but out of the goodness of their own hearts, and/or out of some honest to goodness economic necessity so that they could enjoy the fruits of civilization over dwelling in caves. Presupposed in this imaginary world is the supposition that its “laws†of physical nature would be as fairly “reliable†as our physical “laws†seem to be, else, if gravity turned itself on or off depending on the price of rice in China, I’d think it hard to imagine life evolving, let alone getting civilized.

4.3 But what about salvation?

Tough! When you die you D-E-A-D. Until we figure out how to cure aging and disease, and perhaps transform ourselves into more advanced types of indefinitely long lived beings, we die, and our lives will have had no meaning other than, perhaps, the quality of our children we raised and what we contributed to the better good of humanity whilst we lived. Eventually, though, as Marcus Aurelius noted, even this personal meaning to our lives would fade into time immemorial.

4.4 God is nuts!

The alternative to believing we are nothing special via Occam’s razor, is to believe we are something special in the eyes of some higher being, and this requires throwing logic out the window. If the higher being is simply a more scientifically and technologically developed being (or beings), then this is the least of the illogical alternatives to believing we are nothing special. Hey, humanity is little BloGorg’s 1st grade exobiology lab experiment. Maybe this is why, given little BloGorg’s inexperience and grubby hands, that vast portions of humanity’s history has and continues to suck. If, however, we chose to have faith in a perfect, eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent God, then we have real logical and egomaniacal problems! Let us consider a few:

4.5 Can an omnipotent god make a burrito so hot even he can’t eat it?

In many religious systems we are asked to believe that a god, who knew an eternity before creating us exactly what would happen after he/she/it created us, namely, that we would screw things up, will punish the wicked and reward the good. What? Say again! Given his/her/its omniscience, I say the wicked were condemned an eternity before they ever saw the light of day. Isn’t this predetermination? We then must conclude that the supposedly perfect creator (of ALL things) is the screw up. In light of his/her/its omniscience, how dare he/she/it punish (typically by roasting the wicked in hell) a single human being, and demand from the rest of us that we worship him lest we suffer the same fate as the wicked? Doesn’t the buck stop with HIM/HER/IT? If so, then he/she/it is the mother/father/progenitor of all masochists. Given just this first step into an infinitely illogical morass of believing in omniscient, omnipotent, eternal gods of love, how are we supposed to reconcile a perfect creator with an imperfect system that is predetermined by his/her/its omniscience without just giving up basic logic and selling our souls to some utterly indefensible bullshit faith-based scheme? Then, going down the slippery slope to my damnation, I ask myself just why would a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal being need the worship of lowly humans? To satisfy a really, really weak ego? I don’t thinks so. To me a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being is a dead lump of nothing that would suffer zero motivation for doing anything. Create, or do anything, but what for? He/she/it knows the outcome, hence he/she/it would have zero motivation. (Have you seen the old TV commercial, “been there, done that”?) Someone, countering this line, once asked me, why should I procreate? You know what the kid will do he stated in defense of his purported god. The kid, predictably so, will breath, drink water, learn to read, and so on. I procreate—accidents aside—because I am not perfect, eternal, omnipotent nor omniscient, and ‘cause sex feeeels good. It’s in my genes! And I simply don’t know whether my kids will become mass murderers or land on Mars. Their world will constantly change. Science will reveal whole new domains for exploration. Lacking omniscience allows for the possibility, if not the guarantee of motivation.

I know that some of you who read these arguments for dropping god (or gods) will cite the “father analogy” when I will point out the misery of the human condition. “When you were a kid,†they will say to me, “and your father denied you ice cream as a punishment, he was doing it for your own good, to protect you, to teach a lesson, and so forth. As a child, you could not have understood his logic, and you probably thought he was being a bad guy for no good reason. He (assuming a Christian god) is our Father and we are His children.†For hours they will droll on in their brainwashed fashion. In response to this insupportable analogy, I will reply that my father was not a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being. The god being foisted on me supposedly is. This is a FUNDAMENTAL distinction people never seem to realize when they drop their father analogy. And, counter to those who, using the father analogy, claim we are too pea-brained to understand God, I claim that we humans are sufficiently intelligent to question God. We should, as a few religious people will accede to, have the right to ask, “If you are perfect, eternal, omnipotent and omniscient, then why X, Y and Z?†I’m not arrogantly claiming that we would have the ability to understand this kind of God’s mastery of science and mathematics beyond M theory. I’m asking basic questions and pointing out self-evident contradictions like, “How can you condemn Hitler when YOU created him?†Finally, again, if I’m too pea-brained to ask God questions, wouldn’t I be too pea-brained to worship Him even after becoming a human adult? Perhaps a prayer in obeisance is to him/her/it what a dog/cat/rat lick is to us?

Yet another related defensive tact on behalf of god(s) goes along the lines, without bad you can’t have good, that’s why we have bad in god’s world, so that we learn and appreciate things. What good comes of genocide? What lesson did the annihilated peoples, the children, mothers and fathers, learn? What benefit is conferred when a five year old child dies of cancer after years of misery? God had to create a child to teach his parents a lesson? To make them pray to him? To help pay for Bob the oncologist’s shiny new sports car? Or god, the omnipotent, as some say, needed little Ricky’s help in heaven? Really? I thought we humans were too pea-brained to understand him. Ricky must have been far more special than we thought. Truly I say to thee that the variations of the illogical contradictions of an omnipotent, eternal, perfect, omniscient god of love are countless.

5. Why should religion and faith in God should die?

5.1 Religion should die because of sections 2 thru 3, and faith in God should die because of section number 4.

6. Does killing religion and god(s) save humanity?

6.1 An a-religious humanity following a doubt-based morality is not guaranteed survival.

A humongous comet may yet squash us—or a planet of atheists—like the insignificant bugs that we are—splat! We humans, because we are innately competitive, and have difficulties with basic morality (e.g., we kill, steal, cheat, and so forth, and typically in the name of god) may yet treat ourselves to nuclear winter or death by advanced viral weapons. Yet, given that the scientific method based morality can be equated with DOUBT and that religious practice can be equated with NO DOUBT, it seems reasonable to believe that an a-religious world would be a bit more stable and likely to survive than a religious world. After all, a herd mentality requires a threshold number of initiators, and if there are less initiators there is a reduced likelihood to herd. Who do you see as more likely to cause trouble, a group of like-minded fanatics with NO DOUBT in their belief system, or a tough looking group of rowdy doubting Thomas’.

7. Is science Lily-white?

7.1 Since I seem to be advocating scientific, doubt based morality over a religion based morality, I’m sure people will point out the dark ways of science.

First of all, science is us just as much as religion has been a part of us. No us, no religion or science. Does science bring us evil? A-bombs? H-bombs? Sure it does, but when was the last time we had a full-blown world war? And how many American and Japanese lives were saved by using Fat Man and Little Boy? Or was President Truman an agent of Satan sent out to deliver the handiwork of demonic scientists? History will show that fifty-nine atomic bomb scientists signed a petition to President Truman asking him to instead demonstrate the bomb’s power to the Japanese on a remote island. Are there and have there been evil scientists? Yes. Are there are and have there been arrogant scientists? Yes. Have (and do) some scientists get tempted to play God? Yes. Are there and have there been evil priests? Yes. Are there and have there been arrogant popes? Yes. Have (and do) some people of religious faith get tempted to play God? Yes. These points, picking out individuals from a population, are not THE POINT. Scientists do not make the scientific method any more than religious leaders make up religious malpractice.
By the way, we goody-two-shoes Americans, the plain speaking little folk, are actually doing a nice job of hurting the planet with our massive SUVs appendages requiring boots in Iraq and a simultaneous, two-faced policy towards the Saudi royal, friends of the Bush family, family. We waste and pollute while we go to church without remorse or compunction. We demand our bigger LAND ROVING SUV penises as long as gas is cheap. Now that heating gas is getting pricey, suddenly we high school flunkies of basic science are saying go nuke—a move which I support based on science. We’re also quite okay with kissing the rainforests good-bye, filling them with methane farting cows so long as hamburger patties stay cheap. We, excepting a few deranged do-gooders, generally don’t push for more reasonable uses or our resources, until, that is, it hits us in our pocket books. The bottom line is that if we’re going to make it, it’s going to take all of us. See my article on “Some thoughts concerning law…in a post-Darwinian world of conflict, crime, social inequality,… at Forums, General Discussion, “Some thoughts concerning law, social identity…†at:
http://www.convergingtechnologies.org/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=39

8. Improving our chances.

8.1 I say that if we want to improve the lot of humanity, religion must die. Some can point to all the humanitarian good religion has done and continues to do. Though I can’t prove it, I suspect the net harm done in the name of religion far outweighs the net good it has done. A body count of saved versus killed off in the name of God could be one metric amongst others. But how would one count those who have died of cancer and other diseases because decades worth of charity and time have gone into building opulent churches and funding popes and their ilk over basic research?

8.2 But modern religion is truly enlightened and tolerant you say.

Some might argue that modern religions are now more enlightened. Which religions? Those practiced in Bosnia? Africa? Iraq? Or by our own homophobic (or was it vote pandering) president? Did President Bush, while he was pandering to homophobic voters, conclude the American constitution needs to be modified via an intellectual path, or out of religious conviction, tantamount to NO DOUBT? I saw him claim on TV that the base of great civilizations have been the union of man and woman. America’s government is modeled after the Greek and Roman states. Does President Bush not know that those toga wearing peoples had no problem with homosexuality? Does President Bush not know that as much as 10% of humanity is genetically predisposed to homosexuality according to an increasingly growing pile of scientific evidence? No. If we are to believe in Bush’s faith in a god, Bush has no god given doubt that homosexuals, as aberrant peoples with sinning ways, do not deserve the same legal rights as heterosexuals—never mind the point that in his universe his god created those sinning gays, some of whom are good enough to fight and die in Iraq, but NOT get married. Religion, even today in an “enlightened” western power, is just as vile as it ever was, and is still preaching holy war. How many times has President Bush stated it is America’s duty to spread freedom, which is God’s gift to humanity? If I had a nickel for every time some two-bit…

9. Putting logic aside, can religion ever be expected to die?

9.1 Will religion die?
Should humanity survive to evolve into post-corporeal beings, then I do believe religion will die, but I don’t expect it to do so in the near future. Not until humanity—should it survive—has transformed itself into beings with indefinitely long lives will the need for religion die. So long as we live but a handful of years, the need for religion and faith in God will continue to exist. There really could be, as some researchers believe, an advantageous “god gene†locked into our genome passed on from god fearing caveman to god-fearing caveman. When Blogorg ‘believed’ there was a god out there looking out for him, he fought on, but poor, atheist Grung gave up an got eaten by the saber tooth. Thus Blogorg, who got to zug-zug Lana, passed on his genes. When we drop our carbon based bodies, however, we won’t need to pass on our god gene to zug-zug Lana, and it will be adios to the god(s).

10. A call for atheist preaching!

In the mean time, given that religion will be with us for some time to come, we godless people must accept and tolerate those religious people among us as they claim to accept and tolerate us—and I’m not trying to be funny. Moreover, just as religious people have a god felt need and duty to save our heathen butts so that all may enjoy some kind of holy paradise tending sheep, we godless people too must do our best to “unsave†people so that we may all enjoy a more real (Occam’s razor based) reality in a safer, more stable world with more resources going to solve problems than building churches. We have to preach unGod and unSaving logically, as I have tried to do in this post, as well as push to get rid of religious tax exemptions, especially when child molesting priests illegally tip-toe about the law and pander for votes.

PS—Wouldn’t it be nice if religion, like cigarette packages, came with a warning sign listing off all its completely illogical foundations and inconsistencies, and its innate tendency to do harm thanks to NO DOUBT morals. People—before having to wait until we evolve into more advanced beings—could then decide to believe or not on a more informed basis despite their potential god genes. Science, with its scientific method, does this by definition. WARNING! All theories are subject to change given new data.

Alex Alaniz, M.S., Ph.D.
4925 S. Sol
Los Alamos, NM 87544

David:

I believe Michael’s feelings for Terri have been highly commendable and his committment to her most likely born out of fidelity to his promise to care for her and respect her wishes. Love is very hard to fake for that long a period of time. I certainly would not have been able to fake my feelings for that long.

Take a look at this.

http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/CIyerAffidavit090203.htm

If you google very long at all, you will see that Michael Shiavo’s character is at the least disputed. He is every thing from Saint to butcher with sworn testimony to back up either claim. You have a lot of confidence in areas that I don’t think are knowable. Who is tellig the truth? Both sides cannot. Did he truely say “when is the bitch going to die?”

In terms of her medical situation there is “doubt”. The medical profession seems split between those who believe she is in a permanent vegitative state and those who believe she has some consciousness. Again, from here I don’t think you and I can “know”. If people with MD after their name are unsure, then I have a hard time knowing how I will know. I can however state that there is “doubt”.

There is even doubt about the parents. So what do we do?

I think the courts have interpreted the law strictly by saying some thing like, “under the law, I will err on the side of next of kin,” which is Michael.

But my point is that event though Michael is Terri’s legal next of kin, morally he is not since morally he has taken another spouse. Certainly Terri has the strongest case for divorce that there is, “infidelity”.

My expectation morally is not that a person should stay attached for 15 years and lead a celibate life. There is in the this world hopefully room for a man to move on at some point and to have a life. I think morally he is wrong in hanging on to Terri and in effect have two spouses. I believe Michael should give custody to the parents. Because he is in a clear conflict of interest by living with a woman as his spouse, and ordering the death of his current spouse.

As for the courts refusal to review the case, I fear they made an error. When there is an outcry in a community for more process, there will be more process. The only decision the courts had was time and place. Now instead of reviewing the documents and affidavids and having a new evaluation of Terri’s medical situation, the community will do so without the rules of court. There will be countless books written, and Terri will become a martyr of something. The affidavids that are false will now be taken as true by the die hards, and this will go on for years.

There is a cause that has gained great strength against “judicial tyranny” which never needed to happen.

I tend to be a process person. I am really not that strong on one side of this issue in terms of should we pull her tube or not. We are really trying to find out what to do since Terri did not give us an answer, and who should make the choice. (There are affidavids stating that Michael had told them repeatedly that he did not know what Terri wanted, and that later he changed his testimony).

I believe under current law, Michael has legal authority, but the parents have moral authority for reasons stated above.

Dr Alex Alaniz:

My problem with atheism is that it side steps the biggest questions of the universe.

1. Where did matter come from? (Don’t go big bang here, and I reall want to know where the matter that produced the big bang came from).

2. Where did time come from?

3. Where did energy come from?

4. Where did the central forces of nature come from like gravity etc?

At the end of the trail usually atheists end up with some sort of “I don’t know”, or there is some emotional arguement that comes across as very weak,(an arguement that requires a lot of faith to believe), and I am left wondering who the atheist is trying to convince.

Craig

Craig, catch up on string theory. It answers those questions, (sort of). It answers where matter goes in a singularity at the end of a black hole, and it answers where the matter came from in the big bang. What it does not answer is, where the 11 parallel universes came from or if they were always infinitely and potentially existing.

When contemplating infinity, something the human brain can only represent mathematically but, not comprehend, God is waiting there as the answer, as he has always been when man cannot explain something.

Craig, your argument hinges on a word. You said: ” I think morally he is wrong in hanging on to Terri and in effect have two spouses.”

Look, marriage is what if not a legal defintion. If a priest in one country marries a man and a woman and the man moves alone to another country, is he still married? Without law, marriage is nothing more than a promise, and all of us break our promises in our lives for reasons ranging from choice to unalterable external forces preventing the promise being kept.

If a person marries, and then lives with another woman, that person is not guilty of bigamy. The law recognizes that and Florida law will not allow Michael to claim common law marriage to his current cohabitant precisely because the law recognizes only one marriage at a time and he is on record as married to Terri.

Legally, your argument has no merit. Morally, your argument has only as much merit as a broken promise which we are all guilty of from time to time for a host of reasons. Micheal choosing not live without receiving love as well as giving it is not immoral in my book. The fact that he prodded for better care than professionals were willing or able to give Terri, speaks of love. It is not unusual for persons to love more than one person at a time. Under the circumstances, I don’t find his actions immoral. I find his circumstances ethically challenging for any person on earth who were to live through the same circumstances as he.

One can make the argument that strength of character would have been greater had he refused love from another over these 15 years he loved a spouse who could not love him back. But, for me, it is overreaching and unempathetic to judge him immoral given the circumstances which any of us would have found difficult to say the least.

Dr. Alaniz, I have often thought the world would be a better place with God, and without religion. God evokes a defintion of perfection and omnipresence. That in itself is inspiring to any and all individuals who feel the need for God.

For those who don’t feel that need, God can still exist intellectually, or not. God does not require believers to exist. And man does not need God to exist. Except perhaps if existence is eternal and one seeks the argument of how creation can exist without a creator.

Religion however is a tool for social management, social unity, and social defense. Religion uses God toward those ends as well as to provide a living to those who would propagate their lifestyle as dependents of the congregation. Religion is a creation of man, not God. As such, religion is forever flawed and capable of very ‘ungodly’ actions against those who would see religion for what it is and speak of it.

A great article was published in the New York Times Week in Review online today, written by John Leland. It goes into the philosophical background of the Shiavo case: Aristotle’s value of life vs. Descartes’ scientific view of life. Here’s a good quote from it:

The philosophical line in this history, then, is not straightforward, but includes a peculiar American twist: The evangelical revival of the 18th and 19th centuries produced the abolition movement, which gave rise to the women’s suffrage movement, which inspired the civil rights movement, which led to the patient’s rights movement. But now the patient’s rights movement faces off with many 21st-century evangelical Christians in the Schiavo case.

David:

Legally, your argument has no merit. Morally, your argument has only as much merit as a broken promise which we are all guilty of from time to time for a host of reasons.

I am not making a legal argument. As far as I can see, I think the current law is with Mr. Schiavio.

As for a broken promise wa are all guilty of, I completely disagree, I have never lived with another woman and have no children with another woman not my wife. Do you?

I do not judge Mr. Schiavo for moving on. I do believe it is immoral to live as though he has two wives at the same time. He should relenquish guardianship to the parents divorce Terri and marry the woman he is fathering children through.

It is very bad law to have a a guardian with a conflict of interest making life and death decisions.

Craig

David:

catch up on string theory. It answers those questions, (sort of). It answers where matter goes in a singularity at the end of a black hole, and it answers where the matter came from in the big bang. What it does not answer is, where the 11 parallel universes came from or if they were always infinitely and potentially existing.

So it isn’t progress it just moves the argument back a few lines of logic. Like the word “theory” in your comments. The debates seem to go around and around forever. I believe both Christianity and Atheism are based in faith, just faith in different things. It comes down to a personal choice of what we want to believe in and base our life on. When I look at the Universe I see a design, and order and an intelligence. Others see something different.

Craig

Craig said: “As for a broken promise wa are all guilty of, I completely disagree, I have never lived with another woman and have no children with another woman not my wife. Do you?”

You are not in Michaels shoes or anywhere close to being in his circumstances, are you? And that is the chasm that needs to be accounted for.

Regarding the atheist/agnostic/believer argument, the rhetorical trick of saying that there has to be something at the end of the physical chain of arguments (there doesn’t; it could be an endless cycle without beginning or end) and that is God doesn’t really answer the theological question posed. That theological question has to do with some anthropomorphic concept of an omnipotent being who mediates moral values in the Universe and gives purpose to human life. To answer the physical problem of first causes, one could posit some blind force that brought the universe into being but is indifferent to human life as we are to the microbial world. This “god” would be irrelevant to the type of moral arguments on which God is brought to bear. The attempt to use unexplained physical phenomena to rationalize belief in such a moral God is sophmoric and doesn’t really advance the cause of spirituality or morality.

Craig said : “So it isn’t progress it just moves the argument back a few lines of logic.”

Where infinity or eternity is concerned, that is the best that can be achieved.

I absolutely agree with you on the differing faiths of theism and atheism. Both involve belief; since replicable first hand experience of the existence of god cannot be achieved in the positive or negative.

But there is a more fundamental difference between the faith of a theist and an atheist. A theist feels the effects of their God or their belief in God upon their lives, and this acts as proof of God’s existence. An atheist seeks proof of god on either a tangible or logical basis, and in the absence of such proof, concludes their is none.

This is a huge difference because it represents two different psychological states of perception and this difference results in many of the difficulties of atheists and theists have in trying to agree about many other things.

Of course there are many, if not most people who can function in either perceptual mode. While there is a cognitive dissonance in switching modes, it is an easy rationalization process to defend against the dissonance. Folks such as these subscribe to the wisdom of that famous Christ saying, ‘render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s and unto God that which is God’s’. Substitute Ceasar with science and it works as well today as in Ancient Roman times.

David:

You are not in Michaels shoes or anywhere close to being in his circumstances, are you? And that is the chasm that needs to be accounted for.

No I am not nearly in his shoes, and I hope neither are you.

I believe Michael has chosen to be in a strange legal situation. He has a legal commitment to Terri and his two children by new “significant other”. He has a moral commitment to his new “significant other” as well. He is by definition conflicted in his role as Terri’s guardian.

I would be in favor of a law that says that if a man (or woman) takes a common law spouse by living with them, having joint propery etc, (and certainly by having children) that they would automatically forfeit their next of kin guardianship rights to their former spouse.

Craig

Craig, that is exactly what the majority of Americans don’t want. They don’t want broad sweeping rules and legislation focused on such narrowly defined circumstances. There are 30,000 cases of vegetative state individuals in America and each one has unique circumstances and parties involved. These kinds of situations must be handled by concensus of the loved ones involved, and if concensus cannot be reached, the courts are the proper place to weigh and consider the appropriate persons to act in a custodial and guardianship role within the guidelines of state law.

One size legislation will not fit all, and will quickly become abusive to the interests of many of the parties concerned.

David, I agree wholeheartedly with your posts to this thread.

You wrote:
“One can make the argument that strength of character would have been greater had he refused love from another over these 15 years he loved a spouse who could not love him back.”

I actually think it shows a greater strength of character that Michael Schiavo attempted to find happiness in his life while simultaneously living with his wife’s tragedy and taking on the responsibility of her guardianship and the court battles.

“You are not in Michaels shoes or anywhere close to being in his circumstances, are you? And that is the chasm that needs to be accounted for.”

Indeed. The harsh judgement being passed on this man is totally outrageous. What many people seem to be forgetting as this tragic scenario plays out is the fact that Michael Schiavo was put in this position by his bulimic wife. He has had no choice but to try to cope while he tries to do what he feels she would have wanted. He cannot have enjoyed being put into this spotlight and his character dragged through the mud, all because of something his wife inflicted upon herself, and unfairly, upon him.

It really is a disgrace that while the media is busy beating up on Michael Schiavo, they’ve let the best opportunity to talk about bulima go by with barely a mention. I feel Terri’s Schiavo’s story should have been treated as a chance to inform other people who are, or who are living with bulimics of the potential dangers — many of whom may not realize how easy it is to end up on life support if they neglect to get help for this disorder.

David:

One size legislation will not fit all, and will quickly become abusive to the interests of many of the parties concerned.

Then I would support non-one-size-fits-all legislation that removes the conflict of interest. People should not be allowed to have in reality two spouses at the same time, because it creates a conflict of interest.

What happens if in the next case like this there is a large life insurance policy on the “Terri” of the case?

Also, what happens if the situation were reversed? What if the “Michael” of the future has a financial interest in keeping a future “Terri” alive, and is using that financial interest to raise his new family?

When a spouse has moved on and is raising a new family, and finds themselves in a conflict of interest with their legal spouse they should remove themself from the legal ties with their first spouse.

Craig

Craig

Dr. Alaniz-
Point 1: Man does not live by bread alone. Your concerns about churches putting money to frivolous purposes are legitimate. But that’s not an issue that the bible fails to address. Read the New Testament, and you’ll find a great deal of material criticizing those with an excessive zeal for the superficial.

Additionally, you act like man is rational without religion, and also more moral. I think all things being equal, atheists are not unequal to their believing brethren in their capacity for superficiality, irrationality, and frivolousness, much less hypocrisy.

Point 2-
2.1: What you are asked to have faith in, as far as religion is concerned, is that there are greater powers and orders in the universe than yourself and human society. You are asked to take on an attitude, generally, that is more timeless, more contemplative, and more humble. It is when folks twist questions of the ultimate into justifications for avenging themselves on others. Of course, you might think this would go away without religion. You would be wrong. Folks twist nationalism, tribalism, and any kind of strong idea into justifications for control and domination. Religion is just one kind of strong idea used for that.

2.2: Religion doesn’t necessarily prevent degeneracy, but it does help mankind deal with an impulse I believe exists regardless of any belief in God- the impulse to invest great meanings in things, sometimes even to excess. Properly focused, religion takes the impulse towards elevating this concentration of regard and directs it towards something that truly deserves that: the underlying meaning and structure of the cosmos, and the forces and meaning behind it. Couple with a system of belief that ties the raising of quality of one’s conduct in this world, Religion can be a powerful force for good.

Point 3-
3.1: The Scientific Method is an excellent discipline for analyzing the facts and simple principles of the world, and in that it can be a powerful force for good. It’s not perfect, though, because human logic and knowledge are imperfect, as is human wisdom. Additionally, many moral issues are the emergent result of the informal logic of human behavior, behavior that is based on the complex mechanisms of human neurology, experience and existence. Put simply, there are things about being a human being where things don’t simplify to simple, reducible principles, and where multiple, plausible solutions are possible, depending on what principles one holds dear.

Point 4-
4.1: My belief is we don’t know enough about the principles of reality beyond the nature we inhabit to prove the existence or nonexistence of God on those grounds. Additionally, there’s no way to discount God’s ability to influence one or many universes by means beyond the visible and the testable.

4.2: Human thought is fractal, intuitive, and acts in real time in response to a neurology that is organically created. Occam’s razor can become rather dulled (and rather dull) as a means of paring unnecessary thought from ones mind. Simplicity must be earned.

4.3: With humanity so complex, the mind wonders at the universe. Are there equal and greater complexities and phenomena such as I in the universe? It is a legitimate philosophical question, unless one wants to discount what can’t be discounted- alien life in the worlds we don’t know, or supernatural entities beyond the nature we can know with our senses.

Are you familiary with the concept of the world line in physics? Well, if you’re not, it’s basically the record of the path and nature of an electron as it travels through space and time.

The Question relating to that, is how does a human life and a human mind look from a perspective outside of time? Well, if you exist, even if you do so in one world alone, your existence is eternal- it always will be, has been, and is in the course of events. You cannot be removed from the equation.

What if somebody exists who can interpret your existence from this frame of reference, perhaps even reinterpret it? What if it matters whether you have learned to accept the possibility and need for transcendance, rather than squander that opportunity by attaching yourselves to things of an ephemeral world?

4.4: How do you interpret the logic behind a mind capable of creating a universe like ours- heck, of creating minds like ours?

4.5: For my money, God allows free will, which means God knows our options and has planned for them., but has let us decide for ourselves what we wish to choose. God doesn’t need our prayers, our worship. We do. We need to choose something beyond our claustrophobic little world of experience. Religion can help us there.

5: Now is not the time to start congratulating yourself. There are reasons we hold on to our beliefs that go beyond what anybody can really nail down. Humanity is a mystery even without God in the equation.

6: Many have put forth ideas of how to remove the troublemaking elements of human thought from people’s minds. Want to know how many have succeeded? Nobody has. The human mind is a wild animal nobody’s ever fully tamed.

7: Human beings are creative, so all human systems can be turned to evil ends.

Point 8-
8.1: Question: what if one of those churches hosts a service that inspires a scientist to redouble his or her efforts to find a cure for a disease? Must all measures of human experience have a dollar sign or a decimal point attached?

8.2: With every religious tradition there are different strains, different localities. You commit a substantial fallacy by assuming that the worst examples of our faith represent the true character of all those who share similar worship.

9: What evolution may have encouraged is more along the lines of curious, of investment of certain places, objects, and creatures with significance, and the desire to synthesize explanations to create more eloquent explanations of the world around us.

In short, while I think the notion of being hardwired to believe in God is too strong a way to put it, I do believe we are predisposed towards religious thinking by the very neurological qualities that make us human. Obviously, because of the widespread nature of religion, it is not an entirely unhealthy thing. Belief can be a strong survival value. Belief in family, in the virtue of procreation, in the virtue of love and kindness, in hard work and persistence, wisdom and learning, judgment and discretion, forgiveness and mercy- these are a few among the many advantages of the complex thing we call religion.

People often talk about memes in relation to religion, and while that’s kind of ironic given the concept’s origins with noted atheist and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, it’s not a bad way of describing religion. It’s not an idea meant to die easily, and killing it can be particularly tough, because it has an instinct for self-preservation.

The thing to remember about religion is that it inspires, and in a contest between the inspired and the uninspired, all other things being equal, the inspired has the advantage.

Point 10: Religion is a choice. Every mainstream religion says so. One cannot be forced to believe. So, believe as you will. But don’t underestimate those who abide with religion, and with God. We’re not half the fools you think we are. And religion is not half as irrational as you’d like to think.

There you go again Craig. Michael does not have two spouses, only one. The laws of Florida will not grant him or his lover family spousal rights.

He has a wife and a lover, as have many millions of American men at one time or another. If you begin taking away rights from one, the Constitution says you must take away from all. Fidelity can no more be legislated than can lying. Every child lies, it is part of growing up and learning how to handle social relationships. Politicians lie all the time, and even priests in fair numbers lie like hell about their misdeeds.

Adultery is as old as human civilization. It may be wrong and immoral by Judeo Christian standards but so is bearing false witness. The Constitution and laws are designed to bring and maintain order in society, not dictate punishments and losses of rights for moral indescretions. Unless you want to change religious freedom in America to one religion fits all and everyone has to live by its commandments. Then of course, we will no longer be a nation where religious choice is free.

Adrienne said: “It really is a disgrace that while the media is busy beating up on Michael Schiavo, they’ve let the best opportunity to talk about bulima go by with barely a mention.”

Yes, that is a real opportunity lost, Adrienne. It still amazes me after all these decades that when people get upset over what someone else does, they still call for a new law. Like Craig, conservatives who say they stand for limited government are as guilty as liberals of this clamor for law to ease their own emotional distress. Amazing. Democrats are no better, (hand guns) but, they don’t operate on the pretense of limited government involvement in citizen’s lives.

Isn’t one possible root cause of bulimia, which allegedly was the cause of Terri Schiavo’s collapse, childhood sexual abuse. Is there any indication that Terri Schiavo was sexually abused as a child?

I have single-handedly boiled the whole issue down. If Schiavo’s parents had initially agreed with the husband, this would not have been a story at all. The right-to-lifers would not be demonstrating and calling the parents “murderers”, or forcing the feeding tube to remain. To me, it is all rampant hypocrasy. Where were the right-to-lifers during the past 12 years of litigation? Where are they on the death penalty cases?

tigerman:
“To me, it is all rampant hypocrasy.”

It is rampant hypocrisy, and it is completely disgusting. We have DeLay the Crook grandstanding when his own family pulled the plug on his father. We have Frist who has pulled the plug regularly on his own brain dead patients. We have Hastert quoting the Pope over life-sustaining treatments and presiding over a three-hour debate. We have Congress passing a bill and rushing it to the president who makes a special trip back from yet another vacation to sign it — all on behalf of ONE woman who has been totally brain dead for fifteen years.
MEANWHILE, 40,000 CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE DIE EACH AND EVERY DAY FROM MALNUTRITION AND EASILY PREVENTABLE DISEASES IN THE WORLD.
If only they’d see the wisdom of holding a special session to address and discuss the ramifications of this horrendous statistic!!!

“Where were the right-to-lifers during the past 12 years of litigation?”

Not yet quite so drunk on their own power?

“Where are they on the death penalty cases?”

Well, with the death penalty they get to quote the Old Testament. You know, “an eye for an eye” and all that. Besides, Dubya as Texas governor blithely signed 152 death warrants — more than any other elected official in modern American history. As the Christian Crusading President, he can do no wrong in the Religious Rights opinion, so the “culture of life” in those cases simply doesn’t have to apply.

David:

My point:

I do not judge Mr. Schiavo for moving on. I do believe it is immoral to live as though he has two wives at the same time. He should relenquish guardianship to the parents divorce Terri and marry the woman he is fathering children through.

Your response:

There you go again Craig. Michael does not have two spouses, only one. The laws of Florida will not grant him or his lover family spousal rights. .

If it is as you say then he is a flagrant adulterer and should be judges as such. I view it differently. I think after 15 years, it is normal for a person to want to move on. I think his actions say that he has moved on judging by the fact that he has fathered two children and is living with a new woman.

What I think is wrong, is making a life and death decision for someone when you have a clear conflict of interest. I believe Michael is wrong for not turning over the guardianship to the parents. He has already moved on with his new family. You never move on when you are a parent.

I have said and know that he does not have two legal spouses. But he is living as though he does, claiming rights similar to marriage with both women at the same time.

It is not good law to allow guardians to make life and death decisions when they have a conflict of interest.

Craig

The hidden message in nearly every bit of GOP politicking of recent times has been: who is worthier to hold the power of office than we are? They present themselves as the most committed defenders of America, the truest carriers of their virtues. With such arguments, words like strict construction and judicial activism are tools to be use to present the liberal’s use of power as exceeding the limits prescribed by the law and the constitution.

Unfortunately, for many politicians on the right, this seems to be a method of misdirection for their own excesses of power.

Why else is it that when people start bringing up issues of substance, the Republican’s first response is to question the credibility of the other side’s sources? When can you start a discussion of substance when anything negative said or heard about a Republican is instantly labelled evidence of the vast left wing conspiracy to badmouth Republicans?

Stephen Daugherty You claim
unfortunately a large chunk of the Republican party is not skilled at or able to engage in compromise
The Republicans very much want to negotiate a comprimise but the Democrats won’t give up the power.

Dr. Alex Alanzi as a Dr. you surely know the diference between DeLay’s father’s condition and Terri Schiavo.

When the man’s kidneys failed
Do Not Resuscitate

George-
Yours is the party talking about using the nuclear option to make sure your far-right judges get in. Yours is the party shoving the Schiavo case into the federal courts when the state ones don’t give you your way. Yours is the party that shut down the government. Yours is the president who won’t back down on a tax cut with a five hundred billion dollar debt hanging over our heads.

Talk to me of GOP compromise in more concrete terms than that. Who’s determining your abortion policy? Your tax policy? Your Iraq policy? Your foreign policy? Where is the give and take filling the Republican party?

Where is the give and take filling the Republican party?

Where it’s always been: Giving to the wealthy and Taking from the working poor…

Stephen, I’m sure you’ve noticed the Republicans are in power, have been for four years.
They have passed few items of note in that period, mostly have been occupied by war and a recession.
Now that those are under control, Republicans would like to get some fundamental changes made . Things like SS and the tax code need drastic change, the U.S. is still relying to heavily on foreign energy. These fixes are things the Democrats can not fix even when they are in power. Stuff your politics for a second and tell me those thing don’t need changing.

George-
The Republicans have been in charge for over ten years now, with four of them now under a Republican president who has never vetoed one piece of legislation.

The Bear market is a mess they’re largely to blame for, as it was precipitated by lax regulation and active deregulation of the finance and accounting industries. Your party’s position on China isn’t making things better. For all your talk, you folks are letting them get away with murder, pegging their currency to ours, subsidizing industries that are losing money, artificially surpressing wages, and generally making a mockery of our free-market approach to them. Our trade deficits and budget deficits are at record highs and they’re making money off of both. Your record Budget Deficits are killing the dollar, raising inflation, and financing our competitors. Worse, Bush, by taking the debt financed route, is actually insuring that we pay more for the expenses of this war and his expansion of the government. Bush is adding economic deadweight, in the vain hopes that the economy will improve enough in the next few years to make up for the shortfall. We’ve come out of the recession, only to see our expenses multiply, not slacken up. Bush’s fiscal problems are largely his own fault, and they could end up making us too debt-ridden to afford to fight the war on terror or any war for that matter. No other president in American history cut taxes during a war, not even during the Vietnam war.

As for Iraq, it’s outcome is far from certain. I would lay off bragging about it until the job is done. Then you will have the feather in your cap, the medal on your chest.

As for social security, there is a problem, but it is not as severe as Bush is portraying it, and by his own admission, the plan is not a solution to the problem that does exist. It will also cause a drop in benefits as the years go by, so there is little reason for most people to trust his solution.

As for the tax code, his plans for simplification will hit the lower classes first and hardest. The Value Added Tax he is suggesting would be a brake on consumption, being the glorified sales tax that it is, and it would hit those who have to spend the highest proportion of their income to stay afloat first and hardest. The poor, that is. Besides, Bush has done his utmost to knock our revenue system out of whack in regards to our needs as it is. I don’t trust him to get even more creative with it. Things need changing in this country, but they don’t need changing according to the blind ideology and special interests of one party that is unwilling to acknowledge the interests and beliefs of the rest of the country.

Forget to close the strong or bold tag, Stephen?

:)

Thank you, LawnBoy.
- Stephen