Posted on 04/28/2005 9:58:18 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The past few months have certainly brought to the fore any number of what psychologists and other so-called "mental health professionals" would identify as "presenting issues" with regard to the schism between Democrats and Republicans in the United States. During that time, for instance, we were privy to the removal of feeding tubes from a human being (Terri Schiavo) in order that she might die at the behest of her husband and an activist judge, while at the same time we witnessed the insertion of feeding tubes into a number of dolphins (yes, "dolphins") that they — having beached themselves off the shores of the Middle Keys, about 50 miles west of Key West, Florida — might survive to swim another day.
While scientists have made it clear that they will dispassionately pursue, through blood tests, the possible reasons this particular group of deep-water dolphins ended up beached, en masse, near land, there seems to be no pressing need, among journalists, at least, to pursue the circumstances of Terri Schiavo's death. Bottom line: You have to think that Terri Schiavo would have stood a better chance of survival had she been a dolphin than she did as a human against a husband and the pro-death liberal activist judiciary whose agenda Judge Greer so dangerously and despicably represented.
On another front, representative Tom Delay (R, TX) has also been in the news. By way of background: Delay, the House Majority Leader, has been one of the most effective, not to say unrelenting, proponents of many Republican initiatives, including repealing the so-called "death tax" and championing the causes of our foreign allies who support the United States' commitment to freedom and democracy, to mention but a few.
The scenario has unfolded something like this: Democrats have relentlessly attacked Delay for ethics violations that have included his putting family members on the payroll of his re-election campaign and going on trips paid for by political lobby groups. Recently, however, Dems have stalled the inquiry into Delay's alleged ethics violations for the stated reason that they want Delay to remain under "a cloud of suspicion" regarding the purported ethical irregularities his activities represent.
What this entire charade on the part of Democrats is intended to mask, however, is a horse of a different color. For starters, many Congressmen and Senators, Democrats and Republicans alike, have routinely engaged in precisely the kind of alleged campaign nepotism and lobby-group-funded junketing Nancy Pelosi & Co. find so reprehensible where Delay is concerned. If Delay is guilty of ethics violations for this type of behavior, so are Democrats John Breaux, Robert Wexler, and Gene Green, among many others.
Further, the mere possibility of allowing hearings on alleged ethical violations by House members to take place has brought to light more than $100,000.00 in illegal contributions that the aforementioned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi funneled to the campaigns of her fellow Congressmen when she was trying to buy the leadership position she now occupies. Pelosi has been fined $21,000.00 for these abuses, so it's not as if her fiduciary peccadilloes are a state secret, although it should be noted that neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post has found it newsworthy to mention Pelosi's culpability with regard to these punishable offenses.
All of this is to say that Tom Delay's fate — Delay really has nothing to fear at the hands of a House Ethics Committee's investigation — is not what's standing in the way of the orderly conduct of the Committee's pursuing its charter. It is to say, however, that Democrats are, once again, obstructing a Congressional Committee's proceedings on questionable, not to say false, grounds, this time by refusing to consider Republicans' offer to cast the deciding vote in favor of giving Delay a hearing under the new rules.
As you might well suspect, any issue on which Democrats focus is focused on for its political content; which is to say, it is focused on because it in some way provides an opportunity for Dems to bring to the fore specific agenda issues which are dear to their hearts, or, perhaps more accurately, which enable Dems to mount personal attacks on political figures who oppose their agenda. In both of the cases I've cited, Democrats have sought to advance specific issues of their agenda by attacking Republican/Conservative positions. In both cases, however, their tactics stand a good chance of failure.
While the polls taken during the Terri Schiavo debacle universally seemed to indicate that Americans favored letting Terri die while they opposed judicial and legislative intervention on behalf of keeping her alive, the fact is that every poll of which I'm aware focused on what I would characterize as "procedural" issues and not on "nitty-gritty" (read content) issues. Pollsters across the board failed to ask questions that focused on the life-death issues presented by Terri Schiavo's slow starvation. Had those queried been asked questions that addressed these core issues, as a retrospective sampling done by John Zogby indicates, we would have understood that a significant majority of Americans in fact would have favored keeping Terri Schiavo alive.
And, while the following assertion is less easily quantified than conclusions about the public's opinions regarding Terri Schiavo's demise, Americans are arguably unconcerned about Tom Delay's supposed "ethical violations," especially given that his behavior is nothing less than routine among his colleagues.
What's at work here is that, if you were to poll a representative sample of Americans on this question, they would overwhelmingly parrot back to you responses based on snippets of information they had been able to glean from the liberal-biased media which still dominate the information to which they have access. Indeed, there have been suggestions that pollsters' rosters of citizens whom they might question on specific "sensitive" issues are seriously skewed toward respondents sympathetic to the liberal/Democrat agenda.
But whether the polls are skewed toward the Democrat position or not, it is very difficult to qualify the respondents in such a way as to make the results of any given poll truly representative. This alone should argue that there might well be at work here a managed electronic feedback loop that favors a pre-qualified set of respondents that implicitly harbors a liberal agenda. This is not to mention that poll results are overwhelmingly delivered via news media that have time and again demonstrated their bias in favor of said agenda.
I hope we don't need to be reminded to take with the proverbial "grain of salt" not only "news reportage" by CNN and the "big three" television news networks, but by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among any number of other go-along-to-get-along print media. Never doubt that the "news" reportage you receive, unless it emanates from an unimpeachably neutral source, is slanted leftward. From Terri Schiavo to Tom Delay, liberals would deny what you and I know in our hearts to be true: That conservatism's support of life- and democracy-affirming processes is always to be supported, and that the causes of those who push forward a conservative agenda against the encroachment on individual liberty by leftist Democrats are to be supported to the fullest extent possible.
Writer Greg Lewis is co-author, with Dr. Charles Gant, of the Warner Books hardcover "End Your Addiction Now." Dr. Lewis is a frequent contributor of political and cultural commentaries to several websites. His next book, "The Politics of Anger: How Marxism's Heirs Are Redefining Liberalism in America Today," is due out in late Spring, 2005. Read more of his work at http://www.GregLewis.org.
Comments: lewis@therant.us
In the throes of chemo and radiation, my partner was given a prescription for Marinol, the THC pill. A man who could not smell food cooking without getting ill was suddenly able to eat...a few bites only, but he could eat! As a caregiver who tried to provide every comfort food she could think of for this dying man, marinol was a lifesaver - literally. BUT, the instant my friend was made eligible for medicaid (after trying for 2 years), he was told he could no longer get Marinol. Originally, he got it through whatever company makes it - a free, but limited supply. Medicaid would not cover Marinol at somewhere around $200 per bottle.
Frankly, my friend did not last long enough for me to protest. And Hospice wouldn't cover Marinol either.
But, no matter how stronly anti-dope I am, medical marijuana needs to be ok'd for people who need it. It helps with nausea and allows people to eat. It helps with pain and it helps with depression caused by terminal and or horrific illness.
Is this a serious post? The specifics of your story make sense; I have no problem with them. But what is the point? That the Democrats may be more correct on meidcal marijuana than the Republicans? Which means what? That even if you are a diehard conservative, you'll vote Democratic becuase of medical marijuana?
It seems to me your point is either trivial, in the overall scheme of things, or fallacious. I'm curious to know which it is.
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