Replies

There is, of course, considerable historical precedent for such actions.

See, for example, from faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/Change-Civ%20Rts.html:

October 1957
Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
(David Halberstam, The Fifties, Chapter 44)

To comply with the Brown v. Board decision, plans were made to integrate Central High School in September of 1957. When nine black high school students arrived to attend Central High, they were met by an angry crowd. Despite his pledges of cooperation, the governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, in fact, ordered the Arkansas National Guard to keep the black students, known as the "Little Rock Nine," out of the school.

Faced with this defiance of a federal court order, President Dwight Eisenhower responded by sending troops from the 101st Airborne to Little Rock with orders to protect the nine students.

Eisenhower also federalized the Arkansas National Guard. This marked the first time since Reconstruction that federal troops were sent to the South. This incident was the first of several in which the governor of a state refused to ensure a peaceful process of integration and thereby forced the President of the United States to act...

If this is the precedent then the President should NOT act. Remember, the troops also went in to enforce a court order, and a Supreme Court ruling.

Citing this case as precedent would mean the troops would protect Michael Schiavo and allow the current order to be carried out.

How about another even closer historical precedent, in which the feds forcibly federalized another Florida matter that involved family relationships; the death (or life) of a wife; a husbsand who demanded and got government intervention; and an intense, emotional nationwide debate?

Anybody remember Elian Gonzalez?

There was widespread outrage, and also widespread support, regarding Janet Reno's forcible abduction of little Elian from his relatives' home and return to Cuba.

Interesting how the same folks who cheered when Elian was taken by feds at gunpoint without clear legal authorization, now boo when Congress has this time actually passed a statute authorizing the feds to step in.

The question is, if the president were to forcibly intervene here, like Clinton and Eisenhower did in other contexts, would it be fair payback, would it be hypocrisy, or would it be the right thing to do?