Posted on 04/04/2005 4:34:38 AM PDT by goldstategop
When it comes to a judiciary run amok, the other two branches of government are in a persistent vegetative state.
Terri Schiavo died today. Her fate was sealed by an adulterous mate, a homicidal judiciary and conservative politicians who could pass for eunuchs.
Whenever a judge – almost any judge, anywhere – issues an edict (however bizarre or detached from reality and the law), elected officials lose bladder control when contemplating the possibility of actually doing something about it.
In San Francisco earlier this month, California Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer, with a wave of his imperious hand, reversed a decision of 61.4% of the electorate.
Kramer struck down the state’s marriage law and redefined matrimony in California to include homosexual couples. In so doing, he also nullified a 2000 referendum, passed overwhelmingly by the voters, defining marriage a la Genesis.
Stripped of its legalese, Kramer’s reasoning came down to this: I think it’s a denial of equal protection for individuals whose unions are characterized by acts of sodomy not to be able to wed. Therefore, bleep you -- state voters, Judeo-Christian morality and the obvious meaning of words (like “marriage” and “family”).
This particular exercise in judicial authoritarianism is being appealed.
At least no one is dying (as yet) from Kramer’s decision. The same can not be said in the Terri Schiavo case.
The starvation death of Mrs, Schiavo was an exercise of a family’s right to privacy, judges tell us. Interesting.
The same mythical privacy right (alleged to be lurking in the First Amendment’s “penumbra”) which gives a woman the right to kill her unborn child, now gives a husband – claiming he’s fulfilling his wife’s wishes – the power to have his disabled spouse put to death in a way in which we don’t even kill dogs in this country.
Terri Schiavo wasn’t comatose. She didn’t need a respirator to breathe. If she was being “kept alive by artificial means,” so too is the dialysis patient, and the diabetic, who will die without regular injections of insulin.
Terri was conscious much of the time. She smiled and seemed to recognize her parents. She tried to form words. Experts testified that, with therapy, her condition could improve.
Dr. William Cheshire, an eminent neurologist employed by the state of Florida, believes Terri was misdiagnosed and that instead of being in a persistent vegetative state, she was in a state of minimal consciousness, and that she felt pain and visibly reacted to it.
But, in his omniscience, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer has ruled that Terri was a non-person kept alive with a feeding tube, and that, if she could communicate, she’d say: “Oh, please kill me. How I long for the excruciating experience of being starved to death over two weeks.”
The judicial demigod further determined that Terri’s parents (they who gave her life and valiantly fought to sustain it) should have no say in deciding Terri’s fate.
Instead, Greer ruled, the adulterous spouse (who prevented Terri from receiving therapy and who a nurse testified would lovingly inquire, “When is the bitch going to die?”) should speak in her behalf. (“That right, your honor, my wife repeatedly told me that if she was ever disabled – and I was living with another woman and stood to benefit financially from her demise – she’d want to die a slow and agonizing death.”)
The urge to play God isn’t limited to this Pinellas Court pipsqueak. The Florida Supreme Court, U.S District Court, 11th. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court all either concurred with Greer’s Auschwitz decision or refused to consider the case.
In the meantime, Republican politicians went through the motions. The Florida Legislature passed and Governor Jeb Bush signed Terri’s Law, providing for the protection of Mrs. Schiavo’s inalienable right to life. Greer and his colleagues declared the law unconstitutional.
Thereafter, Congress passed a special law giving federal courts the power to review the case independent of precedent. The federal courts declined. (Honor among tyrants?)
Congress even took the extraordinary step of issuing a subpoena for Terri, to keep the brain-damaged woman out of the clutches of her judicial executioners. Greer ruled that the Congress of the United States lacked the authority to thwart his will.
Then, throwing caution to the wind, Governor Bush went to Judge Greer and argued that he should be allowed to take Terri into protective custody, under a law giving a state agency the authority to intervene in behalf of a vulnerable adult “suffering from abuse or neglect that presents the risk of death or serious physical injury.”
Greer held the governor had no such power. (Now there’s a shocker!) Instead of sending state troopers to the hospice to rescue the starving woman – thus fulfilling his mandate – the twice-elected governor went, hat-in-hand, to the man who’s been doggedly trying to kill Terri, to ask for permission to save her life.
Even without statutory law, Governor Bush had the power to stop the horror.
The Florida Constitution provides: “All natural persons, male and female alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty … No person shall be deprived of any right because of … physical disability.”
As the state’s chief executive, with primary responsibility for enforcing its laws, Bush took an oath to “support, protect and defend” Florida’s Constitution. What part of that duty did he not understand?
In a test of wills, Bush failed. When attempting to stare down judicial autocrats -- legislators, governors and presidents almost always blink.
I know of only one man who didn’t – former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was willing to lose everything (except his integrity) for constitutional principle.
Known as the Ten Commandments Judge, Moore had the courage (in the face of successive Supreme Court misinterpretations of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause) to display a massive Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama Judiciary Building.
You can’t do that, Federal District Court Judge Myron Thompson squealed. Putting the Decalogue in a public place violates “separation of church and state” (words artfully inserted into the First Amendment, by successive liberal courts). Thompson’s assault on the Constitution was upheld by the 11th. Circuit Appeals Court. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?) On appeal, the Supreme Court let the judgment stand, but will soon rule on other Ten Commandments cases.
You can see why judges (who’ve assumed godlike powers) wouldn’t want God’s law – with its injunction against murder – publicly displayed. To do so would acknowledge that our legal system, our Constitution and our nation were established on the Creator’s covenant first enunciated at Sinai – just as the Founding Fathers said they were.
Judges prefer a relativistic universe, governed by their personal philosophies and whims, to one anchored in eternal rules of right and wrong.
When he refused to bow and grovel before the federal judiciary, Moore was suspended as Alabama’s chief justice. In November 2003, he was tried before a judicial ethics panel.
Moore’s position was elegant in its simplicity: I took an oath to defend the Alabama Constitution, which acknowledges God as the foundation of our laws. Therefore, as the state’s chief judicial officer, I am bound to affirm that truth, which I have done with my Ten Commandments statue. And, by the way, I’m not required to go along with the federal judiciary’s convenient misinterpretations of the Constitution.
Based on his intransigence here, Moore was removed from office.
If Jeb Bush had followed Roy Moore’s example, what exactly could Judge Greer have done? Held him in contempt (surely not in the same degree that most sane people hold Greer)? Sent Pinellas County deputies to arrest him?
It would have provoked a constitutional crisis, fainthearted conservatives wail. Good.
In case they haven’t noticed, we are in a constitutional crisis created by activist judges intent on mandating homosexual marriage (thereby deconstructing the American family), taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, abetting pornographers in flooding the country with filth, enshrining abortion-on-demand as the penultimate right, making Americans subject to foreign laws, and rewriting our history to transform America into one (secular) nation, under their heel.
To save the Constitution and representative government will take a thousand Roy Moores, all echoing the words of Thomas Jefferson (author of our nation’s founding document) “To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions (is) a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.” It has.
NATIONWIDE
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
ping
"The murderer was Greer and Scientology and Pinellas County."
The point of the article is the cowardly manner in which the Republicans have allowed themselves to be snookered and hosed by the Democrat-controlled judiciary, to the point that they have accepted the leftist view that judges' legal opinions are sacrosanct. This has left the executive and legislative bodies hamstrung and impotent to deal with the out-of-control judges usurpations of freedom. Republican subservience to the judiciary has allowed the will of the people to be effectively stymied. And you can't find a better (or worse) poster boy for this executive failure than Jeb Bush!
"The urge to play God isn’t limited to this Pinellas Court pipsqueak."
C'mon people.
The whole thing has been a tragedy. A terrible tragedy, but we have to go back and study our Constitution here. The whole point of that great document is to balance the three three branches of government. Judges aren't supposed to do the will of the people, they are supposed to uphold the constitution first, and lesser law second. A judge may rule badly, but to talk about the judicial branch as Mullahs? What are you thinking? Do you care about this country and this government of ours or do you just want it like it is in the movies? For 15 years judges have looked at this case carefully. Democrats and Republicans. Do we stampede over States Rights because we don't like this case? Do we Ignore the sanctity of Marriage because we heard that the Husband might have conflicts of interest? This. is. a. tragedy. It happens every DAY in this country but there are no cameras to record it. If we wanted to save everyone (and I do)... we will find we do not have the money to do it. My heart goes out to baby Star, the little girl who was taken off life support recently...OVER THE OBJECTIONS OF HER ENTIRE FAMILY. They did not have health insurance. This tragedy is part of life. We must let Terri Schiavo go.
NOTICE FROM THE TERRI SCHINDLER FOUNDATION
April 2, 2005
The volunteers with the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation join today in mourning with the Schindler family over the loss of their beloved daughter and sister. We firmly believe that justice was not realized in Terri's case and that her death represents both a waste of precious, human life and a tragic failing of one of America's vulnerable citizens.
Throughout this ordeal, the volunteer of Terri's Foundation have served as a tremendous public service to others by raising awareness of her situation and the dangerous precedent it presents.
People from all walks of life have stood with the Schindler family in their efforts to protect Terri Schiavo from a forced death of dehydration and starvation. Many pledged their time, thousands contacted lawmakers and countless individuals kept her story alive across the internet and in communities throughout the world.
In spite of their efforts, many join us now in grief at the loss of a precious person who has been so miserably failed by the system that should have protected her.
In her honor, we must continue our efforts.
Accountability must be demanded of the Judiciary. It is thought by many that guardianship laws of Florida have long been overlooked by the circuit judge presiding over Terri's case. If so, this judge must be held accountable for his actions.
It is also thought that Terri's case presents a dangerous case law that could allow deprivation deaths to be forced upon disabled, elderly and chronically ill individuals more easily. It is time to reexamine the laws so that adequate protections for our vulnerable members of society can be enacted.
Terri's story is not one of a family feud. Rather, it is one of how our system has failed to protect the members of our communities who need protection the most. We must take it upon ourselves to help educate society about the struggles of profoundly disabled people so that their lives and liberties are valued and so they are not made the victim of extreme prejudice.
In the coming weeks, the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation will present a course of action that addresses these issues. We do not seek to interfere in the personal choices of the individual. Rather, we seek to protect those who can fall victim to the whims of others and the hands of judges.
Please be certain to check back soon for information and details of how you can help. If you would like to be updated via email, please contact us here. Note: Your email address will not be shared with any third party.
On behalf of the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation, we thank all those who dedicated their time, their prayers and their lives to protecting the life and liberty of Terri. Our job is far from done.
http://www.terrisfight.org/now.html
"What are you thinking?"
I guess we're thinking that judges are out of control.
You seem to think that everything is hunky-dory.
"Do we Ignore the sanctity of Marriage because we heard that the Husband might have conflicts of interest?"
Ummm...HE ignored the sanctity of his own marriage. So, YES, the courts need to make some changes when there's a "conflict of interest" with the guardian or a conflict of interest with the Judge and Drs, for that matter.
There's no comparison to the baby Star case and this.
And I'd like you to prove that Terri's situation "happens every DAY in this country". I think that's a line of bs.
Money? Are you trying to argue that Terri's parents didn't have enough to continue caring for her? So, if they could prove that they had enough money, would that change your mind?
And just where does the starvation/dehyration angle of this fit into your "reasoning"?
""in his omniscience, Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer has ruled that Terri was a non-person kept alive with a feeding tube, and that, if she could communicate, she’d say: “Oh, please kill me. How I long for the excruciating experience of being starved to death over two weeks.” "
To coin the phrase, let them all be "Schiavo'd".
Cruel and unusual punishment -- despicable as it may be, France has enough problems!
I'm sorry but I am not willing to "let Terry Schiavo go".
For too long we have looked the other way. If we continue down the path you suggest, soon someone like you will be telling us that we must be willing to "let America go."
Where do we draw the line? I say we must stop this trend of falling down all over ourselves because some Judge somewhere ruled something stupid. We all snicker -- but if we are not careful, the snicker is going to turn into a ROAR.
What seems bizarre to me is why the population -- and the government continue to leave its testicles in the hands of the lesser of the three branches of government.
Ping.
God bless these people, even in their grief they see clearly. They are saying that Terri did not die in vain.
What Terri Schindler Schiavo accomplished, is only beginning to unfold.
Are you aware that people in countries where euthanasia is practiced and accepted, think that what the court ORDERED is barbaric?
Don't you at least see that there's something wrong with ORDERING her not to receive food & water ?
Diogenesis is right.....This is "Not a tragedy. It is an atrocity."
You said it. This is only the beginning.
[*Nicholson voice*] The sheeple can't handle the truth.
Sad fact is, they want to be sheeple.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.