" The federal law President Bush signed to prolong Terri Schiavo’s life in Florida appears to conflict with a Texas law he signed as governor, attorneys familiar with the legislation said Monday.
The 1999 Advance Directives Act in Texas allows for a patient’s surrogate to make end-of-life decisions and spells out how to proceed if a hospital or other health provider disagrees with a decision to maintain or halt life-sustaining treatment."
“I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him.” --Abraham Lincoln
It’s less the idea of whether one can be caught saying something they know to be otherwise, and more the fact that you catch such people consistently speaking without any real INTEREST in what the actual facts are. I wouldn’d characterize you or Bush as he former, but the latter? Certainly. Even if you admit a mistake, it won’t make any difference, because it wasn’t ever the facts of the case that were important in the first place. Facts are just things to haggle about in the meantime while the real work of politics is getting done.
Iran/Contra. Depends on what your definition of “is” is. I’d say that all three administrations had no problem assuming the majority of Americans are willingly uninformed, easily misled, and reactionary. The real pity is that all three were right.
And good post Shayna. I feel the same frustration.
It is beyond repugnant that you dare to make a declarative statement, “pointing something out” to another poster that you clearly have no fucking clue as to the veracity of. You are obviously doing nothing more than perpetuating intentional lies that are being spewed by your bretheren in an effort to villainize your opponents. If you were merely ignorant of the facts, then DON’T declare something as though you were in possession of them, ASK. Or take the time to LOOK IT UP. Asshole.
And since this is an even further hijack of Apos’s thread, I will refrain from furthering it, since I believe I’ve now made my point perfectly clear.
That’s all well and good, but when did good ol’ Abe become arbiter of the English language? A lie is a deliberate falsehood. I give you this from Merriam-Webster:
(bolding mine)
Main Entry: 3lie
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): lied; ly·ing /'lI-i[ng]/
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lEogan; akin to Old High German liogan to lie, Old Church Slavonic lugati
intransitive senses
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
transitive senses : to bring about by telling lies <lied his way out of trouble>
synonyms LIE, PREVARICATE, EQUIVOCATE, PALTER, FIB mean to tell an untruth. LIE is the blunt term, imputing dishonesty <lied about where he had been>. PREVARICATE softens the bluntness of LIE by implying quibbling or confusing the issue <during the hearings the witness did his best to prevaricate>. EQUIVOCATE implies using words having more than one sense so as to seem to say one thing but intend another <equivocated endlessly in an attempt to mislead her inquisitors>. PALTER implies making unreliable statements of fact or intention or insincere promises <a swindler paltering with his investors>. FIB applies to a telling of a trivial untruth <fibbed about the price of the new suit>.
I’m sure most of you will latch onto definition No. 2 and maintain that’s what I’ve done. My contention is that it means to comport oneself in such a way as to create a false or misleading impression…i.e, telling an untruth with actions rather than words. I will, of course, be open to arguments on the subject if anyone really wants to contend that making a simple mistaken comment is lying.
But you know, now, that this isn’t true. There have been many, on this board and IRL, that have impugned the man’s character without any thought to the horrible situation the man is in. If you read the cites, you have to come to the conclusion that he loved his wife, fought for her care (and spent every penny of the insurance settlement on her care) and came to the realization that his wife was never coming back to him. Now he wants to see that *her wishes * are carried out and move on with his life. Instead, his wife is a political football as well as a vegetable and he is a political punching bag.
I feel for the guy.
That’s exactly the sense in which he means it though. In this case, the root of the falsehood is presenting the appearance of knowledge where there is none. It’s not enough, in Lincoln’s definition, to simply be mistaken. Instead, speaking as if you knew something to be a fact when in fact you know that you have no actual knowledge of what you speak is the falsehood.
I suppose, in your case, you could beg off that you were misled. But then, given that I expect that you will continue to trust sources that misled you just the same regardless of their reliability, that’s not too impressive of an excuse either.
Regardless, this is a huge hijack. I suggest that you start a new thread entitled “Why I am not as big of a Tool as Some Think” where we can further discuss the issue.
My impression of the Shiavo situation regarding her wishes are based simply on the fact that I’ve encountered, previous to this thread, nothing to indicate her wishes were proven in regard to her wanting to die rather than be kept alive artificially. I haven’t swallowed anything by anybody, I simply hadn’t heard otherwise.
And as much as you would apparently like to be the arbiter of my posting and even pre-posting activity, you should know I will continue to post in the manner I wish. It has served me well 99.9% of the time around here.
Bitch!
Let’s get back on track here. Think that the nation stands against the Republicans on this? Well, now that the “stand up for what’s right even against pubic opinion” meme has had its play, it’s time to take that down a peg as well.
You see, by taking seriously both the legal definition of “life support” and the word of doctors over her parents, the ABC news poll biased the results:
Ah, so no financial reasons for what he’s doing. And the marital reasons are involved with love for his wife and the desire to respect her wishes come hell or high water.
I’m sure that’s what you meant, right?
Then you must not know how to read or something, because you would have to be deaf and blind to miss the blaring point that this whole legal battle has been about determining her intentions. From all the evidence presented, every single judge ruled that it was her wish to have to tube pulled.
Pull your fingers out of your ears you ignorant tool, and wake up to the truth.
But the rub, you see, is that I wasn’t misled; I had simply heard no different based on my scant exposure to the case. Okay, I’ve admitted I made the error I made based on that scant knowledge, and I’ve apologized. The result? Only more vituperation. Makes me wonder why I bothered.
On this we can agree. I shall bow out now.
(And on preview, you know, Worldie, I generally try to avoid getting into tussles with you because I think you’re a good guy and I know you experienced 9/11 in a very personal way. But if you keep coming after me the way you have been lately, I’m gonna have to quit playing nice. So stop it.) :mad:
Heh. and if the poll asked opinions about it assuming that a miracle will happen and she’d spring back to her feet, it would come out differently also.
I thought they had a better case than the post gives. For once over-simplification is on our side, let’s enjoy it.
And if the tube isn’t life support, then no one can object to it being removed, right?
The prosecution rests, m’lord.
Thanks for making me feel all shitty inside now. I’ll try and remember this feeling and be a bit more tactful the next time we disagree. I’ve been hyper cranky about this whole tube situation and I think it boiled over on you a bit. Accept my apologies.
Trying to get this back on topic, I think this whole ordeal will only bring the Repubs even better fortunes. I’ll wager the next step will be a battle of judicial nominations.
Too true. Time to use the same tactics. The GOP wants to put a Congressman between you and your wife/husband. Them people in Washington are in your bedroom. They don’t respect marriage.
You can’t debate ethics in a 30 second spot. And who cares about states rights. What we’re talking here is mates’ rights!
(Hey, I like the sound of that. 
)
Apos, I read that article today in the NY Post, I literally wanted to put my head through a wall. I too found the “feeding tube isn’t life support” comment to represent the zenith of stupidity.
The total irony of that article is that her whole tirade is towards the media is distorting the facts!
/head Asplodes
I hope this isn’t a hijack, but have you noticed how it’s pushed the Administration’s buying more “news reports” to feed us propagana right out of the news.
I do indeed. Thank you.
Imagine how they might have turned out if they had stated that Terri was capable of unassisted human-powered flight.
I certainly would be interested to see evidence or hear a recording of these assertions.