Great minds, Apos.
I must have been typing the term “absolutist rhetoric” right around the time you were posting.
So, what are the culture of life leadership in congress doing now as a followup?
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11245895.htm
So despite all their denials, their original act was just pandering of the worse kind.
In all my time here, with an exception on discussions on media bias, I have always avoided posting links to Democratic Underground, this time, “The Top 10 Conservative Idiots” feature does deserve to use that insolent term:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/05/191.html
Special attention should be paid to the hack job CNN (idiot #7) did with a poll on Schiavo. Liberal media, my ass!
“Heroic” measures did used to have a more nearly objective definition when medical technology was, itself, more primitive. I opened my post with a declaration that I believe that their current understanding is in error. But just as I disagree with the shrill claims of “murder” emanating from the supporters of the Schindlers’ position, I disagree with the cry of “hypocrisy” arising in this thread.
As to the position of American Fundamentalist Christians, I was actually unaware that the Schindlers were Catholic. I mentioned Pope Pius’s statement only to demonstrate that the principles being invoked were not recent ad hoc claims and that they have a history. (It should also be noted that after many years of fulminating against the papacy, the Southern Baptists reached a modicum of rapprochement with Catholic theology in a public statement issued nearly ten years ago. I am sure that there are still many pulpits from which condemnations of the “whore of Rome” are issued, but the organizing body has been moving toward a more ecumenical position for a number of years.)
Well, I have never seen either of them demonstrate a capacity to articulate a rational position on any other topic, so why do you hold them to this standard on this one?
The treatments removed (or not chosen) for Mr. Schindler’s father and Brother Michael fell into the category previously defined as “heroic.” One can argue that medical science has moved the boundaries away from the 1950s definitions, (and I would argue the same way), but the lines that these people have followed are consistent with the beliefs they hold with their understanding of medical technology. I have no problem with criticising them for failing to keep up with the guidelines of moral theology as it comments on medical technology in 2005. I simply do not believe that it is legitimate to criticize them as hypocrites by re-writing history in a way that changes the actions they actually sanctioned while igfnoring the principles that they actually followed.
I don’t agree Tomndebb.
As a matter of principle, if someone does something but says others shouldn’t do that thing they are a hypocrite. And in my eyes they will remain a hypocrite until they come up with a substantial difference between what they did and what they say others shouldn’t do.
Letting people off the hook of hypocrisy because they come up with a tissue paper thin nonsense distinction (even if they believe it) is letting them off too lightly in my book.
Particularly when you are the one making up fine distinctions for them, while they mouth simple absolute rhetoric that covers both what they did and what they say others shouldn’t do.
It is not a tissue thin distinction. It is an actual issue that has been debated with some vehemence among medical ethicists and moral theologians for many years. The fact that you have chosen to lump the actions into one single category is your right, but it is an error to assert that your lumping is categorically true and to then pretend that they are manipulating their beliefs.
tomndebb, you are simply ignoring the fact that the rhetoric employed by these people has not made any of these distinctions: nothing about any distinction between heroic or non-heroic. It brushed over such subtle arguments entirely. It is therefore quite appropriate to level a charge of hypocrisy.
As long as we’re pitting moroninc vultures exploiting Terri Schiavo, can I also nominate talk-radio nutjob Hal Turner?
A nutjob and a bigot! Gotta love these “traditional values”…
That’s real rich. He is calling for armed attacks and killing, in order to preserve the sanctity of life? I bet the police guarding Schiavo right now, in support of the court ruling, would have “a little something” to say about that if Turner’s Marauders show up.
Really? You can point to the statements made by any of the pilloried people in this thread where they equated removing a feeding tube with removing someone from a vent?
The subtle arguments have been made long ago distinguishing between the removal of breathing support and the removal of food and the distinction that made it to the public consciousness over 20 years ago was that vents might be heroic but that food and water are not. They are not making subtle arguments because in their mind a bright line has already been drawn. The most that you can really accuse them of in this case is that they are (typically) playing sound bites for the people who have already accepted those arguments.
I think you can make a case for claiming Bush is a hypocrite, since he signed into law the identical practice while he was governor of Texas. Delay can be criticized as general scum, but unless you have found him equating the two actions, the charge of hypocrisy is simply one that you are inventing because you dislike him. Similarly, the Schindlers can be accused (not necessarily convicted) of either being too emotionally involved or too interested in Mike Schiavo’s money, but unless you can find where they equated the removal of a vent with the removal of a feeding tube in some earlier iteration, then you are simply imposing your refusal to make a distinction on them while ignoring the fact that that in their mind the distinction was already made (correctly or incorrectly) over 20 years ago.
I have not actually seen anyone on either side of this debate make “subtle” arguments when the TV cameras come out. It is all sound bites.
I still disagree that DeLay’s actions are not hypocritical. The line between “heroic” and “non-heroic” medical measures doesn’t matter in this instance, if deciding to remove a ventilator and deciding to remove a feeding tube are both the prerogative of the next of kin.
16 years ago, DeLay and his family weighed the likelihood of his injured father’s recovery and chose to end life-sustaining medical treatment, as was their legal right. I suspect that if someone who didn’t know the particulars of the case had wanted to stick their nose in the DeLay family’s business, they could have found some quack who would say his father had a chance of coming out of his coma, and taken the issue to Congress to argue that life-sustaining treatment must continue. Obviously, nobody did.
Last week he insisted that Terri is lucid (proving that he either didn’t have a clue about the particulars of the case, or didn’t care) and that Michael Schiavo, who has also weighed the likelihood of his wife’s recovery and has chosen to end life-sustaining medical treatment, should not have the right to do so, despite his legal right and despite the court ruling that her life-sustaining medical treatment should be allowed to end.
DeLay and his family did not “err on the side of life.” He is now insisting that those treating Terri must “err on the side of life.” His past actions do not match his current rhetoric.
When you say he’s not a hypocrite because in his mind, there’s a sharp difference between removing a ventilator and removing a feeding tube, you’re arguing that he’s not a hypocrite because he doesn’t believe he is a hypocrite. I don’t think that’s how it works.
That’s not the point. The point is they have made blanket statements about sanctity of life. They haven’t said “except if it’s removing a vent, then it’s OK”.
Crap. They are not making subtle arguments because they wouldn’t be as effective (albeit that making subtle arguments might allow them to avoid being hypocrites).
“TF has an absolute right to life” and “MF is a murderer”
“TF has a right to life because we can keep her alive with a feeding tube, though if we could only keep her alive with a vent then she wouldn’t have a right to life” and “MF is a murderer because he wants to withdraw assisted feeding, although if he wanted to withdraw assisted breathing he wouldn’t be”.
Not quite as punchy, huh?
There is no need to, because their rhetoric has never made such fine or specific distinctions, and that’s exactly the point.
His father had much higher brain function than Schiavo. Did he and his family err on the side of life? Nope: death and lawsuit (another hypocrisy).
Which is precisely the issue. Live by the sword, die by it.
OK. Now I get it. This is just dueling sound bites.
No, dueling soundbites would involve both sides using soundbites. Apos is not using soundbites, he is just pointing out the consequences for the “Culture of Life” people of their own duelling weapon choice.
At the very least, this case will serve as a lesson to us all to have our loved one’s aware of our wishes via living wills and durable powers of attorney.
And let’s certainly not leave out this shining example of the “Culture Of Life” who has been arrested for putting a price on the head of Mr. Schiavo and also on the judge who ordered the feeding tube removed.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/25/arrest.schiavo/index.html
The family has a right to their opinion and I sympathize with them deeply (although I am with Mr. Schiavo on this one). The people who are using this to push their political agenda and are riding a tragedy like the Grand Marshall on a Rose Bowl float make me sick.
And here’s another defender of the Culture Of Life, threatening to kill Michael Schiavo’s sister-in-law and her family if (when) Terry Schiavo passes on.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/29/schiavo.threats/index.html
I understand that this doesn’t represent the majority of the people who are on the Schindlers’ side of this argument but cases like this really seem to bring the death-threatening wingnuts out of the woodwork and an awful lot of them seem to be on the “Culture Of Life” side.
You know, Randall Terry better not bitch about how Michael Schiavo has a GF and two kids on the side; Terry himself dumped his wife of nineteen years for somebody who’s a couple years older than the son he disowned for being gay.
Has anybody seen the abrupt reversal by Hal Turner, upon discovering that Terri was born Jewish and converted—I guess—to Catholocism?
These guys are just hypocrites all over.
Psssst! Message 27!
Thanks, rjung. How did I miss that? And topic? They’re scumbags. Terry, especially.