Michael Schaivo has organized a PAC “to restore personal freedoms and individual rights”. Is this turnabout fair play?
So the proper response is to use Terri Schiavo’s deeply personal family tragedy in the creation of a PAC in order to achieve political gain?
At the time, overwhelming public opinion was that Congress should keep their collective nose out of these sorts of personal issues. Boy, 2006 sure would be a good year to stir up that hornet’s nest again, wouldn’t it?. Could be a winner for Democrats, as long as they aren’t seen to have any connection with Michael.
Then I fail to see any hypocrisy here. Unless there’s some evidence that Michael Schiavo has something personal to gain from this PAC, other than the satisfaction of advocating a cause he believes in, then it seems to me that his position now is perfectly consistent with his position before Terry Schiavo’s death.
No. As Michael clearly says in his “Who We Are” section: (bolding mine)
He’s trying to educate the public so that if this issue – that of the sanctity of marriage and personal privacy – is as important to them as the lip service they give, they’ll know which representatives support or oppose those principals and hopefully make the right decision in the election booths come November.
More power to him.
My lameass representative didn’t even bother to show up. She got an appropriate letter from me at the time, and my vote will reflect my disdain for her unwillingness to stand up for my rights.
Often times, when an injustice is visited upon someone, they are motivated to work for change so that others do not suffer the same experience. It’s hardly hypocritical to do so.
Usually when people say “political gain,” they mean some kind of personal advancement, not the advancement of a cause.
Anyway, usually “political” and “partisan” are accusations lobbed at one’s opponents when they actually score some points. They translate to, “how dare they use the same strategies as we do, but more effectively!”
I think his point is that notwithstanding that public opinion, the pols didn’t keep their collective noses out of the matter, but went barrelling in, passing a law for one special case, encouraging repetitive litigation, and in the case of Jeb Bush, even considering attempts that the courts had already said were not within his authority. Mr. Schiavo seems to want to turn that overwhelming public opinion into an actual brake on the activities of politicians.
Sounds wonderful! Now how’s that make him a hypocrite again?
The way I read the fallout from the Schiavo case was that the public did not want the government interfering in this very personal decision. If Congress passed laws protecting people’s rights to make their own choices in these cases, I don’t think that counts as the kind of interference that so infuriated much of the country.
It isn’t hypocritical at all. The hypocrites are the politicians who were all for the “sanctity of life” in the Schiavo case, in order to play to their “base”.
Go Michael go, that’s my thought. At the moment we have a group of politicians–congressional Republicans and some state-level Republicans–who are absolutely determined to project government power into every aspects of every person’s private life. They have granted themselves the moral and legal right to make every decision that is normally considered private, and they have granted themselves the right to kill any person who opposes them. (Conservative activists tried to murder Michael Schiavo, remember?) This destruction of the personal freedom that’s the basis for all human happiness will continue until the Republicans are removed from power.
And now Republicans are beating up on Michael Schiavo for exploiting a personal tragedy for political gain? Why that’s the sort of extreme, outrageous and glaringly obvious hypocricy that one normally expects from … Republicans.
So he’s strapping on his guns–what would you do in his place? This is the first election since those chimpanzees who masquerade as legislators amused themselves smearing feces on the constitution.
Go Michael–fuck them up…In fact, I think I’ll send some money… Why don’t we all…
Well I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I wondered out loud of there might be some hint of hypocracy, and said it could backfire on Dems but I guess I should have added that I hope it does not. The thrust of my OP was simply to bring up the existance of the PAC for discussion.
It is commonplace in America for victims of an injustice or personal tragedy to become active in politics so that future potential victims of the same injustice or tragedy do not suffer the same fate. Recent examples include the families of 9/11 victims and Cindy Sheehan.
Whether or not one agrees with the goals of such persons, I would say that the impulse to transform personal injury into civic involvement and push for reform is to be admired.