"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

schiavo
March 24, 2005 - 8:40 am

my views:

the is NOT an area the government should be involved in. talk about encroachment into the lives of the citizens it's supposed to govern.. and from the last poll, some 70% of americans agree with me.

now, i do understand the basic argument of the government/pro-life side. every life is sacred and everthing humanly possible must be done to keep a person alive -- that's kinda the idea in a nutshell.

that's fine and dandy if that's how YOU feel, it's not the governments place to mandate it. we already have DNR rules, thankfully so.

for the religious side, life is _the_ gift we were given from god. everything else is really secondary to that.. since if we didn't have life, we'd not have reason and freewill. right? but, we do have those secondary gifts and it can be said that reason and freewill are two things we like to think differeniates us from other critters on this planet.

i see not one thing wrong with useing my god-given gifts to live my life as i see fit -- in fact, that's what we are supposed to do.

nothing in the bible says anything regarding "thou shalt stay alive at all costs and thou shalt make sure others stay alive at all costs". no, the bible talks about doing unto others what has been done to you.. it talks about tolerance.

anyway, what i'm basically trying to say is that i have to believe the husband. he's the living spouse and references conversations he's had with his wife pre-accident. i've read some of the recent articles and they don't say how long she's been in this state, but i believe it's 15 years. personally, i feel he should have respected those wishes and pulled the plug a long time ago. but here we are today.

people other than her family trying to dictate her fate.

i can understand the anguish her parents are in. childern are not supposed to die first.

in my personal life, my dad is probably soon to be in the hospital. he's probably soon to be kept alive through machines. this is a fact -- unless an event like a heart attack (another one) or a stroke (another one) kills him first. i know he doesn't want to be kept alive via machines. i don't consider that alive myself.

i see no reason to fear death. it's natural. if you think a person has lived a good life, be happy for them that they are dead and off in whatever heaven they imagine exists.

death is not a bad thing. especially if you are religoius, death is going home to god -- unless of course you're honest to say someone went to hell, in which case.. yes, death can be a bad thing. how a person days can be the bad thing..

repeat after me: death is natural. death is good. death is nothing more than the reverse of birth. death was created by god, just like birth was.

what really burns me about this situatio is letting her starve to death it's fucking insane. we give criminals on death row a faster, less tramatic death. why not give her an injection? it's good enough for a murder, why not for her?

hell, if you pro-death penalty, why not argue that we just let the crimnals starve to death? toss em all in deep ass pit, let them fight amoungst themselves and die however it happens? why not just lock them in a metal coffin and bury them alive?

to me, the two henious "crimes" being committed are the government trying to wiggle its nasty ass fingers into this case and to create laws and rules about things it has not business being involved in.. and the idea of her just starving to death over days.

if a person doesn't want to be kept alive, that is that person's wishes -- above what ever you feel personally, their wishes in this situation should be respected.

or, do you think you have the right to impune my god given freewill?

sadly, because of this, everyone now needs to get a living will to spell out this kinda stuff. we make life to complicated. we put the focus on all the wrong places.

i say, let the schiavo's handle the shiavo's life. this isn't up for anyone else to decide. if we start to take away the rights and powers of the spouse, we reduce the meaning of marriage (which people fight so hard to "save" from homosexuals).. we reduce the meaning of freewill.. we increase the ability of others to dictate how we live and what we do.. we become less the land of the free and more than land of the sheep.

by we, i mean society in general. i don't doubt lots of people have their heads on straight, but as group.. we are pretty fucked up.

i don't deny it's one hell of a situation. but there's a reason why we have power of attorny and court appointed review people. they agree on her situation and that's that.

senators have NOTHING better to do? the president has NOTHING better to do? hell, if life is so sacred and should be kept alive at all costs... why do we go to war? if life is really what matters, why did we fight the revolution?