Real World Event Discussions

PRAY FOR TERRI SCHIAVO

POSTED BY: Conscience
UPDATED: Sunday, June 19, 2005 02:31
VIEWED: 17528
PAGE 4 of 11

RUE

Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:41 AM

Quote:
But the fact remains that that film clip, the length of which is irrelevant, demonstrates that Shiavo has been able to react to her environment.

While visually following a balloon can be a voluntary action, tracking can also be a mindless reflex.
The part of her brain that knows, remembers, feels, and plans is gone.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by xenocide:
Finn,

A) The plural is strawmen.
B) Connor Said:
Quote:
HEY XENO- This is my last response to you jerky-

Purposefully Starving Someone to Death who can't feed themselves or fend for themselves is MURDER!!! No fucking ifs ands or buts. Its capital punishment of the innocent, a horrific loophole in the whole assisted suicide/euthanasia laws.

If you lay aside the connotations in connor's language then you get: Withholding aid from someone who cannot get that aid through their own means is murder. Is this a strawman? I tend to think of it as using neutral language to discuss a concept in ethics. If that makes me a "fucknut" so be it.

The quote above from Connor’s post was made after your strawman argument. So we are to believe that you wrote a response to a comment that had not yet been made? More likely however, Connor’s use of murder to describe the situation is in response to your strawman, and not the impetus of it, and your use of a quote that you could not possibly have known about to justify a wholly fallacious argument is disingenuous.

But it doesn’t change anything. While Connor may believe that the state mandating an obligation to neglect an invalid until they die is tantamount to murder, he did not say that withholding voluntary aid is murder. So even if we assume you have some capacity to foretell the future, your assessment of both Connor’s and my arguments is clearly flawed.

Quote:
Originally posted by xenocide:
C) Finn, I like talking to you because usually you try to keep rationality in the conversation but for you to accuse me, in this case, of constructing a strawman is utter fuckin' hypocrisy. Cases in point from your own initial post:

Quote:
...then we are now living in a state where retarded people can be put to death simply based on our assessment of how much of their brain is functional?
Strawman argument and an inappropriate analogy. Retarded (to use your adjective) people can survive without any assistance whatsoever. Terri will die without being force fed.

Actually there are severely retarded people who cannot take care of themselves without assistance from other people. A severely retarded person may starve to death simply for an inability to understand how to acquire food. Many severely retarded people need constant attention. Maybe you really don’t understand the degree to which some people suffer mental retardation, or perhaps more likely, it’s just willful ignorance in the face of ideas you would rather not consider, because they make your support for killing a women whom many people obviously care for, less acceptable.

Quote:
Originally posted by xenocide:

Quote:
the plant in my living room sitting by the back door is in a persistent vegetative state, yet there is no law preventing me from giving it water. In fact, if I were to not give it water and allow it do die, some people would claim that as evidence of irresponsibility based on neglect.
Strawman and ridiculous analogy. Furthermore if you killed your plant, for which your were responsible, no one would care.

So because people care for Mrs. Schiavo, it is more acceptable to kill her?

And my analogy is actually quite accurate, if one assumes that Mrs. Schiavo has no ability to think. If she is indeed nothing more then an involuntary muscle, then what does it matter whether someone feeds her or not? If you believe that she is already dead, why are you so intent on killing a woman for whom many people have expressed a desire to keep alive? The fact is that my plant will not die because the state is not intervening and making law to force me not to water it. If my plant and Mrs. Schiavo have an equivalent degree of mental capacity, then at least my plant is not being forced to starve, which is right Mrs. Schiavo does not have.

Quote:
Originally posted by xenocide:

Quote:
We should not be in the practice of killing people based on heresay.

Hearsay? Or rul

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FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, March 24, 2005 1:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
But the fact remains that that film clip, the length of which is irrelevant, demonstrates that Shiavo has been able to react to her environment.

While visually following a balloon can be a voluntary action, tracking can also be a mindless reflex.
The part of her brain that knows, remembers, feels, and plans is gone.

Based on what? A CT scan? CT scans don’t have a great deal of resolution, and there are many neurologists who believe that that assessment cannot be made without the greater resolution provided by an MRI or PET scan. So a fuzzy CT scan or a quite clear images of Mrs. Schiavo clearly responding to her environment? We can’t be sure either way, so which side do you want to err on?

XENOCIDE

Thursday, March 24, 2005 3:30 PM

Apologies for the long post.

Finn!

This is why I love discussing with you. (Please understand that for a few more moments I will speak with no sarcasm.) You help me get clear on what I really think. I'm a spaz, and though I generally disagree with you, you often lend some much needed clarity to my thinking.

I should have quoted from an earlier post of Connor's:

Quote:
The guy's been trying to whack her from the day he recieved his settlement check (even though he claimed he would see to it she got all the proper care)....

...I don't buy the whole "She wouldn't want to live this way" Bullshit either. ...

...As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't in writing then you shouldn't be able to MURDER someone, ESPECIALLY if there is someone who wants to care for that person....
...According to Signym "IT'S NOT OK" to whack or interrogate terrorist bastards who kill people (because we may humiliate them or further anger them) but it's ok to starve someone to death based on SOMEONE ELSES word even though there were NO OTHER MOTHER F'ing witnesses!!!!!

Your last post helped me understand Connor's point better, though I still (clairvoyantly) believe that he believes that withholding aid is tantamount to murder(note emphasis on 'especially.')

So let me see if I understand your basic poition. It seems to me that you and Connor believe that a judge should not be allowed to enforce a next of kins decision to execute the expressed wishes of his incapacitated spouse?

In your case you seem to believe that this might be allowable if the wishes of the incapacitated party where written and witnessed.

In Connor's case (and this is based on my understanding of his vehement connotative language and his various emaphases, but especially his emphasis on 'especially') that cutting of life support without express permission of the incapacitated party is tantamount to murder and should never be allowed?

It seems to me that you view the judge's enforcement of next of kin's decision as immoral government intervention.

I feel that government intervention to stop next of kin's decision would be immoral. I feel that Terri's family has had their day in court. They were unable to convince a number of courts that they had a right to decide what Terri would have wanted when her husband said otherwise. I prefer to have a judge be trier of fact than the legislature. My opinion.

Furthermore, I would rather have my spouse, who I have chosen, who knows me better than anyone, who I have contracted with, be my guardian during my incapacity. See I believe the whole one flesh thing that came with my vows. I certainly trust her over my parents. Who I did not choose. Who I don't discuss everything with. When I consider myself in Terri's position I pray that my wife would not be called a murderer, and be harassed and demonized for executing the wishes and desires that I expressed to her but was to foolish/lazy/ignorant to write down and have witnessed by a stranger. I would hope that no legislature would prevent her from letting me rest as I have asked. I hope that makes where I am coming from more clear.

My standpoint is based in what I believe that government, maximally, should be; the enforcer of contracts. It seems to me that you and Connor believe that government should have another role. Am I correct in assuming this?

Also, thank you for making me turn my eyes back to one of Connor's posts that I was reacting to in my posts and which helped clarify (for me) the
true disagreement:

Quote:
I wonder how many people would cry out in anger and dismay from the liberal douchebag wing if we were to STARVE TO DEATH an animal, because "THEIR OWNER" said that the animal wouldn't want to live that way.

I personally would cry out in this case, but not because of the owner's decision in the death of the dog, but because the method is cruel. Maybe it's just an overdose of steinbeck at an early age, but I think you do need to 'kill your own dogs.' George, in the end, took care of Lenny mer

JASONZZZ

Thursday, March 24, 2005 6:09 PM

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JASONZZZ

Thursday, March 24, 2005 6:45 PM

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XENOCIDE

Thursday, March 24, 2005 7:58 PM

Ms. Noonan is interesting, as always. But as always her faith makes her a creature who is so strange to me that we can hardly even communicate.

Quote:
God made the world or he didn't.

God made you or he didn't.

If he did, your little human life is, and has been, touched by the divine. If this is true, it would be true of all humans, not only some. And so--again, if it is true--each human life is precious, of infinite value, worthy of great respect.....

...Our children have been reared in the age of abortion, and are coming of age in a time when seemingly respectable people are enthusiastic for euthanasia. It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you "know" that--that human life is not so special after all--then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz. Today that road runs through Pinellas Park, Fla.

She is in my mind a brilliant master of words. But she fails to understand those who don't share her faith because she would rather not understand them.

For people with that kind of faith it is alway about LIFE. Period.

For those of us without that faith, who see suffering in far greater volume than miracles. Who see sorrow at least in equal part with joy. For us it will always be about quality of life. Period.

Why live a life of suffering if that struggle doesn't bring nirvana. If the only peace to be had is in the darkness at the end than there is no reward for suffering here on earth. Thats a christian vice, not a secular one.

For me personally, the quality of life question is the only one worth discussing, so when it's time for my tube to be pulled...please do pull it.

If we are in love with death then noonan, and a great many other christians, are in love with the suffering of others.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.

SIGMANUNKI

Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by xenocide:

If we are in love with death then noonan, and a great many other christians, are in love with the suffering of others.

Very well put.

----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

RUE

Thursday, March 24, 2005 11:49 PM

Quote:
Based on what? A CT scan? CT scans don’t have a great deal of resolution, and there are many neurologists who believe that that assessment cannot be made without the greater resolution provided by an MRI or PET scan.

Ultrasound (not applicable here) has resolution of about 7.5mm. CT has a resolution of about 1mm (though high resolution CT has a better resolution). MRI has sub-mm resolution.

However, MRI is not needed to see her gross loss of brain matter. (one scan available at the following link) http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/03/18/terri-schiavo-news/

SIGMANUNKI

Friday, March 25, 2005 12:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:

However, MRI is not needed to see her gross loss of brain matter. (one scan available at the following link) http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/03/18/terri-schiavo-news/

Thanks for this. Saves me the trouble of looking up exact details myself

----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show