Is the "culture of life" a culture of hypocrisy?

Maintaining a culture of life requires a collective funding arrangement that sustains people who can't care for themselves. It's possible to be an anti-tax warrior. It's possible to be pro-life. But in the era of high-cost medical miracles, it's impossible to be both.

Several folks brought this up on the Schiavo thread; I thought it warranted a larger discussion.

Bush interrupted his vacation to sign a highly controversial law in an attempt to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.
But, he did not interrupt his vacation after the recent tsunami.
And, he did not commute death sentences during his tenure as the Governor of Texas.

Can someone reconcile these for me?



(Note: edited "pardon death-row inmates" to "commute death sentences." Roger had a good point about my inexact language.)

(Note: edited again to correct a spelling error in the subject line.)

Finn, I mentioned several other discrepancies. Care to address them?

Should all lives be preserved? Or just innocent lives? At what cost? Any cost?

Several folks brought this up on the Schiavo thread; I thought it warranted a larger discussion.
Bush interrupted his vacation to sign a highly controversial law in an attempt to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.
But, he did not interrupt his vacation after the recent tsunami.
And, he did not commute death sentences during his tenure as the Governor of Texas.

This "quandary" is so typical a construct.

First of all, and at its most basic consideration, there is certainly no requirement that Bush conform with your individual perspective of morality.

Secondly, any comparative between Terri Schiavo and a convicted murderer on Death Row is absurd.

Finally, insisting on some conformity between official positions on subjects so diverse as Schiavo and the Asian Tsunami reveals an entirely partisan attack plan.

You are playing on the inconsequential edges of an important societal issue. Not unexpected, but shameful, nevertheless.

George Bush is simply using the Schiavo case as a means to bolster his sagging approval rating. What he is doing is despicable.

DrewDad wrote:

Several folks brought this up on the Schiavo thread; I thought it warranted a larger discussion.
Bush interrupted his vacation to sign a highly controversial law in an attempt to block the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.
But, he did not interrupt his vacation after the recent tsunami.
And, he did not commute death sentences during his tenure as the Governor of Texas.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

This "quandary" is so typical a construct.

Construct or correlative realization?

Your point is?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

First of all, and at its most basic consideration, there is certainly no requirement that Bush conform with your individual perspective of morality.

Individual perspective of morality?
Surely you must see that elementary and "basic" consideration is of the same "type" as the perspective of morality that is being shoved down the throats of the American people by Bush.
Is it because he's President that he is entitled to special considerations?

Your point is?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Secondly, any comparative between Terri Schiavo and a convicted murderer on Death Row is absurd.

If you meant comparison...let me illustrate what has been addressed above: court decisions are generally accurate and generally just. However, there have been instances where death row inmates have been found innocent on all counts of charges even after having spent a great deal of time in lockdown.
Brandon9000 has gone to great lengths from here onward about the uncertainty and degree of subjectivity in a court's decisions. You'd have to have a whole lot of faith in the judicial system to believe it is infallible.

Your point is?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Finally, insisting on some conformity between official positions on subjects so diverse as Schiavo and the Asian Tsunami reveals an entirely partisan attack plan.

Culture of life lovers love life. Kind of a truism, but tragedies are, by their very nature, a loss of life.
You would hope that someone who loves life so much not only take the time out of his busy schedule to show up on an aircraft carrier with a turkey could parachute into South-East Asia or something with some rice and a blanket.

Your point is nonsensical.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

You are playing on the inconsequential edges of an important societal issue. Not unexpected, but shameful, nevertheless.

Playing on the inconsequential edges of an important societal issue?
What the hell is that supposed to mean?

That means that DrewDad, like so many other folks (such as yourself) have seized upon an issue of societal profundity, and dragged it down into their personal partisan gutter.

Bush has legislation flown out to him to save this women who has logged a decade and a half in a PVS, attempting to undermine the judicial courts who have blatantly opposed his moral bias on this issue but doesn't bat an eye at this?


Blah blah blah...(expletive deleted)

Wanna talk shameful?

Move beyond your irrational hatred for Bush and recognize that his involvement in this matter has been minimal.

Quote:

Move beyond your irrational hatred for Bush and recognize that his involvement in this matter has been minimal.

I would hardly call it "minimal" when the President flies back to DC from vacation to sign a bill passed in the middle of the night on a weekend when Congress is supposed to be on vacation. I would call it a highly visible and highly symbolic event. The President expressed an urgent need to address the issue by doing what he did. I can think of few instances where a President acted so quickly and so visibly to sign a bill.

You're a complete and utter waste of my time....

Brandon9000 wrote:

candidone1 wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

candidone1 wrote:

Culture of life huh?...How 'bout these folks?

Quote:

152 Executions while Bush was Governor

152 Claude Jones 12/07/2000
151 Daniel Hittle 12/06/2000
150 Garry Miller 12/05/2000.......

The fact that you think some murderers should be executed does not obligate you to also think that innocent people should also be executed. You are trying so hard to make something of nothing.

Brandon, I'll kindly refer you back to your outright and ad nauseum denial of the validity of the Schiavo outcome.
If you wish to discuss "something out of nothing" after that, I'd gladly entertain the dialogue, but until then, I respectfully ask that you hold yourself to the same standard you hold other a2k members.
That way you can't trivialize our attempts with a false sense of superiority.

The point you were making was illogical in implying that wanting some murderers executed was inconsistent with not wanting innocent people executed.

Well, you either cherish and value human life, or you don't....Like I said, you either value life, or you don't.

If you find the timing of the events so nefarious, perhaps you need to look, first, to the Florida courts, the Federal courts and poor Mrs Schivano.

That the immediacy of Mrs Schivano's situation impinged upon the President's vacation is hardly evidence of a Bushian urgency, but I doubt you will see your way clear to the rationality of the facts.

The depth of your Presidential scholarship is highly suspect to begin with, but irrelevant when the topic you address is predicated upon the length of time it might take a person to die from starvation and/or dehydration.

I will continue to stand on the side of those defending life for all Americans, including those with disabilities.

"He does not have any problems flying in to restore the feeding tube to Terri Schiavo. I'm sure if this happened in some school in Texas and a bunch of white kids were shot down, he would have been there too," Bellecourt said.