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 I didn’t want to write a column regarding the Terry Schiavo case because I was going to simply insert it into a Sports Rap. However, I remembered that I had committed not to mix politics with sports and then that led me to write an entire column on what is a vital, yet embarrassing, subject. I hold to the belief that this devastating tragedy has wrongly become part of the public domain. Bush and his gang must be out of their minds for interfering with what is a most personal situation. I’d like to begin with one question to ask the Shrub:  Sheer hypocrisy! If you don’t know how I feel about The Shrub then you must have been living in a cave for at least the past year. The hypocritical and convoluted view towards life that is possessed by his ilk is a sheer embarrassment. Where is the compassion one should have to be the leader of our country? Alternatively, is strutting around in a macho way at a feeble attempt to portray toughness what we, as a people, are looking for?  Still, nothing compares to the pathetic behavior of Republican opportunists like Dennis Hastert, Bill Frist and certainly the shady Tom DeLay. I respect someone who’s a Conservative, but when one is crooked, and a Bible thumping right-winger, I have real problems. Please keep in mind that not a single one of them has ever been in the same room with Terry Schiavo. Yet, they have the audacity to make decisions about her?  I’m not excusing the Democrats’ behavior during this fiasco at all. To sit by quietly when someone should open up and attack the lunatics on the other side is inexcusable. You have to ask whether we have appropriate leadership on either side of our political spectrum.  What is very confusing is the way this Administration, led by Bush and Cheney, have distorted age-old Conservative values. The main theme of the Conservative GOP has always been smaller government that stays out of an individual’s life and business and runs the country in a financially competent manner. This gang in the White House seems intent on reshaping the lifestyles and beliefs of every American while running up a deficit that our grandchildren will have to find a way to pay. A scary thought especially 21 years after the subject of the classic work by George Orwell. “1984.”  I think I’m too much of a romantic to like what might be the result of all this. Now we have all these so-called “experts” advising us to all get a living will. Specifically check out the cartoon below on the left. I couldn’t have said it better and salute Mr. Plante for creating something very special.   The problem is that every human being should be allowed to pass on with at least some degree of dignity. In the Jewish religion, the law is that one can tell doctors not to put them on life support if it looks like all hope is lost. However, the law also says that if one is put on life support, one cannot be taken off. Obviously, this addresses a mistake made like when a nurse puts the patient on life support in the heat of the moment. Do I believe this should be so? I can’t because of two incidents I more than witnessed: • Having an older man beg me to remove the tubes from his wife so she would no longer suffer from the cancer that had spread and was ravaging her body, and, • Watching an older Rabbi sit at the bedside of his comatose wife, with no hope, and just have it eat him away as he was no longer a young man.  We are left with the simple question of what we’ve become as a people. Do we really believe in the laws that are at the core of our education and upbringing? Do we believe in freedom of speech, press, assembly, and most of all, in “live and let live?” Is there any decency left in those who want to foist their beliefs on the rest of us? Much of this is due to the pseudo-Puritanism that has afflicted this country for ages. It was brilliantly exhibited in Dalton Trumbo’s novel of many years ago called, “Johnny Got His Gun.” The focal point of the story was a soldier who had survived a battle during the First World War but had injuries that robbed him of practically everything; arms, legs, face (including his mouth), and any ability to communicate with anyone. The only thing this soldier wanted was to die. Instead, they were keeping him alive based on the lofty baloney regarding the sanctity of life. The point was that it was acceptable to send this kid off to be permanently maimed: yet it wasn’t okay to just let him die. Many don’t realize how self-centered that approach is and it’s at the core of many decisions made by those in power. I have a more insidious view of what’s happening and it is most clearly exhibited in the cartoon below. Sometimes, I say to myself that the American people are getting what they asked for and now they’re going to have to pay a terrible price. Problem is that I’m one of those Americans and a big believer in what the late Jimmy Valvano said, “Never give up! Never give up!”  I’m not a big fan of Bill O’Reilly, of FOX News, as I believe there are too many times when he’s a bully and a blowhard. He had his own solution to this problem this week and it was that Terry’s husband, Michael, should give the responsibility for Terry’s care over to her parents. This way, O’Reilly says, Michael can console himself with the knowledge that he did everything he could to fulfill his wife’s wishes. Sounds simple enough? Sounds simple but has a major flaw. Does it occur to him that Michael made a commitment to his beloved that he wouldn’t allow her to live life out as a vegetable? He can give her over to her mom and dad but he would be betraying her wishes. Doesn’t O’Reilly understand that Michael certainly finds it painful in fulfilling his wife’s wishes? Finally, let’s go back to the original question:  © Copyright BravesBeat Network, BravesBeat.com, and Michael M. Rapaport |
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