<p>1) the issue of excess spending was indeed a tangent that revolved around a charge of hypocrisy that initially came up as a political jab against the Republican Congress. It just evolved from there.</p>
<p>2) You clearly have not been listening to the debate that is going on within Republican circles to make that claim. There is definitely no united front on this.</p>
<p>3) Like it or not, government is who you turn to when you feel that your loved one is going to be starved to death.</p>
<p>4) I feel badly for the family as well - and maybe even for the husband, but some of the quotes I have heard from some of Terri’s nurses make me question whether I should feel sorry for him.</p>
<p>Typically, some of the most insightful and honest commentary on this subject comes from the lawyers/professors running the leading center-right blogs. They even have the nerve to uniformly criticize my beloved Republican congress, for inserting itself into the process. When someone among the aging hippie contingent on this thread posts something similarly candid and thoughtful, I’ll be interested…</p>
<p>Whew! You could light up the Empire State Building with the sparks flying on this thread today! However, in all fairness, it does look like fundingfather took a chillpill before his last few posts. The burners seem like they are only on medium simmer now, rather than high boil… oops, until post # 141. Pill must be wearing off… </p>
<p>I am still perplexed, by the notion that the people who spend $$ on nice restaurants must be “liberals”. Where in tarnation did you get that idea??? I agree with SBmom-- outside of Hollywood, I wouldn’t assume that the people with disposable income are the “liberals”. After all, they say you become conservative when you have something to conserve. And as SBmom said, those terrible, nasty Hollywood liberals opened their wallets to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of thousands (even millions) of dollars to help the tsunami victims, the 9/11 victims, HIV patients, etc. I am not saying that Conservatives haven’t given too, but I have to agree with SBmom again-- how many of their contributions seem to be geared more towards fostering their personal agendas or the opportunity for a tax write-off ? (My flippant sarcasm, not hers). </p>
<p>Sweeping generalizations are frequently unfounded. I am sure mine are too. If I note that citigirlsmom and SBmom and alwaysamom sound like they are on the “left” of this argument, and fundingfather is on the right, should I make generalizations about the moms and dads on this forum? Of course not- that would be silly, caused by selecting only isolated parts of the information available here. Exactly my point. We can all pull information that supports our opinions. But can we just politely agree to disagree? I liked it better when the biggest controversy was over the American Idol voting.</p>
<p>Does anyone find it the least bit ironic/sad/distasteful that no one has started a thread about the student in Minnesota who killed himself and 9 others. Gee, he picked a bad day to kill his grandfather and all the others… He’s only second page news…</p>
<p>Driver - . . .“center-right” blogs. . .nice try on that one. All three of them would choke on that term before applying it to their efforts. Almost, but not quite as good as FundingFather’s attempt to blame Texas Democrats for Bush signing the Texas legislation.</p>
<p>alwaysamam-
You are right about the shooting thread. I completely overlooked it. It has a whopping 2 posts. This thread has 147, not to mention the other Terry Schiavo thread that has pages of posts. I still think we have our priorities upside down.</p>
<p>I havent’ commented on the shooting because compared to the Terri Schiavo case that has been heard by 19? judges and has been going on for 15 years- there is little information about the case in minn.</p>
<p>This has started an interesting conversation with my H and I.
He has always maintained that he would not want to be kept alive if his life had deterioated to the point where he could not communicate or take care of himself, but it hadn’t occured to him ( ?) that the biggest effect would be on his family who could not let him go- until his heart had stopped beating. I have a daughter who spent her first two weeks of life on a ventilator- but if it had gone on for 15 years- and there was no communication between us- I would have said goodbye years ago
I feel it is cruel and inhumane to force a life to persist when it has stopped being human</p>
<p>I wasn’t going to post on this topic, but there was a segment on All Things Considered yesterday that was vary good. It was Father John Paris, Professor of Bioethics at Boston College discussing church teaching on the subject. The last 30 seconds are best, when he discusses the death of his Great-Aunt and his Grandmother’s words. You can hear it at:</p>