Apparently in regard to remarks I made on Catholic Answers Live, a reader writes:
I was deeply saddened to hear you adopt the terminology of the radical fundamentalists in the very tragic case of Terry Schiavo and refer to those who adopted a different position in this matter as murderers.
You apparently did not hear me correctly. I did not say that those who "adopt a different position in this matter" are murderers. I said that those who killed her committed an act whose moral character was murder.
This is in keeping with John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where he writes:
[L]aws which legitimize the direct killing of innocent human beings through abortion or euthanasia are in complete opposition to the inviolable right to life proper to every individual; they thus deny the equality of everyone before the law. It might be objected that such is not the case in euthanasia, when it is requested with full awareness by the person involved. But any State which made such a request [i.e., to be killed] legitimate and authorized it to be carried out would be legalizing a case of suicide-murder, contrary to the fundamental principles of absolute respect for life and of the protection of every innocent life [EV 72].
The reader continues:
There are very sincere people on the other side of this case who believe that Mrs. Schiavo would not want to have lived in a vegatative state for 15 years.
True, but the sincerity of people regarding their belief in what Terri may or may not have wanted has absolute nothing to do with whether the moral character of the act was murder. People might sincerely believe that innocent Person X wishes to be killed, but even if that is true, it does absolutely nothing whatsoever to change the fact that innocent Person X is murdered if killed, as the pope indicated in Evangelium Vitae
Nearly two dozen court judgements, including independent doctors (not those hired by the family) and the guardian ad litem assigned to this case, all agreed that Mrs. Schiavo’s condition would not change, that her cerebral cortex was "jello."
This passes credibility. Nobody has two dozen court judgments (which are not the same things as testimony by doctors) saying that Terri’s cerebral cortex was "jello." If you’re going to argue this point, please do not make clearly false, over-the-top claims.
Further, the problem has been that after the initial finding of fact courts have not been revisiting the merits of the case in a generalized fashion and thus multiplying number of court rulings does absolutely nothing to broaden the scope of the medical evidence regarding Terri’s condition.
Further, it appears that only one independently-appointed doctor actually examined Terri.
Finally, despite the clearly false claim that Terri’s cerebral cortex was "jello" (look at videos of the woman and listen to recordings of her!) it makes absolutely no difference whether her condition would "change" (for the positive) in the future. The reason is that you simply cannot kill someone in Terri’s condition.
Whether you agree with that position or not, how can you honestly lump those who held the view that Mrs. Schiavo would not want to live in this state, in the same catorgory as someone who willfully murders?
I didn’t. As noted previously, you apparently misheard me. I said that the moral character of the act of taking Terri’s life was murder.
There is a difference, sir, and I think you know that difference.
I do, sir, and that’s why I didn’t say it. There is cearly a difference between the act of believing that Terri would not want to live in this condition and the act of deliberately taking the life of an innocent person. Indeed, a person could genuinely believe that Terri would not want to live in the condition she was in and say, "Despite Terri’s wishes, we cannot deliberately and voluntarily kill an innocent person." The question of what Terri may or may not have wanted is a matter of historical fact (and one that has been dramatically spun in the media; Michael "suddenly" remembering after 7 years that Terri wouldn’t want to live in this state passes credibility), but the question of whether one can deliberately and voluntarily kill an innocent person is a moral question. The two are incommensurate.
In regard to the latter, John Paul II writes in Evangelium Vitae:
[B]y the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral [EV 57].
The reader continues:
Comments like these [i.e., that people who disagree are murderers] only add fuel to the fire and seek only to further polarize the sides in this very heart wrenching dispute.
I am not very much moved by lamentations regarding how "polarized" a situation has become when it involves a matter of fundamental moral principle. It is, of course, a bad thing when a situation involving moral principle becomes polarized, though the reason is not the polarization itself; the reason is that some people aren’t adhering to the correct moral principle.
I also have no sympathy for the proposition that we ought to compromise on moral principle for purposes of avoiding a "polarized" situation.
However, I can agree that individuals on the other side of this issue should not be called murderers, which is why I did not call them that. To do that would be to needlessly inflame the situation, and thus I confined myself to appraising the moral character of the act in line with the writings of John Paul II.
Have you read the guardian ad litem’s report? You can read it online.
Thank you, though you didn’t include a link to it. It is not going to have any bearing, though, on the question of whether one can deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person in order to cause the person to die.
Did you know that the parents, in court testimony, stated that if Terri’s limbs would have incurred gangrene that they supported amputation?
This has no bearing on whether you can deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person to death.
That if her heart failed, that they supported open-heart surgery?
Ditto.
That even if Terri had expressed a decision to die, they would still fight to keep her alive?
Ditto.
These are well-meaning parents whose love for their daughter, in my opinion, had reached a level of a selfish love.
It seems to me that they were simply clear on the principle that one cannot deliberately and voluntarily starve an innocent person to death. There’s nothing selfish about that. That’s simply a determination not to commit murder.
I am a Catholic. I believe removing the feeding tube was wrong.
In light of your previous remarks, these come as surprising revelations, particularly the latter.
However, I do not believe in calling people in this case murderers when I don’t know their hearts.
Ah. It again seems that you misheard me. I did not call people murderers. I said that the moral character of the act that they performed was one of murder. This means that, objectively speaking, what was done was murder–i.e., the deliberate and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.
This makes absolutely no determination regarding the hearts of others. For all I know, Michael Schiavo and Darth Greer and the whole gang of folks who participated in this murder may be such twisted individuals that they have absolutely no personal culpability for their actions in this matter, but that does not change the objective character of the act they performed.
I also don’t believe death is the worst thing in the world and that Terri is in a far better place today.
You are correct that death is not the worst thing in the world. It is, for example, better to die than to commit murder. As to whether Terri is in a far better place today, this may be the case and I certainly hope that it is the case. It is not, however, a thing on which we can be certain as we do not know with certainty the state of her soul. For one who was just a sentence previously advocating not presuming the state of others’ hearts, you should recognize that the same applies to Terri.
We should still pray for her.
Jimmy,
If you held the office of Florida Gov., would you have ignored the court injunction and done something to save Terri?
I’m very curious about what the moral law obliges in a situation like that. Was it a case of ‘unjust law is no law at all’?
And what about the alleged plans of militia groups to storm the hospice and kidnap Terri? Would that have been licit? Should it have been done?
Well said, Mr. Akin. Beautifully clear and ruthlessly sticking to the point: starving an innocent person to death is *wrong*, no matter how highfalutin the excuses given nor how personally icky you find the victim’s defenders. Thank you for never losing sight of that.
Nice job, Jimmy.
I am particularly distressed by the fact that spokespeople for the Catholic Church, or otherwise prominent Catholics (like a theologian on O’Reilly Factor last night) on television, keep saying things to the effect of, “The Catholic position on the matter is . . .” Don’t they realize that this kind of talk automatically turns off the vast majority of Americans, and even many Catholics?
Amongst ourselves it might do good to argue from divine law, but I understood that the Church’s teaching regarding this was a matter of NATURAL law as well, and I think that Terri’s supporters should have brought this aspect, the NATURAL LAW one, more to the fore. Because they didn’t, they made this who spectacle appear to be some rant from the “Christian right-wing,” rather than a mere matter of common sense and natural law.
Any thoughts?
Also, I’m still really confused about what is “ordinary” about an artificial feeding tube. It appears the Church is using real words in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t. What exactly is “ordinary/exrtraordinary” and how is the artifical tube “ordinary”? Are there some cases when such a tube isn’t ordinary?
Eric, does the word “artificial” have some special significance for you beyond the ordinary meaning of “man-made artifact,” i.e., a class of objects including spoons, forks, cups, straws, baby bottles, etc?
A feeding tube is man-made, yes, but there’s nothing “extraordinary” or unusual about feeding individuals who can’t feed themselves. Mankind has always done that to the best of our ability with infants, the very aged, and those otherwise incapacitated.
In a previous thread you wondered about the difference between a feeding tube and artificial ventilation. Feeding those who cannot feed themselves is a universal, ordinary, and generally obligatory behavior; breathing for those who cannot breathe for themselves is not.
Yes it was murder
Jimmy Akin answers a listener in regards to the moral character of what happened to Terri as being murder. He…
If I may give your reader the benefit of the doubt for the moment, perhaps he got the ‘murderers’ impression from your update to your ‘Terri Dies’ entry, http://www.jimmyakin.org/2005/03/terri_dies.html , in which you write, “The murderers said that people being starved to death drift off into a “peaceful coma.”
This does appear to be a little more ambiguous as to who you are calling ‘murderers.’
Of course, this does not negate any of your response in your current entry.
your statement that even if someone wants to be killed, killing him is still murder answered a lot of questions for me. thanks
Well-played, Jimmy! One thing that struck me:
<>
This sentence is structured so as to say that he/she DOESN’T believe that Terri is in a better place. That’s probably not what’s meant, but technically it’s unclear.
Come on Jimmy, don’t you know that this is a complex situation with a lot of nuances? Not everything is black and white you know, and there are clearly many shades of grey here. There are no easy answers.
Spoons are artificial, too.
It seems that a lot of media are stuck on whether or not Terri would have wanted to die and are not understanding that IT DOESN’T MATTER, IT’S STILL MURDER.
End italics.
There is an easy answer here. It’s “You don’t go starving healthy people to death, or making them die of thirst.” Just because somebody is disabled and a little less lively than you like, it doesn’t mean that person isn’t alive and healthy.
I have a disabled friend who has a Ph.D. and teaches college. Again and again, people keep saying behind her back that she’d be better off dead, or to her face that they wouldn’t want to live if they were like her. She — and I — would beg to differ. But if she didn’t have a good brain inside her body, if she couldn’t even move her arms instead of just having bad legs and a few less obvious problems — I would still beg to differ, and so would she. My friend is more than her brains or her ability to speak and write. She is more than her ability to move. She is not a thing to be disposed of whenever she becomes inconvenient. She is a human being, and that means she has worth.
Most folks would feel the same, no matter how profoundly disabled. Unless they’re having a particularly bad day. In which case they should be treated as people having a fit of suicidal depression, not as people pleading to be set free from “living corpses” or “brains made of jello”. Because, quite frankly, non-disabled people have fits of suicidal depression, too, and nobody says it’s okay for us to kill ourselves.
Not yet.
While I see and understand both positions regarding Terri Schiavo, one thing really stands out in my observation of current events.
Many of those who find Terri’s death and the circumstances that led to it to be unconscionable, at the same time they support President Bush’s war policies that have resluted in the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis. Many innocent civilians, women and children.
Wouldn’t it be nice if those who’ve spoken out against removing her feeding tube, would show the same concern for the thousands of innocent Iraqi’s being killed by the actions of President Bush?
Of course you know Jimmy that the same person who mis-understands what you’ve said, interpreting it to say that everyone who supported killing Terri was a murderer is the same type of person who is going to interpret your last paragraph to say that ‘Terri is in Hell’.
Ugh.
How did I italicize that? I didn’t mean to and I don’t even know HOW to italicize (meaning, I’m computer illiterate).
Bob!
I couldn’t help but notice that you posed EXACTLY THE SAME COMMENT DOWN TO THE INDIVIDUAL WORDS over on Jeff Miller’s blog.
Is this comment something you’re going around and pasting on every pro-life blog that discusses the Terri situation? Is it your own personal effort to exploit Terri’s death for purposes of advancing your views on the Iraqi war?
Jimmy, if you happen to read this . . . would it be correct to use 2 Samuel 1:1-16 to support the fact that to hasten the death of another person, even at that person’s request (in this case Saul’s), is murder? David had the Amal’ekite who killed Saul killed because he’d slain the Lord’s anointed. This would seem to show that Saul’s request, made in his anguish, & the Amal’ekite’s decision to kill Saul, were not the correct responses in the eyes of the Lord & that it’s applicable to us today. Would that be safe to say? Most translations use the word “anguish” or “agony” for Saul’s condition (one I found says he’s in the “throes of death” but I suspect that’s interpretive) & I know that this is just one more example of Saul not trusting in the Lord, which is one reason David was anointed in his place but I’m unsure if the passage, in some sense – moral, allegorical, or anagogical – supports allowing life to continue to natural death.
Anna’s statement brought this to mind!
And, in response to Eric’s question above, I’d say that there are cases in which a ventilator is ordinary care! If an otherwise perfectly healthy individual has been placed in the hospital with pneumonia & needs a ventilator to breathe for them in the short term until the pneumonia is cured, I’d say that’s ordinary treatment, indeed obligatory, & not artificial, extraordinary, or *heroic* sort of care. It’s just what should be done in that instance as dictated by the condition of the patient.
But I can’t think of an instance when a feeding tube, which provides basic sustenance, would ever be – ethically, at least – considered extraordinary or heroic care.
>at the same time they support President Bush’s war policies that have resluted in the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis. Many innocent civilians, women and children.
Bob, are you serious? Please show me _evidence_ regarding this statement. And don’t tell me that because the MSM constantly iterates and reiterates this that it must be true.
So let me get this straight. If you support a war against tyrants, and it happens to result in some civilian deaths while preventing millions of others (not to mention a ton of Baathist gang rapes), that is the blackest of evil.
But if you support a private war against one lonely, oppressed and disabled woman who’s never hurt anyone in her life, that is perfectly sweet and good.
I am awed by the obvious truth of this moral teaching. How could I not have seen it before?
Jimmy,
I have no interest in exploiting Terri’s death for any purpose … to make such a claim is purely ridiculous.
I simply would like to point out the hypocrisy I see by those who claim to be “selectively” pro-life. And maybe, help them see the contradictions in their positions … then leave it to them to ask questions or not. Thinking is their freewill, to do or not.
Very simply, My intention was to point out the “selective” regard for life as sacred. (e.g. Terri’s death being unacceptable vs. Innoncent Iraqi deaths being acceptable).
Jeff,
Search the net on Iraqi deaths … the number of 100,000 is a peer reviewed number … not something made up or fabricated out of thin air.
Jimmy: I read a number of conservative and liberal blogs. Your ability to articulate surpasses mine by oh…a factor of 237. Is it okay to post links to your articles such as this one in the comments sections of other Blogs?
Pros: More people would see these words and others like it and hopefully move towards God.
Cons: Some the the Blogs have some not so nice posters in the comments sections and they may migrate here for a while.
Thoughts?
Maureen,
You completely miss my point, then twist the words, then blame me for those words … Please understand, I don’t support Tyrants, Baathist Rapists etc.
But I do oppose the idea that the killing of innocent civilians is somehow “acceptable” while trying to claim the higher ground of holding ALL life sacred … that position screams of hipocrisy. If you choose to have a different view, that’s entirely your right to do so.
Stephen: No prob.
Bob: The principle of double-effect does apply in the case of proportionate collateral damage incurred in an otherwise just war. We’d’ve never been able to bomb Nazi munitions plants if we had to avoid collateral damage at all costs.
Jimmy,
You call the war “an otherwise just war”…
We differ greatly on that premise. Any attempt by you and I, to explain our views to each other will not reach agreement. Simply because our views of the original premise couldn’t be further apart.
Re: your example of bombing Nazi Germany … Remember that the Nazi’s brought the war to the World. We didn’t start it, they did …
What did the Iraqi’s do to justify our attack on them?
Remember that ALL bipartisan reports indicate NO LINK WHATSOEVER to the 9/11 attacks with Iraq … and remember, there were no Weapons of Mass Distruction … So what is the REAL justification? And how does that jibe with what President Bush gave us as his “original” reasons for starting a war?
I’ll admit, I’d rather not have this turn into a debate on the Iraq war (we’ve all heard the differrent views on that) … Instead, I would like to keep this on my original point, if possible.
And that is … To say that ALL LIFE IS SACRED in Terri’s case, then to say that Innocent Civilian Deaths in Iraq are acceptable screams of hipocrisy. Explain it however you wish.
All right, let me put it another way. There are a lot of people in this country who didn’t support the war in Iraq, and who feel that the accidental killings of innocent and helpless civilians in wartime do in fact count as murder. And whether or not one agrees with them, they do indeed have a case. However (with a few meritorious exceptions), these folks seem to have no problem with the intentional killing of an innocent civilian in peacetime. That is hypocrisy.
I believe in life. I believe in protecting the helpless. I also believe that if somebody is pointing a gun to our collective heads, a proper respect for life and limb means that gun (and maybe that somebody) has to go. It’s better to kill the guilty (even knowing there will be accidents) than to let the innocent be killed by the guilty without opposition. Now, you may not agree with this position of mine, but I think it’s reasonably consistent and unhypocritical.
But for someone who is anti-war not to be against ‘euthanasia’ of the helpless…that’s a lot more inconsistent. If accidents are murder _and_ fair battle between armed and consenting adults is murder, then the public, intentional, judicial murder of an unarmed and innocent civilian who can’t even run away is surely murder, too.
Oh, and if consenting adults can’t kill each other without it being murder, then it clearly is also impossible for any adult to consent to killing himself without it being murder. Which rules out both suicide and assisted suicide.
Tell ya what. If the anti-war crowd will fight abortion, suicide, and euthanasia, I’d be perfectly willing to let guilty criminals live and wage war with non-lethal weaponry. (Although non-lethal weaponry usually involves fighting realllllly dirty….)
>Jeff,
Search the net on Iraqi deaths … the number of 100,000 is a peer reviewed number … not something made up or fabricated out of thin air.
Please forgive me… I don’t trust everything I read on the net, nor do I believe everything I see and hear on tv and radio. If you could, please direct me to official documentation regarding this claim. Thank you.
Maureen,
You state my point very well … To support ALL life in one instance, and not the other, is pure hypocrisy. That’s exactly what I’m trying to convey to the readers here.
I’m amazed that so many pro-life supporters have such an opposing application of their own values, even within themselves.
Bob,
I agree that all life is sacred, and ANY innocent (or not innocent) death is tragic. My problem is with this mythical figure of 100,000 innocent deaths.
Consider this: http://tinyurl.com/4mobq
“However, I do not believe in calling people in this case murderers when I don’t know their hearts.”
That’s a decision that people are called on to make every day, with or without knowing the heart of the killer. Murder may be defined as a deliberate unjust killing. The essential points are the intention and the act. Michael Schiavo repeatedly stated his intention to kill his wife (or to bring about her death, if one prefers the more evasive terminology), and he committed the act of having her feeding tube withdrawn. (The fact that another pair of hands actually removed the apparatus doesn’t affect the moral status of the act.) Despite the court’s ruling, it actually isn’t permitted to him to decide on the justice or injustice of the killing. Hence, Michael Schiavo committed murder, or, in common parlance, is a murderer. Don’t be afraid of calling things by their plain names: murder is murder, even if it’s ever so unpopular to call it that.
Jeff,
We can have differing views on what the “actual” numbers are … our government (who publicly states that they don’t actually keep accurate counts), says it’s something like “5,144 Iraqi civilians killed and 19,387 injured between April 2004 and 31 December 2004 alone” …
Whether it’s 5,000 or 100,000 my point is the same.
So as not to get sidetracked from my original point, How ’bout we avoid a “specific” numbers debate, we’ll certainly get off topic in trying to do so …
I’ve read and believe the number is high, and You feel those numbers are questionable … we can leave our views at that.
For the sake of argument, we say it’s only 5,000 innocent civilians killed (as is similar to governement statements) … Tell me Jeff, Do you find the killing 5,000 innocent people in Iraq to be acceptable, while claiming that the loss of Terri’s life is not acceptable?
Are you not able to see the Hypocrisy theere?
Do you ever restate your views? I could do a perfectly good “Bob” post using only the mouse.
Now, how about that cite?
Elinor,
Here’s one cite that you ask for:
The peer reviewed report was originally released October 29,2004, produced by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. It had a reputable list of contributors and reviewers. The article was “Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”
Of course since the release, that number has become a major point of discussion, and contention. Some believe it, some don’t. Some believe the goverrnment’s numbers without question.
Like I said before, it doesn’t change my point either way.
Elinor, I’m not from the blog world, so please accept my apologies if I might not know the proper etiquette in this forum. I posted in both places because I wasn’t aware that everyone would read both.
If you want to attack me as a person. Feel free. I won’t return it in kind.
I’d rather have a discussion on the topics.
>For the sake of argument, we say it’s only 5,000 innocent civilians killed (as is similar to governement statements) … Tell me Jeff, Do you find the killing 5,000 innocent people in Iraq to be acceptable, while claiming that the loss of Terri’s life is not acceptable?
No. What I find unacceptable are folks who throw out unsubstantiated figures and state them as FACT. Is 5,000 innocent dead acceptable? No. Is 5? No. Why didn’t you use a figure like one million innocent dead? Or one billion?
I think what a lot of us here object to is your equating innocent lives lost during a war scenario with the deliberate, pre-meditated, targeted death of one innocent, helpless woman. We should always err on the side of life. Did we deliberately target all the innocent lives lost in Iraq? Of course not.
Let’s talk real hypocrisy. How ’bout the folks who didn’t give a wit about Terri’s life, but will be holding candles and singing Kum Ba Ya at the next state execution (FWIW, I am not pro-death penalty). I guess a person who has been judged guilty of some heinous crime is a more valuable life then someone who is braindead and taking up valuable bed space.
Jeff,
You and I could argue about the numbers for a long time without agreeing. I’m the first to admit that each side of the fence supports different numbers … so what?
And No, America didn’t deliberately target innocent people in Iraq. But what troubles me greatly is as a nation, many have “accepted” it.
My original point was and still is, that it would be great if those who are speaking out for Terri, would show the same concern, and speak out for the innocent people being killed in Iraq.
Thread hijackers make little baby Jesus cry.
:_(
Billy,
Maybe the killing of innocents around the world might make Jesus cry more than the suffering of those reading this blog.
Bob!
Enough! Now you are making ME cry! We get your point. Really.
Peace be with you.
Good commentary on the Wall Street Journal. The Dems are going to have problems with this one.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111232101450295140,00.html?mod=opinio
n%5Fmain%5Fcommentaries
The war comparison is invalid on a lot of different fronts, most especially because it assumes that the whole point of the enterprise was to murder innocent Iraqis, which it most certainly wasn’t. If we simply say that there is no such thing as an acceptable civilian death, then we’re saying there’s no such thing as a justified war, which obviously isn’t the Church’s position.
But I wan’t to call BS on one thing–the 100,000 figure claim. That claim has been debunked over, and over, and over, was put together by an anti-war activist untrained in any kind of quantitative analysis and with absolutely no access to reliable hard data, then rubber-stamped by a cabal of “academics” including Women’s Studies professors with no special expertise, and finally published as some kind of scholarly study.
I simply refuse to accept the dodge that the number doesn’t matter, or is incidental to your point. I find it impossible to believe that if the brass had managed to execute a war of this kind while inflicting exactly 5 casualties, that we’d be having this discussion at all. Numbers really do matter, which is why we argue about them and why folks bother quoting the figures–they think it bolsters their case, and you can’t tell me that if the number was twenty million innocents that this would make no difference in your outrage.
The war is a red herring, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with Schiavo, and is only being brought up to score points against Republicans while assuaging your guilt over the much more obvious and manifest fact that you’re willing to see Terry starve to death if it means political conservatives get to take on on the chin. So let’s quit playing games and talking about what kind of man Bush is, since it’s totally irrelevant to whether Terry ought to have been murdered in cold blood.
Even to take this detour is a ghoulish act of misdirection, and I’m getting incredibly sick of people responding to every criticism of the culture of death by pointing at Bush and claiming he’s the only thing that ought to get our attention. He’s got plenty of hatred directed at him, thank you very much. Now let’s talk about murdering the disabled, since that’s the subject at hand, rather than how to zing Sean Hannity over dinner with our liberal buddies.
OK Sage,
If you insist that the number of inoccents IS relevant to my point … Tell me, what is the number of innoccents killed in Iraq that you believe is correct?
Not sure how Iraq war was brought up. Kinda irrelevant, but if we’re gonna compare…
The death of 1 innocent person on purpose would be unnacceptable. Would it condem the whole war? Depends. Mabye the killing of a specific statesman to advance the war, yes…but not important.
The deaths of 10,000 innocents on purpose would be terrible. Like the bombing of a civilian target.
Would the death of 1 by accident be enough to de-ligitimize a whole war? Of course not. That’s silly. Were the bombings done by America done WITH THE INTENT to kill off civilians? That’s crazy. No one in their RIGHT mind would vote in ANYone who would do that, much less a president actually do that. (he’d kill his chances for re-election for one…besides earning the hatred of the whole civilized world.)
10,000 by accident…anyone ever read “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”? Similar, but not exact. The bombings were NOT intended to kill civilians. If they do, that was an ‘unintentional cause’, comparable to a baby in the womb being killed during chemotherapy. Was the baby’s death intended? Of course not. Was it known that chemotherapy would kill it? Yes. But it would still be fine to go a head with chemotherapy since your intent would NOT be to kill the baby.
Similarly, bombings not intended to hurt civilians (but do) would not be as big of as a crime as you are claming.
And who cares about how many? Let’s just say X amount and be done with it. A billion, only 10…evidently civilians were killed and the number is fairly irrelevant.
And for starting the Iraq war? A couple of good reasons. The agreement between us and Iraq in President Bush’s father’s war was a cease-fire agreement with conditions. One of these included inspector’s access to anything. Which was not carried out. C ya cease-fire, they broke the treaty. Re-negotion could be (and was!) tried. They still wouldn’t let us in. Suspicious? Yes.
Okay. No physical proof as of yet (who knows, eh?) but what they were dooing seriously freaked a lot of people out. Also, the ‘war’ on terror! They’re terrorists. Millitary targets. Personally ordering the bombing of civilian targets (they’re own people!!). Did we have a ‘right’ to go after them? Yes.
Does that mean we should have? I don’t know. Vengeance and punishment can be, in some cases, quite deserved. Is that binding? Do we have to carry it out? Do we as America have any ‘right’ to go stirring up trouble? As one of you pointed out, they did NOTHING to us. (Mabye could have…we don’t know)
Did we have the right to attack? Yes.
Should we have attacked? I leave that to the discresion of President Bush. The late President J.P. the Great (yeah…I think he deserves the title ‘The Great’) didn’t think so.
But its irrelevant!! This topic is about Terri Schiavo. I just want to raise one point about that: How can people think that Michael has her best intrests at heart? He:
-is living with another women.
-may have caused the damage in the first place! (the injury came from severe physical damage)
-would go into her room, lock the door, and leave. Terri would be crying and shaking, and the nurse would find empty insulin bottles clumsily hidden in the trash.
-he won a lot of money at court for her therapy…and used none of it.
-nurse’s own testimony denounced him as wanting her dead. He was thought to have said (frequently) ‘When is that ***** gonna die?!’
I dunno….and if she did want to die does that okay euthenasia? Which is morally wrong? Considering she is NOT on extra-ordinary care and is NOT in a vegetative state?
I leave that to your discression.
~Kosh
Couple more things I forgot to add:
Terri’s death was not acceptable because it was intentional.
The deaths of Iraqi’s are acceptable because they were not intentional.
I mean, seriously. If one man shoots his wife, that’s a problem. If someone accidently shoots (and kills) the president while trying to take out the assasin right behind him (bad analogy, but still) that’s okay.
And the Pope said the Iraq war was not okay. I guess that’s up to him. I don’t think he’s speaking about faith and morals, so that’s not infalible…but he’s a very smart man (was [well…he’s still smart even though he’s dead. Isn’t he?]) so he probably has thought about it more carefully than any of us. (he spends most of his time in prayer. A very high recomendation.)
~Kosh (same one as above.)
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