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The Schiavo precedent . . .
A wake-up
call
By Charles W.
Heckman
©2005
The
developments in the Terry Schiavo case clearly show how the
black-robed oligarchy sticks together in defending its dictatorial
powers. These events are harbingers of the ultimate encroachment on
our right to life. For the first time we are confronted by a
situation in which one judge is permitted to arbitrarily and
capriciously deny a person, innocent of any crime, the basic needs
required to sustain life.
In
America,
society has been governed by rules codified in written law or
established as precedent by court decisions. In recent years, the
latter way has eclipsed the former. We are now seeing a precedent
set that will impact the lives of all of us.
Who else
will the Schiavo precedent impact? Every stroke victim is a
potential object of starvation on the orders of one judge. All
stroke victims have parts of their brain damaged to some extent, and
under the Schiavo precedent, they could be denied food and water
until they are dead. How about unconscious victims of auto
accidents? Naturally, a judge could order hospitals to give them no
water or nourishment until they are dead, as well. The savings to
insurance companies would be immense. How about the elderly?
Virtually every person in nursing care could be starved. This would
also save incalculable amounts of money required to prolong the
lives of people who have outlived their “usefulness.”
It might be
well to consider the savings on the care of wounded veterans from
Iraq and Afghanistan who come back in a condition requiring
extensive care and rehabilitation. A few days without food or water
and the problem would be solved. It only costs a few dollars to
carve the name of a fallen hero on a marble war, but it takes vast
amounts of money to rehabilitate the wounded. Most judges feel no
sympathy for veterans. Very few of them have been willing to serve
in uniform, and most of those who have, spent their time in the
safety of some JAG office thousands of miles from the sound of the
shooting. Would they value the perceived fiscal good of society more
than the lives of people they do not even know by holding down the
high costs of expensive rehabilitation?
The
precedent could also be expanded in future to people who are not
physically incapacitated. We have a precedent from ancient China,
where certain people found guilty of crimes, such as criticizing the
emperor, had a large wooden plate locked around the neck. The
device consisted of two pieces of wood hinged together and locked in
the front. A center hole had just enough space for the neck to pass
through, and the plate was too wide for the hands to reach around it
to the mouth. The victim placed in such a device had no way of
getting food or drink to the mouth, so that he would need another
person to feed him or starve. Usually, a sign was placed on the
victim stating the crime he was supposed to have committed and the
order that nobody was permitted to feed him under penalty of death.
While
slowly starving, the victim was free to walk the streets, thereby
acting as a living deterrent to the crime of which he had been
convicted. People could watch him slowly starve, and anyone feeling
pity was deterred from providing any help for fear of suffering the
wrath of the State. Such punishments considerably increased the awe
and fear that ordinary people felt when confronting the authority of
the magistrate.
Wouldn’t
this be a great way to get rid of all those annoying homeless
people? City administrations are already insisting that locks be put
on dumpsters to keep destitute people from finding food in their
cities. Maybe if our courts would fine and imprison people who give
or sell food to the homeless, a final solution to homelessness might
be found.
How about
our prison populations? Since deliberate starvation is no longer
considered capital punishment by our courts, the simple expedient of
prohibiting the delivery of food and drink to our prisons could do
wonders to reduce the number of criminals living at State
expense. Whole penitentiaries could be made vacant in a few weeks’
time and then used for new inmates.
Are these
visions of the future far fetched? Once the nose of the camel is in
the tent, there is no logical reason why the whole beast cannot
enter. We already have testimony by an exalted Princeton professor
that it should be legal to kill infants until they have reached an
arbitrarily established degree of consciousness. What cleaner way to
get rid of unwanted babies than by making it illegal to feed
them. Many of us have heard the Harvard law professor on television
assuring us that if Terry Schiavo is allowed to live, our whole
judicial system will be destroyed. In his opinion, any questioning
of the absolute lawgiving power of Federal judges by elected
officials is a danger to all things American.
We are now
at a crossroads. Do we allow the psychopaths and crackpots who have
entrenched themselves in the universities and law schools to impose
their concept of enlightened totalitarianism on all of us, or do we
finally take a closer look at what they are saying and change our
laws to take absolute power out of their hands and the hands of
their former students, who are now wearing black robes. A good start
would be to stop giving Federal money to colleges and universities
that employ intellectual discrimination against students and other
professors expressing ideas contradicting the radical dogma preached
by the majority of the professors. No First Amendment, no Federal
money! Another way would be to eliminate laws requiring that
lawyers be graduates of “approved” law schools. If someone can learn
enough law to pass a stringent bar exam, he should be qualified to
practice law. The determination by crackpot law professors that his
ideas are “politically correct” should not play a role in
determining suitability for practicing law.
Aristotle
stated that once an oligarchy has established itself, it is
impossible to get rid of it. If we want to survive as anything
other than slaves to be killed at the whim of the master, we had
better find a way to prove Aristotle wrong.
Also see:
A Comparison
of
“An Act for the Relief of the Parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo”with existing law under 28 U.S.C. §1343 and 42 U.S.C. §1983
--
By: Charles
E. Lincoln |
