"I'll trust people and I'll trust people to make decisions for their own lives."
-- George Bush, Hypocrite

I've been wanting to stay above this whole Terri Schiavo business, but I can't any longer. I'm a firm believer in euthanasia, so my feelings about this might be skewed because of what I see as hypocrisy from the right about the whole sordid matter, but here I go anyway.

For longest time Republicans have been the party of States' Rights. This philosophy hit a road block in the Gore v. Bush election where a Republican majority on the Supreme Court overruled the Florida State court simply because they didn't like the verdict. The jurists invoked the equal protection clause, which is a joke, because if the Supremes were serious, you'd to have invalidate the entire election based on lack of equality. That obviously didn't happen. What did happen was an abrogation of Republican States' Rights ideals in favor of a preferable judicial outcome.

This is the exact same thing that is going on in the Terry Schiavo case. Forget that this woman deserves to die. Forget the utter selfishness of the parents. Forget the paradox of the right to lifers who fight vigorously for the death penalty and yet oppose the right to die with dignity. Look only at the States' Rights issue.

Congress has no business getting involved in this. The President has no business getting involved in this, let alone turning around from a vacation (did he really need another vacation?) and waking up in the middle of the night to sign legislation that moved the Schiavo case from the state court to the federal court for no other reason than he didn't like the result of the state court ruling.

Despite the efforts of our esteemed legislature and executive branch, it looks as though Terri will finally be able to drift off into the sweet hereafter. The biggest problem I have with this whole thing, is here we have this great opportunity as a country to benefit from the tragedy of this family by having a national discussion about death, about dignity, about euthanasia and about the rights of our citizens. But will we have it? Of course not. Because we are children. And like children, we will take the lowest road possible. Mrs. Schiavo will be used a political tool to divide people instead of a loadstone to unite them.

As for me, if I'm in a persistent vegetative state, I don't want to live. If I need a feeding tube or a respirator to survive, I don't want live. If I have no brain function and am on life support, I don't want to live. I don't want suffer that way. I don't want to be burden on my family or the health care system. I just want to be cremated and have my ashes dumped into sea at Port Campbell on Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.

Anyway, don't listen me. I'm a fool. Listen to the good people at Get Your War On. At least then you can have a laugh while you ponder the utter stuipity of this whole damn fucking thing.