…but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.
–Luke 23:53
At least as far back as the late ’60s, some people on both the left and the right have exhibited a thrill that doesn’t seem entirely unpleasurable at the idea that some kind of apocalypse is at hand, that their opponents have taken some kind of step which at once reveals the true depths of their evil and cements their grasp upon the country. I partook of it as a left-wing student when I heard people scare each other with talk of the secret concentration camps Nixon was preparing for us. It was the thrill of children scaring themselves with ghost stories, and I gradually learned to turn a skeptical eye on that sort of rhetoric and emotion. A tendency toward hysteria is a feature of the American character and therefore of American politics.
Nevertheless, the boy who cried wolf was eventually correct. I don’t think that the almost certainly impending death of Terri Schiavo means that the government is going to start rounding up Christians or implementing a program of euthanasia for the disabled. But I am concerned that we have taken a decisive step in that direction, a step big enough that historians might one day see it as a useful marker, like the burning of the Reichstag, of a decisive change.
We are witnessing the government-ordered starvation of an innocent person. Whatever else may be said about the Schiavo case, that fact cannot be wished or explained away. One of the many choruses agitating for this act has been saying for a week or two now that "this sort of thing happens every day." That’s what they said in arguing for legalized abortion, too. And perhaps it’s true. But people have always done bad things on the sly, and people have always, in difficult circumstances, done, with good intentions, things that are objectively wrong. When we decide that, in the name of consistency, honesty, and efficiency, we are going to declare right that which we formerly believed to be wrong, that permissible (if not compulsory) which was formerly forbidden, we are in a different moral world.
That impulse has been given as the justification for a lot of our moral "progress" in the past thirty years or so. "Oh, it happens all the time, best to bring it out into the open." Well, no, it isn’t best. Prudence is a virtue and we don’t need to adopt the Wahabbist program of purifying society by force of all wrongdoing. But the abortionist belongs in legal darkness, as does the euthanizer.
Daniel Nichols and I have a standing disagreement about whether the U.S. is and has been "in general and on balance a force for good in the world," I taking the affirmative and he the negative. I’m not ready to abandon my position yet, but there is an undeniable potential for our nation to become the blasphemous and obscene empire represented in the Bible by the timeless image of Babylon. And they have achieved a victory.
There are many, many Americans who are simply misinformed and uncomprehending as to what is really going on in the Schiavo case. There are also many–I’m not sure how many, and the answer to that question is very important–who are taking what I can only describe as demonic glee in Terri Schiavo’s execution, and I’m not one to use the word "demonic" casually. Will this be the hour in which the balance tips their way, or will the extraordinary passion aroused among religious people, and indeed those of no religious persuasion who simply understand that it is wrong to kill a disabled person, lead to a definitive repudiation of euthanasia?
Earlier this week I sent my children a link to Fr. Rob Johansen’s compilation of reasons why Terri’s condition should be re-evaluated. I prefaced it with the observation that there was no reason why this should be turning into a liberal-vs.-conservative fight. And we’re seeing unexpected people on both sides–conservatives saying "let her die," and liberals like Tom Harkin, God bless him, standing firm against the killing. The light is flickering but it isn’t out yet. In what other industrialized nation would this case even be controversial?
I really had not intended to post during the Triduum, but the confluence of these events with the Passion of Our Lord has been so haunting that I’ve found it hard to stop thinking about it. The juxtaposition is so obviously full of significance that it hardly needs comment. With that I’m signing off until Sunday.
See this post at Dawn Eden’s for a Chestertonian reflection on the Schiavo case; some good comments from readers as well.
–Maclin Horton
You mention Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins going to Florida to protest… they didn’t. That story, posted by the Curt Jester, was, alas, a joke.
here is a link to that piece:
http://www.splendoroftruth.com/curtjester/archives/005546.php
Dang. You’re right of course. I had heard the story somewhere, did a quick Google and saw Curt Jester’s reference, and didn’t look closely enough to see it was a spoof. I’ve removed, with sadness, the reference to this would-have-been-nice non-event. Thanks much for letting me know.
Maclin Horton writes: “But I am concerned that we have taken a decisive step in that direction, a step big enough that historians might one day see it as a useful marker, like the burning of the Reichstag, of a decisive change.”
The marker was planted a bit earlier. That marker was the acceptance and legalization of divorce. All that has followed has been the inevitable and expected consequence of that acceptance and legalization.
The first compromise is the beginning of the end, not an expected consequence from that compromise.
For instance, search without probable cause at airports followed inevitably from the airlines choosing socialist government airports over the airlines paying for them themselves as they had done previously.
So likewise with the indoctrination of children into secular death in government schools. The first compromise, i.e. establishing government schools so as to indoctrinate Catholic children into Protestantism was a Trojan horse the Protestant pulled through their gates, all that has followed was inevitable.
Look to the first compromise, if you wish to find your most useful marker, for it is there that you shall find the underlying cause.
[NOTE: this comment has been edited to remove the apparently false and defamatory remarks referred to in later comments.]
Fr. Johnson reduces the argument down to one of prudence, a prudence placed in the hands of the medical profession. And while doctors may be useful as technicians for having a bone set, or having some flesh sewn up, relying on doctors to think and act prudently is a rather dubious proposition at best.
Iâll take the prudence of a Relation, (especially a Husbandâs), over a doctorâs prudence every time, since a husband is in a position to act more in the best interest of his wife than a doctor is. In fact, Iâll take a long lost relativeâs prudence over a doctorâs prudence to act in the best interest of that husbandâs wife.
So if Fr. Johnson, wantâs to place Terri Shiavoâs life in the hands the medical profession, I wonder if perhaps his prudence should not be trusted as Michael Shiavoâs without doubt should not be trusted.
Of course, with an article coming from National Review, what should we expect?
But more to the point, Fr. Johnson in the end does nothing more than pit the prudence of one set of doctors against another, with Michael Shiavo as the whipping boy. And while I agree that Michael Shiavo needâs a damn good whacking, unfortunately Fr. Johnsonâs eyesight is none to keen, and nasty little boys are in sure need of that which is a wee bit stiffer than Fr. Johnson brings as fare.
As opposed to pitting doctors and their prudence, or lack there of, against each other, perhaps Fr. Johnson should ask why Michael Shiavo should not be trusted, and is there cause of forfeiture of that trust which is naturally in the hands of a husband? A husband who commits adultery forfeits his conjugal rights over his wife, what is the forfeiture of a man who commits bigamy, as Michael Shiavo has?
Unfortunately, that water has long since passed under the bridge with the acceptance and legalization of divorce, for with it came approval of bigamy ( which is what successive marriages via divorce is), and with that acceptance came birth control, abortion etc. of which euthanasia is but an inevitable consequence. And thus Michael Shiavo stands firmly on modern American tradition and legal ground. A ground of shifting sand shifting down the slippery slope.
But that does not mean we should stand on such ground, nor even pretend to act as if such ground has bearing. And while Fr. Johnson is correct that âwillful blindnessâ cannot succeed forever, it will continue to succeed and shift ever downwards as long as we appeal to the shifting sands to not do what they inevitably will to do.
BTW, My Fr. Johnson is Maclin Horton’s Fr. Johansen. Nothing personal mind you, just standard procedure for those of us who assign names at the immigration dept.
Franklin wrote:
As opposed to pitting doctors and their prudence, or lack there of, against each other, perhaps Fr. Johnson should ask why Michael Shiavo should not be trusted, and is there cause of forfeiture of that trust which is naturally in the hands of a husband?
I did answer your question, at least in part, in a different article. See “Killing Terri Schiavo”, from the January ’04 Crisis Magazine:
http://www.crisismagazine.com/january2004/johansen.htm
And I would also say that to characterize my NRO piece as pitting “the prudence of one set of doctors against another” is rather to miss the point. The doctor whose opinion formed the basis of Judge Greer’s ruling was not merely imprudent, his diagnoses are demonstrably motivated by extra-medical ideological passions. For Judge Greer to have taken Cranford’s diagnosis at face value shows either (a) incompetence, or (b) evidence of a similar ideological prejudice.
Finally, you wrote “Of course, with an article coming from National Review, what should we expect?”
What does that mean? If you’re implying that becaue my article was published by National Review that it is somehow unreliable or less than accurate and truthful, then say it. If you’re going to insult me and impugn my integrity, at least do it openly.
Franklin,
I’m not going to tolerate personal attacks here. Especially personal attacks on good people doing good, brave work. “Bizarre” would be a charitable assessment of your reading of Fr. Rob’s article, which is clearly intended as a summary of the medical evidence, not an examination of the moral theology of the situation.
Please give me a source for the Ledeen-Goldberg remarks, or else I’m going to delete them. I have been reading Goldberg’s comments on this question and suspect that you’re distorting something. Goldberg’s most recent comment, for instance, takes George Felos to task for claiming that Terri is “refusing” food.
I think the apocalyptic thrill goes back at least to the late 1660′s as far as the actual/future US goes. And the boy crying wolf is, for the moment, just crying. One could easily look back in history to the lynching movement that sprung up after the War Between the States as evidence that at least once, state-sanctioned murder faded into a rosy history of sorts without an escalation into, say, a Nazi eugenics imitation.
“We are witnessing the government-ordered starvation of an innocent person.” Maybe. We might also be witnessing a substantial degree of legal and journalistic incompetence along the lines of, “many, many Americans who are simply misinformed and uncomprehending …” I see a good deal of the same when a state governor say, of Texas, refuses to reexamine a capital case in a situation where there might be substantial doubt cleared up by a certain test. If a political leader, the president for example, fancies himself a decision-making man with no doubts, who can complain if sixty-some percent of Americans can say without a doubt they don’t want to live like Terri, were they in her shoes. A century ago people in her shoes would simply die from their injuries. That’s not to say that severely disabled people shouldn’t have a right to life now that the medical arts have advanced to the stage at which just about anyone can be kept alive.
I don’t think it’s helpful to theorize or even comment on “demonic” glee. Lots of fence-sitters look at that kind of talk: kidnapping Terri, etc., and they see desperate people pushing an agenda. If you’re in a battle for hearts and minds, you can’t be caught making statements you can’t back up. I think many Americans are used to being able to be their own “man,” so to speak, and relying on others for life itself is distasteful and embarassing to the extreme. Are there right-to-die fanatics licking their chops over this one? Sure. Just like there are people agitating for kidnapping.
I tend to blame the parents’ lawyers on this one. Thirteen years and they can’t generate heat on lack of care? Maybe the label, “Didn’t Do the Job” deserves to hang on some allies, too.
Todd,
Re “demonic glee”: like I said, I don’t use that kind of terminology casually. I had in mind stuff like the page linked to in the post “Who says…” below. Arguably a lot of these folks are just getting their political rocks off, but still it’s very creepy. Also the more muted but maybe darker desire to see Terri dead which I pick up from the weird lawyer Felos, the doctor Cranford, et.al.
The obvious fact now is that the judge in this case is bound and determined to see terry schiavo dead. In spite of new evidence that speaks toward her will to live, he won’t listen to it or grant a reprieve so that it can be evaluated, and proven true or false. That is , to say the least, a miscarriage of justice.
Dear Maclin,
I was simply pointing out Goldberg’s, (and by extension NRO’s ), hypocrisy since he is more than willing to applaud Michael Ledeen’s doctrine of slaughtering the innocent. Or as Ledeen so politely puts it :
“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:9uEjK6taDrQJ:www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg042302.asp++%22jonah+goldberg%22+%22crappy+little+country%22&hl=en
A business which is nothing short of unjust warfare as is more than apparent when one takes into account their writings on the subject where the they advocate such warfare and it known consequences. How it is possible to defame a man who has made himself pariah by his very own words is remarkable.
As for personal attacks, did I make one? Not that I know of, and certainly not one that was intended.
If you are referring to my writing that Fr. Johansen’s arguments are imprudent. They are imprudent because he is implying assent to an irrelevant contingency by arguing that irrelevant contingency’s merits. Arguing the merits of an irrelevant contingency gives the irrelevant contingency legs to stand on. PVS is irrelevant on all accounts. The type of care given is also irrelevant except in discerning Michael Shiavo’s fitness as guardian which was not the subject of the article.
If you wish to imply that Fr. Johansen did not intend an argument, but only intended to give a laundry list of medical evidence, so be it, the article is nothing more than a laundry list and no argument intending to prove that Terri Shiavo should not be killed was intended. But do you really think the article was only intended to be a laundry list? I don’t. And if an argument was intended, it was an imprudent one since it is arguing on the ground those who favor Terri Shiavo’s death want the argument to be argued on. Ground to be argued on not only on for Terri Shiavo’s, but ground on which to argue on for every other death which will result from arguing on such ground.
It’s no different than arguing that abortion is, or is not a civil right. Once we grant that abortion falls under civil law, and thus whether or not abortion shall be allowed is a matter to be decided by the civil authority, we have lost the ground we stand on and are arguing on pro-death ground. A ground most unfavorable to life. So likewise must we not argue on the grounds of PVS and medical treatment. They are not the grounds on which the argument stands or falls.
Why you find such notions bizarre, either that Fr. Johansen would intend an argument, or that we should not argue on pro-death ground, is beyond me. Why do you think so?
Fr. Johansen writes: “I did answer your question, at least in part, in a different article. See “Killing Terri Schiavo”, from the January ’04 Crisis Magazine . . .”
Yes. You answered it “in part”. You gave the first part, you gave the empirical evidence.
The underlying cause is what needs to be brought forward. Just as it useful, “in part”, for people to be given examples of Urban Renewal’s destruction of natural culture, but unless the nature of culture is explained and the reason for Urban Renewal’s destructive intentions, those examples of empirical evidence remain what they are: nothing more than empirical evidence. Because unless men are able to understand the underlying cause of that empirical evidence, with explanation giving wings to men’s understanding of it, they will not know why those examples of empirical evidence are occurring.
It is in the lack of giving the ‘why’ where I find fault. It is similar to giving a man a gun without bullets, it may be rather useful as a club, but it lacks the precision men need in order to fight the culture of death which is not only well armed with bullets, but well trained in directing them at their intended targets. It’s the ‘why’ which allows men to see through the arguments of the culture of death, and to see why they are false arguments.
_______________________
Fr. Johansen writes: “And I would also say that to characterize my NRO piece as pitting “the prudence of one set of doctors against another” is rather to miss the point. The doctor whose opinion formed the basis of Judge Greer’s ruling was not merely imprudent, his diagnoses are demonstrably motivated by extra-medical ideological passions. For Judge Greer to have taken Cranford’s diagnosis at face value shows either (a) incompetence, or (b) evidence of a similar ideological prejudice.”
Secondly, I didn’t miss the point. I simply find it a point which is tenuous, at best. Not tenuous in the truth of the matter, but tenuous as firm ground on which to stand, and a most effective petard from which to hang ourselves.
To even suggest that “expert witnesses in court are supposed to be unbiased: disinterested in the outcome of the case” asks your readers to participate in naivete . Those expert witnesses are supposed to be hired guns for those who pay them for their testimony. And as my father who paid many of them to deliver once reflected, he never knew of one to fail in earning his wages. The wages a doctor is paid is the worth of his prudence in a court of law, thus every expert witness is “motivated by extra ideological passions.” For most it is simply a passion for money or some other passion which draws them. For Dr. Cranford? His passion appears to be a even a bit more unseemly. There are of course the very rare exceptions who are not so ‘motivated’, but they will not be in court giving testimony against those who pay their wages. Will they?
And need I write on Judge Greer? I think we all know judges well enough.
But let me get to the real point of the petard. You are arguing contingencies, as if they are more than contingencies. Whether or not Terri Shiavo is PVS is irrelevant. If she was not PVS ( or otherwise incapacitated from making her intentions knowable, but was instead perfectly capable of making her own decisions, but did not have guardianship over herself, would it change the matter in the least? Arguing over whether of not she is PVS, or whether or not she should have received this CT scan or not, is to argue on unfirm ground since it places the argument on ground that if she does have PVS or did receive all acceptable normal care, she is somehow in a state which now allows her to be killed because you have implied assent to their argument.
It is the same as those who argued that Iraq did not have WMD’s. While it may have been true that they did not, and that it was obvious to anyone who was not blinding themselves, that they did not, and that it was obvious that the Republicans were lying, if it had turned out otherwise, and that Iraq did have WMD’s, the war would have been no less unjust in its failure to meet just war doctrine. Whether the war was just or not, is not predicated on whether or not Iraq had WMD’s. The unjustness is predicated on the fact that the war was not in defense of the US. Likewise, Terri Shiavo’s life is not predicated on whether or not she has PVS, and or whether or not she has received all normally expected medical care.
While such argument may prove the depth of corruption, whether it be the killing of Iraqis, or the killing of Terri Shiavo, when such depth is plumbed and the muck hidden below is brought to the surface for all to see, never the less, such muck is but an outward sign of the inward act. And if such outward sign cannot be produced, where does your argument stand? You argument is reduced to one relying on ‘experts’ for interpretation of empirical evidence. Whether those expert be judges or witnesses. For while a doctor may be more capable of determining PVS, and may have a better understanding of what is accepted medical care, they do not have a better understanding of God’s law. And it is God’s law which is being abrogated both as to cause, and as to the inevitable consequences, and it is on God’s law that the argument stands or falls, not interpretation by medical experts.
________________________
Fr. Johansen writes: “What does that mean? If you’re implying that becaue my article was published by National Review that it is somehow unreliable or less than accurate and truthful, then say it. If you’re going to insult me and impugn my integrity, at least do it openly. “
Truth may be where one finds it, but searching for peals at NRO is generally a fruitless endeavor. So while your article may be reliable, truthful and accurate, NRO is perhaps the last place I would look for them.
Franklin, you “simply” said that Ledeen said, and Goldberg agreed, that Michael Schiavo ought to throw Terri Schiavo against the wall as an example to others like her. I am not a Thomist but I’m pretty sure this is called “bearing false witness,” regardless of what Ledeen and Goldberg believe about warfare. You tried to taint Fr. Johansen’s work by linking him to this false statement, although admittedly you were cautious enough to limit yourself to a smear by association rather than a direct attack. Your subsequent ink release of quibbles and irrelevancies doesn’t help. I’m not going to have it.
This is Holy Saturday. I have other things to think about and have blocked your IP address from commenting. I think you should start your own blog. They’re free at http://www.blogger.com.
I think Franklin’s argument is strong (two ways, perhaps) but not worthy of banning. It is the privilege of the blog host to run a blog as seen fit, but it would make more sense to run a blog without comments rather than simply dismiss those whose arguments we find difficult to tackle.
Happy Easter to all.
Just to repeat/clarify, in case anybody is misled by Todd’s comment above: the main reason for the banning was a false quotation, not “difficult to tackle” arguments. As it turns out Franklin did not intend a quotation but was using “sic” mistakenly. I still don’t think much of what he said but he’s no longer blocked.
I think your article was unreliable and less than accurate because is asserted things that either were not true, or seem unlikely to be true and were stated without any supporting evidence.
For instance, your article gives the strong impression that Terri has never recieved an MRI. That’s not true; she was given an MRI in July of 1990.
Another example: Your article also claims that Dr. “Cranford also diagnosed Robert Wendland as PVS.” There’s no way to prove a negative, but I can’t find any evidence to support this claim. Your article implies that Cranford had diagnosed PVS but the California Supreme Court disagreed with Cranford, but neither of the CSC’s published opinions regarding Mr. Wendland support you on that. Furthermore, past writings by Dr. Cranford about Mr. Wendland clearly don’t consider Mr. Wendland to be in PVS.