Not even his resignation today (along with that of Commerce Secretary Don Evans) could stop Attorney General John Ashcroft from continuing to pursue the Bush Administration’s obsession with pre-cradle to grave control of the most private aspects of your lives. Case in point, is the appeal of a Ninth Circuit decision which precluded federal prosecutions against Oregon doctors (acting pursuant to a state law) who prescribed lethal dosages of drugs to cancer patients to hasten their deaths and ease their pain.
I’m sure we can look forward to the Supreme Court backing up their boy by the usual 5-4 decision.
Ominously, since Junior owes his second term to the fundies– and knows it– he will make pursuing their agenda– i.e., preventing women from terminating unwanted pregnancies while still making it harder for them to obtain birth control, and then keeping people in extreme pain from ending their misery while still denying their famililes more expansive medical coverage, a big part of “the mandate”… that “political capital” he will now spend.
Four more years.
tdog
Hey, God wants him in there! Remember how God said he would never destroy the world with a big flood again? Well, there’s why Bush doesn’t believe in global warming. There are other methods He hasn’t banned, however. I’m sure 43 is looking into them. Overpopulation… decendents as numerous as the stars… looks like that one is cleared.
Whenever my Republican acquaintances go all hoo-yah on me about Bush loading up the Supreme Court etc, I just mutter, “There go the property taxes.”
They invariably respond, “What?” And I delicately point out that once all those babies kind of like you know actually start getting born they’ll be kind of like you know actually existing and we’re going to need extra landfills for all the icky disposable diapers and the kids will kind of like you know actually need healthcare and will eventually kind of like you know actually be going to school (No Child Left Behind and all) and some of them will have kind of like you know special needs and some might kind of like you know actually be put up for adoption but maybe the faith-based faiths can kind of like you know actually take care of them but if not then the state will have to and really Bush and Powell shouldn’t be doing the guest worker two-step with Vicente Fox because kind of like you know actually we are going to have enough demographic stress going on with our own guest babies. And it then it kind of like you know actually hits them.
Miss Authoritiva, would that I were a fly on the wall for one of those conversations. Do you carry around a pry bar to help them get their jaws off the floor?
Well, I don’t know if Miss Authoritiva has actually had one of these conversations. I have made this exact argument (if we are going to practice “death control”–i.e., medicine–then we need to practice birth control), and the RtoLifers’ response always is, “Oh, it is just fine if we have more and more of God’s children; everyone would be perfectly happy to pay more taxes and take on more responsibilities for the sake of having more beautiful children in the world.” It is not a “reality-based” world view that they have.
When you point out that more taxes and/or more filth, disease and lower standards of living are the usual accompaniment to overpopulation, they say, “Well, we don’t mind paying taxes for education–it’s the government WASTE that we object to. And as far as overpopulation is concerned, it doesn’t have to be that way–each family just has to learn to take responsibility for its actions.” By which I take it they mean eliminate most sexual activity.
Like I said, not “reality-based.” (Otherwise, why would they be spending zillions on “abstinence” education in U.S. schools and African maternity clinics?) However, Miss A. suggests another point, which I believe to be true, and that is that they are also mostly hypocrites. They want abortion permitted in three cases: “rape, incest, and me.” They also don’t really believe that it will every be outlawed again–it’s something they can talk about without ever having to actually consider the consequences, because they don’t believe there will actually be any consequences.
Hey, we should examine the anti-suicide laws too. And there should be some sort of panel that gets to decide if really old or seriously disabled people continue living. The drain of resources on society, personal heartache to their loved ones, and medical costs are just too great to continue status quo for these unfortunates who lack value to their lives. It’s a harsh opinion, but it looks like I’m not alone.
Whoa. Last time I looked, the US had one of the lower birth rates in the world. Hey, if we aren’t going to fix the Social Security system, then we have to increase the population so that there will be enough working people to tax when the Baby Boom generation starts retiring.
KentG, you are scaring me. Now we want a government bureaucracy to decide when we should die? Is this government agency going to base its decisions as to draining society’s rescources strictly on age and health, or can they off anyone who is a drain on society? Now that’s welfare reform.
What the hell, Rib, it’s been done in the movies, right? Soylent Green, for one; I’m sure there have been others.
Interesting.
My original point was actually intended as more “libertarian” than “liberal”.
Bush and Ashcroft want “freedom” for people who contribute (large sums) to they and their party… freedom to abuse workers, to commit securities and other forms of fraud, freedom to pollute the air and water… THAT sort of “freedom”. (Looked at this way, I hate us for our “freedom”!)
The freedom Bush et al. does NOT envision is YOUR freedom to do what YOU WANT with your own life, including but not limited to freedom to do what you like with your body.
What Kent G. envisions– a benificent all- knowing state KILLING YOU for “your own good” seems actually much more in line with the Bush/Ashcroft view than it does at odds with it.
Just sayin’…
I was kind of afraid of offering that. But I’m glad we can discuss it intellectually here. If you want to kill yourself, that’s your choice. And if you can no longer make choices, then who wouldn’t make the same choice? How is that not freedom? We are headed in that direction anyway. Why not embrace it and set some guidelines?
Kent,
I suggest we volunteer YOU first for the government mandated death choice, since we can discuss it intellectually here.
Duh…