[Peace-discuss] Liberals and Schiavo

[C. G. Estabrook]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Chas. 'Mark' Bee wrote:

> ...That is the real issue here, it is what this case is being used for
> by those who seek to eliminate choice...

I think that you're right about this, in a sort of reversed fashion: those
who insisted that the government must end the life of Terri Schiavo, who
wasn't dying, did so because they feared that, unless they did, they'd
have to admit that they couldn't end other human lives with impunity.

> ...Of course, this case - out of thousands over the past decade or so
> - is also being given national publicity in order to generate enough
> antipathy toward the judiciary branch to produce an army of useful
> idiots, who will shortly run interference as the Republican congress
> attempts to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees - in order
> to put all of us under religious control for decades.

Perhaps, instead of regarding them with contempt, we should talk to those
"useful idiots" -- our fellow citizens -- about what should be done,
instead of clutching onto a undemocratic device, long used by
segregationists, as the savior of liberalism, and propounding fantasies of
"all of us under religious control for decades."

Thomas Jefferson made an important distinction between "aristocrats" and
"democrats." The aristocrats are "those who fear and distrust the people,
and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher
classes." The democrats, in contrast, "identify with the people, have
confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the honest & safe ...
depository of the public interest," *if not always "the most wise."*

Many of our contemporary liberals are aristocrats in Jefferson's sense.

Regards, CGE