Monday, September 03, 2007
The Liberal Agenda
The right is always railing about some well organized liberal agenda (their rhetoric seems not to have changed since when they railed against communist conspiracies or even not since they railed against Cosmopolitans -- against which I guess they still rail as part of their railing against the "gay agenda" ;) -- and Zionists). But it seems the right doth project too much.
A friend of mine is an attorney who somewhat recently was involved in a right to life sort of case along the lines of the Schiavo case. The family of the person in a vegetative state disagreed with his wife and didn't want him to be disconnected from life support. Somehow they hooked up with some right to life group that was able to hire a reasonably fancy attorney, find a sympathetic judge and deluge my friend with so much paperwork: pleadings, etc., that he really couldn't manage to make a case.
So where is this liberal agenda about which we keep hearing? Where is a "right to death" group that would allow people in the position of this guy's poor wife to have an attorney filing the same quantity of paperwork, etc.?
Meanwhile, these "right to life" groups make me sick. Who is going to pay for keeping a vegetable alive? The government! These people spend so much time and money to try and keep people in vegetative states alive and to create new wards of the state by preventing abortions, yet they don't pay for the expenses incurred? It's one thing when a liberal like me says the government should pay for certain things, especially for those who can't afford it. It's another thing when organizations with deep pockets use those pockets to get the government to pay for things that they, if they really put their money where their mouths are, would pay for. Which would leave the government with more money to pay for things that really do help maintain a culture of life: e.g., health care for the poor, medical research, etc.
And yes, this does hit close to home. We get told there is no money for us scientists. And yet there seems to be money to fight wars that decrease our national security rather than increase it? There is money to keep vegetables alive? Something is wrong about our priorities. Under pressure from people who have adopted a famous line from Deuteronomy as a mere slogan to be bandied about, we have done the opposite -- our society has chosen death -- those practically dead being in vegetative states and war over poor, living souls and peaceful coexistence -- and alas will reap the consequences.
A friend of mine is an attorney who somewhat recently was involved in a right to life sort of case along the lines of the Schiavo case. The family of the person in a vegetative state disagreed with his wife and didn't want him to be disconnected from life support. Somehow they hooked up with some right to life group that was able to hire a reasonably fancy attorney, find a sympathetic judge and deluge my friend with so much paperwork: pleadings, etc., that he really couldn't manage to make a case.
So where is this liberal agenda about which we keep hearing? Where is a "right to death" group that would allow people in the position of this guy's poor wife to have an attorney filing the same quantity of paperwork, etc.?
Meanwhile, these "right to life" groups make me sick. Who is going to pay for keeping a vegetable alive? The government! These people spend so much time and money to try and keep people in vegetative states alive and to create new wards of the state by preventing abortions, yet they don't pay for the expenses incurred? It's one thing when a liberal like me says the government should pay for certain things, especially for those who can't afford it. It's another thing when organizations with deep pockets use those pockets to get the government to pay for things that they, if they really put their money where their mouths are, would pay for. Which would leave the government with more money to pay for things that really do help maintain a culture of life: e.g., health care for the poor, medical research, etc.
And yes, this does hit close to home. We get told there is no money for us scientists. And yet there seems to be money to fight wars that decrease our national security rather than increase it? There is money to keep vegetables alive? Something is wrong about our priorities. Under pressure from people who have adopted a famous line from Deuteronomy as a mere slogan to be bandied about, we have done the opposite -- our society has chosen death -- those practically dead being in vegetative states and war over poor, living souls and peaceful coexistence -- and alas will reap the consequences.
# posted by alberich @ 12:09 PM 
