I see stupid people

Apparently the pope died over the weekend. I wasn't watching much news - I was having a good time actually, even with the rampaging cold I've got going on.

The world comes to a screeching halt, the news media plays the same clips over and over, and a bunch of media talking heads feign sympathy and sadness. boo hoo.

It's funny how a person can be really mediocre at what they do, but still get a lot of admiration when they die. I guess that's part of having a high profile job. Take Ronald Reagan for instance. He was a horrible President - his wife set policy by consulting psychics for Pete's sake. Yet, when he died there was a huge fond remembrance for him. Actually, what I think people were remembering was that Reagan could form a coherent sentence, unlike our current President who can barely speak without making a complete ass out of himself.

Lets keep some balance. Overall, the Pope wasn't the Anti-Christ - but he was hardly the man they make him out to be. Lets not forget that he forbid the use of condoms in AIDS stricken Africa. If that resulted in the infection of even one person, than that policy was incredibly evil.

The fact is, the Catholic church is just schizophrenic, and they are having a hard time keeping up their numbers, which is why birth control is a big no-no to them. They need the money from every new Catholic that gets created.

I agree with the Catholic's on the death penalty, but disagree on virtually everything else. Their anti-death penalty stance costs them a lot of members. Most American religious types love death and want to kill bad guys. That's why they drift to the other Christian denominations. Catholic's also have a hard time recruiting priests. After all, who would want to be a Catholic priest and be forced to be celibate when you can become a minister in another denomination and get all the sex you want (just ask Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart)? Really, the only people the Catholic's can get to join the priesthood are self-hating gay men. They are so tortured by their sexuality that living a celibate life seems like an escape to them. But, there is no escaping that.

Moving on the Schiavo aftermath, it's just nuts. I cannot believe the legislation that's getting introduced. The current laws are just fine, but the crazy religious freaks and the right wing whackos want to make it as difficult as possible for families to make the decisions. Lets look at some quotes from the news..

"I really wanted to make sure we gave a default for life and not for death," said Kansas state Rep. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Republican who helped revive a measure that would give courts a greater chance to review decisions to end life-sustaining care, lessening the role of guardians or doctors. "Our most vulnerable citizens are in fact in the most danger of losing their life without any recourse."

First off, it's amazing to me that a person of such ignorance and blind stupidity as Kansas state Rep. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a Republican, can get elected to public office. But, when really stupid people are doing the voting, they think they are voting for the smart lady.

They make it sound as if there is some ghoulish movement in the medical community to kill people as fast as possible. They think that doctors or family members are going to pull the plug on people who are on the road to recovery.

She - and the people that believe her - need to have their plugs pulled, because they are too stupid to live.

Here's the way the law works. If you have a living will, it dictates what is done and under what conditions. Medical professionals evaluate your condition to see if it meets the condition of the living will, and then execute the provisions that you have decided on for yourself. You may have decided that you want to live on life support under one condition, and not under another. It's up to you. Lawsuits may be filed if parties disagree, and a judge will determine the facts of a case and come to a resolution.

In the absence of an advance medical directive, the person's legal guardian makes the decision. The guardian and the medical professionals need to be in agreement before life support is removed. If the guardian wants life support removed, but the medical professionals disagree, the guardian can file a lawsuit and a judge would review the case.

In the case of Terri Schiavo, her parents filed a suit against her guardian, and her guardian won every court judgment. The medical professionals judged her to be persistently vegetative, and the judges agreed. Therefore, the court ruled in favor of the guardian and the medical decisions were his. It was all appropriate.

Now, we have the crazy people pushing to get more government involvement in areas that are already clearly defined. It amazes me that 80% (based on vast polling) of the American public believe the current laws are appropriate, and still these jack booted Nazi fascists want to start introducing more and more government bureaucracy. They want to be able to force you to live in your own private hell despite what your wishes, your families wishes, and the medical opinion is.

"We don't want to get into the politics of the right or the left or whomever," said Michael Donnelly at the Disability Rights Center of Kansas. "This isn't about politics, this is about how we value or don't value the lives people with disabilities have."

Isn't that lovely rhetoric? They make it sound like Timmy in the wheelchair is going to be taken out of his class and executed because he's paralyzed. They are so fixated on their bat-shit-crazy agenda that they want us to think this is about otherwise normal people. It's not. This is about brain dead and severely brain damaged people. You know, people like Terri Schiavo whose cerebral cortex was nothing but spinal fluid. This is about private family decisions - and a rule of law that is already balanced appropriately.

"I was gripped by what I was watching and couldn't believe the state of Florida would let this woman die in this manner," said GOP state Rep. Cynthia Davis. Her bill would bar anyone from directing that artificially supplied food and water be withheld or withdrawn without a specific written directive from the patient.

Rep. Cynthia Davis was "gripped", but is too stupid to realize that Terri Schiavo was not unique and that withholding water is common in ending life. Dead is dead and there is no difference between withholding water and unplugging a ventilator except the amount of time it takes to die. A ventilator withdrawal takes less than 10 minutes, and dehydration takes about 2 weeks. The result is the same.

But, the most disgusting thing of all. George Bush signed a law here in Texas that gave hospitals the authority to pull the plug on a patient, against the patient's families wishes, when the family cannot afford to pay the hospital bills. A few weeks ago, a hospital pulled the plug on a 6 month old baby using just that law as justification.

The right wing Republican bat-shit-crazy people are freaking insane. Beyond insane, they are dangerously stupid. We need to keep their legislation from passing until we can get a Democratic controlled house in '06, and a Democratic President in '08. Then we'll all feel a bit better for ridiculing these crazy idiots back into the slime pit they crawled out of.