from a colleague--

A Succinct Summary of the 2004 Election

The Democrats' mistake was in thinking that a disastrous war, national bankruptcy, erosion of civil liberties, corporate takeover of government, environmental destruction, squandering our economic and moral leadership in the world, and systematic lying by the administration would be of concern to the electorate.

The Republicans correctly saw that the chief concern of the electorate was to keep gay couples from having an abortion.

Democracy swings like a pendalum do

The only bright side to the Schiavo mess is that people are talking about classroom topics like separation of powers, state v. federal jurisdictions, public v. private matters, church and state, and consistency on healthcare issues.

I have a firm faith in democracy and human nature. Because we have the power to vote people in and out of office, when we get disgusted enough, we can change the direction of politics. We experienced a "liberalism backlash" and a "feminism backlash" when enough people thought that these agendas weren't working. I believe that we will experience a "conservatism backlash" of the same type. It's like pendalum swings--and pendalum swings get progressively less extreme.

When we lived in California, I became shocked over welfare abuse. California and Texas have very different welfare systems, with California paying out very hefty welfare (Texas is one of the lowest paying systems). One of my co-workers had gone on welfare when her husband left her with three under-schoolaged children. When she was offered a receptionist job at Cal State, her welfare caseworker told her she shouldn't take it because she could get more money from the state for not working than she would get working for the state. That and other stories of welfare abuse from people who were in "the system" made me think I was more conservative than I had imagined--that in conservative Texas I was a liberal, but in liberal California I was surprisingly conservative.

There's a very vocal hyper-conservative faction that is getting a lot of attention, but I imagine that it will result in conservatives having a reaction similar to the one I had in California--that it is conservatism taken to an unacceptable extreme. And just like the welfare reform movement, which was a response to an overblown system, we will see a return to a more middle-of-the-road conservatism.

By the same token, I believe that education will eventual wrest itself from the hands of legislators--but only when parents and teachers demand it. And this will be in response to a generation of less-well-educated children who have been overburdened with legislature-imposed testing. This is sad, but it is apparently the direction we'll take. We see the effects at the university level these days. All this testing is having the opposite of its intended effect.

And all this legislated morality is having the opposite of its intended effect. I have a student who is profoundly disabled. He has no use of his hands or feet and his speech is very difficult to understand. He has an assistant with him at all times to interpret for him and to transcribe his college assignments, so every assignment takes him much longer than able-bodied students. He and I have developed the habit of staying after class to talk. He very much appreciates that I take the trouble to try to understand his speech--and that I recognize the bright mind inside that disabled body. He told me his position on abortion--he personally is opposed to abortion, but he believes God would oppose legislation against abortion because it takes away our free will. That's one of the most thought-provoking ideas I've heard from a freshman in a long time. When you legislate moral choice, you take away the need for people to decide for themselves, to act in accordance with their own moral decisions, and to accept the consequences of their acts.

Outrage over Schiavo case

The Schiavo case should inspire all of us to complete our living wills and durable powers of attorney. I would hate to wind up in her situation. And I would REALLY hate for my family to go through all this.

For the record--don't keep me alive if I'm in this state. Don't use heroic measures if I'm dying. Don't do anything to prolong my dying. I have great comfort when it comes to dying--I'm not afraid of the transition.

While the media continuously remind us that Schiavo will die of thirst and starvation, many people with DNR orders choose to die from exactly those reasons. It's not inhumane. It's one of the "complications resulting from [insert disease]" listed as cause of death. My mom called us when Jim stopped eating and drinking, because hospice had told her that this meant he would die within a few days, technically of cancer, but really of dehydration. And when Mom called to tell us that Tom stopped eating and drinking, I knew it meant he would die within days. Although his decline was caused by CHF, he died of dehydration.

So it's just a matter of "spin" as to whether this is a natural or unnatural death, or whether it is humane or inhumane.. It's a very sad situation, but one that happens all the time in this country--even with newborns--and with every bit of the soul searching, but without the political hypocracy and vote-seeking and the media circus. I read one senator's comment that he had seen the video and could tell that this woman was conscious. What a fruitcake! As if the doctors and judges that have been involved in this case for 15 years can't tell if a patient is conscious!

Mr Bush, who cut short his trip to Crawford to return to D.C. and sign this legislation, ALSO signed a law when he was governor of Texas, the Advance Directive Act of 1999, that allows hospitals to decide to remove life support over the objections of the patient's family. It was later amended to include children, and this month an infant in Houston was taken off the respirator despite his mother's objections. This law has an explicit connection to ability to pay, because patient's family has ten days to find another facility, but has to absorb the cost of transfer. This cost would be too high for many people. There's also an implicit connection to ability to pay since it's hard to find another facility for an indigent patient whose care has been deemed futile. And I suspect that hospitals--well known to be "bottom line" institutions--would be more likely to take this measure if the bill is ballooning and the patient can't pay and the treatment can be shown to be futile. Mr. Bush's support of this bill makes his involvement in the Schiavo family's problems a textbook case of hypocracy.

Moving to the legislative branch, the same senators who passed the Schiavo legislation have also voted to reduce medicaid funding, which pays for the care of patients like Schiavo and others who need long-term care but can't afford it. These same sentators also support tort reform that would stop lawsuits like the one brought by Schiavo's husband--the one that has paid for her care so far. And these sentators support a bankruptcy bill that would make it hard for families with enormous medical bills (because of reduced medicaid and tort reform) to recover any financial solvency.

And finally, this legislation is probably unconstitutional. I don't know how it's written, but the Constitution prohibits any legislation directed at an individual. But that won't matter to the politicians who want to be on record as supporting the bill, even if it is unconstitutional. That's been the case with the "partial birth abortion" bills, each of which are unconstitutional because the authors refuse to include the phrase "except to save the life of the mother." The politicians who refused to sign it because it was unconstitutional were then decried as "pro-partial birth abortion." And now that the Congress has finally passed the third "partial-birth" bill, it has been found unconstitutional by three separate courts, at my last count. It's just a lot of jacking around with taxpayer money--extra sessions and court cases--and it's rank hypocracy. And a terrible disregard for the Constitution.

Speaking of the Constitution, what about the separation of powers? Since when does the federal government step in to cancel all the years of work the courts have done in this case? Even if another court looks at it, the result will be the same. But these senators will look good to a portion of their electorate.

Then there are those of us who don't want to pay for frank electioneering on tax-payer money. Some of us are offended by politicians who want a dummed-down electorate that makes knee-jerk decisions based on incomplete information.

My grandmother had very high standards, and she held that you could "bear false witness" by saying nothing at all, because it's about misleading people, not about actual words. If you knowingly create a false impression, you have lied. Washington has always attracted people without morals, but it's especially hypocritical to claim the moral high ground for your immorality.

Be well, Lynn