Fraters Libertas

The Case for Intervention

During last Saturday's broadcast of the Northern Alliance Radio Network the Terri Schiavo case dominated discussion. And for the first time in our one year history, we found ourselves in the position of being at odds with the majority of the callers. Not on the specifics of the case or the sentiment that in an injustice was being perpetrated. Instead, the disagreement was on the legal propriety of the popular will (as manifested by elected legislators and executives) overruling a court order and intervening to save an innocent life.

I'm still of the mind that any such intervention would have been illegitimate in a civil society dependent on the rule of law. For this problem to be resolved, the law needs to be clarified and/or amended by constitutionally prescribed channels. (Channels which are being pursued, as discussed by Captain Ed today.)

But that will take time, years probably. And the end result is that an innocent woman will die because the law, as interpreted by a few judges, was inadequate to protect her. I'm not such a zealot for reason and procedure alone that I don't recognize the moral paradox that puts us in. Nor to question the complicity in her death that our entire society must face, because whether you agree with the judge who ordered her starvation, or disagree with him but are willing to let the gears of government grind out a superior resolution, she's gong to be equally as dead.

Our reader Mike Beach listened to the NARN show on Saturday and was among the group that felt we may have been too compliant in accepting Terri Schiavo's court mandated fate. His comments:

Although this correspondence is inspired by the representations made on the radio program Saturday and similar expressions by Hugh Hewitt last week, it is not a rebuttal or counterpoint or argument. We're of the same mind regarding the impropriety of what has happen to Terri Schiavo. and lack of proper Judicial conduct. It is simply for your consideration.

Much has been said, but is only the start, of what is to be a long attempt to reconcile what has happened in Florida. This tragedy is not a "symbol" of the power struggle, it is not an affectation. This is a catastrophic victory for those who believe that government is god, against those who know what are the proper role, size, scope, and limits of government - ours above all others.

As a constitutional conservative I retain the belief that sovereignty ultimately is retained by the individual expressed en masse via elections through the electorate. Government is a by product of the founding core principles expressed by the constitution. I neither love nor hate my government. I evaluate it against its purpose expressed the constitution and also against the degree infraction of and natural right of individual liberty. The current inflexible widespread single-mindedness of the judiciary is not accidental. As an organization they have taken this methodology as a means to an end. The end being that the judiciary is in charge and nothing can be allowed to, in fact or perception, be seen to truncate their, as they believe own, "manifest destiny".

In courts today, and in the tragedy of Terri the party with the biggest agenda, is neither of the combatants, it lies with the court(s). The contestants are mostly irrelevant - the game rigged, the outcome secure before it began. Therefore, since justice is not the goal, once a decision, always a decision save for the rare self serving exception.

On the show Saturday, the adamancy and regularity of the phrase "rule of law" was disturbing and discouraging. From the dialog on the show it is clear that we feel similarly on facts, circumstances, failings, etc. Apparently where we disagree is the most critical point. In this civil (as opposed to criminal) court matter, does catering to "law" trump a citizen's absolute, unassailable right to live? Founding principles as expressed in the Constitution are incontrovertibly clear that this result was void of justice, leaving an innocent, victimized, woman to die. We starved a woman to death simply because we did not have the commitment to intercede against the obdurate will of the judiciary. Essentially, this is a wrong that cannot be corrected. Dead is dead, and for that fact this was the case where the now systemic over-reach of authority by the judiciary must have been stopped, and we failed. Clearly, they are in charge.

The most committed win - NOT the most well armed. We are a nation of laws. There are plenty of laws that either by their nature or by agency implementation, or by perversion of judiciary are in fact or practice unconstitutional. It happens with regularity that laws are rightfully revised, overturned, supplanted. In this case all that was necessary was to push back a little, to save an innocent person from a wrongful state ordered merciless death. A result of which was nothing more than judicial civil contempt for the principles of Law with which we have entrusted them and they swore to uphold. Sometimes you have to know which law must rule and risk what may come of it. The judicial "victory" is terminal for Terri. This "victory" is also clear and convincing evidence that we are so far out of touch with how much control they have I fear this battle may have been the last in a war we didn't really even engage in.

The judiciary and their likeminded, and the sycophants are clearly in charge, we do not have the conviction and commitment to truncate this deadly wrong. Reagan would never have allowed it.
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