Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/26/05 4:26 am:
It appears that the Democrats coalition has been equally divided over this case. According to Belmont Club :"Conservatives found themselves arguing heatedly on both sides of the debate. The opposite side of the aisle was in similar confusion. Tom Harkin took up Schiavo's cause. The definitely leftist disabled persons pressure-group Not Dead Yet denounced the Schiavo decision as taking the nation one step closer to legalized medical killing. A selection of links from that site shows an unlikely spectrum of support for reinstating Schiavo's feeding tube. Writers in publications like Slate, CommonDreams, the Harvard Crimson, the Boston Globe, etc. denounced the decision to withdraw feeding in terms usually reserved for lambasting US imperialism. Disabled Queers in Action thundered that "Terri has been tried and convicted without any charges against her -- for the capital offense of being disabled". What can one say when Ralph Nader argues that "the courts, under 'color of law,' have imposed a slow death by dehydration on Terri, giving every benefit of the doubt to her death, rather than her continued life"?

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/26/05 10:03 am:
Found this scary piece online this morning:

Schiavo: This Business Will Get Out of Control...

March 26, 2005
Schiavo: This Business Will Get Out of Control...

President Bush and the GOP have certainly gotten their "base" of religious extremists whipped up into a frenzy. The question now: will they be able to keep control of them and direct all the excitement into something the GOP wants, like undermining the judiciary? Or will the inflamed passions get out of control?

CNN reports on a man charged with offering money for a hit on Michael Schiavo and a federal judge:

Authorities said Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, offered $250,000 for the killing of Michael Schiavo and another $50,000 for the death of Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo's feeding tube removed a week ago.
Thus far, I haven't seen any indication that the Schindler family has asked people to refrain from using violence. Could it be that they don't care, just so long as they get their way?

That appears to be the attitude of the GOP leaders like Jeb Bush. On Friday he tried to send armed state agents to seize Terri Schiavo — they only stopped because the local police actually threatened to follow the law by protecting the hospice:

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding. For a brief period, local police, who have officers around the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called a showdown. In the end, the state agents and the Department of Children and Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

"We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in," said a source with the local police. "The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene," said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. "When the Sheriff's Department, and our department, told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off."

Participants in the high-stakes test of wills, who spoke with The Miami Herald on the condition of anonymity, said they believed the standoff could ultimately have led to a constitutional crisis - and a confrontation between dueling lawmen. "There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink," said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning's activities.

How are these situations related? Hunter summarizes:

Against this background of exploitation and misinformation, the usual bevy of archconservative media pundits has in the last several days begun to increasingly endorse a premise that is, to any rational mind, remarkable: the notion that because the courts have ruled in this particular fashion, it is now time for individuals and government figures to disregard the courts, and take matters into their own hands.

Steve Gillard explores how serious all this can be:

That line from Red October is running through my head again:"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it."

Why? Because the Republicans are still counting fundie votes. They think they can control this, that nothing will happen and the base will be excited. But most of the base is revolted. They are horrified at the sanctimony and the increasing rhetoric from people who should know better. Ignore judges? Kidnap a dying woman? Are they kidding?

Why is this happening? Because they thought it would be a gimmie. That the only people who would care is the radical right and their foot soldiers. They could get their way and trap the Dems in the process. But now, the Dems stepped out of the way and let the GOP take every bit of heat for this. You have the spectacle of Randall Terry, hasbeen, making demands on Jeb Bush, who meekly says "I can't go beyond my powers."

...If Judge Greer or Michael Schiavo is harmed in any way, that turd is going to land right on the doors of the White House and Congress. They unleashed this madness and the idea that they could escape it is unlikely.

Actually, I'm not sure how much of the base is "revolted" at the idea of ignoring judges and kidnapping Terri Schiavo. The people being targeted by all the inflamed rhetoric actually seem to approve of such measures. What has them "revolted," if that's an accurate word, is the failure of GOP leaders to act on all their extreme rhetoric — not the extremism of the rhetoric itself. That's what's so troubling: people are more upset at the failure of the government to take extreme action, not the fact that government leaders are irresponsibly talking about taking extreme action.

Billmon offer some very insightful analysis of how the current frenzy over Terri Schiavo is closely related to some of the most fundamental themes in Christianity and concludes:

The modern high priests of the right-to-life movement -- the Terry Randells and the Paul Schencks -- obviously want to use her impending death as a powerful emotional theme to unify their denominationally fragmented followers (hmm...that sounds familiar.) They (and the Republicans) clearly also hope to use the Schiavo story to fire up the troops for the coming nuclear war over Bush's over judicial nominations.

These are essentially secular, political goals, not religious ones. But for the millions of true believers who have, at least in their own minds, turned Terri Schiavo's medical and legal ordeals into stations of the cross, I'm not sure a knock down fight over judicial nominations will be sufficiently cathartic. I don't, offhand, recall ever seeing Christian conservatives whipped into such a frenzy -- not since the Clinton impeachment, anyway. Even the sight of gay couples celebrating their weddings in the streets of San Francisco didn't have this kind of effect.

Maybe it will all blow over once Terri Schiavo's poor brain-dead body is finally laid to rest. But the emotional intensity of the event -- and the depth of the self-righteous hatred it has stirred on the religious right -- will be hard to forget. It feels like we've passed another milestone in the descent of our deeply divided, culturally inflamed society towards . . . well, I'd rather not think about what.

Indeed, the possibilities of where this might lead are not at all pleasant to think about...

Atrios quotes Hal Turner, a right-wing extremist:

"I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue."
That was yesterday; today the site says:

"Web Site Updates Temporarily offline.
I am traveling to do something important."
Yesterday the site also said: "...that Hospice ought to be blown up by a truck bomb."

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/27/05 4:01 am:
I am whipped up into a frenzy as CNN says at the extent that the judicary can abuse it's position.It is well pst the time for the Senate to break the filibuster and get some balance back into the judiciary. Reasonable doubt released Robert Blake ;OJ Simpson ,and probably Michael Jackson but Terri Schiavo was not given the same due process even after Both Houses of Congress and The President signed law demanding that the 11th Circuit Court do a de novo review .Congress's intent in that law was clear ;reinsert the feeding tubes and retry the case .End of story. The court did not dispute the Constitutionality of the law ;they just ignored the law .It is scary that they;the only unelected branch ; hold themselves above a law while at the same time can hand out life and death decisions about the rest of us.

Nobody can say beyond a reasonable doubt what Terri would have wanted.

Nobody can say beyond a reasonable doubt what Terri's capacity for pain and suffering is.

Nobody can say beyond a reasonable doubt that Terri is not capable of finding fleeting enjoyment in music, perfumes, and certain shampoos, (as reported).

Nobody can say what an MRI or PET scan would show whatsoever, since she hasn't had them in the first place.

And nobody can dispute that Michael's present standing as guardian is at least dubious if he remains technically her husband, then he also is technically an adulterer or bigamist. If he has "moved on" with his life, having another wife and two kids, then in what sense does he remain her "husband"?

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/27/05 4:14 am:
PW ; the other side has decided to move well beyond issues of life and death ,and are now making quality of life value judgements for us too . Who is more scarier ? The few examples you site are non-representative.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 03/27/05 4:22 am:
meant that for powderpuff

Clarification/Follow-up by powderpuff on 03/27/05 6:18 am:

Happy Easter Tomder!

I knew what you meant ;)

I agree, the situation is a mess. Maybe some good will come out of this horrible horror story.

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 03/28/05 9:37 am:
Excon,

>>>So you support "activist" judges as long as they are active in favor of your cause.

Typical!<<<

No. What I support is the appointment of judges who will not engage in legislation via judicial fiat. THOSE are the judges that Bush is supporting, and that the Dems are filibustering. Y'know, the ones who stick to interpreting the law as opposed to creating it. THAT is what I support. And I support the diminishing of the court's powers until such time as they start sticking to their constitutionally created position: as interpreters of law rather than as makers of it.

Elliot