Asymmetrical Information

That was a pretty long post by Pat. All those vowels must have cost him a bundle.

I'm going to claim that the following is tangentially on-topic, in that it's sort of a pop-culture reference and involves a silly liberal (as opposed to a non-silly liberal, of whom I do know several): The other day a Manhattanite liberal coworker of my husband's was describing her attempt to make cupcakes for her daughter's birthday at school. She admitted that she does not cook (nor presumably bake), and that her attempt involved a box of cake mix.

She didn't have "all the ingredients" (what, oil, water, eggs?) for either of the two variations of how to prepare the mix listed on the box, so she used those lawyer smarts of hers and mixed-n-matched (no offense to lawyers who don't generalize their analytical skills to cake mix). Not surprisingly, the cupcakes turned out inedible.

She was furious. She called the *company,* for heaven's sake, and b*tched them out about how if they're going to put two "recipes" on the box they should d*mn well make sure the "recipes" can be interchanged. "I tore them a new one!" was the quote my husband brought home. Apparently no one could think of an appropriate rejoinder... Silence in the room, until someone said, "Only someone from Manhattan."

With which I disagree, since I enjoy the heck out of Jane's recipeblogging, feel certain that she has oil, eggs, AND water most of the time, and would have no trouble deciphering the instructions on a box of cake mix if she should ever stoop so low as to use one, not that she would. So it must be something else, not this woman's provenance. I'm going with "silly liberal," since she's also remarked to my husband that she was "so disappointed" to find out he's conservative, since up to that point she'd considered him "a nice person."

On the subject of Pat, I think anyone who can parlay such an easy job into a lucrative career deserves at least this many kudos... I'm OK with a Patblog. He's at least as credible as that kooky Franken, and more polite to boot (at least in the referenced post).

Sheesh, that'll teach me to post pre-coffee... I should have pointed out that, as a conservative, I know a lot more conservatives than I do liberals and hence a lot more *silly* conservatives than *silly* liberals. And (obviously) that I'm sometimes guilty of silliness meself.

Sorry.

The show never helped my spelling. I quit watching once Vanna got old and not so attractive.

It's not Scrabble but Hangman.

Ok, unnamed 'liberal friend' says Judge Scalia is just like Hitler. Sajak demonstrates that Hitler was really much worse. YA YA YA!!! I'm Impressed!

when Supreme Court Justices become worse than Hitler and when those who vote a certain way do so because they’re idiots, it’s time to talk about the weather.

I agree with Sajak's observation that a new breed of angry, hysterical liberal has come out of the woodwork over the past few years. It's impossible to have a rational political discussion with these people, and extremely unpleasant to even try. This does not apply to all liberals, and certainly not the ones who post here. But at least in the NYC vicinity, these days it isn't hard to find people who launch into a bitter, scornful rant whenever they hear something even mildy pro-Republican or supportive of anything Bush has ever done. How do you have a dialog with a stammering, inarticulate person who insists that Bush is Hitler and anyone who voted for him is an inbred, Bible-thumping moron? Why bother trying?

How would you characterize conservatives who equate the decision to remove Terri's feeding tube with the Nazi euthansia programs?

I loved Sajak's talk show! Too bad it didn't last. He's quite well known as a conservative, though I had no idea of that when he had the show.

The thing I remember best about it was when he had Angie Dickinson as a guest and they talked about grammar pet peeves, like people saying "I feel badly" when they mean "I feel bad." If they felt badly, it would imply damaged nerve endings to their skin, limiting their sense of touch. Or perhaps limited emotive function.

But I digress.

Boonton:

While I agree that references to the toothbrush-mustached one are generally bad blogging coming from any quarter, surely it's true that euthanising the disabled was part of his Final Solution? Which is not to say that I apply that statement to what's being done to Terri Schindler Schiavo... It's just that her case is raising discussion on important questions such as whether "quality of life" as externally determined is a valid rationale for the government's bringing about a death.

Yes. I do know that the official position is that it's Terri's wishes being carried out here. Obviously that fact, if fact it is, is not stopping the discussion.

While I agree that references to the toothbrush-mustached one are generally bad blogging coming from any quarter, surely it's true that euthanising the disabled was part of his Final Solution?

I don’t know about it being part of the “Final Solution” which IIRC was specific to dealing with the “Jewish Question.” However, one of the things I do recall was that Germany at time supported “voluntary euthanasia” which eventually morphed into “involuntary euthanasia” for people whose lives were thought not to be worth living.

It’s worth noting that many people truly believed, as many do today that, this isn’t so much an act of hatred as one of kindness to kill certain people with disabilities or mental infirmities and that some people truly are “better off.”

FTR: I think that the references to “Nazism” and “eugenics” are overblown in the Shiavo case but it’s quite a bit worse to liken an individual to being a “Nazi” as Sajak said his parent had done.

Jamie, the key difference between Hitler's murder of the disabled and what's going on in Florida is that the U.S. respects individual guardianship accommodations in end-of-life decisions, while in Germany, the government decided to kill people. The analogy is stretched so far it loses its relevance at that point.

Perhaps we're like Nazi Germany in the sense that attempted suicide isn't a criminal act. After all, what right do those people have to claim their life is worth less than anyone else's?

A living will/guardianship arrangement is simply an extension of that principle. It goes no further into "government control of life and death" than that.

My big problem with the Hitler comparisons is the way it reduces all the truly evil and nearly unque aspects of the Holocaust--the bureaucracy, the banality, the slavery, the starvation, the propaganda, rape, the quest for mass efficiency, the cooptation of elites for cooperation--down to "someone died who I think shouldn't die" and if you don't agree with the comparison you're a hypocrite. It devalues the lessons of the Holocaust, which are meant to be universal.

It precludes a rational discussion of end-of-life issues because it assumes the moral force of something nearly every civilized person agrees with (innocents should not be killed because of their ethnicity or religion) with something that is, to be charitable to the Schindler supporters, not uniformly considered the only moral choice (people in PVS should not be cut off of their life support). If you disagree with them on the latter, you're a member of the Culture of Death, on a slippery slope heading down to the Nazis. To those of us who have had to make difficult feeding tube decisions in the past for loved ones, that is beyond the pale of respectful discourse.

How would you characterize conservatives who equate the decision to remove Terri's feeding tube with the Nazi euthansia programs?

My respect-o-graph plunges the instant I hear anyone resorting to Hitler or Nazi comparisons in modern-day American political discourse.

Britain33 and Rob:

Indeed and double-deed! I completely agree that invoking the "other N-word" is THE way to end meaningful discussion. And I wholeheartedly reject the slippery-slope fallacy. Note that I strictly limited what I was trying (badly) to say: that involuntary euthanasia had been part of -ahem- THEIR protocol, not that the Schiavo case is an example thereof. As I went on to say, "[i]t's just that her case is raising discussion on important questions such as whether 'quality of life' as externally determined is a valid rationale for the government's bringing about a death." The government is in fact bringing about a death here; if the government (the judiciary in this case) had set its face against removal of the feeding tube, it wouldn't have happened, and as Judge Greer was Terri's effective guardian at the point of ruling on her "living will" wishes, he also personifies the government in that action. Yes? No?

My point: that we must discuss, and are discussing, the various possible ends of the road we're on, so that we can be sure to take the correct forks as they come up. We must (IMHO) take care not to allow private guardianship to dissolve into government decision about quality of life as a criterion for whether life is allowed to continue.

My soft spot for Vanna changed characteristics once I heard the rumor that she liked girls too.

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