Thursday, September 23, 2004

"Nobody's Gonna Separate Our Powers..."

The Florida Supreme Court, previously best known for completely disregarding Florida's election laws and making up their own during the 2000 presidential election (for which they received a rich and deserved slapping-down by the U.S. Supreme Court), has now decided Terri Schiavo's life is not worth living and sentenced her to death.

If you're not familiar with the story, Terri Schiavo suffered a stroke in the early '90's, and her husband (who now has two children by another woman and who stands to collect the remainder of a large insurance settlement if Terri dies) has been crusading to have her starved to death ever since, despite the fact that her parents are willing to take responsibility for her full care and rehabilitation.

Medical experts have testified that Terri (who has never been given one day of rehab--it's been denied to her by her husband) is not in a persistent vegetative state, not in a coma, and shows response to audio and visual stimulus. She laughs, she cries, she answers questions, and she's going to be starved to death by judicial decree.

The people of the state of Florida, outraged by her case, passed a law in late 2003 protecting her from her court-ordered execution. But the Florida Supreme Court, which has often exhibited great disdain for the duly passed laws of the people of Florida, exhibited it again today by overturning the law on the grounds that it violated "the separation of powers."

If there's one thing murderous, activist judges won't stand for, it's to have their power divided by anyone. In a turn of irony worthy of Orwell's 1984, they used the notion of "separation of powers" to assert their unfettered ability to order an innocent woman to die despite the legislative will of the people. Under the rubric of "separation of powers," the Florida courts (much like most of our federal courts) have merely assumed unto themselves the power of God Almighty Himself.

At the same time you hear Terri's final, strangled breaths as she starves to death, you'll also be hearing the death-rattle of constitutional, republican government, replaced forever more by the judicial oligarchy--an oligarchy that's in the process of destroying it's few remaining enemies.

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