What drives the fanatical pull-the-plug people?

By Aussiegirl

OpinionJournal's Peggy Noonan asks what drives the pull-the-plug people, are they half in love with death?

Dostoyevsky wrote in "The Brothers Karamazov" that if there is no God, then anything is permissible.

As I watched the events of the last week unfold, I too wondered the same thing. As she writes, the same people who are passionately for saving the whales -- (and aren't we all?) -- And who weep over the inhumane treatment of everything from chickens to fish (we all love our animals and protect them from harm, need I say we would not starve our own dog or cat to death?) -- who militate mightily for the death row inmate who stands convicted of the most horrendous crimes to have endless appeals to the federal courts (and we shouldn't take the life of a human being without giving every benefit of the doubt)-- who decry the abuse of wives by controlling and abusive husbands -- who support the removal of children from families that abuse them -- who supported the armed intervention for the removal of Elian Gonzales (when the family in custody was providing no resistance) -- and on and on -- I too wondered why the passion on the pull-the-plug side to quickly kill Terri Schiavo.

There are lots of reasons here -- both personal and political. On the political side the left and the party of death -- the Deathocrats -- define themselves almost exclusively as the party of abortion. Abortion is the sacred rite of the left. The inviolable right of a woman to "choose" death for her unborn child - for whatever reason, and at any stage of pregnancy. It is the exclusive right of a woman to have power over her own body.

But suddenly they have discovered that it is not the woman who has any rights over her body -- at least not if she is helpless and cannot speak. If that is the case then the sanctity of marriage (which they also assault at every level by their support of homosexual marriage) has evidently trumped individual rights. They evidently long for the institution of Sharia law -- where a husband may dispose of his wife in whatever way he chooses -- and also have another wife and children on the side.

The Deathocrats also cannot afford to have any challenge to their supremacy in the courts, who have increasingly arrogated to themselves the supreme power over every other branch of government. If the legislature of duly elected representatives passes a law they do not agree with - they strike it down. If the legislature does not act -- they create wholly new law and demand that it be enforced. So that is the first reason for passion -- having lost at the ballot box, the Deathocrat party knows it can still govern through the twin powers of a distorted and propagandistic media which works hand in hand with them, and also the courts which rule by fiat and are unelected and appointed for life.

The other reason is more personal. Our society is a hedonistic one. When you have no belief in the sacredness of life - when you have no belief in anything but the materialistic -- then everything is permissible. Terri - and those like her - the imperfect, the disabled, the helpless, the unbeautiful are frightening. It is like looking in the mirror and seeing your own mortality. So we must expunge these less than perfect humans, to assuage our fears. Those fears of death and sickness and disability and discomfort that come in the dark hours of the night -- when sleep will not come -- and the nagging thoughts come unbidden -- someday I will die -- and then -- nothing -- extinguished for all eternity -- just -- nothing. So -- expunge what causes you discomfort -- for it is only here on this material plane where meaning can be found -- in material things -- in status, in power, in authority, in money, in possessions, in beauty (is that another wrinkle? - I better make an appointment with my plastic surgeon), and we only want to live perfect lives.

I seem to remember another society that started in culling out the less than perfect for the good of society. And everything was done legally, and by the books, and with such cleanliness and sanitation -- for the good of society -- for our good -- after all -- who wants to be reminded of suffering, of less-than-perfection when we can create a perfect world right here. It is fear and lust for power that drives them. So they can force their ideas of a paradise on earth to us. Only it will be a paradise of death.

Read what Peggy has to say -- and by all means, read the whole article:

"Terri Schiavo may well die. No good will come of it. Those who are half in love with death will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.

And those who are still learning--our children--oh, what terrible lessons they're learning. What terrible stories are shaping them. They're witnessing the Schiavo drama on television and hearing it on radio. They are seeing a society--their society, their people--on the verge of famously accepting, even embracing, the idea that a damaged life is a throwaway life.

Our children have been reared in the age of abortion, and are coming of age in a time when seemingly respectable people are enthusiastic for euthanasia. It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you 'know' that--that human life is not so special after all--then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz. Today that road runs through Pinellas Park, Fla."