GOP Has Schiavoed Itself

Yes, I'm sick of the story, too. But what's interesting is how Republicans have managed to split themselves in two (or maybe this is just now showing a split that was always there, but they just agreed to ignore it) parts, the regular conservative "I Just Want Those Bums In Washington To Stay Off My Back" Republicans, and the freakish fanatical fuckhead right-wing Republicans.

A regular (as far as I can tell) Republican writes in How Far Will They Go To Kill Conservatism?:

The other day, in a conversation with my father, I stated that I was really afraid how far the radicals in my party would go to make sure that Terri Schiavo remains a bed-bound vegetable for the next 40 years. I had predicted that they would convince/coerce someone in the law enforcement community to arrest and charge Michael Schiavo with abuse (or anything, really). They then could 'rescue' Terri, because allowing her to die would be 'destroying evidence.'....

.... How radical are these folks? I predicted they would charge (Michael) Schiavo with a crime. I was wrong. Instead, their full-on assault of the judiciary at both the state and federal level as well as their perversion of the legislative branches, and their misuse of the Federal and State Executive branches by Brothers Bush was not enough, and now they are attempting to use state level agencies, the ones relied upon for the non-partisan delivery of services, as a weapon....

While many wail and gnash their teeth and pour copious tears upon the ground over whether or not to "save" poor Terri, the radical actions of the federal government become the secondary issue, at least in the mainstream media. Look -- we've got congress and Bush ruling on one case, trying to overturn one case. It's radical.

And the somewhat left-leaning experts on the Middle East say...

The cynical use by the US Republican Party of the Terri Schiavo case repeats, whether deliberately or accidentally, the tactics of Muslim fundamentalists and theocrats in places like Egypt and Pakistan. These tactics involve a disturbing tendency to make private, intimate decisions matters of public interest and then to bring the courts and the legislature to bear on them. President George W. Bush and Republican congressional leaders like Tom Delay have taken us one step closer to theocracy on the Muslim Brotherhood model.

The Muslim fundamentalists use a provision of Islamic law called "bringing to account" (hisba). As Al-Ahram weekly notes, "Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion." Hisba is a medieval idea that had all but lapsed when the fundamentalists brought it back in the 1970s and 1980s.

The above goes on with examples from Islamic countries, cases like the one where a husband and wife were forced to divorce because one wasn't Muslim. And it ends with the kicker quote, "Ayatollah DeLay isn't different from his counterparts in Iran."

It's radical, it's cynical, it's big-government intervention on individuals' lives, it's an abuse of powers, it's government acting on behalf of religion.

Howabout, next year, around Nov. 2006, we throw the bums out?