Men of Truly Midget Intellects

by Thomas A. Droleskey

It was while doing some work on other projects on Monday, January 23, 2012, that I listened to the midget naturalists debate one another yet again. Two of them, Willard Mitt Romney and Newton Leroy Gingrich, blathered on and on and on about which one was a bigger naturalist crook and liar than the other. More of this, I suppose, is in store for those who watch the Circus of Midget Naturalists take place in Jacksonville, Florida, tonight, Thursday, January 26, 2012.

I paid cursory attention to most of the predictable questions and answers until I stopped the work that I was doing when I heard the name of the late, murdered Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo mentioned. As one who has written on Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo's court-mandated execution by means of starvation and dehydration rather extensively and who spoke in her behalf at a rally across from the Woodside Hospice in Clearwater, Florida, on Saturday, March 12, 2005, just six days before her death sentence began being carried out, I gave the midgets my undivided attention. The transcript of the exchange that  is pasted below reveals how pathetically uninformed and ignorant these men are both of general principles of morality and of the actual facts of the late Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo's condition at the time the court battle over her life was being waged:

Adam Smith of  The Tampa Bay Times: Senator Santorum, in 2005, Florida was in the middle of a huge national debate over Terri Schiavo, whether her feeding tube should be removed after the courts had ruled that she had been in a vegetative state for years. You were at the center, at the front of advocating congressional intervention to keep her alive. You even came down here, came to her bedside after a fund-raiser.

Why should the government have more say in medical decisions like that than a spouse?

Rick Santorum: Well, number one, I didn’t come to her bedside, but I did come down to Tampa. I was scheduled to come down anyway for that event, and it so happened that this situation was going on.

I did not call for congressional intervention. I called for a judicial hearing by an impartial judge at the federal level to review a case in which you had parents and a spouse on different sides of the issue.

And these were constituents of mine. The parents happen to live in Pennsylvania, and they came to me and made a very strong case that they would like to see some other pair of eyes, judicial eyes, look at it. And I agreed to advocate for those constituents because I believe that we should give respect and dignity for all human life, irrespective of their condition.

And if there was someone there that wanted to provide and take care of them, and they were willing to do so, I wanted to make sure that the judicial proceedings worked properly. And that’s what I did, and I would do it again.

Moderator: Do not resuscitate directives, do you think they’re immoral?

Rick Santorum: No, I don’t believe they’re immoral. I mean, I think that’s a decision that people should be able to make, and I have supported legislation in the past for them to make it.

Moderator: Speaker Gingrich, in that case the courts had ruled repeatedly. How does that square, the Terri Schiavo, action with your understanding of the Constitution and separation of powers?

Newt Gingrich:  Well, look, I think that we go to extraordinary lengths, for example, for people who are on murderers row. They have extraordinary rights of appeal.

And you have here somebody who was in a coma, who had, on the one hand, her husband saying let her die and her parents saying let her live. Now, it strikes me that having a bias in favor of life, and at least going to a federal hearing, which would be automatic if it was a criminal on death row, that it’s not too much to say in some circumstances your rights as an American citizen ought to be respected. And there ought to be at least a judicial review of whether or not in that circumstance you should be allowed to die, which has nothing to do with whether or not you as a citizen have a right to have your own end-of-life prescription which is totally appropriate for you to do as a matter of your values in consultation with your doctor.

Moderator: Congressman Paul, you’re a doctor. What was your view of the Terri Schiavo case?

Ron Paul: I find it so unfortunate, so unusual, too. That situation doesn’t come up very often. It should teach us all a lesson to have living wills or a good conversation with a spouse. I would want my spouse to make the decision. And — but it’s better to have a living will.

But I don’t like going up the ladder. You know, we go to the federal courts, and the Congress, and on up. Yes, difficult decisions. Will it be perfect for everybody? No. But I would have preferred to see the decision made at the state level.

But I’ve been involved in medicine with things similar, but not quite as difficult as this. But usually, we deferred to the family. And it wasn’t made a big issue like this was. This was way out of proportion to what happens more routinely.

But I think it should urge us all to try to plan for this and make sure either that one individual that’s closest to you makes the decision or you sign a living will. And this would have solved the whole problem. (NBC NEWS, National Journal, Tampa Bay Times GOP Presidential Debate.)

 

What utter ignorance. What misinformation. Truly astounding.

The best that the "pro-life" Richard John Santorum could say was he was in favor of an "impartial" judicial hearing other than that which took place in the kangaroo court of Judge George Greer, who sat on the family division of the Piniellas-Pasco County Circuit Court in the State of Florida, that consigned Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo to death, thus favoring the case put forth by the attorney for her faithless husband, Michael Schiavo, who had taken up with another woman while denying her the sort of rehabilitative treatment for which he had been awarded $780,000 to provide by a jury in a 1992 medical malpractice suit. Santorum believed that there was a "decision" to be made concerning the provision of her food and water as she could not, it was alleged repeatedly, feed herself even though her husband never sought the sort of care that might have made it possible for her to do so.

Memo to Richard John Santorum:

1. No human being has any right found in the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law to starve or dehydrate himself to death.
2. No human being has any right found in the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law to delegate to others the power of starving or dehydrating himself to death.
3. No human institution, such as a legislature or a court, has the authority to pass or to enforce legislation contrary to the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law.
4. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo's absolute right to live did not depend upon her ability to react to others or to feed herself. Her right to food and water was absolute and could be violated. Food and water are not medical treatment. Food and water constitute ordinary care given to a living human being. Newborn infants need to be hand fed. Those who are elderly and incapacitated might need to be hand fed.
5. The fact that Terri Schindler-Schiavo did react to others and might have been capable of feeding herself if she had been given the therapy for $780,000 of $1.5 million was placed into trust administered by faithless husband speaks volumes about the extent to which those who sought Terri's murder went to extinguish her life by claiming things that were not so and were irrelevant to her absolute right to food and water.

No "decisions" Senator Santorum. Just love to be given. That's all.

Memo to Newton Leroy Gingrich:

 

1. Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo was not in a "coma."
2. Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo was a brain-damaged human being.
3. The argument in the case of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo was not about whether to "let her die" as she was no nearer death than any other living human being at that time.
4. The argument in the case of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo revolved around her court-ordered execution by means of a cruel dehydration and starvation. Try going without food and water, Mister Speaker, for thirteen days and see how even your corpulent body might react.
5. No one can have his own "end of life prescription, Mister Speaker, as no one has the "right" to terminate his own life and, as noted just above, Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo was not near death.

 

 

Memo to Dr. Ronald Paul:

 

1. Spouses do not have any "decision" to make concerning the provision of food and water to a brain-damaged relative.
2. Once again, Dr. Paul, you seem not to notice or care about the simple truth that it's God's Law, not "states rights".
3. Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo's case is, contrary to your assertion, very common. The only thing that is "uncommon" about it is that she had relatives who wanted to keep her alive and fought against those, including a faithless husband and doctors and judges, who wanted to execute her. That's what was uncommon in this case. Nothing else. The late Robert Schindler and his wife, Mary Schindler, Terri's, parents, made this a public issue because they wanted to provide their daughter with the care that was her due before God. 
4. Indeed, even the notoriety of Mrs. Schindler-Schiavo's case was not uncommon. Have not you ever heard of the case of the late Mr. Hugh Finn (see Murder in Manassas, Virginia).
5. Living wills? Come, come, Dr. Paul. You are sadly misinformed (see Miss Mary Therese Helmueller, Are You Being Targeted For Euthanasia?).

 

Memo to Each of the Midget Naturalists, including Willard Mitt Romney, who was not asked any questions about the case of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo three nights ago:

Please read Five Years Later, Dr. Paul Byrne on Brain Death and Father Martin Stepanich on Terri Schiavo.

Consider, the fact that Adolf Hitler's Euthanasia Laws of 1939 were wrong permitted judges to issue orders to end the lives of the deformed, the infirmed, the "feeble-minded," the "useless." The Roman Catholic Bishop of Munster, Count Clemens von Galens, denounced these laws and judicial decisions directly in a series of courageous sermons (see the Appendix below). The political functionaries, though, carried out their orders.

History is repeating itself here in the United States. Professional politicians hide behind the alleged finality of judicial decisions as thousands of babies are killed under cover of law in this country and around the world. Professional politicians excuse themselves of any responsibility of challenging these decisions by the use of their executive authority on the grounds that the "country" is not ready to reverse these judicial decisions, thus abdicating their responsibility to take the political risks necessary to save lives. Notes of regret were offered about Mrs. Schiavo's fate at present, with not one professional politician stating, whether then or now, that it is wrong for food and water to be withdrawn from any human being. Not one professional politician is willing to state that the binding precepts of the Divine Positive law and the Natural law, entrusted by God to and explicated by His true Church founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, are always superior over any civil law and/or judicial decision that contradict them.

Ah, each of you hides behind "judges'" rulings and family "decisions." Do not hide, behind slogans such as "the rule of law," for it was that very slogan that was used quite sanctimoniously by officials in the Third Reich to justify their crimes against God and man. Human beings are being starved and dehydrated as a matter of routine in hospitals around the nation and the world. Their cases are not making headlines because the relatives of these other victims of Modernity do not realize that they are doing anything wrong and thus do not object to the barbaric starvation and dehydration of a loved one to death. Mrs. Schiavo had parents who did object to the state-sponsored murder of their daughter. A practicing Catholic who would never have agreed to any action contrary to her Faith.

Think about Terri Schindler-Schiavo's thirst the next time you have a nice, cold glass of ice water. Think about Terri Schindler-Schiavo's hunger when you eat your next sumptuous meal. Look at your family members. Think of what it would be like to watch one of them starved and dehydrated to death. Would you want the brute power of the state to do to your own family members what was done six years ago now to Terri Schindler-Schiavo?

Look at a Crucifix and see what our sins caused the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to suffer in His Sacred Humanity as He paid back the debt of sin that was owed to Him in His Infinity as God. We cannot undo what our sins did to Our Lord on Good Friday. We can, though, help stop the madness of the moment by submitting ourselves to the authority of His Holy Church and to accept whatever measure of suffering comes our own and those of our relatives, recognizing that in serving others we are serving Our Lord Himself.

Have none of you ever heard of redemptive suffering? Do none of you believe that the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday that flow into our hearts through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient to help us carry whatever crosses we are asked to bear in this passing, mortal vale of tears?

Then again, of course, even the two Catholics among you, Richard John Santorum and Newton Leroy Gingrich, think and act as pure naturalists in the public realm, thus making a mockery of these words of Pope Leo XIII:

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

 

 

Let us continue praying our Rosaries in reparation for our own sins and for the conversion of our nation, begging Our Lady fervently for the fulfillment of her Fatima Message and the restoration of the Social Reign of  Christ the King of herself, she is Our Immaculate Queen.

 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

 

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 

Appendix

Bishop Clemens von Galens Sermon of August 3, 1941

For some months we have been heating reports that inmates of establishments for the care of the mentally ill who have been ill for a long period and perhaps appear incurable have been forcibly removed from these establishments on orders from Berlin. Regularly the relatives receive soon afterwards an intimation that the patient is dead, that the patient's body has been cremated and that they can collect the ashes. There is a general suspicion, verging on certainty. that these numerous unexpected deaths of the mentally ill do not occur naturally but are intentionally brought about in accordance with the doctrine that it is legitimate to destroy a so-called “worthless life”” in other words to kill innocent men and women, if it is thought that their lives are of no further value to the people and the state. A terrible doctrine which seeks to justify the murder of innocent people, which legitimises the violent killing of disabled persons who are no longer capable of work, of cripples, the incurably ill and the aged and infirm!”

I am reliably informed that in hospitals and homes in the province of Westphalia lists are being prepared of inmates who are classified as “unproductive members of the national community” and are to be removed from these establishments and shortly thereafter killed. The first party of patients left the mental hospital at Marienthal, near Munster, in the course of this week.

German men and women! Article 211 of the German Penal Code is still in force, in these terms: “Whoever kills a man of deliberate intent is guilty of murder and punishable with death”. No doubt in order to protect those who kill with intent these poor men and women, members of our families, from this punishment laid down by law, the patients who have been selected for killing are removed from their home area to some distant place. Some illness or other is then given as the cause of death. Since the body is immediately cremated, the relatives and the criminal police are unable to establish whether the patient had in fact been ill or what the cause of death actually was. I have been assured, however, that in the Ministry of the Interior and the office of the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Conti, no secret is made of the fact that indeed a large number of mentally ill persons in Germany have already been killed with intent and that this will continue.

Article 139 of the Penal Code provides that “anyone who has knowledge of an intention to commit a crime against the life of any person . . . and fails to inform the authorities or the person whose life is threatened in due time . . . commits a punishable offence”. When I learned of the intention to remove patients from Marienthal I reported the matter on 28th July to the State Prosecutor of Munster Provincial Court and to the Munster chief of police by registered letter, in the following terms:

“According to information I have received it is planned in the course of this week (the date has been mentioned as 31st July) to move a large number of inmates of the provincial hospital at Marienthal, classified as ‘unproductive members of the national community’, to the mental hospital at Eichberg, where, as is generally believed to have happened in the case of patients removed from other establishments, they are to be killed with intent. Since such action is not only contrary to the divine and the natural moral law but under article 211 of the German Penal Code ranks as murder and attracts the death penalty, I hereby report the matter in accordance with my obligation under article 139 of the Penal Code and request that steps should at once be taken to protect the patients concerned by proceedings against the authorities planning their removal and murder, and that I may be informed of the action taken".

I have received no information of any action by the State Prosecutor or the police.

I had already written on 26th July to the Westphalian provincial authorities, who are responsible for the running of the mental hospital and for the patients entrusted to them for care and for cure, protesting in the strongest terms. It had no effect. The first transport of the innocent victims under sentence of death has left Marienthal. And I am now told that 800 patients have already been removed from the hospital at Warstein.

We must expect, therefore, that the poor defenceless patients are, sooner or later, going to be killed. Why? Not because they have committed any offence justifying their death, not because, for example, they have attacked a nurse or attendant, who would be entitled in legitimate self­defence to meet violence with violence. In such a case the use of violence leading to death is permitted and may be called for, as it is in the case of killing an armed enemy.

No: these unfortunate patients are to die, not for some such reason as this but because in the judgment of some official body, on the decision of some committee, they have become “unworthy to live,” because they are classed as “unproductive members of the national community”.

The judgment is that they can no longer produce any goods: they are like an old piece of machinery which no longer works, like an old horse which has become incurably lame, like a cow which no longer gives any milk. What happens to an old piece of machinery? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What happens to a lame horse, an unproductive cow?

I will not pursue the comparison to the end so fearful is its appropriateness and its illuminating power.

But we are not here concerned with pieces of machinery; we are not dealing with horses and cows, whose sole function is to serve mankind, to produce goods for mankind. They may be broken up; they may be slaughtered when they no longer perform this function

No: We are concerned with men and women, our fellow creatures, our brothers and sisters! Poor human beings, ill human beings, they are unproductive, if you will. But does that mean that they have lost the right to live? Have you, have I, the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognised by others as productive?

If the principle that men is entitled to kill his unproductive fellow-man is established and applied, then woe betide all of us when we become aged and infirm!

If it is legitimate to kill unproductive members of the community, woe betide the disabled who have sacrificed their health or their limbs in the productive process! If unproductive men and women can be disposed of by violent means, woe betide our brave soldiers who return home with major disabilities as cripples, as invalids! If it is once admitted that men have the right to kill “unproductive” fellow-men even though it is at present applied only to poor and defenceless mentally ill patients” then the way is open for the murder of all unproductive men and women: the incurably ill, the handicapped who are unable to work, those disabled in industry or war. The way is open, indeed, for the murder of all of us when we become old and infirm and therefore unproductive. Then it will require only a secret order to be issued that the procedure which has been tried and tested with the mentally ill should be extended to other “unproductive” persons, that it should also be applied to those suffering from incurable tuberculosis, the aged and infirm, persons disabled in industry, soldiers with disabling injuries!

Then no man will be safe: some committee or other will be able to put him on the list of “unproductive” persons, who in their judgment have become “unworthy to live”. And there will be no police to protect him, no court to avenge his murder and bring his murderers to justice.

Who could then have any confidence in a doctor? He might report a patient as unproductive and then be given instructions to kill him! It does not bear thinking of, the moral depravity, the universal mistrust which will spread even in the bosom of the family, if this terrible doctrine is tolerated, accepted and put into practice. Woe betide mankind, woe betide our German people, if the divine commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, which the Lord proclaimed on Sinai amid thunder and lightning, which God our Creator wrote into man's conscience from the beginning, if this commandment is not merely violated but the violation is tolerated and remains unpunished!