Germany's slippery slope: is it happening in the U.S.?

William Federer reviews the 1930 German Weimar Republic's adoption of the "quality of life" concept in place of the "sanctity of life."

The national socialist government decided to remove "useless" expenses from the budget, which included the support and medical costs required to maintain the lives of the retarded, insane, senile, epileptic, psychiatric patients, handicapped, deaf, blind, the non-rehabilitatable ill and those who had been diseased or chronically ill for five years or more. It was labeled an "act of mercy" to "liberate them through death," as they were viewed as having an extremely low "quality of life," as well as being a tax burden on the public...

The next whose lives were terminated by the state were the institutionalized elderly who had no relatives and no financial resources...

The next to be eliminated were the parasites on the state: the street people, bums, beggars, hopelessly poor, gypsies, prisoners, inmates and convicts...

The liquidation grew to include those who had been unable to work, the socially unproductive and those living on welfare or government pensions. They drew financial support from the state, but contributed nothing financially back. They were looked upon as "useless eaters"...

The next to be eradicated were the ideologically unwanted, the political enemies of the state, religious extremists and those "disloyal" individuals considered to be holding the government back..

Can this holocaust happen in America? Indeed, it has already begun. The idea of killing a person and calling it "death with dignity" is an oxymoron. The "mercy-killing" movement puts us on the same path as pre-Nazi Germany...

In biblical comparison, Jesus showed mercy by healing the sick and giving sanity back to the deranged, but never did he kill them...

Will America chose the "sanctity of life" concept as demonstrated by Mother Teresa, or will America chose the "quality of life" concept championed by self-proclaimed doctors of death – such as in the case of the court-ordered starvation of Terri Schiavo – and continue its slide toward Auschwitz? What kind of subtle anesthetic has been allowed to deaden our national conscience? What horrors await us? The question is not whether the suffering and dying person's life should be terminated; the question is what kind of nation will we become if they are. Their physical death is preceded only by our moral death.

WorldNetDaily: Auschwitz in America

Kevin McCullough: Terri Schiavo's parents could never have imagined

Kevin paints a poignantly maddening picture of the plight of Terri Schiavo and her parents.

Could [Terri's parents] have imagined that... Michael Schiavo would begin an extramarital relationship with another woman and father two children by her – all while remaining married to their Terri...

Could they imagine that most likely because of his extramarital interest and the substantial cash settlement he had received that their Terri would have become such a nuisance to Michael that Michael would wish her dead?

Could they have imagined that judges in the United States of America... would find Terri to be "a life not worth living"?

Could they have imagined that because the court had ordered them not to give "therapeutic support" and barring them from video taping, that they themselves would have to defy a court order for the public to see that Terri was not brain-dead?

Could we ever imagine that the day would come when someone would be allowed to starve and dehydrate to death simply because they had become an inconvenience to the husband who had promised before God and man, "in sickness and in health"?

Terri began starving two days ago. Doctor's say she will be dead within 10 to 14 days of
when it began..

WorldNetDaily: Terri Schiavo's parents could never have imagined

Ilana Mercer: republic or democracy?

Ilana Mercer makes some excellent points in the following article.

We were once a Federal Republic – now we are a centralized democracy. But while the founding idea of a republic was beautiful, the reality of a democracy is repugnant...

Madison, in fact, denounced democracy as "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property." That's because in a democracy, the power of the central government isn't curtailed...

Democracy, like leftism, is un-American...

The (real) Right prefers society – namely, voluntary associations and private contracts. The Left favors the state – that is, coercion and control in the service of a common, collectivist decree. The Right is about individualism; the Left is about statism...

WorldNetDaily: Exporting democracy

Legalized murder in Florida

This article by Barbara Simpson pretty well captures my thoughts on the deplorable state-authorized murder of Terri Schindler Schiavo by dehydration and starvation, while her husband lives with another woman not his wife, mother of his two children.

WorldNetDaily: 'Murder is legal if we say so'

Pray for Terri Schiavo

If you are so inclined, please join me in praying that God will intervene to prevent the state of Florida from killing this disabled woman by dehydration and starvation, at her husband's request, and against the wishes of her family.

WorldNetDaily: Starvation begins for Terri Schiavo

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation

Murray Rothbard on "Just War"

I find a number of excellent points in this article based on the talk given by the late Murray N. Rothbard at the Mises Institute's Costs of War conference in Atlanta, May 1994.

My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people tries to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them...

[W]ar, in the penetrating phrase of the libertarian Randolph Bourne in World War I, has always been "the health of the State," an instrument for the aggrandizement of State power over the health, the lives, and the prosperity, of their subject citizens and social institutions.

[T]he classical international lawyers developed two ideas, which they were broadly successful in getting nations to adopt: (1) above all, don't target civilians... (2) Preserve the rights of neutral states and nations...

[N]eutrality was considered not only justifiable but a positive virtue. In the old days, "he kept us out of war" was high tribute to a president or political leader...

In real life, however, it's not so easy to identify one warring "aggressor..."

To get Americans stirred up about intervening in a war thousands of miles away about which they know nothing and care less, one side must be depicted as the clear-cut bad guy, and the other side pure and good; otherwise, Americans will not be moved to intervene in a war that is really none of their business...

The second Wilsonian excuse for perpetual war, particularly relevant to the "Civil War," is even more Utopian: the idea that it is the moral obligation of America and of all other nations to impose "democracy" and "human rights" throughout the globe...

A nation's highest and most moral course was to remain neutral; its citizens might cheer in their heart for A's just cause, or, ... if champions of country A were sufficiently ardent, they could go off on their own to fight, but they could not commit their fellow countrymen to do the same...

"Rights may be universal, but their enforcement must be local"... A group of people may have rights, but it is their responsibility, and theirs alone, to defend or safeguard such rights...

Government is not something imposed from above, by some divine act of conferring sovereignty; but contractual, from below, by "consent of the governed..."

All taxes, by their very nature, are paid, on net, by one set of people, the "taxpayers," and the proceeds go to another set of people, what Calhoun justly called the "tax-consumers," [a]mong [whom] are the politicians and bureaucrats who live full-time off the proceeds...

Just War by Murray N. Rothbard

Happy 45th Birthday John Birch Society!

"Less Government, More Responsibility, And – With God’s Help – A Better World."

In 1964, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch declared, "I want for our country enough laws to restrain me from injuring others, so that these laws will also restrain others from injuring me. I want enough government, with enough constitutional safeguards, so that this necessary minimum of laws will be applied equitably to everybody, and will be binding on the rulers as well as those ruled."

Still a pretty good vision!

A Better World - The New American - October 20, 2003

Walter Williams on the enumerated powers of Congress

A hearty "ditto's" to Walter Williams on the limited, enumerated powers of Congress and the federal government.

Walter writes:

"Whether it's a good idea or not is irrelevant. The relevant issue is: Is it permissible, under the U.S. Constitution... The fact of business is that Congress is authorized to do only those things enumerated by the Constitution... The general welfare clause has become the standard excuse for controlling our lives, and as such, it shows how ignorance and deception have become an important part of today's America."

As even Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."

WorldNetDaily: Is it permissible?