Giving Credence to the Opposition

Lets get the disclaimer out of the way first shall we ...

I am a conservative who believes in very limited government especially as the government has power to control and dictate to me what my personal life and decisions should be regarding myself, my family and personal belief systems. I am also personally a pro-life person who would not choose to terminate anyone's life without their consent or let mine be so terminated. However i do have written documents specifying that if i am unable to live without being totally dependent on either machines or other people to continue living exactly what measures are to be taken and which are not.

Having said that i also realize that MY personal beliefs are just that ...MY beliefs. They are not always the beliefs of any other person and that means that i must also fully protect their belief to do things differently than i would do in order that MY beliefs are protected. To me that is the core tenant of Conservatism ....

I may not like your beliefs, i may think them weird, outlandish and downright crude however i MUST protect your right to have them or else i risk my right to have MY beliefs as well.

Which brings me to the point of having to vehemently disagree with a great many of my conservative friends and persons i admire over the tragic case of Terri Schaivo.

I believe that what many conservatives have been advocating and cheering over the weekend as the unprecedented step of the congress stepping in and changing the rules of law in mid-stream is wrong and will eventually due to the "law of unintended consequences" turn around and bite us back harder then we would ever have thought or desired.

Conservatives have always stood on the unbending principle of "The Rule of Law" and many of us have been very vocal over the last decade in denouncing those of the liberal side in their attempts to circumvent, go around, twist, parse, maneuver and otherwise manipulate those laws and rules into what they wanted.

My friends you cannot have it both ways .... many times i have said those very words to my liberal acquaintances and now unfortunately i must say them to my conservative friends. We are either for the rule of law or we stand for nothing except for what we accuse our opposition of .... an ever-changing notion of whim and popularity and emotion.

The case of Terri Schiavo is not difficult to follow .... nine times within the Court system of Florida it has been tried and re-tried and each and every time the ruling has been the same .... we may not like it but there it is .... under the rule of law. In eager zeal to "right" a terrible wrong (as we view it) many conservatives are being seen as willing to abandon those principles we hold to be true ... and in the course of doing so giving comfort, support, and credence to the opposition that we are no better than they are .... we also are willing to abandon principles of our core beliefs in order to "win no matter the cost" ... the rule of law be dammed.

We as conservatives will not continue to win and change hearts if out of one side of our mouths we scream that the best government is one which leaves personal decisions up to the people involved and out of the hands of an over-reaching government while at the same time using the other side to scream at an even higher level that the Government MUST take this decision out of the hands of the responsible legal guardian and the responsible legal entity (in this case the state of Florida) and change the rules in a completely unprecedented manner and transfer it to a different authority so that we can get the ruling we want (regardless of the consequences down the road).

James Madison said

"The sober people of America are weary of the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils. They have seen with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences, in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less-informed part of the community." Federalist Number 44, 1788.

We should as caring, compassionate and principled conservatives try to change the laws we see as wrong or unjust but we should NEVER try to circumvent in unprecedented manners such as are being tried to change rulings arrived at justly just because we do not agree with their outcomes.