PLEASE SEE SOURCE FOR LINKS:
http://truthmissile.blogspot.com/2005/03/ayatollah-delay-and-real-role-of.html
Juan Cole weighs in the the Schiavo case...
"...Republican Hisba ("Hisba signifies a case filed by an individual on behalf of society when the plaintiff feels that great harm has been done to religion") will have the same effect in the United States that it does in the Middle East. It will reduce the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of religious and political elites to control individuals. Ayatollah Delay isn't different from his counterparts in Iran."
The examples Professor Cole uses include Islamic Fundamentalists involvement in a case where a scholar said that daughters should receive the same inheritance share as sons. The scholar was accused of sacrilege, considered an "infidel," and "forcibly" divorced from his wife (she was still considered a muslim, so she couldn't remain married to her husband who was suddenly deemed a non-muslim). The couple eventually fled to Europe.
Juan Cole...
"...One of the most objectionable features of this fundamentalist tactic is that persons without standing can interfere in private affairs. Perfect strangers can file a case about your marriage, because they represent themselves as defending a public interest (the upholding of religion and morality)."
There is a difference between being forcibly divorced and a husband euthanizing his wife - namely death. But maybe in drawing this parallel, Cole is pointing out the slippery slope we enter when we have government bodies get involved in the cases of individuals.
What I'm stunned at is the media's inability or reluctance to highlight the POLITICAL calculations behind this move, and call it for what it is. As horrible as this whole situation is, it's none of my business. If my co-worker is having an affair that I object to, should the company get involved in the marital problems of that individual that may or may not have led him to cheat? Should the government? If I am opposed to the government getting involved in my co-workers marriage - does that mean I condone the cheating? No. It means I respect the role of government and organizations to get involved in the affairs of individuals.
Today there was a story on NPR about a company called GRACO, that was fined $4 million"for failing to report hundreds of incidents, some fatal, involving products ranging from infant carriers to high chairs." The Consumer Product Safety Commission has a role to keep tabs on companies like GRACO, but their BUDGET is around $67 Million in 2004 - the combined salary of Shaq and Kobe! Looking back to 1989, an article in the Feb 2, 1989 Washington Post:
"For eight years, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was Washington's domestic Nicaragua. Nobody declared war on the agency assigned to protect Americans from unsafe products; they just threw everything they had at it.
First they strafed its staff. There were about 975 employees in 1981; today there are 519. Then they imposed economic sanctions. In 1981, it had a budget of $42 million; today it has $34.5 million, almost exactly the price of running the Defense Department for one hour.
Then came the puppet government--a commission stacked with political conservatives who had no background in product safety.
The even took the agency's downtown building away. Today the commissioners, who used to meet in the K Street business district, hold court on the lower floors of a drab, Bethesda apartment building, overlooking a Giant Food loading dock and a bowling alley. (Actually, they don't hold court at all these days because the five-member commission has so many vacancies that it now lacks a quorum of three.)
It is not just consumer lobbies who think things have gotten out of hand. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which sees its share of childhood injuries, says the CPSC `has been emasculated.' Bob Adler, associate professor at the University of North Carolina business school, calls it `a regulatory speck.'
And a conservative appointed by former president Ronald Reagan said: `This whole place has been traumatized, tortured and drop-kicked around since 1981..."
Obviously companies used the Reagan Administration to "deregulate" agencies that monitor the safety of products that impact the lives of children - now children have died, and the company gets fined $4 million. How much is the life of your child worth? The things the government should get involved with, like the DEATH of children due to unsafe products goes ignored while our nation focuses on the feeding tube of an invalid in Florida.