The Poor Lamb Cries & the ACLU Rejoices
January 27, 2005
In The Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare poignantly notes that when “The wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries.” Those cries of the poor lamb fall on the deaf ears of the liberals over at the ACLU. Even more poignant, the taxpayer supported ACLU, much like the Nazis whose “rights” they support, celebrates the death of “poor lambs” and the life of “wolves”. It is a world turned upside-down by the degenerative logic of ACLU liberals...gratis your tax dollars.
Imagine any lawmaker asking a constituency to support taxpayer funding for an organization that: (1) advocates killing innocent brain damaged people; (2) advocates killing innocent unborns; and (3) celebrates the lives of rapists and murderers. That is your 21st century ACLU.
To end the inevitable nitpicking over the status of ACLU taxpayer funding right up front...it is. Despite the ACLU categorically stating that “We do not receive any government funding”, they do. As a myriad of non-profit organizations, the ACLU receives taxpayer support in three ways: (1) the organization is a non-profit and does not pay any taxes; (2) the donations to ACLU “foundations” are tax-deductible and reduce the donor’s tax liability; and (3) under certain circumstances, ACLU lawyers are compensated with tax dollars for their time. What's in a name? That which we call taxpayer funding by any other word would smell as sweet.
In the latest round of an ongoing battle, the Supreme Court refused to intercede and keep Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged Florida woman, hooked to a feeding tube. Schiavo can breathe on her own but cannot swallow. Without the aid of a feeding tube, she will slowly starve to death. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, who lives with another women, has been fighting to have the tube removed. Terri Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, and her siblings, Bobby and Suzanne, want to fight for life with Terri. The ACLU is fighting with Terri’s “husband” to end her life.
As proudly announced on the ACLU website, “The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida today welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeal of Terri's Law....” After joining with Michael Schiavo’s lawyer, the ACLU is perversely happy about helping this “husband” end his wife’s life. No doubt that in another age, the ACLU might have fought for the “right” of “Aktion T 4", the Nazi euthanasia program to eliminate "life unworthy of life".
And speaking of “life unworthy of life”, there is the case of Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross. From 1981 to 1984, Ross, a Cornell University graduate, murdered eight young women after raping seven of them. He did not rape 14 year old Leslie Shelley who was locked in a car trunk while Ross raped and then murdered her 14 year old best friend April Brunais. In his confession, Ross said that he thought Shelley was brave so he didn’t rape her before murdering her. Had Viagra been available, Ross might have been able to perform the back-to-back rapes of two 14 year olds.
As an indication of Ross’s depravity, liberal little Connecticut produced juries that sentenced him to death two times: in 1987 and again in 2000. In a typically convoluted mess, Ross wants to be executed; 80% of Connecticut citizens want Ross executed; the families of the victims want Ross executed; and the liberals with the support of the ACLU want to save Ross from execution.
Despite a scheduled execution and Ross’s own stated desires to die, “Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut argued...that serial killer Michael Ross could suffer ‘excruciating pain’ during his execution by lethal injection Jan. 26, and asked a federal judge to stay the execution....” The federal judge who heard these arguments denied the stay and allowed the planned execution to proceed. BUT...two days before the execution, “Chief U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny's dramatic stay...of the execution” threw the outcome into doubt.
A Connecticut Public Defenders’ office gone wild, with the help of the ACLU, was successful in pleading for a stay of Ross’s execution. Ross is represented by private counsel retained by Ross to help him die. The Public Defenders’ office has been found by court rulings to have no standing in the case. They are uninvited busybodies having fun on the taxpayer’s dime. There is no mandate in the state statutes that authorizes this kind of intervention.
The federal judge who granted the stay of execution agreed “that conditions on death row have contributed to Ross' desire to die.” One of the attorneys arguing for the stay said that, “"A government can't say, `We're going to give you the death penalty,' and then put you in conditions that are so unbearable that you don't fight.” Tell that to the young women Ross raped and then “...forced them to roll over on their stomachs...straddle them and strangle them from behind.”
For the record, Connecticut also has a convicted murderer, Daniel Webb, on death row who sued the state with the help of these same legal gadflies because he wasn’t allowed to use African American beauty products on death row. Denial of Afro Sheen was a more heinous crime than the torture and murder of a young female bank executive.
I will retire to Bedlam. In arguing that no “competent” person would wish their own execution, these pansy do-gooders simply ignore the fact that no “competent” person would rape 14 year old girls and then murder them. On the basis of this logic, let’s have a national holiday for all non-competent people to indulge their psycho-sexual fantasies. You can name it “Democratic President’s Day”...or “Massachusetts Senator’s Day”.
It is striking that the liberals from the ACLU will jump on any bandwagon that seeks to destroy the unborn; euthanize the brain-damaged; or protect the lives of heinous murderers. To this list you can also add protecting the “rights” of Islamic terrorists and condemning anything in America’s national interests.
It is a perverted logic and once again, the check is ultimately written by the American taxpayer.
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