On Official Bullies, Bad Faith and Hiding The Ball.
One of the most vexing of governance issues is an official’s exceeding the scope of one’s authority on the long-established doctrine of what’re-you-gonna-do-about-it? It involves a personal hostility, a brutality of a sort, suspected illegality and a general long-standing inner anger that was brought to office. So much for mercy of the court.
Among the most hurtful of current events is the starvation of patient Terri Schiavo, where one party critical to the truth and justice is in possession of the highly sought facts in an appearance of impropriety. It would be so easy to short-circuit the reasonable accusations, but again, we are talking what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it?
Exactly.
We’ve all encountered bullies before, and we know they tend to go unchecked. Among the bullies are the media, who like to misrepresent the issues, such as reporting that Terri is on life-support when, in fact, she is not. All she needs is food.
Or that Congress "interferes" when, in fact, an Act Of Congress is blatantly ignored, irrespective of whether someone believes it was not righteous.
These acts breach the good faith covenant and hide the ball. The facts are there, we believe, but they are denied, some hidden and otherwise unobtainable because others will not compel the holders to hand them over.
This is a real mess. And it’s even worse than that.
All of these people want to put a thumb in the eye of America by destruction of a symbol, a living symbol of helplessness, Terri Schiavo. Terri is also a symbol of our values – in that we protect the weak. Or we try to.
To interfere with such a rescue as every attempt made so far is to make the ultimate later claim that our values system is ineffectual in the face of authority, which muscle itself, claims to be the last word in our society. It’s really nothing more than bullying.
I wish I could do something. Don't we all.
When I was a Paramedic, in cases similar to this, we observed a patient care/legal concept called implied consent. It meant that we had the consent of the unconscious patient who could be legally presumed to give consent in light of the unstable circumstances. Implied consent also applied to individuals who had refused treatment verbally, but who suddenly lost consciousness. We then had authority to begin treatment in spite of protests of a moment before.
I can think of one case of a heart attack patient who refused treatment, then lapsed into cardiac arrest; our Squad then had implied consent the second he went unconscious. The differentiation from what he had enunciated earlier as his legal wishes was that circumstances had changed such that a reasonable person might presume what the patient would then consent to in their own self-interest -- namely Life.
Every Paramedic has seen the emaciated patient. Seeing the exhausted and starving person due to a lifestyle, whether homeless or even wealthy and living alone, are we to believe that we cannot know the presumed wishes of the patient under changed circumstances? Implied consent provides for the reasonable presumption of consent to rescue in light of a change in circumstances, irrespective of what might have been verbalized beforehand.
Would this have legal effect in the case of Terri Schiavo? I don't know. I'm sometimes still thinking like a Paramedic. Have the circumstances changed such that intervention would be permitted by the doctrine of implied consent?
Just a thought.
Should Terri pass on for lack of nutritional intervention, not to mention proper medical care to do what one can do to restore her health and viability, the Left can point to our own helplessness in mockery. Is this their true objective, driven by their own inner anger against America? Going by their past conduct, I'm getting to anticipate it.
The left has prevailed largely because there has been little objection. (Call it tolerance.) The Left depends on our remaining polite, getting bolder and more brazen with every crisis, and it talks too many of us out of objection at all. The Right is so bent on propriety and the appearance of it by now that in being proper ladies and gentlemen, too much objection would be unseemly. The Right, too, has swallowed the Kool-aid of its own recipe that resistance and objection are poor etiquette, and that they would accomplish little.
The truth is that resistance to injustice is everything. That is what we are all about, and protecting the weak – formerly the agenda of the Liberals until it was hijacked by the Left – is much more American than the Left will ever be.
Without engaging the Left and meeting them in due process, the country can be lost. I emphasize due process.
That means no more Mr. Nice Guy. This means litigation, it means persistence. And it means swinging for the fence.
The Left cannot win without breaching the good faith covenant and hiding the ball. We fight by being completely accurate in our pleadings, by identifying the issues properly and clearly, by bargaining in good faith, and our own brand of absolute persistence.
We won’t win by worrying about etiquette.
Not only is Terri Schiavo a symbol of how Americans – real Americans – strive to protect the weak and innocent, but how we must from now on, and how we must unseat the angry Impaired properly. Due Process.
Whether Terri suffers in pain from starvation is immaterial; she is suffering from injustice, a crime according to our values system. Correct that, and you correct her starvation, painful or not.
I know these individuals can retaliate – they often do. Their whole action is a retaliation for some previous perceived rage they harbor. America never did anything to earn their wrath. They’re simply bullies.
And for now – and until we object – they are bullying a helpless patient to hurt by extension all of us everywhere.
John Longenecker is a former Los Angeles Paramedic. His new book The Battle We Fight -- Battling Potomac Fever To Recapture Our Homes And Communities is now available in electronic format at www.nationwideconcealedcarry.com
Among the most hurtful of current events is the starvation of patient Terri Schiavo, where one party critical to the truth and justice is in possession of the highly sought facts in an appearance of impropriety. It would be so easy to short-circuit the reasonable accusations, but again, we are talking what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it?
Exactly.
We’ve all encountered bullies before, and we know they tend to go unchecked. Among the bullies are the media, who like to misrepresent the issues, such as reporting that Terri is on life-support when, in fact, she is not. All she needs is food.
Or that Congress "interferes" when, in fact, an Act Of Congress is blatantly ignored, irrespective of whether someone believes it was not righteous.
These acts breach the good faith covenant and hide the ball. The facts are there, we believe, but they are denied, some hidden and otherwise unobtainable because others will not compel the holders to hand them over.
This is a real mess. And it’s even worse than that.
All of these people want to put a thumb in the eye of America by destruction of a symbol, a living symbol of helplessness, Terri Schiavo. Terri is also a symbol of our values – in that we protect the weak. Or we try to.
To interfere with such a rescue as every attempt made so far is to make the ultimate later claim that our values system is ineffectual in the face of authority, which muscle itself, claims to be the last word in our society. It’s really nothing more than bullying.
I wish I could do something. Don't we all.
When I was a Paramedic, in cases similar to this, we observed a patient care/legal concept called implied consent. It meant that we had the consent of the unconscious patient who could be legally presumed to give consent in light of the unstable circumstances. Implied consent also applied to individuals who had refused treatment verbally, but who suddenly lost consciousness. We then had authority to begin treatment in spite of protests of a moment before.
I can think of one case of a heart attack patient who refused treatment, then lapsed into cardiac arrest; our Squad then had implied consent the second he went unconscious. The differentiation from what he had enunciated earlier as his legal wishes was that circumstances had changed such that a reasonable person might presume what the patient would then consent to in their own self-interest -- namely Life.
Every Paramedic has seen the emaciated patient. Seeing the exhausted and starving person due to a lifestyle, whether homeless or even wealthy and living alone, are we to believe that we cannot know the presumed wishes of the patient under changed circumstances? Implied consent provides for the reasonable presumption of consent to rescue in light of a change in circumstances, irrespective of what might have been verbalized beforehand.
Would this have legal effect in the case of Terri Schiavo? I don't know. I'm sometimes still thinking like a Paramedic. Have the circumstances changed such that intervention would be permitted by the doctrine of implied consent?
Just a thought.
Should Terri pass on for lack of nutritional intervention, not to mention proper medical care to do what one can do to restore her health and viability, the Left can point to our own helplessness in mockery. Is this their true objective, driven by their own inner anger against America? Going by their past conduct, I'm getting to anticipate it.
The left has prevailed largely because there has been little objection. (Call it tolerance.) The Left depends on our remaining polite, getting bolder and more brazen with every crisis, and it talks too many of us out of objection at all. The Right is so bent on propriety and the appearance of it by now that in being proper ladies and gentlemen, too much objection would be unseemly. The Right, too, has swallowed the Kool-aid of its own recipe that resistance and objection are poor etiquette, and that they would accomplish little.
The truth is that resistance to injustice is everything. That is what we are all about, and protecting the weak – formerly the agenda of the Liberals until it was hijacked by the Left – is much more American than the Left will ever be.
Without engaging the Left and meeting them in due process, the country can be lost. I emphasize due process.
That means no more Mr. Nice Guy. This means litigation, it means persistence. And it means swinging for the fence.
The Left cannot win without breaching the good faith covenant and hiding the ball. We fight by being completely accurate in our pleadings, by identifying the issues properly and clearly, by bargaining in good faith, and our own brand of absolute persistence.
We won’t win by worrying about etiquette.
Not only is Terri Schiavo a symbol of how Americans – real Americans – strive to protect the weak and innocent, but how we must from now on, and how we must unseat the angry Impaired properly. Due Process.
Whether Terri suffers in pain from starvation is immaterial; she is suffering from injustice, a crime according to our values system. Correct that, and you correct her starvation, painful or not.
I know these individuals can retaliate – they often do. Their whole action is a retaliation for some previous perceived rage they harbor. America never did anything to earn their wrath. They’re simply bullies.
And for now – and until we object – they are bullying a helpless patient to hurt by extension all of us everywhere.
John Longenecker is a former Los Angeles Paramedic. His new book The Battle We Fight -- Battling Potomac Fever To Recapture Our Homes And Communities is now available in electronic format at www.nationwideconcealedcarry.com
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