The Vulcans Have It Right

Somewhat surprisingly it turns out that 70% of people polled thought that Congress overstepped its bounds in trying to legislate the Terry Schiavo case. That's just a little less than the 78% that believe Jesus's resurrection really happened (and it would be hard to be a "good Christian" without placing stock in that proposition), and significantly more than the 55% or so who believe in Creationism over Evolution. So basically, it means nothing--except that what was once the "silent majority" has transmogrified into the "loud minority," in the process launching a new "old" form of political animal, the Kneejerk Conservative.

Even more surprising, the Federal judge assigned to review this case, which has been essentially ruled exactly the same in every appellate court, decided that, wow, he saw no reason to change the ruling. So now Terry's parents are going out of state, to a district Federal judge in Georgia, maybe even Cobb County, which is usually busy trying to revive anti-sodomy laws and doing other useful business. One wonders where all of this is going to end. I'm sure Scalia, Thomas and friends are just biting at the bit to overrule the Floridean judicial system, something they are so good at. Next on the docket, if that doesn't work, is the Constitutional Amendment.

On the one hand it is somewhat impressive to see how legislation can be railroaded into existence so quickly (and time was of the essence here). Most laws take forever to navigate their way through the ways and means of congressional action. But it would have been nice if this legislation was important and not the most blatant example of muddleheaded emotional pandering that has ever emerged from the Beltway. This led me to muse about the differences between laws that have been initiated by emotional prejudice as opposed to those that have arisen through careful logic and reasoning. I'm afraid emotion does not fare well.

Let's look at the historic record. Here are examples of some laws or legal codes that have arisen from emotional reflex: The Inquisition; the Volstead Act (Prohibition); the Nuremburg Laws (Hitler's antiSemitic code); the Internment of Japanese Americans in World War II; the current Patriot Act.

Here is what has emerged from reasoned discourse and pragmatic thought: Hammurabi's Code; The French Declaration of the Rights of Man; The American Constitution; our Bill of Rights; the repeal of the Volstead Act; the Civil Rights Act of 1965.

So here I am actually arguing that law requires thought, reason, logic and due consideration, and not mindless hand-wringing and--well, let's really identify it, "HYSTERIA." Okay, I probably won't get many arguments there. But the Republicans, in their recent successes, have proved over and over that the appeal to emotion--and even irrationality--is more successful politically than the appeal to the intellect. How else can we interpret last year's Presidential debates? So don't be surprised, if poor Mrs. Schiavo succumbs, that she will be resurrected as a Poster Girl in 2008 by the radical right as a tragic testimony to the loathesome Democrats who dare defy the sanctity of life by inviting nature to take its course.

We have a long way to go--perhaps a Civilization's worth of governing evolution--to establish the rule of rational thought as the primary route through which we will guide our lives.