Self Examination

I am a warrior, retired for now, but ready to step back into combat if the need arises and the justification is clear.

That said, my greatest responsibility has been and still is to make myself, as a warrior, capable of winning combat. To do that, I perform self-examination, where I evaluate the possible combat situtations that I might be involved in, and check my skill levels to see that I possess the training, equipment and resolve to win in those situations. Every good warrior does this, and if that warrior neglects self-examination, he or she is putting not only themself at risk, but their comrades, and the entity that they are fighting for.

Part of that self-examination must be an evaluation of the reasons for combat, for MY kind of warrior does not involve himself in combat for improper purposes. I can't, for example, go out into the community and start wasting illegal aliens. They have violated the laws of our country by entering and remaining here improperly, and it is desireable that they not be here, but I can't just go up to one and screw a gun in his ear and march him to the border or kill him on the spot.

With all the talk, and in response to my writing on this subject, it follows that I should examine myself in regard to the Terri Shiavo Affair, since it seems at least possible that this affair could signal sufficient civil disruption to require the consideration of combat.

UPDATE: 032905 0200 PST: After contemplating my questions all day, I have come to some answers. For continuity's sake, they are listed below this post.

This self-examination boils down to whether I have changed, or the surrounding political/moral environment has changed. All I can conclude, since I have gotten opposition from people who've never opposed my similar presentations before , is that there has been change.

I am a member of a particular political/moral group, conservatives. I have taken it for granted that this group shared my ironbound belief that the Constitution must not be weakened by undercutting the principles it is based upon. I think it's fair to say that this has been a conservative maxim for as long as there have been conservatives. All of us had agreed that the Constitution, as written, has clearly been the basis of and for our society, and it must be preserved.

Until the Shiavo Affair, that is. That matter, in which some conservatives hold that the brain-damaged woman's life must be preserved through and until all parties to her care have agreed upon the outcome of that care, despite an obvious conflict with constitutional principles involved, has seriously split conservatives.

Some conservatives even argue that the principle of maintaining the woman alive (but brain-damaged) is more important on BOTH a moral and legal basis than the Constitution itself, which they claim has been improperly interpreted in allowing Terri Shiavo's life to be terminated.

Many conservatives are deeply religious people. I am not. These conservatives had, until the Shiavo Affair, kept their religious beliefs properly separated from their support of their Constitution. Now that these conservatives no longer see a need to separate religious beliefs from constitutional actions, what changes are required?

I question myself thus:

1. If the religious aspects of this case have primacy over the Constitutional aspects, does that indicate that the Constitution has changed, or does that indicate merely (another) new interpretation of it?
2. I have sworn several life oaths to defend both the Nation and it's Constitution. I always assumed that those oaths were as valid in their parts as they were in the whole aspect. If the answer to #1 above is that the Constitution has changed, am I released from my life oaths?
3. In those life oaths, it is assumed (and I have been told) that my duties might involve projecting deadly force at those who threaten the Nation and it's Constitution. If the answer to #1 is that the Constitution has changed, does protection of it still involve the use of deadly force?
4. If I find that the answer in #1 is that the Constitution has NOT changed, are those conservatives who newly interpret it as changed now my enemies?
5. Are those conservatives who interpret the Constitution to be less significant than their religious beliefs showing a changed set of beliefs, or have they always held these beliefs? This answer is important, because if they have changed and the Constitution has not, they fail in THEIR duty to the Constitution, but if, as they maintain, they have NOT changed their beliefs, and the Constitution actually was written to include their beliefs as principles of law, then our entire society has failed to follow it's Constitution, and failed since that document was born.
6. The Judiciary is charged with the duty to interpret the Constitution in cases where matters in dispute make varying claims of support of Constitutionality for their cases. In the Shiavo Affair, one party, the Schindlers, have lost all the cases they have presented at law. They have lost before Courts covering the entire spectrum of both their State Judiciary and the Federal Judiciary. Is it possible that a citizen-warrior's evaluation of this matter could include the outcome that all those Courts and both of those Judiciaries could have been wrong, and should not be supported as part of the Constitutional process I am sworn to defend?
7. Finally, after all the above questions have been properly answered (the proper standard is Truth, not belief), if the result is that the Believers are incorrect and the Strict Constructionists are correct, what becomes of the Believers? This last answer is supreme, since it decides whether I have new (and dangerous) life enemies or not.

I have posted these questions in several places so that they will be the focus of my thinking until they are all answered. When they ARE answered, I will post those answers on this blog.

The envelope, please.

1. The Constitution has not changed. The conservatives who have raised up their voices to argue so vehemently against the death-order for Terri Shiavo have changed their interpretation of it. There was advance warning of this in their previous treatment of the religion-based Right To Life organization, and this is the same emotion, only intensified several orders of magnitude.
2. Since the Constitution has not changed, my devotion to it has not changed.
3. See #2 above. Nothing has changed for me. Short answer: No
4. Not necessarily. If I apply their logic, even as they damage our Constitution, I may forgive them this trespass. Short answer: maybe.
5. There's a shade of Grey here. All day, I leaned towards answering that the Shiavo supporters HAD changed their belief set, but now I surmise that they always believed that way, just never thought about it before in sufficient detail to raise up such a fuss. The second of my original choices is a null set, and invalid.
6. I do not believe that the entire Judiciaries are corrupt. Such a belief would be necessary to make real the blanket condemnations that are being bandied about so loosely now.
7. I still consider the Believers to be incorrect here. Every religious organization that weighs in on this matter (and there are too many to list now) demonstrates the validity of my position. Yes, the Founders were all men of high Judeo-Christian belief levels. Had they so desired, they could easily have established the US of A as a Christian Republic, with tolerance for Judaism. They didn't, and instead, forbade the Establishment of Religion.

In conclusion, all we can expect our Judiciary to do is follow the Founders. Actually, in the Shiavo affair, they have done a far better job of it, showing the unanimity that they have, than they have on other recent important constitutional interpretations.

A warning to my pro-Shiavo comrades: if you carry your Constitution in your pocket, but your Bible in your hands, it's tenets on the tip of your tongue, and it's Canon law into Court and thence to the streets, you can't tell me that your citizenship is better than mine, and you certainly can't tell me that you have benefited from your study of history.