« snark alert | Main | Dems back away from Bu$Hitler meme »
March 21, 2005
I hope James Lileks forgives me
but I'm still wrestling with some writing trying to fully explain why I'm so appalled at the contingent of people who seem anxious to see Terri die. Then along comes this. I just have to repost the paragraph --
The Schiavo matter is the Elian Gonzalez case of 2005, a person who stands at the nexus of a variety of irreconcilable issues. Some people wouldn’t care at all if she died, unless she had been the sole occupant of a hospital in Baghdad leveled by an errant Tomahawk; then you’d see her face in every protest march. Some see another step towards the triumph of euthanasia – they stop at the idea of someone being starved against the wishes of her parents, and there’s not another fact that matters. Then there are the people for whom this is an opportunity for horrid mockery, the people who care about nothing (but will find someday that nothing cares so much about them it has taken over their hearts completely.) Others demonstrate their enthusiasm for pawing through the casket to find the silver lining. Then there are those who brim with passion not just for the state-approved quietus, but with fury for those who oppose it. Fury and impatience. I’m not talking about the people who regard Schiavo as brain dead and believe her guardian should be allowed to carry out what he insists are her wishes, without the state’s intercession – I mean those who show up on message boards and comment forums sneering about vegetables-in-pampers, and have a good larf pointing at the christers with their imaginary friend in the sky who tells them that an angel will come down and give her a brain like the Wizard of Oz or somethin’. It’s this combination of nihilism, cynicism and a flat nasty refusal to even consider the possibility of transcendence, puffed up with that brackish snarkier-than-thou style that makes the Comic Book Guy the patron saint of the Usenet.I want to write like that when I grow up.
Posted by Darleen at March 21, 2005 10:28 PM