. . .Well to respond to Jesse

Um who gives a shit. Terri Shiavo probably doesn't care whether she is alive or dead, if anything she would rather be dead because at least then she would have a chance to be in heaven and not just in a mindless vegetable state.

But in no way should the controversy over her life received the national attention that it has. The only reason that this case has reached the amount of attention that it has is because politicians like to use issues like this to get votes. Simple as that. Same as the abortion issue, politicians are never going to do anything important about the issue but they are going to use it as a rallying cry to get people sympathetic to either side of the issue to vote for them.

It is one big magic trick, look at this profoundly emotional issue that has hardly any relevance on anyones life, instead of looking at my policies that are actually effecting you in a negative way. Instead of politicians dealing with important substantive issues the debates focus on "you are evil cause you are killing this person," "you are evil cause you won't let this person die."

Why don't we have national attention on poverty, minority issues, healthcare, anything that actually affect the average American lives. Why? The answer is simple because when people actually start paying close attention to what are politicians are doing, they get angry and fed up with those politicians.

As I alluded to earlier before the abortion issue is the exact same thing as the Shiavo case. Why? Because the Republican Party is never going to outlaw abortion eventhough they constantly preach about how horrid abortion is. What they are doing is just getting catholics, women, impoverished, farmers and many others who don't tend to agree with the Republican economic policies to become republicans because of this highly emotional issue. It creates a fictional divide between people that irrationalizes politics and creates unnecessary polarity.

We should be more aware and immune to this kind of bull shit magic tricks that politicians use for their political gain. We need to focus on substantive issues that profoundly affect the majority of American lives.

-Andrew Gross