Double-speaking

By now, we've all been overwhelmed by the case of Terri Schiavo. Schiavo has gone more than a week without her feeding tube and most doctors estimate that she won't live past Thursday.\nThe right-to-die/right-to-life debate is in full swing (again) and the standard arguments are coming from both sides. There are those who view Schiavo's assisted suicide as blasphemous against everything God stands for and those who silently (or, depending on the person, not so silently) ridicule those pro-lifers as superstitious fools. Obscured amid all the hot air coming from the clichéd battle lines, there is, in fact, a real moral case hidden under all of this. Surprisingly, it's not exactly what you would suspect.\nThe battle is not between those who want Schiavo to die a dignified death and those who respect the sanctity of life, but between those who have strong convictions and those who don't. Those who don't have convictions manipulate the former for its own personal gain. It's much too easy to say things that are politically or socially expedient instead of taking a strong principled stand. By playing groups with opposing beliefs against each other, those lacking convictions can appeal to both.\nAfter giving his verbal support to the parents of Schiavo, President Bush got into political hot water once it was revealed that, as governor of Texas, he signed a law that gave hospitals the right to end a patient's life in spite of the parents' wishes.\nHis statement on "erring on the side of life" drew snickers from liberals who brought up Bush's hard-line stance on the death penalty.\nOne of the major planks of a Republican platform is a belief in smaller government. The concept of "states' rights" gives more autonomy to the state to decide what happens within its borders. It seems very un-Republican to back the entire U.S. Congress's intervention in one person's life. On the other end of the spectrum, many Democratic leaders who opposed Bush's version of Social Security privatization supported a similar measure when introduced by President Clinton.\nAs much as we'd like to pretend this double-talk and lack of conviction exists only in the political realm, it doesn't. We all are guilty of taking both sides of an issue when it is socially convenient. Some of us may sneer at the stumbling drunk students leaving greek houses, but we engage in that sort of drunken behavior in our own dwellings. Some mock those who obsess over every fashion magazine and all the "in" trends, but their outfits are meticulously crafted to make an "un-image."\nThere is a difference between changing one's mind after new facts are presented, but then there is what George Orwell describes as "doublespeak." "Doublespeak," introduced in Orwell's novel "1984," is when a person can believe two opposed ideas at the same time without conflict. Hypocrisy is when a person believes one thing but says something different. Both hypocrisy and doublespeak are distortions of true belief. Both damage the understanding between each other.\nTrue convictions are a rare thing; it's even rarer when we actually stick to our true beliefs. In that sense, I applaud those protesting and counter-protesting outside of Schiavo's hospice. At least their beliefs are strong enough to warrant the criticism and realities of life. It's easy and politically savvy to take both sides of an issue. There's never a chance of offending anyone if you agree with every group at least some of the time.\nIf one good thing came out of the Schiavo case, it is that we now know where some people truly stand and where they say they stand are not always in the same place.