<HTML><BODY STYLE="font:10pt verdana; border:none;"><DIV>Roger writes:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I agree with your post. You write very well. My mother had a living will. She was to have no extraordinary measures taken to keep her alive. She wanted pain killers only. She died from liver failure and probably morphine. Two of my Uncles took their own lives while they were still able to do so. The Hemlock Society( I don't recall their new name) is basically right however they and De. Kevorkian have sometimes gone to extremes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>L. Roger Falen, a Goldwater type libertarian conservative.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>P.S. Goldwater's first wife (Peggy) was one of the founders of Planed Parenthood in Phoenix.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>--------------------</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hi Roger and other Visionaries:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I didn't know that about Goldwater's first wife; that's interesting. Try to picture the spouse of a modern GOP presidential candidate having anything to do with Planned Parenthood. That's a laugh, isn't it? (And, to be fair, it's hard to picture the spouse of a modern Democratic candidate espousing anti-choice views. God knows, I wouldn't like it. Still -- big tent and all that.) I think it's fair to say that if the Goldwater/libertarian wing of the Republican Party isn't dead already, it's certainly got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. When Richard Nixon made his deal with the devil, i.e., when he adopted the so-called Southern Strategy, he put a knife in Goldwater's back and left him and the rest of the libertarian wing to die a slow, painful death from Bible-belt septicimia. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It's an ugly way to go. I know; twelve years ago, I escaped North Carolina's Jesse Helms by chewing one of my legs off and hopping out to Idaho Cecil Andrus was governor then, and so I felt that I had made an improvement. Little did I know that this good, libertarian state would eventually begin flirting with legislating morality, i.e., tinkering with the state constitution in order to define marriage so that it would fit a particular religious view. (Are you reading this, Dale? It'll make a great blog topic for you, you lazy sod.)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I've been talking to Dave Budge offline about the possibility of founding a progressive libertarian party, one that would press for a democratic government that guaranteed access to health care and social security, struck a sound balance between environmental health, worker salary, worker safety, and the need for economic growth, and, finally, kept its big nose out of the bedroom, the family room, and the hospital room. I don't know if such a thing is possible, but I'm interested in trying. I'm a still a Democrat, mind you; Libertarian with a big "L" is not for me, but I recognize and long for changes in my party's structure and vision, changes that will result in better, smarter, and -- just perhaps -- more minimalist government in certain circumstances. That's quite a change for me. Ah, well, you live and you learn.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment</DIV> <DIV><A href="http://www.auntie-establishment.com">www.auntie-establishment.com</A></DIV></BODY></HTML><br clear=all><hr>Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : <a href='http://explorer.msn.com'>http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>