[sarcasm]Now that the Republicans have Won, Abortion will End![/sarcasm]

Before I start, let me assure you that this is my own original political analysis and I have neither seen on TV nor read in any media nor heard on the radio what I am about to tell you.  I just wanted to say that because I get accused of copying Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews and I just want everyone to know that I don't and have never watched their shows.  Not a single time.  I don't even have cable.  I am a democratic socialist.  They are TV pundits.  I am able to make the distinction.  Some are not apparently.

Anyway, my analysis.

I was taken aback by what I heard.  I listened to quite a number of victory and concession speeches.  I listened mostly to republican victory and concession speeches.  I listened to Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino, John Boehner, and others whose names are less recognizable and even less remember-able.  A single issue voter might have me believe that a republican loss would mean a loss for the pro-choice movement.  A republican win should mean victory for the babies!

But none of them mentioned abortion.

Nobody said, "Now that the American people have elected me to office, I will end abortion!"  Nobody said "since our tragic loss, unborn babies all over America will now never see the light of day."  Nobody said anything about abortion.

Not a damn thing.

Not one damn thing.

Because republicans won't do anything about abortion.

Not a damn thing.

It's a hot button issue which they were fortunate enough to have gotten on the right side of 40 years ago.  But it's just a card.  Like a King of Diamonds, or the Ace of Hearts.  It's a card, you use it to make a good hand, then when you won your chips, you shuffle it back into the deck and hope that at some time in the future you can pull it out again and use it to win another hand.  In poker, you play the people, not the cards.

They are playing the people.

Since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, the republicans have held the presidency for like 25 years.  Compare that to 14 for the democrats.  During that entire time, they did next to nothing.  Sure, they campaigned on it like mad, but the weren't playing the cards, they were playing the game, playing the people.  In the same time, they pushed abstinence only education.  Yet, we have the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world!  They started like three wars.  You know what kills more innocent people than abortions?  WARS!!!

The democrats on the other hand want to pass out condoms, a method which tends to prevent a lot of pregnancies.  The democrats typically lift the poor, which tends to prevent a lot of unwanted pregnancies.  The democrats better fund education, education tends to prevent pregnancy.  Democrats want to provide health care, good health insurance pays for contraception, a reliable method of preventing pregnancy.  Democrats want to provide comprehensive sex education, which has the same effect as any other education like I mentioned before.  But most of them still want abortion to be legal.

The republicans didn't mention abortion because they don't care about it.  What did they mention?  They mentioned taxes, budgets, power, majority, taking things back, taking over, guns, and cuts to everything but the military.  But they didn't mention abortion.  They don't care and they won't do ANYTHING!

It's a card, and you don't play cards, you play people.

If you are a single issue voter, you are being played, and quite successfully.  Congratulations.
WiredForStereo

What Do You Believe?

In our culture today, so many times the question is asked about what we believe, especially in politics and religion.  Do believe in Jesus as your personal lord and savior?  Do you believe that a woman has the right to control her own body?  Do you believe in the death penalty?  Do you believe the earth is 6000 years old?  Do you believe in fiscal responsibility?

It doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you're going to do about it.

That's my stand.  In the bible, James said:  "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."  "Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?"  So I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter what you believe because what you say you believe makes you a liar unless what you do backs it up.  If James calls it useless, than it is useless.  Apart from the Bible, I still say if you can't back up what you believe by what you do, then it truly is useless!

The American Christian (you know what I think about these people) culture today is one in which you are defined by what you believe, or at least what you say you believe.  Are you against abortion?  Are you against gay marriage?  Are you against taxes?  Are you a fiscal conservative?  Yes?  Well then by Jove, you're okay in my book!  But like I said, so?  What I want to know is what are you going to do about it?

Conservatives have been against abortion for forty years.  They have used it for forty years to gain votes, but in the end, what have they done about it?  Little more than nothing.  Well, they won elections, so I guess that counts.  I have recently been encountering atheists who are now approaching the ability to discuss moral issues in a playing field which for so long has been dominated by people of faith.  Jen Roth is a so-called pro-life atheist and she has such a powerful case against abortion that usually argumentative commentators can't but sit and listen to her lay it out.  I'm currently reading a new book by atheist Sam Harris called "The Moral Landscape."  And it's hard to fathom, but atheists are now, at least in my view, making better cases for moral issues than the staid Christian apologists. 

If this plays out, American Christianity is in some sh!t!

P.S.  I really hope it's deep!

But how could I say these things?  I'm a follower of Jesus after all, I believe all the stuff I'm supposed to believe right?  The difference is what I am going to do about it.

Jen Roth with her "Pro Peace" makes the best case, and I'm gonna mix hers and my stuff here for a minute to make an aggregate case for thought, action, and nuance.  Okay, so we all, on all sides can agree that abortion is not a good thing.  Even pro-choice people can usually agree that having less abortions is better.  There's something about the psycho-physical interaction that is a woman that says that the loss of a child is a damaging event.  But pro-choice people still want the option to be there just in case, and typical pro-life people think the benefit of life to the being is more important than the emotional or other state of the woman. 

Okay, so we want less abortions, now what?  The belief is out of the way, so what should we do about it because it's the doing that is the important part is it not?  That's what I said up there, so that's what it is.

What are our options?  Some say overturn Roe vs. Wade.  Truth be told, this is not a viable option.  It's a decision that gives federal rights to people, a whole bunch of people aren't gonna let that happen.  There will be riots and if it does succeed, it will be driven by the American Church and the Church will lose the American people for generations, and probably forever.  In short, it isn't going to happen.  It's just not.  It's not a viable option, it's not a peaceful option.  Likewise, making abortions on demand and free is not going to make their numbers go down like we all want.

Now if we come to the table to form a solution in the spirit of cooperation and reason, you know, being reasonable, both sides need to make some concessions.  This is how cooperation and negotiation works.  This is how it is done.  You can take power by force and alienate your opponents, or you can meet in the middle and step by step, progress can be made.  By the way, that is my definition of progress, moving forward, getting things done piece by piece, thing by thing.  That's why I can be against the health bill because it doesn't do what we need, but for it because it takes several steps in the right direction.

First of all, we just have to abandon abstinence only education.  It doesn't work.  It simply doesn't work.  Teens are gonna have sex.  The good parents can have a good lifelong effect on that, but the schools are gonna have a really rough time getting that to be effective.

People gotta stop trashing Planned Parenthood simply for fun.  Where I grew up, Planned Parenthood handed out condoms on demand.  That was a good thing.  Who knows how many pregnancies were avoided because of that.

The rights of women to not get pregnant if they choose such must be held high.  There are a lot of women who are coerced into getting pregnant.  This creates a lot of strife and is not a peaceful option for the world.  Also, a great many women are coerced into having an abortion by their boyfriends or their families.  That's unacceptable. 



What I mean to say with all this is very important.  We're not going to get abortion illegalized, at least not in my lifetime and not peacefully.  So let us put our beliefs into action to realistically reduce the number of abortions.  Let us change militant attitudes and single issue voter status quos to affect real change.

Because it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you're going to do about it.

Shalom
WiredForStereo

Would it have been worse?

The gospels make a number of references to punishment for sin being so bad that it would be better if the person were never born.

So I got to thinking, what if that concept applied to the abortion issue? What if, for those aborted babies, it were better that they were never born? What if abortion were the prophetic fulfillment of those verses?

Now I know a bunch of you are going "oh my gawd, what did you just say?" But just stick with me for a second. Don't get your panties all in a bunch yet.

Just set aside your preconceived notions and just for a second, act like what I said is a valid argument. Just for a second. What if for those aborted babies, it is literally better that they were never born? What if they were all destined for hell anyway? What if it were better that they never came into the world and now they are little babies in heaven?

I've never been particularly keen on the idea that unborn babies go to heaven, but I'm not against the idea. I'm not against it, but I'm not for it. But think, many, most, or maybe all the babies lost to abortion would have been raised by non-christian families, or single parents, and would never have become Christians and would have been destined for eternal punishment anyway. What if it were God's will that they be aborted so that he would not have to see that happen to them?

Now, please understand, I am completely against abortion, I've made that fact abundantly clear, but I do want to ask the hard questions. So answer the question, leave a comment. Let's discuss this, talk me down, tell me what you think.

What if it really is better that they were never born?

Find some common ground in the abortion debate.

I was out mowing the lawn today and as usual, I was thinking of ways to solve problems in the world, because that's what I do.

So here's what I came up with.

The abortion debate as you know is a heated one, and I feel that most of the discord comes from both sides' unwillingness to actually do anything about the problem. Secondly, both sides are entirely unwilling to come together to solve the problem and are unwilling to make any sort of concession or give up any power.

First the democrats. The democrats need to stop fighting so much for choice and start fighting for social change. We need the kind of social change that tells a young woman that there are better options than killing the baby. The democrat mission statement or whatever it is says safe, legal, and rare. We have save and legal, let's actually work on rare now.

To get anywhere, the conservatives must give up control. What I mean by control is that conservatives seem to want to go about the problem by controlling everything, especially things they got no business controlling. They must give up the gay marriage debate. That single issue is the one that tells the rest of the world that conservatives (and by extension Christians) want to control you and what you do in your own private life. There is no scriptural basis for such a supposition. Sinners will sin, and Christians must allow sinners to do what sinners do. It is not nor has ever been our job to with the law correct others' sinful behavior. Remember, the major corrections meted out by Jesus were all directed toward the religious leaders of the day.

Unfortunately, the conservatives are not going to win this battle. You cannot legislate your version of morality. You cannot call someone immoral simply because they disagree with your version of morality. In case you have missed it, over time, governments and laws just about always trend in the liberal direction. It's the new, the progress, the adventure in people. We find new and better ways to do things, and so we do them in those ways. The old, the tried and true things will slowly pass away. The key is to work within the progress to affect positive change.

Do what's best, work together.
WiredForStereo

Abortion

I was watching the Daily Show and to my delight, Huckabee was on and had a debate about abortion. Please do go and see the whole thing on dailyshow.com.

The thing that struck me, and if you pay attention, it will strike you too is near the end when Jon is almost to the point of convincing Mike to agree on something and then Mike backpeddles. He falls back on the tried and true specific definition that republicans are now using for abortion. This idea relates to my concept of isms. When we are too stiff in the way we think about things, we end up playing fast and loose and skipping over important truths.

Truths like the kind of stuff I think about when I listen to abortion debates. People say that life starts at conception. But it has been discovered that up to 80% of fertilized embryos never implant in the wall of the uterus. After that, one in five pregnancies end in miscarriages. My wife just miscarried after about six weeks, what was that? If she hadn't taken a test, she would have just thought it was a late period. The thing that bugs me is that if all unborn babies go to heaven, then by the time the wicked rest of us get there, we are going to be vastly outnumbered by babies who have never even been born. Think about, if there are 7 billion people on earth today and the world ends, and lets say for argument's sake that 25% of them go to heaven, that means heaven will be populated by about 1.75 billion people and 29 billion unborn babies. That's a bit ponderous to me. Will someone please tell me how that works?

But listen, don't misconstrue what I'm trying to say. I am absolutely against abortion in all cases except for when the life of the mother is in eminent danger, but somebody's got to change some rhetoric because something just isn't working here fundamentally.

Firstly, the left and right are going to need to meet on some sort of middle ground. Humans are humans. People are never going to stop having sex out of marriage. Not going to happen. People are never going to stop having abortions, no matter how many laws are passed, it has been going on for time immemorial. So we've got to start thinking that for many people, abstinence only sex education is not the best idea. I cannot preach abstinence based on my beliefs and expect someone to be abstinent if they don't hold the same beliefs. I cannot expect anyone to do anything simply because of my superior logic. That much has been proven. I was raised in a fairly strict Seventh-Day Adventist home and church and it didn't stop me from getting laid much. I even seriously considered having an abortion if my girlfriend got pregnant, which she did, but after I had been gone for a sufficient period of time so as to erase all suspicion. She wanted to get laid more than I did, what can I say? The kid's name is Christopher by the way.

If I'm honest about my beliefs, and I am, then to prevent the most abortions, I should be handing out condoms to the people most likely not to have them when they are needed or something. Honestly, do you actually think that abortion will ever be illegalized? Further, do you ever think people will stop trying to have abortions even if they are illegal? Never happened before.

The democrats want safe legal and rare, but the republicans can't even compromise for rare. I'm not saying that even one abortion should be ok, but I'm saying that the two sides have got to start stepping toward one another. The republicans have got to stop demanding all (certainly wont settle for nothing,) and the democrats have got to start focusing on "rare."

It's a tough issue, and one that I am certainly thankful I've never personally had to face. In our culture, what would Jesus do? I don't know about you, but I don't think he'd be in front of a clinic with a sign. He might be there, but he wouldn't be yelling and he wouldn't have a sign.

One thing I can agree with Huckabee on is that shooting people is not ok. I can't say I don't believe in justifiable homicide, but I just don't think that guy in KC was justified. And really, I don't think Jesus would believe in justifiable homicide either. At least from a human perspective.

Same tired arguments?
WiredForStereo

Abortion Reduction Key to Common Ground

by Richard Land 11-06-2008 Reposted from Gods Politics Blog at http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/

Dear President-elect Obama,

First, congratulations on your election as our 44^th president. I hope you know that there are tens of millions of Americans who did not vote for you who are still very, very pleased that an African American has been elected President of the United States.

That fact that this could happen in a country with as tragic a racial past as America’s says something noble and fine about the American experiment. We as a nation have chosen together to live up to the promises of our founding document, the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

We covenant to pray for you, your family, and your administration. We will pray that God will grant you godly wisdom in all your decision-making.

Mr. President-elect, Southern Baptists remain unalterably committed to the protection of unborn human life. The vast majority of Southern Baptists believe that a pre-born baby is a distinct human life, according to both science and the Bible.

You have said you want to unite us as a nation. An excellent place to work for such unity would be for you to put your full support behind the Democrats for Life initiative known as the Pregnant Women Support Act (its goal is to reduce abortion by 95 percent over a 10-year period).

This bill would:

• Establish a toll-free number to direct women to places that will provide support during and following their pregnancy.

• Provide child care to low-income and student parents.

• Provide parenting education in maternity group homes.

• Make the Adoption Tax Credits permanent.

• Ensure that pregnant women are not denied health care by insurance companies and that coverage is continued for newborns.

• Codify the regulation that extends coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to low-income pregnant women and unborn children.

• Increase funding for the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Nutrition Program.

• Provide grants to institutions of higher education to fund pregnant and parenting student services.

• Provide new mothers with free home visits by registered nurses.

All of these measures would help fulfill the pledge made in the 2008 Democratic Party platform, which “strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.”

Dr. Richard Land is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and author of The Divided States of America?: What Liberals AND Conservatives are missing in the God-and-country shouting match!

Divorced from the Wings

I am becoming more and more moderate.

I used to be a bit to the right, conservative and all. Then in my massive intake of data, I found Jim Wallis. I clicked the little link on the Veritas Forum that said "Politics" and found a message by Jim Wallis. Now, coincidently I had listened to this message last year some time, I don't remember, but it didn't really stick then, and I think it was because then I was not as interested in politics as I am now.

So Wallis I guess is more of a left wing Christian guy, though I would probably classify him as left center or center left, maybe even Center Moderate if I wanted to classify him with me. At any rate, conservatives think he is left.

Jim's message is that the real contemporary Christians are no longer accurately represented by the conservative religious right who's flagship issues are abortion and gay marriage. He contends that those issues are not as important as poverty. He says that both sides of the aisle would agree that fewer abortions are better than more, and none would be better still, but the differences lie in the fact that the left wants rare, safe and legal, while the right wants rare and illegal. Jim himself just wants there to be no abortions, preferably because no one wants them. I would agree, now how do we make no one want them. Fixing poverty and education. Fabulous! As far as gay marriage, Jim would say that all agree on what the gay marriage people want, rights to personal property, hospital visitation, and medical care decision making. I am ok with this as well, though I'd take it a step further and say that government should have no interference or control whatsoever in marriage, and I'll post on that later.

So I hear about the bickering the political maneuvering on the news and talk radio all the time. The Democrats will fund the war as long as there is a timetable for withdrawal, then back down on the withdrawal proving again that they have no spine. The Republicans are very unwilling to compromise, and can be very harsh, but I guess both sides are very harsh.

So I am caught in the middle, and at this point am very happy to be there. I am a registered independent. I consider myself a Center Moderate, because in politics, you can ride the fence. But the reason I am in the middle is not because I want to pick and choose which side I'll side with on a particular issue, but because I am absolutely repulsed by both sides. I look at Democrats with the things they have stood for in the last 20 years and say "Not bloody likely," and I look at the Republicans and the things they have stood for and are standing for now and I say "forget it." None of you people represent me. I wash my hands of all party affiliations and all claims to conservatism or liberalism.

But, remember, you can't fly a bald eagle without both wings, and you darn sure can't without the head and the rest of the body. So, you Republicans and Democrats just flap away, and I'll fly this bird, and maybe we'll get somewhere.
WiredForStereo

The Fundamentals of Fundamentalists

Fundamental, noun: A leading or primary principle, rule, law, or article, which serves as the groundwork of a system; essential part, as, the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Wikipedia says:
Christian fundamentalism: A movement that arose mainly within British and American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by evangelical Christians, who, in a reaction to Modernism, actively affirmed a fundamental set of Christian beliefs: the inerrancy of the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the virgin birth of Christ, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

So, let's compare the definition with the group, but first, what are the real fundamentals of the Christian Faith? Think for a second. I think we could consider a subject that is mentioned more often than others in the Bible a fundamental don't you? Ok, what is mentioned most in the Bible? Is it the inerrancy of the Bible? No, I don't think that's in there. Is it Sola Scriptura? No, the Bible even quotes other books. Is it the Virgin Birth of Christ? A few times, but still no. Is it the doctrine of Substitutionary Atonement? More times but still no. Is it the bodily resurrection of Christ? Closer, but no. Finally, is it the imminent return of Jesus Christ? No, money is still mentioned more than that.

So what is it?

What is mentioned more than anything in the New Testament, and comes in second in the Old Testament? Simple. Poverty. What? No, surely not, you mean it's not abortion or gay marriage or immigration or even Islam? Number one in the Old Testament is idolatry by the way.

Poverty. Poverty is mentioned over 2000 times in the Bible.

So we have a case here of missing the fundamentals by the Fundamentalists. How ironic, don't you think? A political party that claims a monopoly on Christianity and Faith, yet seems to be pro war, pro rich, and only pro American to quote Jim Wallis.

Other reasons I am not a fundamentalist are the first two on the list under the definition, inerrancy of the Bible, and Sola Scriptura. First I'd like to say that the "Word of God" is inerrant. But the Bible is not so much the Word of God as the Word of God and some history according to a number of authors. This is why we have the "Gospel According to ..." not "God's Inerrant Word About Some Stuff That Happened." Was there one Gerasene Demoniac or two? Don't let me discourage you however. The Bible contains the inerrant Word of God, but the whole thing isn't the whole of the inerrant Word of God. This leads me to the second point. Sola Scriptura was created in response to people trying to add onto the scriptures. However, I believe in Sola Scripture insofar as it does not preclude the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And of course as the Bible says, spirits must be tested in light of scripture.

So what's the message here? The prime fundamental of the Christian Faith should be Jesus' work on the cross, because without that, there is nothing else, but then care for the poor, you know, widows and orphans, and then we can add all those other things. Because after all, if we are not following God's most mentioned command, what's the point of trying to pretend we are following the rest?

Inspired,
WiredForStereo