Abortion Part I: Secular Arguments

After about a week of neglect, I bring before you a golden nugget of wisdom for your intellectual pleasure.

I’ve given quite a few spiels in my time about this topic.  Most of them have been impromptu and spur-of-the-moment arguments.  I think I’ve done well when faced by these situations, but the best way to get the word out is by a well thought out essay.

You all know I’m quite the religious guy, and my affiliation with religion will be the first thing that dissenters will point out in their attempts to discredit me.  Also, I realize that others are free to choose their religion at their pleasure.  So I will argue this topic by being completely secular in what I have to say.  Despite this handicap, abortion will be proven 100% wrong.

LIFE
The first and foremost part of this controversy is if the embryo and the fetus are indeed human and alive. Most people argue over the heartbeat and the brain and other major systems in the body.  Yes indeed, the functions of the body are very important, so I will discuss those. The following data was gathered from http://www.parents.com/pregnancycalendar/week.jsp?week=1, which is a website for parents to learn about the development of their child inside the womb.  It is totally unbiased as to this controversy.

·         4 weeks after conception (WAC) – The first nerves appear (that means the beginning of the brain)

·         6 WAC – There is a heartbeat (by many peoples standards, that makes it alive and human)

·         7 WAC – Movement, brain is easily recognizable, recognizable extremities (many pro-aborts say that it doesn’t move, it doesn’t have a brain, it’s doesn’t look human, it’s not. By the 7^th week, it does)

·         8 WAC – It has all basic structures of the body

·         12 WAC – It has all major internal organs and the nervous system, brain, and muscles are starting to function

·         13 WAC – It can respond to external stimuli, it will squirm if touched

·         14 WAC – Most major systems are functioning

·         21 WAC – It will be able to hear and react to noises outside the womb

·         23 WAC – The baby now has an 85% chance of surviving under the right care if it were born at the end of that week.  (If it can survive, it is most definitely alive)

·         30 WAC – all senses are developed

·         32 WAC – The only system that isn’t fully developed yet are the lungs

·         32-40 WAC – Just has to grow

The systems that pro-aborts use to dehumanize the child in the womb are all there in the first few weeks.  I can halfway understand that they might still say that the child is not human (even though it is) before this point.  So why don’t they stick up for a time limit? By most people I’ve talked to, being for the “right” to choose means that they have their personal standard for a time limit, but won’t push it on others. They will let people have full term abortions, even though they personally believe it’s a human. Come on people! Stick up for the living. End the death. Then I could at least respect you.

I said before, it is a human from the moment of conception.  Here’s why (prepare for some birds and bees). The only biological purpose of sex is to make more humans. There is no other purpose than that. Thusly, how can a thing made by sex not be human? The womb is the source of all humanity, so what is in the womb must be human.

SAVING A LIFE
People use the excuse of “saving a mother’s life,” when trying to justify an abortion. That’s just crazy. The doctors these days have such incredible technologies at hand, that they can see most complications beforehand. They can prepare for them and save both the life of the mother and the child. The end result is that the “saving the mother’s life” is a total lie, because both the lives can be saved. Yes, women do still die in childbirth, but only in rare cases when the problems do not become apparent to the doctors until childbirth or right before, giving them no time to react. So, what will we do to save the mother’s life in that case? Abort everybody?

NUMBERS, POTENTIALS, AND ECONOMICS
There have been more than 50 million abortions here in the US. This trounces any Holocaust at Hitler’s hands. It’s just shameful that we systematically destroy unborn innocents and proclaim Hitler to be the incarnation of Evil. Murder is murder.  Let’s have some consistency here.

 

Now think of what those fifty million could have been. There were inventors, entrepreneurs, people who would have looked for cures to cancer. Among the throng of dead, there are priests, deacons, soldiers, and policemen. There were wives, husbands, leaders of those looking for a better life. They are all gone now, and the world is less of a place for it. For a real-life example of an Abortion survivor, take a look at Barack Obama. He is the son of a Caucasian woman who’s boyfriend had run out on her. These cases are the ones with very high risk for an abortion. Yet, now he is at the top of the ladder, being the President of the United States. Why take such chances away from the unborn?

Sure, there is the bad side of people. There is the possibility of them turning into drug addicts, drug lords, prostitutes, and other such people of vice; but they only make themselves that after they are born. They are totally innocent of any wrongdoing. With this being the case, they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Another thing that irks me is Social Security. The same people who complain about the fix Social Security is in support abortion. If you are a cold hearted beast that cares nothing for life but only for the good of society, this at least should appeal to you. Over fifty million people have been aborted. That is fifty million potential workers to pay into Social Security. If we had saved those lives, we wouldn’t be in such a deep mess.

CONVENIENCE
The last base to touch on is the primary reason why people have abortions in the first place. It is convenient. It is very tough having a human being dependent on you where the child must be watched every minute of the day and all needs met by the parents. If the parents rid themselves of it, they will have a much easier life. It will be easier to go to college, it will be easier to hold on to a job, it will be easier to keep the party life and do whatever they want to.

Where in any morality is it okay to kill somebody for the sake of making one’s own life a little bit easier? It is incomprehensible to me that anyone would do such a thing. Those kinds of people are often labeled, “barbaric.”

Another thing that falls into this category is rape. Rape is a sad and terrible thing, and the police forces must work on the problem until it no longer exists. And judges should throw very hard sentences at those who would violate the human body. But just because the child had unfortunate beginnings don’t mean it ought to be gotten rid of. As is proven in the paragraphs above, the child in the womb is alive and is human. No matter the origins of the person, that person is always entitled to the inalienable right to Life.

Just because it had been inconvenient earlier to have the child, that doesn’t mean that having the child wasn’t worth it. If the parents are caring and loving, then the child will have a good life. If the parents are neglectful and abusive, then the child can be sent to other parents to have a good life. The origins of a person don’t necessarily mean that they will have a limited life. The American Dream is all about people rising from lowly circumstances to achieve greatness. Nobody should act as if people who come from a drug addict’s family have no chance whatsoever. If you don’t believe that people can work on slim chances, you don’t believe in the American Dream.

Stick around for part two of this spiel, which will give you the religious side of it.

 

 

 

Eve of Destruction

No, this is not a post about how the end of the world is near. I don’t know when that’s coming, and I frankly don’t care.

This post is about my favorite song, Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire. It is quite a piece of art and easily understandable to anybody who has a little bit of an understanding of history. Here’s how it goes.

The Eastern World, it is explodin’,
Violence flarin’, and bullet’s loadin’,
You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’,
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’,

(Chorus) And ya tell me,
Over and over and over again, my friend,
How you don’t believe we’re on the Eve of Destruction,

Don’t ya understand what I’m tryin’ to say?
Can’t ya feel the fears I’m feelin’ today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away,
There’ll be no one to save, we’re a world in a grave,
Take a look around ya boy, it’s bound to scare ya boy,

(Chorus)

Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feel’s like coagulatin’,
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Hand full of sedatives don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone can’t bring integration,
When human respect’s disintigratin’,
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’,

(Chorus)

Think of all the hate there is in Red China,
Then take a look around to Selma Alabama,
How you may leave here for four days in space,
But when you return it’s the same old place,
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace,

And tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
You don’t believe we’re on the Eve of Destruction,
No, no, you don’t believe we’re on the Eve of Destruction

They are provocative words, to be sure, but to fully understand why I love this song you have to look at the historical context of the words.

The Eastern World, it is explodin’, violence flarin’, bullets loadin’, … and even the Jordan River has bodies floatin’…  These lines refer to what could be called the most disharmonious place on Earth, the Middle East. Since the creation of an Israeli state in 1949, there has been constant warfare between Israel and their neighbors. Though they might not be fighting at this very moment, that’s only because there is a truce right now. And in the Middle East, a truce only amounts to a lull in the fighting.

Israeli-Egyptian Six Day War

 

 

 

You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’…
Back in the sixties, when this song was written, a big controversy was the fact that young men of eighteen years could be drafted and sent to fight for our country. But at the same time, they couldn’t elect the people sending them off to die because they couldn’t vote.

You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
I don’t fully understand this particular line, but it is probably a reference to the draft. People who didn’t believe in the Vietnam War were being drafted into around the time this song was written.

If the button is pushed, there’s no runnin’ away,
 there’ll be no one to save, we’re a world in a grave…
The second verse revolves around these two lines. This is a reference to the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine of the Cold War, which was getting very bad in the sixties. The believe was that if either the US or the Soviet Union started hurling nukes, there would be retaliation and counter-retaliation until there was nothing left on the planet to blow up. Then we would all be dead, we would be a world in a grave.

MAD Nuclear War

Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feel’s like coagulatin’,
I’m sitting here just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
These three lines express the singer’s frustration with the world.

A handfull of sedatives don’t pass legislation…
LSD and other drugs used by people to escape the world were banned by the government.

And marches alone can’t bring integration,
When human respect’s disintigratin’…
The sixties was the time of the Civil Rights movement, which is what the song refers to when McGuire refers to marches and integration. Things would get very violent on the streets when the African Americans would gather together to say that they would no longer be oppressed.

Think of all the hate there is in Red China…
This is about the Chinese Communists, obviously. They were, and still are, quite a brutal regime. They invaded the independent country of Tibet, they do not allow freedom of speech, they crush all and any protests, it is brutal over there. Though it happened in 1989, long after the song was written, this line always makes me thing of Tiananmen Square.

 

The Hate of China

Then take a look around to Selma, Alabama…
Places in Alabama and the South, Selma and Montgomery in particular, were where the Civil Rights movement had the most clashes. There were murders and violence in the streets as one group would try to keep the other down.

The Hate of Selma

 

How you may leave here for four days in space, but when you return it’s the same old place…
Here, Barry McGuire is saying that humanity isn’t changing and will never change. I believe this. Since the day of Cain and Able, we have been at each other’s throats.

The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace…
This is about the hypocrisy of the human race. We just do not make sense. We have religion (don’t forget to say grace) but we go against it, (Hate your next door neighbor, as opposed to “love thy neighbor”).

In the end, I love this song. It makes perfect sense to me, and it is perfectly accurate with the times. To be honest, it is perfectly accurate with all time.

Barack Obama

I’m not his greatest fan, not by a long shot. That should have been obvious from my thoughts in the spendulous package post. But nonetheless, I only hope the best for the man. He is the one man in the best position to help out our country and the world as a whole. Nobody is in a position with as much influence as the President. And that influence I hope will be used for the right stuff and take America in the right direction.

But that’s the thing about Obama, he’s taking us in the wrong direction. As is outlined int the Spendulous Package post, he is more likely to hurt us than to help us, economically speaking. If the Spendulous package defies all odds and helps us out of this economic mess while protecting the free market system and individual liberties, I’ll be all for it. But, alas, that’s not the way it’s appearing at the moment. He is injecting big government into every aspect of business, and that almost inevitably leads to bad things.

A good lesson to know is this: Never trust the bureaucracy. It is massive, expensive, and does little help with its piles of paperwork. And more government always equals more bureacracy.

My other big gripe with Obama is his stance on abortion. He will have America dive headfirst into the Culture of Death. One of his campaign promises was to sign the ‘Right to Choose’ act which will remove all bans and restrictions on abortion. Abortion rates will skyrocket, and everybody will be hurting. He already rescinded the Mexico City Policy, so we are now funding pre-birth death around the world with US tax dollars. It’s sickening.

It is unfortunate that the American Council of Bishops had to take this action, but I am proud of them for standing up for Life. If the ‘Right to Choose Act’ is put into law, all Catholic hospitals will close down. The Act will force Catholic and Christian hopitals to do abortion on demand. The Council, in good conscience, cannot permit the taking of innocent life as a practice of medicine. Nor can they permit it for any other practice, for that matter. With 30% of all hospitals in the US possibly closing, many people looking for emergency rooms will be put into a bad spot, all because of Barack Obama.

Again, I say I hope Obama leads America into a better place in the future. But that does not look like it’s happening any time soon.

The Animorphs

The Animorphs is an old book series written by K.A. Applegate between 1995 and 2001. I know that’s a long time ago, but I love it none the less. Before you know why I love it, I’ll tell you what it’s all about.

The Animorphs began when 5 young children Jake, Marco, Tobias, Cassie, and Rachel walk through an abandoned construction site. There they witness an Andalite crash landing. The Andalite, Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, who is mortally wounded from a battle in space, emerges from his ship to tell them of a hidden danger to the Planet Earth.

Since 1966 (According to the Hork-Bajir Chronicles) the Andalites have been fighting to destroy this threat to the Galaxy. This threat is the Yeerk Empire. Yeerks are a parasitic species which enter into your ear and wrap around your brain, taking complete control of the person. In being able to read the person’s memories and such, they can perfectly mimic that person’s behavior so that others never know he has become a Controller. ‘Controller’ is the term for somebody taken by the Yeerks.

The Yeerks have come to Earth, bent on a silent conquest. The Andalites came to Earth to protect it’s people, but the task force was destroyed in orbit and the humans are now on their own. Elfangor decides to take desparate action to protect the primitive beings. He gives the five youths the power to morph so that they can fight the Yeerks.

The power to morph is the ability to absorb the DNA of an animal through touch and then turn into that animal for two hours at a time. This makes the five children, the Animorphs they call themselves, much more dangerous than any normal group of kids. Not only can they transform into the obvious destructive animals like tigers, gorillas, and elephants; but they can also use animals for transportation (birds in particular) and recon (insects are the most useful for spying and not being noticed). That is what they do while fighting for the survival of the human race for a heroic three years.

 

That is the basis of the Animorphs series. Now let me tell you why I love it.

 

First and foremost, it’s relateable. Sure, none of us have to fight brain-stealing aliens, but we have to deal with all the same pressures of life that the Animorphs have to. They put their lives on the line to protect the human race. Then, they have to go home and work on math homework or it will be their parents that will kill them. That’s just awesome.

There’s the dilemmas that have to be faced. Tobias has to deal with being a hawk for the rest of his life after he was stuck for not getting out of morph after two hours. Jake has to deal with leading a team of warriors and ordering people to do things that might get his friends and comrades killed.

 

To make things better, it’s well written. The description of the action which takes place is excellent. The description of the characters, both physically and psychologically, are excellent.  My biggest pet peeve about anything in literature is when something isn’t consistent in the process of events. Despite the hugeness of the series (54 main series books, 4 Megamorphs, and 4 Chronicles), there are very few inconsistencies, and those are all minor. The one thing which I have a gripe with is that there is no solid real-world time line. But that’s okay for the normal reader. That didn’t become a gripe for me until I had to fit my fanfic series into the original series.

 

All in all, the Animorphs series is incredibly enjoyable. It speaks volumes to me to this day. You can’t beat a book that continues to be entertaining and still has a large fan base despite being out of new books for the past eight years.

This is the Andalite Elfangor

The Spendulous Package

I don’t understand it. This trillion dollar spending spree is supposed to help our world. Give money to certain select people who are in a position to help the economy. Where does that money come from? You, the tax payer.

That is an obvious statement, but the ramifications aren’t so obvious. The money comes from the richest people in the country. The top 1% pays 40% of all taxes paid. All those billions of dollars are flying out of their pockets into the hands of the government. But where did it come from before that?

It came from investment. The top one percent did not get there by inheriting their money, they got there by creating wealth through the capitalist system of investment. When they had a little bit of money, they put it into something they thought would grow. When they were right, they got returns. Once they got returns, they put more money into other things that would grow, getting even more returns, and the cycle continues.

But this process is about to be interrupted and the economy is going to get into some serious hurtin’. The only way to pay for the spendulous package is to raise taxes on the top one percent. That means that they won’t have as much money to put into the cycle. When that happens, the cycle slows down, leading to a recession. Seeing as how we’re already in one, we’ll end up going into a depression.

Don’t think you’re safe just because you don’t live in the top 1%. You will have your taxes raised as well. And if you don’t, you’ll still be in a bad spot. Investment is the driving force behind most businesses. Businesses are what employ people. Once the investments dry up, the businesses are going to cease their operations because they can’t afford them. Once operations cease, they won’t feel like paying people for standing around. Then, people end up fired or layed off and there won’t be a job to find except for those in the government.

This the new cycle that starts after the old one is broken inevitably leads to socialism. Once the people are out of work, they will rely on the government to take care of them. Where else are they to turn? This will lead to a much larger government bureaucracy which will need to be paid for by that taxpayers, starting a never ending cycle of government intervention and growth.

But that cycle, too, will be broken one day. The US is borrowing from other countries as well to pay off these big programs. With the current hole we’re in concerning debt, it is doubtable that we’ll ever be able to get out. The only result, therefore, is for the government to say that it can’t pay the other governments. When that happens, they won’t be willing to lend to us. The end result is that the socialist programs will fail, and the people relying on them will be in such a bad spot. The likelyhood is very high that once the socialist cycle is broken, there will be civil unrest and rebellion as as those who relied on the government are driven to desperation to meet their most basic needs.

God grant that this is a worst case scenario and it never happens.

Comments

Well, I’ve finally had comments. Unfortunately, I had to delete them all. You can comment whatever you want. Rant, rave, be smart or stupid, call me sexist/racist/homophobic/any other negative thing/ positive thing, whatever. My one rule: keep it PG 13 or below. Or else it will be deleted.

My Flag

 

This is my new personal flag. You’ll be seeing it often from now on.  This represents me, and all of my origins. Let me explain it.

First and most obvious is the American Flag. I was born in America and I am proud to have been. We are the most free country in the world, and that is something to be treasured.

In the blue field is the White Eagle, the Coat of Arms of Poland. I’ve already explained my fixation on my Polish heritage in a previous post.

Unlike any other White Eagle, though, this one is crowned with the Papal Triple Crown. This symbolizes my fervent loyalty to the Catholic Church and my Faith.

On the chest of the Eagle is the state of Michigan. I was born in the Great Lakes State, and I still live in the Great Lakes State. Wherever I go, however long I’m gone, it will still be home to me.

The map of Michigan is in the colors of the German flag. My Mom’s side of the family is German.

This flag is a visual representation of all that I am. I love it.