OK - I figure nobody has been reading this blog, so it's a safe place for me to work on this - and even if somebody does read it, it's probably someone who loves me, so it'll be OK.
The italicized sections below are straight from a friend's facebook note. I copied and pasted them here and then italicized and bolded them to make them stand out on their own. I will attempt to discuss around them using non-italicized text. (I also used some color to try to help.) Good luck making any sense out of it!
I had an eye-opening experience tonight... Experiencing smart people who mean well... but have strayed so far off the mark of common sense... who try to push their will on others like me in the hope of helping them.
It started over Sarah Palin... Assuming that nobody could possibly agree with her on it, I brought up how ridiculous her idea is of no abortion, even in the case of rape... All of a sudden, everyone in the room raised their voice, became extremely vicious, and went straight for my throat. No we didn't. The statement was made with a force behind it to begin with - like you said, as if nobody could possibly NOT believe the same as you believe. We all did, I admit, really want to give our opinions, but there was no raising of voices or viciousness or going for anyone's throat. We just shared our own opinions and our zeal for our opinions probably just came through. Any viciousness felt was self-imposed. It's amazing to me how someone could actually side with the rapists and still call themselves god-loving Christians. I don't see the logic in siding with a rapist coming from the fact that we don't believe in abortion. How does anti-abortion equal pro-rape? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and rapists should never be allowed to have children unless you want more rapists running around. I disagree with this statement hands-down. There is SOME scientific data showing that some behavior is genetic, but most behavior is environmentally based. There can be tendencies toward a behavior, but there is no proven link. I'm not sure of the percentages, but I do know that many rapes that happen are not by people who are attacked by a stranger unawares. Many rapes are simply charges filed when the boyfriend is older and the girlfriend is underage. Others are date rapes that happen due to excess drinking or drugs. Sometimes there seems to be a consensual situation and the girl will chicken out at the last minute, but the boy keeps going, making it a rape, but not something that would constitute making 'baby rapists' running around if they weren't aborted!!! And by removing the option of abortion here, you are giving them even more power than they already have over the women they attack. Rape IS about power, but I don't believe that creating a child has much, if anything, to do with it. Perhaps in a few cases, but not the majority. Plus, removing the option of abortion here actually encourages rape. Again, I don't believe that rape has much, if anything, to do with impregnating a woman. The act is about power and strength, not procreation. They refused to admit it, You make it sound like a fact. Your opinion is not a fact – it’s an opinion. We just don't agree. It's that simple. You did not convince us away from our beliefs. There were attacks and statements from you with an attitute of 'how could you believe any other way' but nothing concrete to change our minds. and when I brought up that point it turned to the entire room yelling NO WAY at the top of their lungs we never yelled - we got a bit excited, but never got mad or raised our voices! and getting ready to rip my throat out because apparently all rapes happen for exactly the same reason. Every time. There is never that one time (like 75% of all rapes) where it's done by someone they know who just really wants to have sex with them, so of course a condom isn't used during the forced entry. So if you agree that most of the rapes are by regular guys, why do you want to kill all children created in this way? It's too far fetched to look into the primitive human male mind which wants to spread its seed to as many women as possible and impregnate them, because the more children you have, the further your genes will travel. Who thinks this way? I don't think there are many men or boys out there who would agree with that as a motivation. Rape is about power, or about getting so close you don't want to stop, not about creating children. Most young men don't want anything to do with having kids out there! There are already tons of deadbeat dads who fuck girls and then leave them, but rapists have been able to generally stay out of our gene pool because abortion was an option. The number of pregnancies from rape – there are no hard facts, but when I researched it, I found that the number is even lower than I thought it would be! “Now for the important question. How many rape pregnancies are there? The answer is that, according to statistical reporting, there are no more than one or two pregnancies resultant from every 1,000 forcible rapes. I don't think it's as high as you are making it sound.” (click on the title of this article to see this site) Plus, most of these 'deadbeat dads' you are talking about were not raping anyone. They are husbands that ditched their families - live-in boyfriends who left kids behind. I don't think the majority of them are rapists! The people who have kids are the ones who determine our next generation of citizens - is this primitive mindset what we want our society reverting into? I don't think this is a realistic view of the people who populate this country!
I'd rather not have victims of rape be tried for murder because they used a coat hanger to terminate a pregnancy from rape. At what point did we say we'd rather have that happen? You know, some girls might have to drop out of college if they get pregnant and then miss out on their education all-together while they raise a child. Other girls might have to pick up another job to support the rape baby which they can't afford to do if they are already on a tight schedule. You are insinuating that life cannot be fulfilling if you don't go to college or have to work two jobs. You are assuming that adoption is out of the question. I happen to know many people who would love to take a baby from someone who is not ready for that step in life. Generally you need to plan to have a child - Be financially stable and have all the necessary pieces in place. I would like to see the results of a survey of parents - of any class - about how much planning went into producing a child. How many do you really think were financially stable and had all the necessary pieces in place? Most will tell you that if you wait until you can afford to have a child, you will never have one. Raising a family is not about money or comfort. It's about love. A girl who's raped didn't do anything wrong. It's not like they got drunk and got knocked up one night... You just said earlier that most rapes happen by someone they know - do you really think that most rapes DON'T happen because of too much to drink? That is exactly how most of them happen - usually both have had too much! Do you want them to be tried for murder if they don't want to rearrange their life and have the kid of a sick and twisted piece of shit rapist? You are still assuming that all men who are labeled rapists are pathological and not just a kid who pushed a little too hard while under the influence of a substance or peer pressure. That night you were also arguing that abortion should NOT be for stupid mistakes people make, yet here you are making the opposite claim. Abortion is not a convenience method of birth control! It'd be like all the hard work women have done for equal rights will vanish like a fart in the wind. Equal rights has nothing to do with this. There is a third part involved – the child created. God created that life and we have no right to take it away for the sake of convenience in our own lives. God makes everything ‘just right’ for His plans and purposes. Just because God’s plans differ from the ones you think are ‘just right’ does not make His plan wrong – it makes you grow into the person HE wants you to be. Life is about God, not about ourselves.
If you appreciate life so much... Even to the point of requiring children with mutations to be born (showing that ALL life is valuable, no matter what or who, and even if they are a drain on society) - then why do you support someone who was instrumental in the invasion of another country and caused us to lose of over 4 thousand of our soldiers (also kids) in Iraq, and caused the death of many many more innocent Iraq citizens. Iraqis are people too, you know. These same "leaders" like McCain and Palin have gotten Russia, Spain, and Iran all pissed at them/us and could very well start world war 3 if they get into office. So while you go save a few unwanted and deformed children, we'll send many more of our best and brightest children off to die while our cities are getting bombed by the entire world. At what point do you stop killing those with mutations? My family has a strong history of cancer - a mutation of cells. Do I kill my children so that they do not become a drain on society? My husband's family has a strong history of mental illness that occurs in their late 20s. Do we euthanize them at 25 so that they do not become a drain on society? My son has ADHD. Do I put him down because he's not like all the others and needs regular medical oversight? My brother-in-law’s father has a genetic disorder that is passed on from generation to generation. Should I work to make sure all my nieces and nephews are put down so that they will not be a drain on our society? Do I encourage my brother-in-law to commit suicide so that when it manifests in his body he won’t become a problem for us? I work with children who have many different ailments - learning disorders, behavioral disorders, emotional disorders, and physical disorders of many kinds. Do they not deserve to live? Are their lives not worth living? Do they not have purpose in this world? Where does it stop? Do we eventually kill everyone who shows a tendency toward needing glasses or is it only those who cannot hold down a job? I will go back again to what I said earlier – God creates life and creates it perfectly for His purposes. When we focus on God and His purposes and not on our own selfish desires, we will see how wonderful this can be – even what the world calls ‘imperfections’.
But go ahead and vote for her because "She's Hot" or "She killed a moose", Those were either not said at all or said in humor to lighten the situation. or because you agree with her hypocritical stance on life. Her stance on life is not hypocritical! She's the one who has lived what she believes! Palin says that the war in Iraq is "God's War" which is total bullshit. THOU SHALT NOT KILL, actually, it's DO NOT MURDER. In the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to make war on the locals on many occasions, and capital punishment was commanded by God. The idea that war is not of God is not biblical. especially in the name of GOD. There's a difference between living by morals set by god, and taking a step too far by blurring the lines between church and state. Separation of Church and State is not in the constitution - it's in writings from Jefferson, I believe, and referred to by others, but from what I’ve been reading, they were more concerned about the effects of government on the church, not about the effects of the church on the government. Several even mentioned that it is important that religious leaders be involved in government. The Constitution was written by those who believed that the government should not be able to interfere with the actions of the church, not the other way around. They believed that the country should be run by people who looked to God for guidance. She wants to run the country like a religious extremist theocracy just like our Muslim terrorist friends in the middle east. I do not agree with you on that. I googled 'religious extremist theocracy and came up with this quote "But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts." This is only one of many sites saying basically the same thing, but this is totally opposite of anything they are talking about! The Founding Fathers taught school from the Bible - Creation. Darwin came later. Reproductive rights? Abortion was not legal until just recently in our history! Twenty-five years ago! That’s not very long! The founding fathers wrote government policy according to God's Will, often giving glory to God right in the documents and in their writings. There is no proof of global warming - we do not have enough years of documentation of the weather to say that this change is any more that a pendulum swing that will correct itself again. Tolerance is not a founding belief. Today's liberal definition of tolerance is basically - everything goes EXCEPT Christian morals. The Constitution was written that all could worship GOD as they choose - not that we could all worship whatever we want and walk all over the Christians. The US is a Christian-based country first – a place where Christians can worship in peace. Or at least it should be and used to be. It’s not anymore. She reminds me of Sister Miriam Godwinson in the game Alpha Centauri, which seriously creeps me out (she's a war mongering fundamentalist bible thumper who declares war on you instantly if you ever form a democracy). Written by a liberal, I'm sure... This is technically a constitutional republic and we call it a democracy... but it's definitely not a fundamentalism, at least as long as we follow our constitution... lately we've been using the constitution for toilet paper though, so nothing would surprise me. The ones using the Constitution for toilet paper would be the left wing, not the right. The Constitution clearly states in Amendment I that Congress cannot establish a religion OR prohibit the free exercise thereof – my freedom to exercise my religion is messed with every day that my children are required to attend a public school to learn ONLY the evolution theory of life, and not the creation theory. Granted, both are theories, but evolution is presented as fact. Scientific fact can only been proven if something can be observed or recreated. Neither can happen for how life began, yet evolution is shoved down the throats of my children in every textbook they read. Textbooks they are required to read because the FEDERAL government has made school mandatory – contrary to the constitution! Amendment X states that anything not covered by the constitution or prohibited is to be under the jurisdiction of the states, who are to have governing rights over their people. Many of those rights have been taken away from the states and made cabinet members under the President. Jimmy Carter started the Department of Education, for example, taking educational rights away from the states – contrary to the Constitution!
I think there are more important reasons to pick a candidate than her view on abortion. If you really want the quality of the American family and its values to crumble, here's a step by step guide on how to do it:
1) Force everyone to have unwanted children, even if it means a married woman who's raped bringing another man's child into a household, or a young teenage girl who's raped dropping out of school and having a child she can't support. I think I’ve covered that one already.
2) Continue to demonstrate that you know nothing about our economy and rip it to shreds so our house values keep plummeting, our banks continue to fail, our stock market keeps collapsing, and our jobs keep disappearing overseas. As I write this, the Democrats are fighting to take $700,000,000,000 – that’s BILLION – of our tax dollars to bail out the banks on Wall Street. Why? So the people who have put their money on the line – investments are always risky – won’t lose. It would hurt their feelings. Poor babies. Those rich people would have to sell their homes and live like normal people. We can’t let THAT happen! I thought this was a free enterprise – that businesses could be strong or they could fail – that’s life. Why do we feel the need to bail them out? We’ve already given up our gold standard and it’s made our money basically worthless. (FDR made private gold ownership illegal and people had to sell all their gold to the government. Then Nixon ended the gold standard completely! I know that there are those who argue that the economy cannot run ‘safely’ under the gold standard, but I’m not so sure that the house of cards we are all working with right now can stand forever. Now we’re going to make it even worse! These banks collapsing, I believe, is the result of 9-11. I said it then and I’ll say it again – they played with and covered everything so well right afterward that now the house of cards is coming down. (Would it have been as big of a deal if we had the gold to back it all up?) We can run around and put up a card here and a card there as they fall, but the structure itself will never last – why not let it fall now instead of waiting for us to get more and more into debt and THEN have it fall? Let the cycle run and quit trying to make it go down a path that is against its natural course!
3) Declare war on more countries and strain our military so thin that we have to institute the draft (which mccain says he has no argument against doing) so every american family gets to look at an open chair or two at dinner every night. I do believe that we were brought into war by a deadly attack on our nation. We went after and got Sadam Hussein and the new government asked for our help to get up and going. We are still looking for Osama Bin Ladin. We continue to fight against those who continue to resist the new Iraqi government. We are a major player – a major force in the world. It is our job to help those who ask for it!
4) Lie about everything and make your candidacy about change...ing your mind all the time. I assume you are speaking about McCain – but it’s Obama who is ‘all about change’! Nobody who is running for President is going to say, “hey, let’s just keep everything the same!” All candidates talk change – it’s part of the process! The problem comes when you change what you say depending on who you are talking to. At least McCain is consistent from group to group!
5) Wipe your butt with the constitution. I covered that one already – the Republicans are the ones trying to stick TO the Constitution. The Democrats want to play with it to make it into what they desire at the moment – to bend it and shape it until it’s not even worth the ink it was written with!
I didn't deserve the attacks I got tonight, with a 4 on 1 where everyone tried to vilify me and basically make me out to be the spawn of satan for standing up for my beliefs. Part of the reason you feel this way is because you are taking every difference of opinion as an attack. We listen to you and gave our own points. Surely you didn’t expect to sit in the pastor’s dining room at a church young adult event and say the things you said without someone contradicting you, did you? Especially since I'm basically pro-life in my views anyway. That is NOT what you were saying at the table. I think using abortion as a form of birth control is irresponsible and promotes a culture full of rampant sex where people become numb to it and it no longer means anything. I think sex should be between people who care about each other deeply. But there's definitely a time and place when abortion IS necessary, and the discussion needs to be about who gets to decide when it's appropriate, not whether it's EVER appropriate at all. But you kept arguing that it should be used for whenever you want to, not when it is NECESSARY!
I definitely needed to get that off my chest. Sheesh... So did I.
