Pondering America's Future

My son loves roller coasters, and for some time had wanted us to take him to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, which is kind of the Mecca for roller coaster riders.  So we took him, my daughter, and their cousin at the end of July.  We stayed in these little cottages they have there which are right on the edge of Lake Erie.  They have little decks on them where you can sit and watch the lake and the sunset.  It was beautiful.  One day while sitting there I got to thinking.  I read an article back in the 1970's about Lake Erie and how it was basically a dead lake.  Pollution had not only killed most of what lived in the lake, but had also robbed it of oxygen.  Swimming was disallowed--it was too dangerous and filled with chemicals.  The writer at the time said that it would take thousands of years for the lake to come back.  Yet here it was, in front of my eyes, and it was far from dead.  Seagulls flocked by the hundreds.  If you stood near the bank you could see fish.  A heron perched on the remains of a jetty not far from our deck.  Recreational boaters crossed the lake, reveling in a glorious summer day.  It didn't take thousands of years for the lake to come back.  More like forty.
My train of thought as I sat there turned to America and in my mind I made a metaphorical connection between the country and the lake.  Many pundits have opined on the fall of America.  They say our greatest days are behind us.  They say that unemployment will stay chronically high pretty much forever, for they say that the mechanisms of employment have changed.  They say that we are bankrupt (and they are right).  They say that our days as a super power are numbered.  I say they are all like that writer I read long ago eulogizing Lake Erie.  I say that America can be brought back, and a lot sooner than people think.  I say that we still have the best system of government, as long as it's kept in check.  I say that the freedom we experience makes us stronger, as long as we don't abuse it.  I say that, while we are in a hard time right now, we will come back and be stronger than ever.  This is America.  Our nation will once again be respected and envied throughout the world.  I say that, like Lake Erie, we will be strong again, and we will disappoint our enemies who want us to collapse and prove all the naysayers wrong.  It will not take generations to turn things around.  Together we can move forward to better days and, as in the case of Lake Erie, we will fix our problems more quickly than anyone ever imagined.

On Social Issues

I've had several people contact me and say they like my stances (or not) on various issues, but they want to know where I stand on social issues such as gay, minority, and women's rights, as well as abortion.  Let me start with gay rights.  I think that if two people want to get married and they are gay, so what?  All gays are asking for on this issue is to have the same rights as anyone else.  For instance, if I die tomorrow, my estate automatically reverts to my spouse.  That isn't currently true with gay marriage.  Why not?  I am straight, so I don't really understand why you'd want to marry someone who is the same sex, but if you do, who am I to tell you not to?  Obviously, gay marriage doesn't help propagate the species, but that isn't the point, is it?  The point is that the Constitution guarantees the "pursuit of happiness," and that's all people are trying to do.  Those who want to change the Constitution to make gay marriage illegal on the federal level are, in my opinion, making a big mistake. Now I do have a problem with gays who want to shove their agenda down my throat or the throats of my children.  For instance, have you looked at the crowds at a gay pride rally?  Leather chaps, cod pieces, pierced nipples, and these are the more mild people.  All in front of children.  We also see the agenda trying to be forced on our public schools.  Kindergarten children will now be taught "gay history" in California schools.  Kindergarten?  They don't even know what a penis is for yet.  What's the teacher supposed to say when asked by a child what "gay" means? 

As far as women's rights and the rights of minorities are concerned, I believe in equal rights for all.  People should be given equal consideration for housing, jobs, promotions, etc., regardless of their race or sex.  I don't know how much clearer I can be on that.  I understand the argument for redress of past grievances, but I think that labeling people just propogates racism.  We need to get rid of "African American" and "Indian American" and "Hispanic American" and start referring to people as "American."
The stickier point is abortion because a lot of people put this one under "women's rights."  However, I disagree.  I don't base my arguments against abortion on religion, but rather on logic.  We are a people who value the life of the individual.  That is why murder is a crime, assault is a crime, rape is a crime.  We value the gift of life.  Our Constitution's first guaranteed liberty is "life."  Now, that being said, think of the fetus.  There isn't a scientist anywhere who will disagree that from the moment of conception, if we do nothing, that fertilized egg is growing and will grow into a baby.  The definition of life is something which takes nutrition and grows.  That's what babies do in the womb.  However, let's assume for a minute that there is a question here of whether or not that fetus is a life.  If we're not sure, shouldn't we err on the side of life?  What if all the pro-abortion people are wrong and we have in fact been murdering babies to the tune of about sixty million of them?  Then we as a society will be the greatest mass murdering society ever--even bigger than Hitler and his Nazis.  Many women in this country will never, ever admit that abortion is murder because that makes them guilty of murder.  And think of this.  We've aborted, as a nation, about sixty million babies.  How many Einsteins, how many Mozarts, how many Ghandis have we killed?  Did we kill the one who had the answers?  It's a scary thought.  Also scary is the way fetuses are killed.  Either a solution which basically burns them to death is introduced, or tools are put inside the mother's body which cuts them into pieces, after which they are vacuumed out.  I'm not making this up, this is the way it's done.
So I agree with those who say that abortion should be a criminal act.  The doctors should be held accountable, but not the mothers.  At this point in their lives there are too many problems going on in the mothers' heads.  It's the doctors who coax them and convince them it's the right thing to do.  After all, there's big money involved.  I don't even put a caveat for rape or incest there, because if we do agree we're going to err on the side of life, then why would we make that life worth less because of the way it was conceived?  I can see putting an exclusion in there about the life of the mother, but that's problematic too because certain doctors will go on with their abortions and just label every one as the mother's life was in jeopardy.  One form of abortion should definitely put the doctor up for murder charges--the partial birth abortion.  Whenever I tell people the procedure, they tell me that I've been brainwashed by right wing propaganda, but the truth of the matter is that, in a partial birth abortion, the baby is delivered except for the head, which is left in the birth canal.  The skull is then pierced, usually with scissors, and the brain is sucked out with a vacuum.  This is done to a viable fetus which can feel pain.  If you think I'm lying, check it out.  This practice is, to me, the incarnation of evil, and it should be stopped immediately.