Equality for All

With the election all done and wrapped up, it would seem that there is nothing left to talk about. Oh sure, I could ask when the oceans will actually start receding, if we being counting from the moment of election or if oceanic recession doesn't begin until The One actually takes office, but that would be too easy.

Instead, let's discuss the thing that has seemed to create the most ripples across the board, more so then even even the presidential election. Of course I'm talking about the passing by significant margin of California's Proposition 8.

The road to Prop. 8 was a bumpy one. A few years ago, a proposition to define marriage as man and woman was brought before the state of California and was passed by a significant margin, over sixty percent yes. In May of this year, the California Supreme Court overturned the vote by a 4-3 margin saying that, and I'm paraphrasing, that everyone deserves equal rights under the law to marry whom they choose.

So, the sixty percent, though beaten and bloodied, refused to give up and drafted a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as one man and one woman and began petitioning to get it put on the ballot for this last November. That done, the people of California voted for the amendment that would define marriage as one man and one woman only, not allowing for homosexual or same-sex marriages.

Notice something. I said that prop. 8 would not allow for homosexual marriages, but I said nothing about homosexual unions.

Why is this such an important distinction? Because California Family Code 297.5 says, and I quote, “Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.”

Let me sum that up: Under California law, as of June 30, 2005, same sex unions have The Exact Same Rights that heterosexual marriages have by the definition of the law. There is no question of equality. There is no 'right' that his being removed. The argument that Prop. 8 takes away the rights of same-sex couples is completely and utterly wrong. It's wrong by the definition set up within California law which grants those rights without question.

This is not discrimination, this is delineation. It's making the clear the difference between these two things.

Let me be clear – I'm not saying in this column that same-sex couples cannot feel love, nor am I saying that they aren't as satisfying or share the same closeness as heterosexual couples, but what I am saying is that there is a prima fasci (def: On the face of it) difference between a homosexual union and a heterosexual marriage that needs to be defined in the law. History tell us and that the basis for any civilization is the family – father, mother, kids (multiple) and it is through this medium that the values of a civilization are passed from one generation to another, ensuring the continuation of that civilization.

Finally, let me point out that since the election, conservatives have been expected to accept the outcome of the Presidential race (and rightly so) and the outcome of the abortion ban here in South Dakota (also, rightly so), but we are not seeing, at all, any call for homosexual activists to do the same in regards to this vote. Ladies and gentlemen, when one group is expected to shut up and fall into line while the other is given free reign to scream, shout, defame religions, disrupt services, act in crude and

lascivious ways deliberately, and threaten to get their way or no way, you really need to wonder – do they really mean 'equality for all' or are they really looking to give 'equality' to those who think exactly like them?

Is that really equality?

Conservative Election Debrief

First, let me just say, we did the best we could with what we had, and we didn’t really have all that much to go on. John McCain has angered center-right members of the conservative base, of which I’m a part of, for years by supporting bills and agreements that would go directly against both conservatism and what this country, at its essence, stands for (see: McCain-Feingold and McCain-Lieberman) but, and this is a HUGE but, he was the best we had, or rather, he was what the people chose, so we ran with it. This principle, work with what you have, not what you want, is one of the things I love about this party.

The one ray of sunshine in this whole election was the plucky Sarah Palin who lit up the stage of the Republican National Convention and excited the base for the first time. We see life in the party again and have a rallying point for those of us who look for a return to the values of conservatism that have slowly been lost over the past few years.

So, what do we do? We have no marching orders and the RNC is strangely quiet, besides the infighting over Sara Palin. I would humbly suggest a few things to those conservatives out there that are reading this and wondering what to do next.

First, take a break. You read that right and yes, I’m being serious. After a loss like this it’s important to take some time and decompress from what’s happened. So, my advice to those who haven’t already is to take a few days off of politics completely. Don’t go to Drudge, don’t listen to talk radio or turn on the news. Don’t even talk about it. You’re not running away, you’re regrouping, though it wouldn’t hurt to have a snappy comeback or two ready for the snide and those who think themselves witty.

This time off will allow you to gather your thoughts, take a breath, evaluate what you did and what went wrong with what, and how best to get back on the horse. 

That is point two then – get back on the horse. Yea, we lost, but that does not mean that we are excused from making our case. Losing an election does not invalidate our points.  In other words, just because we lost doesn’t mean we’re wrong. President elect Barack Obama still spent twenty years in a racist church, still is friends with an unrepentant terrorist, still took money from a now prosecuted slumlord and still holds the most liberal voting record in congress. As commentator Jonah Goldberg said the night of the elections, ‘This election proves that Americans judge you by neither the color of your skin OR the content of your character.’

Fancy rhetoric aside, there will be many times when we disagree with President Obama over the course of the next four years, that goes without saying, but it is our job, our Right, to disagree when we see fit. Don’t be afraid to stand up and be counted among the dissenters, I know I’m not and I’ll stand proudly next to you, taking the gloves off and getting ready for the bare-knuckled brawl that’s ahead of us.

Finally, and I’m tempted to say ‘most importantly’, don’t be tempted to go to ad hominem (personal attacks) in regards to the President elect. The temptation is going to come when we begin to think about what liberals have been saying for the past 8 years. The whole, he’s-not-my-president-because-I-didn’t-vote-for-him shtick that has been playing over and over and over and over again, which is not, and never was, a valid attack for them, and it will never be a valid attack for us. We know how this system works – everybody votes, but there’s only one winner for everyone. Barack Obama IS my president – I didn’t vote for him, but because he won, he’s my president too, and I’ll be there hounding him every time he says something crazy or goes all radical lefty on us because it’s my right to criticize the leadership at every opportunity, not because of who he is but because of what he does.

No, that’s not something you’d ever hear from the left regarding George W. Bush and I can say, quite proudly in fact, that it’s one of the reasons I, and people like me, are not and can never be, liberals.

The immediate thing that popped into my mind was, ‘Why is he wearing the shirt of a country that no longer exists that promotes a system that never worked?’ I spent a few moments on that, and then followed up with the companion question, ‘Would that system allowed him to do the same there?’

Here’s the question, put in different terms. If we were, indeed, living in Soviet Russia and he were to wear a shirt with a large American flag on the front with the letters USA in red, white and blue, what would he find? Would he see people who, for the most part, glance at his shirt then move on with their lives? A few people who give it a few moments consideration then move on? One guy who uses it for the basis of a student-written column, smashed together at the last minute?

On the contrary, if he were in that system, he’d find men breaking down the door to his house at 3am, rough hands shoving a bag over his head before being dragged out into the street and being made to disappear, while his neighbors, who turned him in, pretend nothing ever happened.

That’s assuming, of course, that he makes it home.

Then we think about the world in which we live in right now. If asked, I’d be willing to wager that said individual felt no threat by wearing that shirt around campus and around town all day. He went to sleep knowing that rough men stand ready to do harm on those who would hurt him, even though he is expressing silent disagreement with the very system that is protecting him.

And there’s the ultimate irony of this, and many other, situations such as this. We have professors and authors and even Senators who proclaim this country to be intolerant, awful, nothing to be proud of at all. The wives of presidential candidates who say that they’ve never felt pride in their country, until said candidate ran. The ultimate irony of all of these cases, and many others, is that they are protected from persecution by the very document that they often times find so terrible. That it is the Constitution of the United States that grants them the Right under God to tarnish and debase the very land that they live in, and if it weren’t for said document, that they would have no right at all.

The ultimate irony is that they claim that it is those who oppose them that are the oppressors. That President Bush and the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ to quote Senator Hillary Clinton is working to keep them down, make them afraid and to suppress them at all levels.

Really? When a movie lampooning the current President is released throughout the country with no censorship by said president, that’s oppression? When a presidential nominee slanderously says that our soldiers are bombing villages and civilians deliberately in Afghanistan, he’s really afraid to speak out? 

Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one person who is going around silencing opponents by enlisting law enforcement to track them down. One person, who’s website is being constantly updated to give ‘the truth’, though ‘the truth’ changes whenever what is being said changes. Only one person who throws the word ‘race’ around, while laying the accusation of ‘racism’ on the other side and there is only one person who is hiring groups of lawyers to prosecute those who ‘speak falsely’ about what he’s done and who he hangs out with. Only one man who has told his supports to ‘get in the face’ of his opponents, an order that carries more significance then he realizes.

Change is only good when what you’re changing to is good. Change to something that doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and will never work is not the change we, or anyone else, needs.

We’ve seen this played out over and over again in Hollywood movies and epic novels time and again by authors who try to make it new and fresh to an audience who will eat it up as readily as they did the first time they saw or read it, me included.

What’s even more fun is when we can see this battle played out, not on the silver screen or the pages of ridiculously thick books where half the words have to be created out of thin air, but on our television screen during the verbal sparring match between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden.

Anyone reading this, of either side, might have some sort of idea of which roll either person is filling in our epic standoff. Senator Joe Biden, Washington insider for over 30 years with the full force of the MSM (read: Main Stream Media), the rhetorical grace of a lame llama and bathed in the incandescent glow of Senator Obama’s ego came at this debate secure in the knowledge of his upper hand. After all, who hasn’t seen the Couric and Gibson interviews of Sarah Palin? What’s there really to be afraid of?

And that’s when Sarah Palin came on stage, asked him politely if she could call him Joe (a courtesy that Obama couldn’t seem to muster when debating Senator McCain) and proceeded to run ever increasingly faster circles around him until all he could do is sigh, shake his head, and get mad, while claiming to spend hours at The Home Depot.

We come to the hero of our story, the Governor of Alaska and political outsider, Sarah Palin. All by her lonesome, walking onto that stage with a smile and a wink, battered by the MSM all the way up to this point with expectations so low for her that as long as she came on stage and managed to breathe properly they’d call it a pretty good night. Ignoring the fact that she’s a very successful debater, as shown during the Alaska political debates, she came on the stage as a mouthpiece for Joe Everyman. The outsider who won’t put up with Washington doublespeak and calling Joe Biden on it whenever he tried to weasel his way out of the choices that he made in the past. I’d call it a slam dunk, but whenever she really got on him and Joe became flustered, we’d have the ‘Moderator’ Qwen Ifil run interference for the Gaffable Senator, but that’s another column.

So who won? I completely agree that Senator Biden held his own – he toned himself down, stuck to his outline (assuming he had one) and gave a strong performance. However, when Palin walked onto that stage, being the citizen-politician that our Founders intended broke through the rhetoric, through the doublespeak and spoke her points straight to the American people, the winner became obvious.

Multiple things lead to this victory: the skill of Sarah Palin as a debater, the annoyance of Joe Biden at Palin as she ran circles around him, and the anger and attacks upon Governor Palin by the radical Leftist Blogosphere and the MSM. Every attack which lowered the expectations of her has only served to make her more powerful when she speaks, uniting people behind her as the contempt by the Left is seen for what it truly is: an attack on all those like her: the pro-life, God fearing, gun owning people of this country who are sick of listening to the empty words of Obama and seeing the empty suit of Biden.

And that, folks, is change we can believe in.

The Only Question that Matters

The basic moral principal in this case, and many other throughout history, is as follows: human beings should be granted equal protection under the law. No matter the color, size, shape, race, creed or religion, all men are created equal. That there is a basic humanity in all of us that says that we should all be protected from the taking of property, illicit or illegal torture, and the taking of life indiscriminately: protections from these have been given to us because of our humanity by Natures God and should be granted to us under the law in a just society. A just society protects the innocent against those who would violate those basic civil rights granted to all human beings.

The irony is that the most innocent among us are in danger in the most vulnerable place imaginable - the easiest and most socially acceptable time to kill a child is in the womb of her mother. However, if the child were inches away, at her mother’s breast, the very same act would be considered villainous. 

If the question is ‘Can I kill this?’ then the obvious follow up question must be ‘What is it?’ and only with the answer to that question can the first be adequately answered. If the unborn is a human being, even a potential human being, then that human being has certain rights that all other human beings possess. In that case, no excuse for abortion is adequate to the consequences.

However, if the unborn is not a human person (as there is no question as to whether or not it’s a human being) then no excuse is necessary. If it isn’t a human being then it does not possess any such rights and therefore has no protection under the law. 

What makes a person? This is a question that has been asked throughout history as well: by the National Socialists in Germany during the 1930’s and 40’s, by the British slave traders and by any number of groups who have committed the act of genocide against another group of people. If there is some dividing line between humans we can’t kill and humans we can kill, I would contend that the line needs to be very clear.

Let’s find that line. Location doesn’t seem to matter, nor does size or color. Intelligence doesn’t seem to change anything either and neither does religion. Dependency and physical viability seems, on the face of it, that it may make a difference, but the question is, if you lost physical ability, would you still be you? If you lost your legs, would you still be you? Your sight? Voice?   If you’re knocked unconscious do you lose your value as a person? If you have to go on a breathing tube? Food tube?

If it’s true, that you remain viable despite physical losses and dependency, doesn’t it apply for those around you?

If it’s true for them, isn’t it true for everyone?

Absolutely Everyone?

First off, spoiler warning for anyone that watches and haven't seen the episode of Doctor Who that aired May 2.

I love Doctor Who.  Probably the best show on television, sans those mini-series found on HBO (ex. John Adams, which was so increadibly good), involving fanciful characters, a powerfully performing main character and actor (David Tennant, who plays the Doctor, is probably one of the best actors of this generation) as well as engaging story and creative plot.

Also, I've noticed that there are within the episodes, whether diliberately or not, complex moral issues that are dealt with quite handily.

For the record, I don't mean to say that a 'complex moral issue' is a so-called 'grey area' of morality.  Indeed, if such grey areas exist, which I'm not discussing at this point, they only exist because we have knowledge of what White and Black is.  Indeed, if we had no idea of what true 'Good' and 'Evil' really is, objectively, then these so called 'grey areas' wouldn't exist in the first place because there would be no set of moral issues in conflict.

To the point, this last episode finds the Doctor and his companion at Pompeii the day before the volcano erupts and Pompeii dissapears off the map.  However, they discover that within Pompeii is a race of alien creatures (bare with me) that have created a device that would convert the population of the world into creatures like them, essentially killing off humanity.  In order to prevent this, the Doctor must reverse the device, saving the world but then destroying Pompeii, killing over 20,000 in the blast, as history says.  The choice - kill Pompeii or let the world die.

Aren't you glad you stuck with it?

Of course, the Doctor makes the choice and destroys Pompeii, thereby saving the world.

Now, I highly doubt that anyone would say that he made the wrong choice - indeed, as awful as it is to say, the needs of the many usually outweigh the needs of the few, or, to put it another way, when faced with a moral choice, even a particularly difficult or unthinkable moral choice, one should choose the option that causes the most good, or is the least amount of bad.  This sounds like a bunch of relativistic hogwash, but when faced with the specifics the choice becomes obvious.  Which is the most moral - killing 1 or killing 100?  One might say that since they both involve death that they are equally evil.  I am not one of these.  Indeed, if the killing of 1 would save the lives of 100, or if by inaction the 100 would die if one did not kill the 1, then the killing of the 1 would then be the most moral.

Sounds awful I know.  Never said this was a clear, cut and dried issue.

There are multiple applications, however, to this idea.  One could say that making the difficult but nessesary choice is what makes us moral, in our choice to bear the weight of moral recrimination if only to save others.  I would say that this is what 
our US Soldiers, Airmen and Marines are doing over in Iraq right now.  They shoulder the burden for us so that we can continue on with
our lives, confident in our security and safety.  

I would also say that the same applies to us today, in a small way.  The principle of choosing the lesser of two evils can easily be applied to this current election.

We have less then ideal choices on either side: on the Dem side there's Hillary Clinton, the enemy we know, one could say.  There's very little about Hillary that we are not aware of.  Whether it's politics, family life or personal friends, we know a lot about her given her time in the White House.  

Next, we have Barak Obama, whom we know less about.  Indeed, the man, as far as what he's said about things, is essentially a blank slate.  All we know about him is the company he keeps (Ayers, Dorn, Wright and Rezko), his voting record (one of the most left in the senate), his wife (a radical leftist) and a questionare that he filled out in 2005, once again showing him to be an extremely left candidate.

Finally, on the Right, we have John McCain.  War Hero, man of the Right... sorta... and respected senator... mostly.  Once again, a candidate that we know - his possitions are well known on near every issue and the one's that we don't know about, he's willing to talk about, unlike the Dahli Obama.  Even Hillary mixed it up on O'Reilly and did herself no harm at all in answering his questions directly.  

The point?

Many prominant conservatives have claimed that they would not Vote for John McCain.  Truthfully, I can sympathize - when Romney dropped out, whom I was supporting, I said much the same thing.  However, the Doctor Who Delema rears it's ugly head.  Obama would be a nightmare for the country with his uber leftist politics and lack of straight answers, as well as his appearant lack of judgement in regards to others views about America (see: the Rev. Wright and Ayers/Dorn).  This is giving him the bennefit of the doubt as I'm not assuming for a moment that he agrees with their anti-American rantings.

Hillary would be... well... not as bad as Obama, but her HillaryCare health care idea would bankrupt the nation and, quite frankly, does anyone really want another 4 or 8 years of Bill anyware near the Oval Office?  I mean, honestly?

So, we're left with John McCain, a Semi-conservative (closer to moderate) war hero who's policy choices have left us wanting, who's given conservatives the finger more the once (figuratively, of course), but, has a better record on defence then any of the Dems, has a better fiscal policy then the Dems and has said that he'd appoint constructionist judges to the court - the antithesis to the Dems.  

If the lesser of two evils (or three, in this case) is the right moral choice, then isn't the choice of who to vote for in November obvious?

Well, it's been a while since I've last posted, but I'm going to try to keep a regular schedual.

I've become a columnist.  Other then here I mean, but in the real world.

The story - a few days ago I discovered an opening at my universities newspaper as the conservative columnist.  The current columnist is graduating and is leaving a hole to fill.  Truthfully, I never cared for his columns.  Seemed like more smoke and
mirrors rather then an actual serious discussion based on facts and reason.  

Anyway, heres to the future.  This is why I'm going to try to keep up with this blog from now on.  Hoping i can cut my teeth on it before
jumping off into the world of professional columnisting... er... something.

Wish me luck.