Retroactive Abortion ...

A short time ago, I was involved in what I assume has to be described as a debate with one of my college professors. Normally, I would not engage in such conversation; however, I could not believe some of the things that were being said, and it was about a topic that I am rather passionate about ... Abortion. It was said that women should not have to suffer for the mistakes that they have made. The frustration for me is that these "mistakes" are what I like to refer to as choices! I am not the hardcore anti-abortion fanatic that most people would expect considering my upbringing and religious beliefs; I have to admit that if my wife were a victim of rape abortion would be a consideration for me, and certainly when there are medical concerns I would not condemn anyone who made the choice to abort ... But, if you consciously and willingly make a decision that leads to pregnancy, there is only one way to get pregnant, there are consequences to that decision! Again, I normally wouldn't, but I couldn't resist to engage the topic ... A Political Science class, about 200 people, assuming very few of the college aged students would agree with me, and it was obvious that the teacher did not. I made several comments, but the final blow on which the conversation ended was when I said, "If a person makes a choice to have sex, there are certain possible outcomes from that act. To say that a person has the right to undo the affects of that act would be like saying that I could now kill my teenagers, a sort of retroactive abortion, because I decided that I no longer want to deal with the consequences of my previous actions!"

For some reason, no one had a response ...

Really ... REALLY?!?

I am, along with several others in an English class, reading a book by Shelby Steele entitled White Guilt (HarperCollins Publishers, 2006); in this book, Steele documents his experience with racism from a boy growing up in the ‘50s … Not hard to imagine the cultural changes that he has seen! Steele’s approach to the issue of civil rights and the slow demise of racism seems to be a rather fair assessment, placing guilt on both the black and white communities for the way that racial issues have “progressed” to this point (That being said, I am only about half way through the book, it could take a turn).  Needless to say, in a class of college students, this type of book gives an entirely new meaning to the word “discussion.”

I have always worked hard to be fair … I try to see things from another’s perspective! My life experience has taught me that people that can’t are not only uninformed, but also unwilling to have a legitimate conversation. However …

If you are going to enter a discussion with other reasonably intelligent people, can we at least have some intelligence behind our words? If you are trying to have influence in a discussion, it would at least seem right to sound intelligent! If you are not … Fake it until you make it!!!

When discourse has turned to discord ...

Among the many things that I do not understand is how the current political climate developed! I am sure that when the Founding Father’s laid the foundation for this great nation this is far from what they had in mind …

History recounts a the events surrounding the drafting of The Declaration of Independence as far from a fast first draft that did the trick The accounts tell us that there were several drafts that took a significant amount of time and discourse. While it might be easy to imagine a fairytale scenario in which everyone quickly agreed and shared a spirit and song, that is far from the reality. The truth is, the end result was more important than personal gain and ego … Much different than today!

Unfortunately, in today’s political climate, discourse had turned to discord!