Many of the people today who are stepping into active social participation or office, have experienced some mind altering drug at some point, or had a spiritual experience that makes them question 'reality'. You can see it in their eyes, I thought, as I perused U-tube's past Correspondent's Dinners and the comic routines of various presidents. They have a humorous ease with the idea of talking to millions at a time, guiding the events of the World with a word or a signature.
Those who have not indulged in at least a little weed have fear right behind their eyes, as if they are asking "What am I missing here?" all the time, trying to catch up with a phantom, elusive horseman who beckons to a dark and magical place they cannot follow. I suspect Clinton was certainly an inhaler, Hillary, not so much. She still takes it all too seriously; still thinks 'reality' is an attainable consensus.
That is why I am taking what I feel might be the last chance to intrude in what seems policy frozen in time, as far as the Left, the Logical Left's take on the subject of Abortion. The choice to kill arises every time a heinous crime is committed, or a war is fought; but somehow when it comes to the uterus, before that life has had a chance to make itself known, it seems a step too far. This comparison is of course debatable; but nevertheless involves Human choice over that perceived by some to be God's; by others as Chance. And we have a profound respect for the God Chance, witness our many temples built to worship it in Las Vegas and elsewhere all over the World, usually where there's money to burn; often, tragically, not.
Chance may be the World's all time greatest religion. Luck and Faith go hand in hand as well. But back to Abortion. Since the Lumpen Proletariat Right Wing keeps insisting that Living Souls are being routed from their slumber in an untimely fashion, simply because in most cases they are inconvenient; and that since the Bible warns that such Sins will be punished, we should expect that this practice of Choice will lead to no good if, as a nation, we do not reject it.
The fact that promiscuity was linked to illness and early death in all but the most recent times makes a very sturdy root for this particular theoretical tree. It's understandable that as lifespans lengthened, and people got to take stock of the many cycles that revealed themselves, and steps were taken to avoid diseases-- like marriage, circumcision, and virginity-- most religiously disseminated advice was simply preventive medicine. This led to fewer, identifiable children; lower crime rates, higher education, in fact everything we prize in the concept of family, for what it's worth. The positive consequences justified these measures, for centuries.
Penicillin changed all that, loosened the sexual morals quite considerably, and brought a whole new set of problems, like unwanted children and all it implies, as well as the fact that those who were infected with whatever was going around could be cured and continue the practice of unprotected sex.
Then along came AIDS, which basically simply revealed, by its lightening-like proliferation, the depths to which our sexual morality had sunk. Incurable to date, we might stop and thank it for getting us to take a second look at our habits. But again, back to Abortion.
Those of us who did partake to some extent in the ethereal experiences afforded by the mind bending drugs of the day were moved by the complexity we felt around us, the magic if you will, of existence. That Life can reproduce is its specialty; that messing with it is gravely indiscreet; and we know it, deep down, the way we know what food is good for us.
The closer we get to its tiny mysteries, the more fearful some of us grow, fearing that, like a stupid child who takes some fragile timepiece apart and leaves its elegant gears to rust on the floor, we will mess with the wrong genes, just because we can, and unleash a rapid human decline, altering forever an Order that took millions of years to unfold, just so; and without demanding perfection of it, if anything is Holy, certainly it, that Order is.
All we really know is that we're one of the later models, and that up until now we've had nothing to do with production. We are the product. Something's afoot and we don't know what it is, do we, Mr. Jones!
So if we "choicers" can just hold still for a moment and give the Right this much: that a fetus is certainly as much a human as an apple seed is the Tree; then we can reduce the argument to a discussion of consequences. If a woman refuses to bear a child; what shall become of her? Shall we whip her? Jail her for murder? Force her to give birth in captivity and then hand her child to another to raise? Shall we demand that the unwanted embryo be housed independently in suspension, until some hopeful but barren woman adopts it for gestation? Should the birth mother be involved in the placement? It seems, as with many things; like the Death penalty for instance: There's no Right Way to do the Wrong Thing.
Since we don't know the real worth of a fertile embryo, we suspect it's huge and irreplaceable, let's just admit that and decide to disagree about its sensitivity with respect; but instead agree to see the entire campaign of forcing childbirth on the unwilling as leading us down a path of disrespect for individual rights that certainly should begin somewhere in the vicinity of our own skin.
Does a person wish to reproduce? Shall the State mandate this issue at all? No law can be understood without considering its consequences; and those that propose to limit choice when it comes to giving birth refuse to elaborate on these. A few have taken the law into their own hands and simply shot abortionists dead. It is essentially a question of what will happen if people get to choose to reproduce, versus what will happen if they do not? The government is taking a major life decision out of the private realm of the individual. But as to the question of when life begins: When does it end?
Abortion is the pothole in the road of practicality hit by the rubber of morality, and the reason it has such force is that it's arguable; or more to the point, the Right is Right, and the Left that partook of mind bending inebriates must agree: Life is a Mystery with which we should not tamper, for fear of getting it wrong in doing so. Those who have spent some illicit time considering the Universe under one chemical spell or another, back when it was fashionable, should take heed.
The same goes for Sin. It is known by the suffering it inevitably causes. Death from STDS diminished with antibiotics; and look what we did with it! God wasn't angry when people in the past died of sleeping around; germs were present and they got sick and died. But the fact that those diseases keep emerging suggests something basically awry with promiscuity, doesn't it? Or am I second-guessing God again?
Sex is commonly used among simian troupes for all sorts of social reasons. Having attained a more complex vocabulary, we've altered our behavior accordingly, reducing its function to bonding and procreation. Vestiges remain today; as with women swarming alpha males; presumably to cop some superior genetic worth. Instinctive behavior, you have to call it, since Choice is a coin with two sides; rejecting life, or ensuring by carefully choosing a mate that it will be a life which will survive. All the beasties know this. Most human cultural practices revolve around choosing a mate.
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