The Spirit of The Holidays

It seems to me that in this mad world of ours we have forgotten what it means to be human. We obsess over our cell phones, the internet, video games, and the like while we ignore our fellows. That we have become an insular people is undeniable, but we were not always thus. As we have ascended the technological ladder we have ignored our fellows and family secondary to our love of gadgetry and in the name of entertainment. Rather than to have become more human, I fear we have become less so.

This is why we now look to others to rescue us from our torpor and to remove the numbness that now resides inside our hearts. Charles Dickens’s character Scrooge is illustrative in what happens to a man when he excises humanity from his heart by replacing it with something else. Worse, Scrooge is not even aware of his pitiable state while he continues blindly down his path to damnation and it takes the proverbial 2”x 4” smacking him right between the eyes to finally awaken him to what he has become.

The Christmas and Hanukkah holidays are a time of reflection, giving, faith, and celebration. Reflection upon one’s own life and experiences is necessary to place your life in context. Without reflection, it is impossible to understand yourself and if you cannot understand yourself then it follows that you cannot understand others. Introspection and examination of yourself is necessary so that you can define who you want to be as a person. In this way you can exercise your will upon yourself and make any changes that you deem to be appropriate or necessary.

Regarding giving, I recall a story told to me by my Grandmother. When she was a little girl on the farm she recalled receiving an orange for Christmas. She told me that the orange was a rarity because the family was poor, but it was the sweetest orange she had ever tasted. Though the orange is long gone my Grandmother remembered it fondly until the day of her death. If we were to receive an orange today as a gift, I have no doubt that many of us would feel slighted, but it is not the gift that matters. It is that someone cared enough to provide something for you.

Somewhere along the line we have substituted money for feeling. If someone spends beyond their means to give us something then we feel special because of the amount spent and in the end we care more about the size of the giver’s wallet than the feelings of the giver. This is why many people’s children view them as banks rather than as parents. But twenty years after that day of giving will you remember every gift that you received? Think back ten years and try to recall every gift that you received then. While there may be a few that are capable of remembering, the vast majority will not. What people do remember are the feelings involved in gift giving and gifts that are hand made by the giver tend to be the most prized of all. A wooden train crafted by a man for his son or a doll house constructed for a granddaughter will be held in higher esteem than any other gift. This is because these gifts contain much higher emotional values than those purchased at a store. Someone had to spend a great deal of time and effort to create them and that this effort was given to you is special.

This brings me to the most precious gift of all, your time. By giving your time you demonstrate that you really care. When we give kids things to occupy themselves aren’t we really just keeping them out of our hair? We work hard, have to put up with all manner of ridiculous annoyances and don’t we deserve a break when we get home? Sure, but why can’t your children be part of your recreation? Don’t they deserve your time and attention? Additionally, don’t you deserve to enjoy your free time with them? I don’t know about you, but nothing breaks up the stress like the sound of a child’s laughter. The more complicated and complex life grows the more desperate the need for the simplicity of play.

Next is faith, which some attribute to a belief in God, but that isn’t necessarily so. Having faith in something outside of yourself is crucial to becoming an independent person. Thus faith is not a crutch, but a tool. Faith is the steadfastness that comes from belief. Belief in God, belief in morals and family, belief in a brighter future, belief that your children will be better than yourself, belief that men are basically good and true, belief that good always triumphs over evil. While these things are not necessarily always true, belief keeps us steady and enables us to survive when we should perish in the storm of doubt.

Without faith we become lost and rudderless on the trackless sea of humanity and unable to judge good and evil because you have no moral compass. This is the danger that people face when they replace God with something else. Worse, even the churches are abandoning faith in the Almighty in favor of a “God is love” approach. This is exactly what G.K. Chesterton meant when he said, “When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing - they believe in anything.” This is because something must fill that vacancy within a person’s heart. This time of year intensifies that emptiness because they can see the emotions that they yearn for reflected in the actions of others and it torments them, but there is hope.

The holidays are a time for renewal as well. We can reforge the ties of family and friends. We can strengthen our connections to our spouse and children. We can give our time and energy to those things that we hold dear and we can give thanks for that which is good in our lives. We can reject ideologies and thoughts that hinder us and we can have faith in each other, our values, and in something greater than ourselves. This is the true spirit of the holidays and of life. It is something that should occur year round and not simply on one day a year.

As for myself, I wish you all a happy Hanukkah and a very merry Christmas and may you hold the spirit of the holidays in your heart your whole life!

Planned Parenthood: Assisting Genocide Since 1921

Margaret Sanger is the founder of Planned Parenthood and was a leading voice for the promotion of birth control. History remembers her as an icon of women’s independence and freedom and the saint of women’s sexuality. However, there are other aspects to Ms. Sanger and her organization that are far less laudable. Margaret Sanger came into her own early in the 20th century when she became a strong advocate for birth control. Her stance on the birth control issue and her activism on the topic ran afoul of the law and she spent thirty days in jail for passing out condoms. Subsequent charges of obscenity caused her to flee prosecution to England where Sanger’s four year old daughter would die of pneumonia secondary to her admitted neglect of the child. In fact, Ms. Sanger admitted that she was not a “…fit person for love or home or children or anything which needs attention or consideration.”

During her time in England, Ms. Sanger had an affair with H.G. Wells, the self described champion of liberal fascism, and she also met and had an affair with Havelock Ellis an ardent supporter of forced sterilization. Sanger took up the cause of eugenics enthusiastically under the banner of reproductive freedom. As she diligently worked to liberate women from marriage and the burden of reproduction, she also saw the children of the poor and blacks as defectives and even described them as “rank weeds” growing in the garden of humanity. This brand of eugenics was directly linked to Darwin’s theory of evolution. If nature selected the strongest, fittest, examples of an organism for reproduction why would man not do the same?

It is here that we arrive at the ethical dilemma of eugenics. If we only seek to perpetuate the best examples of the species, then those not selected must be unfit and if they are unfit to procreate then they are unfit to live or survive. This is the logical line of thought regarding eugenics. Ms. Sanger was mortified by the wholesale slaughter of the Jews by the Third Reich, but she was not opposed to terminating a troublesome segment of the human race by less violent means. For example, Sanger’s Negro Project was designed to eradicate the Black race via eliminating their offspring. If the state directed murder of the Jews is genocide then what would you call Sanger’s and Planned Parenthood’s desire to accomplish the same end with the black population with far less violent, but equally destructive means? This is the dirty little secret of Planned Parenthood that nobody on the left wants told.

Despite this secret, Planned Parenthood continues to carry out the objectives of the Negro Project even though the name was abandoned in order to present a more politically correct face. That Planned Parenthood uses subterfuge in its operations is not surprising. In fact, Ms. Sanger herself said, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Some “rebellious members” of the black race have realized this and ignored it for political favors. Prior to running for President, Jesse Jackson accused Planned Parenthood of racism. Jackson said that it was strange that people “…start talking about population control at the same time that black people in America and people of color around the world are demanding their rightful place as human citizens.” Jackson even elucidated the morality of his stand by saying ”If one accepts the position that life is private, and therefore you have the right to do with it as you please, one must also accept the conclusion of that logic. That was the premise of slavery.” It was also the premise of eugenics, but Jackson abandoned his pursuit of Planned Parenthood in order to curry favor with the Democratic Party. As such, he has been a pro-choice voice ever since his Presidential candidacy.

If one were only to promote the “superior” examples of a species and precluded the “inferior” from breeding, then you would effectively be pruning branches from the tree of humanity without spilling any blood with the exception of abortions. In other words, you would be promoting an essentially bloodless genocide. Forced sterilization of undesirables had even achieved acceptance by the United States Supreme Court with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. writing the decision and if such a program were carried out vigorously, Sanger could realistically achieve her goals in short order. Had Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich taken this course of action rather than his more expedient approach of slaughtering the Jews en masse, then Margaret Sanger likely would have applauded his efforts. When both approaches to genocide are compared, Planned Parenthood is not as effective as the Nazi SS was in exterminating the Jews of Europe, but their efforts continue unabated and Planned Parenthood’s ultimate efficacy cannot yet be determined. To date, Planned Parenthood has exterminated more than 3.8 million children since 1974. That figure is reflective only of the United States and does not include abortions performed outside of U.S. borders and the figure continues to rise.

The left and Planned Parenthood carefully frame their activities to assist them in their efforts to undermine the ethics and values of society. Never do the proponents of abortion say that they are killing children. They prefer to use neutral terms such as fetus, tissue, and evacuating the intrauterine contents to describe the aborted child. To the lay person these expressions seem rather tame and non-threatening. If one considers that we are really talking about the wanton slaughter of the unborn, then it becomes much more uncomfortable. This is why the left objects so vehemently to pictures that accurately describes what happens in an abortion. These photos serve to destroy the safe, non-threatening illusion that they have carefully crafted to lull the public into apathy. Additionally, these photos show the gruesome reality of the morals of the pro-choice crowd and it causes those who are complacent in their comfort to confront the horrors that they condone by advocating abortion on demand.

Further, Planned Parenthood and the left in the United States use Roe v. Wade as a litmus test for Supreme Court appointees. This is because the left did not obtain the rights to abortion via legislative authority. Roe v. Wade came about by judicial fiat. This is why those who are pro-choice observe the appointments to the Supreme Court with a critical eye. If a potential justice has a record that he or she supports Roe then they are endorsed, if not then they begin their “women will die” campaigns in opposition. If no such record exists, then the party affiliation of the potential justice is considered. If the appointee is a Democrat then the candidate is endorsed, if a Republican then they are opposed. But is Roe v. Wade good law?

If one accepts the decision in Roe then one must also accept that life is at the mercy of the mother, at least initially. In effect, the mother becomes God. She can either permit life or destroy it. If one does not accept the reasoning in Roe then one recognizes that the creation of life brings a responsibility for that life and abortion is murder. In the first instance, mom sits in judgment of the unborn and the child is subject to the capricious nature of the judge. If mom elects to allow her child to live then it is born and if not then she executes it, end of story. This ethical model has led to proposals by the leftist intelligentsia that a mother be allowed to terminate her offspring up to 24 months of age. As such, a child would not be considered an individual until that child had survived until the age of two. But really, why stop there? Why shouldn’t a child be at their mother’s mercy until they can prove to be independent from Mom? However, that would mean that the child is the property of the mother and would remain chattel until they come of age. Essentially, this places children in the same category as a dog or a cat that belonged to the mother.

This is why Roe is flawed. The ethical model it proposes is unjust to the unborn. Sexual intercourse is the primary means used to propagate the species and if used for recreation without precaution, then sexual intercourse may result in the creation of life. The creation of life is an act that is separate from the sex that resulted in the fertilization of the ovum. As such, the mother and father bear responsibility for the life they helped to create regardless of its inadvertence. In this ethical model the child is considered an individual at the time of conception and any attempt to terminate the pregnancy via abortion would be construed as the murder of that individual. This ethical model cares nothing for the mother’s weight gain, inconvenience, morning sickness, or other problems because she voluntarily entered into sexual intercourse. Sexual activity carries with it certain risks and the decision to engage in said activity can also be viewed as an acceptance of these risks. Regardless, while a mother has a responsibility to bear the child that she and her lover created, she has no responsibility to raise it because the child can be given up for adoption at birth thus absolving her of that responsibility.

This is where Planned Parenthood erects a barrier to prevent such events from occurring. Of 6,000 records examined at a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic, the ratio of children put up for adoption versus those aborted was 1:2,000. It would appear that Planned Parenthood has an extreme dislike of the adoption process. Additionally, Planned Parenthood has covered up rape, child sexual abuse, and has taken racist donations that were to be used exclusively for the abortions of black children. While Planned Parenthood says that these are all isolated incidents, the left’s proclivity for prevarication, sleight of hand, and hiding the truth tells a different story. Margaret Sanger believed that any sex that was entered into voluntarily was alright, even if that sex was between a 13 year old girl and a 50 year old man that happened to be her uncle. Emphasizing that fact is this comment from Planned Parenthood, "There are only 2 basic kinds of sex: sex with victims and sex without. Sex with victims is always wrong. Sex without is ALWAYS right." (Emphasis Planned Parenthood’s) In fact, Planned Parenthood goes so far as to abridge parental authority by going behind the parent’s back in order to assist children in obtaining birth control. Planned Parenthood encourages teens to go along with them by saying, "If your parents are stupid enough to deny you access to birth control, and you are under 18, you can get it on your own. Call Planned Parenthood."

Worse, Faye Wattleton, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America said "We are not going to be an organization promoting celibacy or chastity.” What that means is that they will encourage your daughters to engage in sexual activities behind your back and will clean up the mess if they happen to get pregnant all without your knowledge as a parent. However, STD’s and HIV remain the parent’s concern. No other organization gets the privilege of interfering with the rights and prerogatives of a parent. Additionally, Planned Parenthood is supported by Federal tax dollars regardless of your religious beliefs or stance on abortion. As such, the organization remains somewhat insulated from the parent’s ire.

This organization of death stands as a shining beacon to the left and speaks volumes about their socialist morality. The legacy of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood is one of genocide, racism, and death. In fact, Planned Parenthood has killed more people than the Khmer Rouge and the Rwanda massacre combined, it’s just that their methods are nowhere near as bloody. Nevertheless, they are equally as deadly. Planned Parenthood has also proven to have a sense of the macabre with the introduction of gift certificates to be used as Christmas presents for your loved ones. When your business is butchering children, what else would you expect?

And the left whines about Darfur.