The Terrorists Have Won

An interesting post- and an interesting point. The War on Terror has been utterly, utterly lost, and:

It doesn’t matter either way. Dead or alive, Osama bin Laden is the greatest strategist in the history of human conflict. With no navy or air force or anything that resembles a formal army, he’s managed to whip the world’s mightiest nation like a rented camel. Our economy is shot, the best-trained, best-equipped military in history has been proven impotent, and our moral standing in the world has gone through the sub-basement.

I seem to remember making a similar point before the 2004 election- that the Republicans, as war makers, were a failure to invade Iraq, and that one old guy in a Turban with a kidney condition had effectively beat the US military all hollow.

A Hope for Autism

A wonderful alternative to Autism Speaks, A Hope for Autism, is having a fundraising dinner April 10th at the Benson Hotel in Portland.

Why pro-lifers should have supported the ERA

The original Equal Rights Amendment was simple- the law should have no gender differences.

A man makes his decision to become a father the instant he has consensual sex, at least, under the law. I should emphasize the word consensual; we're not talking about rape or incest here, we're talking about normal sex, inside of some form of committed relationship.

He can't back out past that point. Yet Roe V.Wade allows a woman to. This creates a difference in the law- a difference in parental rights.

Yeah, I know, women try to justify it with "It's my body and I have to give up 9 months of my life for the child". But I'm talking cusps here- the moment of decision. And the moment of decision, legally, should be the same for a man as for a woman.

And that moment shouldn't be *after* the fact.

Non-consensual sex, like incest and rape, isn't included in this. In fact, I consider abortion due to incest and rape to be murder- and the murderer to be the rapist, just as much as if a bank robber shot a pregnant woman in the uterus.

Life of the mother decisions also aren't really included in this- when a gun is held against your head in other circumstances, the law doesn't call your actions a choice, and neither should it for a woman whose life is threatened by a pregnancy.

Health of the child decisions are the pure evil of eugenics; just talk to any parent who lost a child in the first few weeks of life and ask if they had it to do over again would they choose abortion. You'll find even the tiniest, shortest, human lives have great meaning.

No, I'm solely talking about the evil of using abortion as backup birth control here- and that includes the overdose of birth control pills known as the morning after pill. If women TRULY want to be equal to men, then they need to accept that consensual sex, even with the use of modern birth control methods, contains the slight chance of a pregnancy- and that's the risk they take having consensual sex to begin with. The decision to be parents, is contained in the sex act itself; if you don't want to be a parent yet, don't have sex.

And that's the lesson we need to hammer in to all of our young people- male and female.
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Correcting some logical assumption holes in the above, thanks to some questions I ran into on slashdot:

It's more the idea of the ERA- that we shouldn't be writing gender differences into law. Well, being allowed to choose whether or not you're going to be a parent after having sex is a HUGE gender difference- one which should not be allowed except in rare cases, and even those rare cases should be either the *sole* decision of an emergency room doctor or having the man involved prosecuted for murder, same as any other crime that causes the death of a fetus.

On the Eugenics is Pure Evil, I thought that was pretty much a given based on Godwin's law. But I can think of three reasons not related to facism, so here they are:
1. For any given species to survive and evolve, it needs genetic diversity. Species that don't have genetic diversity have a tendency to run into trouble with double recessive and double dominant genes. Eugenics, in the search of the "perfect child", reduces genetic diversity.
2. Who gets to decide what the perfect human looks like anyway? Parental achievement is no indication- many geniuses come from impoverished or even mental illness backgrounds. Many crooks come from upper crust backgrounds. There are no good indicators.
3. The labeling of disabilities with good quality of life as preventable genetic diseases. A good example of this is Achondroplasia Dwafism, which is a rather benign form of dwarfism as long as your child isn't double-dominant; most Achondroplasia Dwarfs live long and happy lives. Yet it's on the list of normal human variety to be wiped out in the next generation by abortion.

A Clarification on Marriage Laws: the serious version

I'm Roman Catholic. To me, that means marriage is a sacrament designed to last, and even divorce should not be permitted.

Recently I participated in a joke post on somebody else's blog, playing devil's advocate:
Why California can no longer afford divorce

But I fear it might have left my real position confused.

So here goes- the gay agenda has highlighted one thing in particular. Writing marriage into civil law comes dangerously close to violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Which causes a conflict for me between faith and patriotism.

Thus I propose this answer: We split civil recognition of marriage into three parts.

First of all, Sacramental marriages may no longer be recognized by the State at all. They are fully in the province of religion, and follow the rules of the religious sect of the person who officiates at the marriage. The person officiating at the ceremony has the full right to require premarital classes and counseling, and based on the results of that reject doing the ceremony.

The Second recognizes that the State does indeed have an interest in promoting procreation. For that purpose, we use the word marriage as we always have, but with a twist. This marriage cannot be dissolved by divorce while there are still children under the age of 18 in the household, except by reason of physical abuse. Also, the state reserves the right to annul any marriage that does not produce children, and refuse a marriage license to any couple either not intending to, or incapable of, producing children. The exception to the right of annulment on the part of the State is an active intent to adopt, with the adoption process already in progress.

The third recognizes and solves the discrimination of the second. The State also has an interest in encouraging cohabitation for the combining of household resources. But this isn't marriage- this is Civil Unions. Civil unions should not discriminate based on race, color, creed, sex, gender, sexual orientation, species, age, or number of participants. Civil unions may, or may not, have a term limitation not exceeding 30 years, renewable five times. Civil union contracts may be dissolved before the term limitation for any reason. Civil unions effectively create a corporate household in which all members share all benefits of contracts signed by the household equally, including power of attorney and right of visitation for each other.