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I received this email today about a couple of things from my blog I sent along to a fellow author and was wondering how you all would respond.
Okay, I see the difference now. We pretty much agree on most of the issues, it’s probably just a difference in how we think the agreed upon problems can or should be solved.
I’m super conservative in that I think our policies and laws should be like the ones our founding fathers fought for. For instance… I am positively certain that when Abraham Lincoln and those before him thought of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” they were thinking of OUR people – AMERICANS.
Why does Bush then have in his budget proposal something like $247 million dollars for foreign workers? Come on! Send the illegal aliens home and use that money for our schools or to train OUR workers!
Just because I’m conservative doesn’t mean I always agree with the Republicans either. Typically I find myself leaning more toward a Libertarian point of view. For someone like me – a very spiritual person but not a fundamentalist Christian – it is sometimes difficult for me to choose between Republican and Democrats. I think there should be freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. The constitution says that Congress shall pass no laws governing churches, but that’s exactly what’s been happening. It’s just not Congress doing it, it is the court. The courts have effectively made laws to keep the churches out of government. The separation between church and state was intended to protect the churches, not the other way around. The churches influenced everything about the way this country was founded. Why do we need to change it now?
Oh, and just one more thing. I once agreed with your abortion stance. Then I got pregnant with my daughter. While studying what was going on with my body and my developing baby, I learned that an embryo or fetus (or however you want to refer to that baby) has a heartbeat at about 20 days after conception. Twenty days! That’s before most women even know they are pregnant. I firmly believe that if you are stopping a human heartbeat (even if it is the heartbeat of an embryo) it is murder. Laws making it legal to stop that heartbeat are simply laws making it legal to murder. I don’t believe they had the scientific evidence to support this back when Roe vs. Wade was debated. I think there would have been a different verdict if that information had been available. What is nine months of inconvenience for the mother compared to an entire lifespan of the child? I believe the woman should have a choice… She should have the right to choose whether or not she wants to have sex. She should have the right to choose whether or not to use some form of contraception. And she should have the right to choose whether to keep the baby or put it up for adoption. She should NOT have the right to kill an innocent baby.
The only exception SHOULD be if the life of the mother is in danger. I do not believe that one life is any more valuable than the other. I would, however, be willing to add the exception for rape or incest just to eliminate the majority of abortions.
I voted for Bush last election because I believed that the next president would appoint at least one judge to the Supreme Court. And I knew that we needed more conservative judges if there was even a chance to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
This is how I responded.
Interesting.
Did you know that Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the the bible, taking out the stuff he thought was more or less "superstitious malarky?"
And actually the founding fathers were stuck with the situation in which several different sects of Christianity in control of the various colonies wanted protection from any particular sect gaining control of the government and forcing them to change their own views to conform to a "universal" concept. Thus, in a way, freedom OF religion also translates to freedom FROM other versions of the same religion. Or any other religion, when you get right down to it.
At this point I think it can be argued that the Catholics wouldn't want the Lutherans in charge, and the Lutherans wouldn't want the Pentacostals in charge. Thus, the only way to guarantee religious freedom for all would be to disallow ANY sect from gaining more power than any other.
And, from the point of view of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, religion was used throughout Europe to support tyranny and drag the region into hundreds of conflicts for no purpose than to gather power. They didn't want to see that happen here.
Now, you know the easiest way to put the brakes on illegal immigration, don't you? Make it a CRIME, punishable by a minimum of 6 months to a year in prison, for the CEO of an American corporation to allow the hiring of undocumented workers. The next day there'd be a line on THIS side of the border.
Did you know that roughly 10% of Mexico's income comes from illegals sending money home?
Right now the corporations and the right wing WANT an influx of cheap labor because it turns it into a buyer's market--where actual Americans have to accept less pay and fewer benefits because there's a host of people who will work for less right across the border. The subsidiaries of Haliburton who received the no-bid contracts to rebuild the Gulf Coast are hiring out-of-state and illegal help rather than locals.
And abortion is a hot button issue that isn't going to be solved easily. I don't think it should be used for birth control, but I also don't believe that it serves anyone to force women to bear and give birth to unwanted children. It doesn't serve the the mother, the child, or the community at large. If our technology gives us the ability to know a child's heartbeat begins after 20 days, it also gives us the ability to prevent pregnancy, as well as an obligation to do so when it is in the best interest of the people involved.
A lifetime of servitude is not a fitting punishment for a moment of pleasure. And an unwanted child is far more likely to be abused or neglected or both.
I opposed BOTH nominations to the Supreme Court, not because of their stances on abortion, which, being male, I feel I don't really have any right to comment upon, but because they are supporters of corporate power vs. the power of the average American. Under their watch we will see the average American lose any chance of having a say in labor policies and see the corporations become de facto "owners" of their employees. And they're both opposed to reasonable interpretation of the 1st and 4th Amendments...
Roberts thought it was okay to strip search a 10 y.o. girl for drugs without a warrant that specifically named her. For example.
Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who is under indictment right now, was recorded as referring to those who vote their religious consciences rather than their economic interests as "wackos" and laughingly referred to how easy they were to manipulate.
Even George W. Bush is on record making similar statements some years ago. Religion and religious sentiments are an excellent means of manipulating the masses and their real goal isn't so much the promotion of religious values as it is to increase the political power of corporate America.
Mussolini coined the term "Fascism" and it represented a marriage of government and corporate interests.
That's what scares me.
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