I say place as much,, if not more, emphasis on supporting life enhancing occupations in this country

[IsItJustMe]

By all means "Support the troops". But, if we are going to create special groups of people who choose certain occupations, place them on a pedastal and worship them to some degree, than I would like to see educators and people in the medical professions get some of that.

Remember, in life, what you place your emphasis on expands.

[patrice]

1. If Pro-Life does not apply to Absolutely Everyone, it doesn't apply to anyone.

The basic tenet that a human life has intrinsic value in and of itself, regardless of how old it is, or what the person does for a living, or who you are to "me", that basic principle "Human life (completely unqualified) is intrinsically valuable in an of itself and for no other reason" - if this principle doesn't apply to absolutely everyone, it doesn't apply to anyone, because the minute you put somekind of qualification on that principle, the principle becomes logically UNTRUE.

[patrice]

3. Because it becomes Untrue, it would be more logical to say "Soldiers have an (unqualified) Right to

Life" or "Rich people have a(n) (unqualified) Right to Life" or "Fetuses have a(n)(unqualified) Right to Life" or "White people have a(n) (unqualified) Right to Life" or "Christians have a(n) (unqualified) Right to Life" or ( ________________ have a(n)(unqualified) Right to Life" . . . . you get the idea.

And THEN - the minute that there is more than one group whom you claim has an unconditional Right to Life . . . . get this, logically, the minute that you have

more than one group, which by "virtue" of certain characteristics

, have an unqualified Right to Life, the whole concept again becomes false, because each group's characteristics qualify the characteristics of the other groups.

Simply put, if you posit that there is something called a "Right to Life", there is NO WAY that can be true unless it applies to absolutely everyone as a whole, no conditions.

[patrice]

2. BTW, I agree with you, so now how do we spread the meme that you suggest?

[IsItJustMe]

4. I am not sure. But when I look out at this country, and see two wars going on and a military budget

that is draining the life blood from this country, the answer for me is simple. We have seen one too many Audry Murphy and John Wayne movies and not enough about the Jonas Salk's of the world.

I don't care about all of the specialness that we, in this country, attribute to people with specific occupations either. But, I take the situation as I find it.

Take sports as another example. I know lots of teen agers who are really smart but they wont get any significant scholarships to go to college. Why? Because most the good scholarships goes to the high schoolers who are good in sports. Is it any wonder that we have sports figures that make millions of dollars a year.

It's all about priorities and emphasis.

[patrice]

5. I can't agree with you more. Unexamined priorities and emphases,

and without some personal examination and testing, there is LESS genuine personal identification with "your" priorities and emphases, policy etc. runs on sheer inertia, not personal responsility and then, when the going gets tough, people are apt, as Pink Floyd said, to wake up some 40 years later on the Dark Side of the Moon, ergo, things fall apart and FORCE is "necessary" to constitute enough social order to provide for public safety and, ***THEN***, because Force is the primary agent in our lives, people identify even less, and less, and LESS with whatever the priorities and emphases are.

It's just such a profoundly Vicious Circle that could be very probably avoided if everyone was more personally responsible for what is going on with things like athletic scholarships and Religious Wars of Choice.

This particular Liberation Theologist thinks everyone should get a little better acquainted with the model set by a guy named Jesus Christ, who was killed by his Church-State for being too Free in deciding what his priorities and emphases are.