Here's something fun for today. BlimeyCow is my favorite vlogger--if that's the right word for his videos--and also, the only one I, uh, watch. Unless Julian Smith counts, but I don't think he does.
And by the way, I finally got to go see October Baby (yay!) and it was amazing. Is it the greatest movie ever made? No, it's not. But it's a beautiful story, and the quality was very good, even if it wasn't up to the level of "The Lord of the Rings" or "It's a Wonderful Life" (two of my favorite movies right there). As another indicator, it was a heck of a lot better than the "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" flop (sorry, Narnia). It also was not pushy about abortion or religion; it wasn't saying "Christianity is right and abortion is the most ultimate evil ever!", but rather "Here's a conflicted young woman who needs to re-discover who she is and how to forgive". As a plus, most criticisms of the movie (coming from the Left) aren't about the quality, but screaming about how the movie dares to oppose abortion. Which pretty much guarantees that the movie's going to be good.
Without further ado, here's BlimeyCow and "The TV Tells Me How to Vote".
There's still a chance to help send one million letters to the White House and Supreme Court! Here are a few that I've written. You are free to adopt them, but please adopt and do not copy; add your own heart to your letter.
#1
To whom it may concern:
I am writing to voice my concerns about abortion. An abortion clearly violates the fourteenth amendment: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". Every single abortion kills a human bing, violates the fourteenth amendment, and the very foundation of this nation: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Some may argue that the unborn, while human, are not people, but that is a dangerous road to take: who are we to define what a "person" is, if not a human being? We have tried that before, with blacks here in the U.S., and with the Jews in Nazi Germany; both of these led to terrible injustices. And now we are attacking the unborn, stripping them of their personhood, with no logical foundation for our claims except our own selfishness. This hidden holocaust is hidden no longer: the American people are waking up, and are horrified to realize their is the blood of over fifty million children on our hands. I urge you to join the fight against abortion.
Please, I am **** years old and this is not the country I want to inherit.
Sincerely,
Grace *********
#2
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to voice my concerns about abortion.
Abortion advocates claim that abortion is about women's rights, but that does not make logical sense. Sexism has been dead for decades in the U.S. I am not against women having equal rights: I myself am a young woman, and an ambitious one! Abortion is not about women's rights. Women are physically different from men, and thus able to bear children, but being "different" does not mean they are legally "unequal". Even if we pretend that Nature has made women "unequal" (the ability become pregnant is not an inequality), that does not mean we are obliged to try to erase Nature's "mistake"--ESPECIALLY if it comes at the cost of a human life.
Abortion itself is sexist. It is insulting to women to tell them that they have to be "fixed"; that they need the right to murder their own children in order to be "equal" to men. Our fertility is not a curse. Children are not a curse. If a woman does not want to have children, that is her decision. I will not stop her. However, once a woman becomes pregnant, it's too late to choose to not have a child--she already has one, and it should not be legal for her to kill her own offspring, born or unborn. It is her responsibility to carry the child, give birth, and then, if she wishes, put the child up for adoption. I urge you to stand up against this new Sexism in America, and stop the murder of our children.
Please, I am **** years old, and this is not the country I want to inherit.
Sincerely,
Grace *********
#3
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing to voice my concerns about abortion.
Abortion is the greatest tragedy to ever occur in all of human history. The death casuality is enormous, 50,000,000+ in the U.S. along in the last few decades, but worse than that, the deaths are legal, by our own hands, and the slaughter doesn't even fix the problem it claims to need fixing: instead, it creates dozens more, and hurts everybody in the world, not just the life that it brutally ends.
The first obvious victim is the woman who undergoes the abortion. She is lied to about the humanity of the unborn, is not given all of the facts, and is frequently denied her right to see the ultrasound before her abortion. She is fed propaganda, in a bizarre new kind of Sexism, that says she can't be equal to a man unless she has the right to murder her own child, within her own body. She is not told about the possible increased risk of breast cancer, increased risk of miscarriages and premature births, post-traumatic stress disorder, or any of the other risks.
Abortion also victimises the father, who gets no rights. He has no say in whether his son or daughter lives or dies.
Abortion victimizes the aborted child's siblings, or future siblings; what would have been her best friend, her cousins, her husband, every life she would have touched. Gone. She leaves a hole before she is even born.
Abortion victimizes the abortionist and the abortion workers. They are deceived into thinking they are doing something wonderful for women, and by the time they find out what they've done, it's too late: they have partaken in the slaughter of millions. It must be horrific to suddenly realize what evil you have caused.
I urge you to join the fight against this terrible holocaust that is ripping apart the fabric of our nation. Please, I am **** years old and this is not the country I want to inherit.
Sincerely,
Grace *******
Notice I looked at abortion from three different angles. That's easier to do than trying to write a concise letter touching on all of them. Also, I obviously left out my age and my last name. That's in case any internet creepers happen upon my blog. :) (Note to the internet creepers: obviously my age does not have four digits, and that is not the length of my last name. The number of asterisks was completely random, so don't waste your time.)
If you hurry, you can still have them postmarked in March! The instructions for mailing them are here. (By the way, the Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally I co-organized was awesome. 250+ people showed up for my local rally, which was more than I expected! And last I checked, over 60,000 people showed up to rallies nation-wide--they're still counting! I hope you were able to attend one...NOW GO MAIL A LETTER!)
HURRY!
All images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
I must say, we saw this coming. I didn't expect it quite so fast, but here it is. Direct taxpayer funding of abortion is now in place. I know, it was supposed to be illegal, wasn't it? But hey, who cares? The Obama administration sure doesn't. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is (surprise, surprise) responsible for this. It is also responsible for the HHS contraception mandate. Gasp! As explained on LifeSiteNews:
The Department of Health and Human Services this month issued a final rule regarding the exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion through a direct abortion subsidy.
To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a separate $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment, and insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing the abortion surcharge.
What really gets me is the last sentence. You can't disclose the abortion surcharge? You aren't allowed to know you're paying for abortion? Excuse me??
The pro-abortion side likes to tell the pro-life side that we're all paranoid. Hahaha, legalized contraception won't lead to abortion on demand! What religious idiots!
Yeah. Except that happened. And infringing on freedom by forcing payment for contraception also lead to infringing on freedom by forcing payment for abortion. DIRECTLY funding abortion. THIS is why we have to continue to protest the HHS contraception mandate, and any infringement on freedom. Don't expect the government to just stop there. They're going to keep going. Guaranteed. Proven by history. You have to actively fight for your freedom if you expect to keep it.
And by the way, the Obama administration has now broadened the contraception mandate to include college insurance, as well as employers. And, you guessed it, there's no conscience exemption.
I encourage you to find a local Stand Up For Religious Freedom rally to attend on March 23. There are over 100 locations now. There's even one in Alaska and one in Hawaii! All you have to do is go stand there with a sign. The bigger the crowds, the bigger the impact.
On the bright side, the Obama administration is digging its own grave. I have to wonder what the heck they're thinking. I, and everybody else I know, is absolutely LIVID. We don't want to pay for other peoples' sex lives, and certianly not for murder! If there is anything that will get people out to the polls come November, this is it! I almost hope the administration continues to do such stupid, un-American things. It could be a blessing in disguise.
...and sometimes He picks you up and tosses you through the door almost before it's open.
I got wind of the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" movement yesterday. Rallies protesting the HHS mandate are going to be held in cities across the nation on March 23. I looked at the locations on the website and discovered the one nearest me would be held an hour and a half away.
Shoot.
I emailed the link to my mom anyway. She answered back this morning with, "Why don't you organize one for [my city]? Do Hard Things."
Well then. Okay. I sent a tentative email to the people in charge asking what organizing a rally would take, as I've never had any experience in that area. They emailed me back quickly, informing me that another lady had just emailed them asking the same thing, for the same city!
Coincidence? I prefer to think of it as Divine Intervention.
Thankfully, this woman has more experience than I do. Long story short, we now have a permit, a flyer, a Facebook page, and I've sent recruiting emails to approximately a billion people (okay, not really. But to every acquaintence/homeschooler I have so far in NC...which is actually quite a few). As if that wasn't exciting enough, she told me about a pro-life student group on Facebook for my area. YES. I have been starved for such a group! Since moving from Kansas, I'd lost all of the connections I had with pro-life people. But even in Kansas I didn't have an activist student group.
When did I find out about this movement? Yesterday.
Today, I am the youth coordinator (un-officially/according to myself :)) co-organizer (officially) of a genuine protest rally for my city as part of a national movement. And a member of a pro-life student activist group.
I. Am. PSYCHED.
You know, I kinda wish God'd throw me through open doors a little more often.
It would have been hard to miss the storm over President Obama's birth control mandate. You know, the new law that will begin forcing employers to cover contraception costs in their employees' health insurance. So if you didn't miss it, and you don't want to hear my rantings, please just read the following paragraph.
The outrage over the mandate erupted because it ignored any conscience rights of religious institutions, such as Catholic hospitals, who don't want to be forced to provide contraception. After the pressure was put on the Obama administration, they "revised" the mandate, so that instead of the employers paying for the contraception, the insurance companies are forced to provide it for free. Except this doesn't fix anything. Because the employers are still paying for the insurance. They are still paying for their employees' access to contraception. THIS FIXES NOTHING. Don't be fooled by this false revision. Keep the pressure on Washington. You can sign a petition here. (If the petition gets 25,000 signatures by March 12, then Washington has to give an official response!)
The main problem with this mandate is that it violates the first amendment right to freedom of religion. You can't order people to give away carrots to anybody who wants them if carrots violate your religion. This doesn't just go for "religious institutions" either. This goes for all employers who don't like birth control.
Naturally, there is a limit to religious freedom. If, for example, your religion requires you to sacrifice virgins to your god every year, you have to be stopped. Or if your religion requires you to not perform a life-saving heart transplant...too bad. But contraception is not life-saving or necessary. It is not a right. There is no reason to force people to give contraception to others. There's no reason to prevent people from getting contraception either, as long as it isn't an abortifacient. I don't like contraception myself, but I don't mind if you use your privilege to access and use it, so long as it doesn't impede another's right not to provide it or another's right to live.
If, in a very rare (and perhaps bizarre) circumstance, some contraception or abortion is necessary to save someone's life, then their right to life is trumped by another's right to not provide these now life-saving services, as the normal intent for both contraception and abortion (preventing having babies and killing babies) have changed into "preventing dying".
Here is my compilation of what seem to be the basic beliefs of the 2012 Republican Presidential candidates. I divided this list up by the following five categories: abortion, the economy, health care, foreign policy, and marriage. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
The way chose things to list was to list only things about the candidates that differed from the other candidates. For example: repealing Obamacare. I do not say "would repeal Obamacare" because it's a given that Republican candidates would repeal Obamacare (or at least convince people they would). So I only mention repealing Obamacare if either 1) there was something unique about how/why a candidate would repeal Obamacare, or 2) if a candidate would NOT repeal Obamacare.
I gathered my information from various articles, debates, and the candidates' campaign website. If I did not list much about what a candidate believes under a certain topic, it isn't (usually) because I'm being lazy, but because I simply couldn't find anything unique or specific about that candidate under that certain topic...or I simply couldn't find much information. I also sometimes give links throughout the list that go to what I found very helpful/detailed articles about the candidate under that topic. Sometimes they are from candidates' websites, sometimes they aren't.
I did my best to not write biased, but I'm only human.
ABORTION
Michele Bachmann
~Would advocate “Personhood” amendment to Constitution, and then use 14th amendment to ban abortion
Mitt Romney
~Would not sign Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life Pledge
~Previously strongly pro-abortion, claiming pro-life conversion in 2004…the following done after he says he converted:
~Supported legalization of RU-486 (the abortion pill)
~Implemented “Romneycare” health care when Governor of Massachusetts, which funded abortion
~Supports embryonic cell research
~Repeatedly flip-flopped on whether he was pro-life or pro-choice, depending on where he was running.
Ron Paul
~Repeal Roe v. Wade
~Define personhood as from conception with “Sanctity of Life” act
~Wouldn’t support abortion as president, but believes banning it should be left up to the states
Rick Santorum
~Does not believe rape and incest should be an exception if abortion is made illegal
~“Rick was the author of legislation outlawing the heinous act known as partial-birth abortion and he championed the fight to pass the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” and the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act.”
~Supports Federal banning of abortion
Jon Huntsman
~Would not sign Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life Pledge
~Believes abortion is acceptable in the cases of rape and incest
~ “He wasn’t a governor who was pushing, cheerleading those who were opposed to reproductive rights. He wasn’t a governor that spearheaded either an anti-choice or reproductive rights agenda.”—Karrie Galloway, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Utah
Rick Perry
~Signed legislation as Governor of Texas that de-funded Planned Parenthood
~Supports the creation of a “human life” amendment to the Constitution
Newt Gingrich
~Supports federal funding of abortion in cases of rape or incest
~Once stated that life begins at implantation (as opposed to conception), and then amended it later to conception
ECONOMY
Michele Bachmann
~Repatriate corporate profits
~The most pushy candidate about repealing Obamacare
~Repeal unnecessary regulations and cut unnecessary taxes
~repeal Dodd-Frank
~Open up foreign trade
Mitt Romney
~Cut corporate income tax rate to 25%
~Implemented universal “Romneycare” when governor or Massachusetts, but says wouldn’t do that as president because it should be left up to the states
~Cutting non-security discretionary spending by 5%
~Give control of “retraining” programs back to the states
~Sanctioning China for unfair trade practices
~Cut and cap federal spending to 20% of the GDP
Ron Paul
~Very gung-ho about auditing the Fed
~Supports sound money
~Has plan for cutting 1 trillion of spending during 2013
~Cut five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, Education)
~ “Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.”
Rick Santorum
~Don’t call it “war on terror”…call it what it is! War on radical Islam!
~ “authored and passed the“Iran Freedom and Support Act” in the face of Democratic and Bush State Department opposition, which authorized Federal monies to support pro-democracy movements in Iran and keep the tyrannical dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from obtaining a nuclear weapon”
~ Was on the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years
~Does not support withdrawing from Afghanistan
~Not too concerned about foreign aid, since it’s “less than a half a percent” of the federal budget
~ “Our foreign policy is only as good as our ability to project power”—fix economy, defend borders, etc.
~ “War on Terror” can’t be fought in any one country; we have to move around as the terrorists move around; be “quick on our feet” and able to deploy on a moment’s notice
Rick Perry
~ Would reset all of our foreign aid to all countries to zero—including Israel—and then build from there.
~Very gung-ho about putting up a fence along the boarder—did so in Texas
Newt Gingrich
~”Incentivize math and science education in America to ensure the men and women of our Armed Forces always have the most advanced and powerful weapons in the world at their disposal.”
~ “Understand our enemies and tell the truth about them.”
~Re-do the Visa program
~ “Allow foreigners who want to spend money, invest and create jobs in America to do so.”
~Should have an “earned citizenship”program for illegals
~Implemented similar-to-Obamacare (though less extreme) “Romneycare” when governor of Massachusetts
~Let states do whatever they want/decide what’s best for them
Ron Paul
~Give various tax credits, deductions, and exemptions for medical expenses and those with terminal illnesses.
~ “Ensure that those harmed during medical treatment receive fair compensation while reducing the burden of costly malpractice litigation on the health care system by providing a tax credit for “negative outcomes” insurance purchased before medical treatment."
Rick Santorum
~Supports Ryan Plan
~Once voted yes on expanding Medicare to help seniors afford prescription drugs; now says that vote was a mistake, because the money isn’t used effectively
Jon Huntsman
~Leave things up to the states
Rick Perry
~Reform Medicare and Medicaid
~ “the best way for the federal government to improve health care in the near term is to stimulate job creation so more Americans are covered by employer-sponsored health plans”
Newt Gingrich
~ “make health insurance more affordable and portable”
~ “Create more choices in Medicare”
~ “Reform Medicaid by giving states more freedom and flexibility”
~Supports Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman
Mitt Romney
~Supported gays serving openly in the military
~Supports federal amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman
Ron Paul
~Doesn’t personally support homosexuality, but believes the states should make their own laws, and the federal government should ignore the issue altogether.
Rick Santorum
~ Supports Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman
Jon Huntsman
~Supports civil unions
~Believes choices about gay people should be left to states
~Thinks this country could “show a little more equality” when it comes to gays
Rick Perry
~ Supports Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman
Newt Gingrich
~ "I certainly think that we have every right to defend traditional marriage...whether it's by passing a law or a constitutional amendment."
All images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
I am six. My mother sits me and my sister down on the rug in her room in front of the TV. She tells us to remember this day. I don’t remember her telling me that, but I must have done my best to obey, because I do remember.
I am confused. I don’t understand what is going on, why this is so important. In my six-year-old mind, I wonder why the news station keeps playing the same clip over and over, telling the same story over and over, instead of going from story to story like they usually do.
The clip they show is from a pedestrian’s viewpoint—one of those raw videos taken with a blurry camera and a shaky hand, instead of the fancy news ones. There’s a short stone wall to the left, running down the sidewalk, and trees growing on the other side of it. Coming up behind the trees, fairly close and easy to see, is the single burning tower, and its twin. There’s a man on a cell phone in the right-hand corner. He’s facing the stone wall, not the person taking the video, and not the towers. In slow motion he turns towards the towers, just as an airplane slowly soars into view from the left panel, crashing into the other tower. And explosions.
I get bored after a while, I remember that, but I’m also a little scared. Because I don’t understand what is going on. I don’t understand why my parents are upset. I’m scared enough to keep my restless six-year-old self sitting in the same place and not asking if I could leave now like I might normally do if my parents weren’t upset.
I also remember, fuzzily, the disbelieving horror my parents expressed when the towers collapsed.
I remember what seems like a few days later, though I suppose it could have been longer, and my dad has gotten out the modeling clay from the basement, and he sits at the kitchen table sculpting something. I ask why he’s doing that. And he (or perhaps mom) tells me it’s because God told him to.
It’s the towers, buckling in the middle. I watch for a while, because my dad doesn’t regularly sculpt things, and it’s interesting. But I’m still confused.
I’m missing something, I think.
Years later, sitting in the car with my mom, driving somewhere, we hear something on the radio about the war in Afghanistan and a bunch of other things I don’t understand and mom turns the radio off.
“When people complain,” she says, and she’s crying, “When people complain about the wars and the fighting, remember that they attacked us first.”
I remember.
Always.
~Dedicated to the 3,000 + American heroes who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.
My memory may be faulty on some details, but they are real memories.
God bless America.
Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
Perhaps some of you have heard the news the government is now forcing insurance companies to cover, among other things, birth control. Because we “deserve” it. And if you haven’t heard, well…you just did.
Planned Parenthood, no huge surprise here, is celebrating this “victory for women”. Now you can prevent pregnancies (or terminate very early ones with the “morning after” pill) all for free! Yay!
Except for, you know, all the problems with this new rule.
Moral convictions aside, regulations like this are the enemy of Capitalism and small government. Short Economics-In-The-Free-Market lesson: if free birth control was really widely wanted and demanded by The People, eventually one of the insurance companies would latch onto this profit-making idea. “Come to us!” their advertisements would say, “and get free birth control!” Then all the people who wanted free birth control would flock to them. The company would make money, and the people would get free birth control. And (here’s the key) everybody who didn’t want birth control wouldn’t go to that company, wouldn’t be morally compromised by being forced to pay for the others’ free birth control.
Because the insurance companies are greedy, right?
This is why the government made them cover birth control in the first place. Insurance companies want to make money. So if they want to make money, they would add free birth control as one of their benefits and make money.
But they didn’t do this on their own. So obviously free birth control isn’t in terribly high demand. Or they would do it without the government forcing them to.
But the government is also forcing The American People to pay for the free birth control. Because the birth control isn’t free. The insurance companies pay for the birth control. And The People pay the insurance companies. See the connection? The government is forcing The People to pay for something they do not want.
Sounds like the opposite of freedom to me. They're the government. We're The People. We tell them what to do, not the other way around.
Besides that, the federal government shouldn’t be messing around in health care at all. It’s not Constitutional. I thought we wanted our “right to privacy”? Simply put:
Dear Government,
Get out of our lives.
Love (or lack thereof),
PS: American People, I'd appreciate it if you could vote in my polls over there to the right. Thanks!
Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.
