What do you do when you write letters to the editor, but they aren’t published because the views are unpopular? When you post comments to other blogs and news sites that are removed or never even make it because they touch a topic that no one wants to acknowledge? When you feel that what you have to say nevertheless still needs to be said? You start a blog, of course!
Since this is the first post, I thought I would tell you a little about myself. I am a lifelong Republican. I am pro-life. And, because life is full of shades of gray, I’m not stupidly dogmatic about either one.
It would have been hard for me to start out as anything other than Republican, coming as I did from a family of people active in that party. But it was more than that: the values that I was taught – work hard, honor country and God, a man’s word is his bond – were, I felt, more clearly matched by the Republicans than by the Democrats. At least, that’s what I thought at age eighteen, but then I was very young, and very naive. Even though the Republican Party today has more scoundrels in public life than saints, I still feel that the core values of the GOP match my own, and I see no reason to jump ship to any other affiliation. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll blindly vote for a Republican scoundrel over an opponent from another party. I believe in an intelligent exercise of franchise. This last cycle, I chose more from other parties than from the GOP. Whenever possible, I try to vote according to the issues and the candidate who best addresses them. Sometimes the differences are pretty subtle, in which case, I will see which one I most need to vote against. One of the things that makes it difficult in my district is that it is predominantly Democratic, the incumbents are Democrats, and there are few challengers from any other party. That’s probably a column I need to write.
I’m pro-life. I wasn’t always – I came of age at about the same time the Roe v Wade decision was handed down by SCOTUS – and abortion was always available to me However, although there has never been a question in my mind that abortion means killing babies, I didn’t think at all about what that killing meant or the form it would take. Like most of my peers, I focused only on the impact to the adults involved, and never gave a thought to the children. I even wrote a paper for college in defense of quality of life issues for adults with respect to abortion and euthanasia. Then I happened to see some literature that changed my mind, because I suddenly saw that these were humans being slaughtered, and that there were millions of babies who had been killed. I haven’t been indifferent to their plight since. I now believe that the time to choose is before ya screws. On the other hand, it’s no fun to face the possibility of a child with serious birth defects, and I can imagine the horror of finding oneself pregnant as the result of rape. So, there are some gray areas in my thinking, and although all abortion is deplorable, there may be some instances in which it is at least understandable. There’s probably another column about this one, too.
So there you have it – I’m an Elephant for life, for life.
Welcome to my blog.
Elephant4Life 