On Some Changes to My Views

We all grow and adapt throughout our lives. We start off believing in some things, and later on sometimes we change.

Change is never easy and sometimes it can be agonizing. We feel like we're betraying family or friends and the inner conflict we feel can be very hard to overcome.

While my belief in God and Christ are still large parts of my life, my political views have changed drastically in some regards.

I need to start off by saying that I'm pro-life. I have been since I was old enough to understand the issue. That being said I don't like the way that the pro-life community has approached the issue. I don't like that there are groups that bomb clinics. I don't like there are people that post the names and addresses of doctors in the hopes that they get killed by some nut.

I think that if the pro-life community had started opening clinics of their own, offering all services except for abortions, that there might have been fewer abortions over the years.

The other problem, as I see it, is that a large number of self professed pro-lifers only care that a baby is born. Many of them oppose any program to give prenatal care to the mothers and any program to give financial assistance to the poor families that need the help.

When I was younger I was a lot more stringent about the issue than I am now. I still think that abortion is wrong, though I totally understand getting one in the cases of rape or incest, but I just don't think that the fight can be won in the courts or in the legislature. The law is the law and I really don't think that its going to change anytime soon. I think that all the money fighting it in those arenas could be better spent opening free prenatal clinics or starting up charities to help poor families.

I didn't use to think that single payer was the way to go in the health care debate. (This is something I went more in-depth in another entry). Right now I'm on Medicaid and taking oncology medicine for a gastro-intestinal stromal tumor. I've seen what people have to go through when trying to get Medicaid and my stance changed from being against it to being for it. There's just too many people who need help to rely totally on charity. If every church in the country pooled their money, after taking out their operating costs, there still wouldn't be enough money to help all the people that need health care.

On marriage I've gone from thinking that gay marriage was wrong to believing that government should just get out of the business of recognizing marriages. If marriage is a religious institution then it should be kept that way and the government should only recognize civil unions.

Most of what I think now has changed significantly from when I was younger. The core of my beliefs, namely belief in God and Jesus Christ, hasn't changed, but sometimes I feel like I'm betraying my family for thinking the way that I do. I've talked about it with my family and they don't see the changes in my beliefs as a betrayal. In fact they understand why I think the way I do now.

Sometimes though I get depressed and feel bad about it though. I guess that's why I write about things like this. Just trying to work things out in my head.

That's all for now

May God bless you and may God be merciful unto you all the days of your life.

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Republicans and the 47%

here's been a lot of talk lately about Mitt Romney and his comments on the so called 47% of the country that supposedly are never going to vote for him. An excellent open letter was written by The Bucking Jenny ( http://thebuckingjenny.blogspot.com/ ), go read it, its a well written piece and needs more people sharing it so the word gets out.

This is my take on what he said.

I have to say starting out that I don't know Mitt Romney. I don't know what his life was like, other than it was one of privilege. He never wanted for money a day in his life. Even when he was living on his own with his wife Ann he got by, not by getting a job and working his way through college, but by selling off stocks given to him by his father.

Now I don't have a problem with that in theory. In practice it means that Mitt Romney doesn't really know what its like to struggle, to be of poor health or to have to make ends meet on a budget. It means that he never had to feed himself and his family on food stamps, and while that's not really a bad thing it also means that he's never given a thought as to what the people who do rely on those things go through on a daily basis.

He laments that 47% of the country pays no income tax, a lamentation that is reflected by other Republicans and conservative pundits like Sean Hannity. What Romney, and the punditry don't tell you is that a large portion of that number are people living on Social Security. Another percentage are people making less than $20,000 a year. 

We've had a Republican run for President, namely Rick Perry of Texas, campaign on getting rid of the G.I. Bill on the grounds that it was welfare.

We have Republicans running for office saying that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are unconstitutional. 

We have Republicans running for office who want to cut funding for food stamps, and Meals on Wheels.

We have Republicans running for office who want to take Medicaid and give it to the states in block grants. To which I ask, what happens when the money runs out? Given to the states in this fashion will require that the states decide on a case by case basis what gets paid for and what doesn't. Hmmmm, that sounds a lot like a "death panel" doesn't it?

The Republicans want to take Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, while at the same time not requiring insurance companies to cover people. I'm sorry but those two positions are mutually exclusive. What happens if a senior has a pre-existing condition? If the insurance companies are not required to cover everyone then all those seniors suddenly have no means of paying for their health care.

Alan Grayson once got in trouble with the right by saying that the Republican health care plan was for the sick to die quickly. Based on the preponderance of the evidence he would seem to be right.

Hannity often screams that the "ebil liberals"  slander conservatives by saying that Republicans want dirty air and water and want kids with autism and seniors to fend for themselves. Actually this is also true. The Republicans want to get rid of EPA, they don't want insurance companies to be required to cover those with pre-existing conditions, they want fewer protections for workers and they want to limit what a person can sue for if injured by a corporation.

On many issues I consider myself to be a social conservative, maybe a social moderate if what some of my online friends tell me. However that being said I cannot vote for a Republican as long as they pay greater homage to Ayn Rand than they do the people of the United States. We the people elect them and they answer to all of us. 

I think that its long past time that we remind them of that.

That's all for now.

May God bless you and may God keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. Amen and Amen

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