Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

Thomas Sowell: the longer we wait to stop Iran, the worse it will be

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Thomas Sowell writing in National Review.

Excerpt:

Members of the Obama administration have been pointing out how hard it would be to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, now that they have been built deep underground and dispersed.

That would have been something to consider during the time when President Obama was taking leisurely and half-hearted measures to create the appearance of trying to stop the Iranian nuclear program, while vigorously warning Israel not to take military action.

Time was never on our side. The risks go up exponentially the longer we wait. When the Iranian nuclear program was just getting started, it could have been destroyed before it became so big, so dispersed, and so deeply dug in underground. Now, if we wait till they actually have nuclear bombs, the same kinds of arguments for inaction will carry even more weight, when the price of an attack on Iran could be the start of a nuclear Holocaust.

Nor should we assume that we can remain safe by throwing Israel to the wolves, once the election is over, as might well happen if Obama is reelected and no longer has any political reasons to pretend to be Israel’s friend.

That kind of cynical miscalculation was made by France back in 1938, when it threw its ally, Czechoslovakia, to the wolves by refusing to defend it against Hitler’s demands, despite the mutual defense treaty between the two countries. Less than two years later, Hitler’s armies were invading France — using, among other things, tanks manufactured in Czechoslovakia.

This was just one of the expedient miscalculations that helped bring on the bloodiest and most destructive war the world has ever known. Dare we repeat such miscalculations in a nuclear age?

At the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill said, “There never was in all history a war easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe.” It might even have been prevented “without the firing of a single shot,” Churchill said.

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

Commentary

Should abortion be legal in cases of rape? Rebecca Kiessling tells her story

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Rebecca Kiessling: conceived by rape
Rebecca Kiessling: conceived by rape

In the liberal UK Guardian, of all places. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

I always knew I was adopted. My mother told me I’d been chosen and I should feel extra special. A tall blonde growing up with short, brunette Jewish parents, all I ever felt was awkward and out of place.

When I was about nine, I began to think endlessly about my biological parents. Was my father athletic, like me? Did I have my mother’s blue eyes? I stared at people on the street, fantasising that they were my birth parents.

I was 12 when I told my adoptive parents I wanted to find my birth mother. I was being bullied at school, because I looked so different from the other girls, and felt lost and unhappy. I thought if I could find out where I came from, I would somehow fit in better.

They were supportive, and gave me the name of the adoption lawyer they’d used, but he told me I had to be 18. I called him back on the day of my 18th birthday. I discovered my mother was Caucasian, with German, Irish and English ancestry, and had been 31 when she had me. I had a brother and a sister who were 11 and 13 when I was born. Under “Father” it simply stated: “Caucasian, of large build.”

I was confused. My father had obviously not been her husband, as I’d assumed. I read the file over and over, analysing every word. “It sounds like a police description,” I said to my adoptive mum. Then an awful thought struck me. Had my mother been raped? The more I studied the file, the more convinced I became. I rang my case worker.

“Was my mum raped?” I asked straight out, catching her off guard.

“Yes,” she replied. The confirmation was devastating. No wonder my mother had given me up; I was an unbearable reminder of a violent attack. My adoptive parents tried to reassure me I was loved, but my confidence was destroyed.

Read the rest. It might change your view, if you believe that abortion in cases of rape are OK.

I did a little checking on Rebecca Kiessling and found these things:

  • Pro-Life Activist and International Pro-life Speaker, in NYC this week lobbying at the U.N.’s Status on Women Conference and speaking at 5 events.
  • Family law attorney with four pro bono cases of international attention all involving the protection of preborn human life, including the “frozen embryo” case in Michigan. Two of those cases involved rape and abortion. Also, represented a woman sued for not aborting. (practiced law as “Rebecca Wasser” before she married)
  • May 1994 graduate of Wayne State Law School in Detroit
  • Mother of 5 (two adopted)
  • Served as vice-chair of a crisis pregnancy center for two years and on the advisory board of Michigan Nurses for Life
  • Currently serves on the Advisory Board of Crossroads Pregnancy Center
  • Conducts workshops, “An Abortion-Minded Client’s Life-Giving Legal Options” based on Michigan law.
  • Testified before the Ohio Legislature on the Prefer Childbirth Over Abortion legislation which would, in part, remove the rape exception from the ban on Medicaid funding of abortions in Ohio

Here’s a video she did for CBN:

The logic of the pro-life position is pretty clear in these cases. Let the child live and put her up for adoption. That logic is enough to win the argument, but I hope that Rebecca will stick in your mind and give you courage on this issue. Every person was made to know God or to help others to know God, and therefore every person has infinite value.

Commentary

A feminist explains why she wants to be a single mother by choice

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This post appeared on the left-leaning Slate. (H/T Dalrock)

First, take a look at this woman’s background:

I grew up with one parent. My mother raised me with help from her mother.

[…]My grandma, a college professor (herself twice divorced), lived no more than a few miles away throughout my childhood and for a while even lived on the same block as we did. My mom worked as a public-school teacher.

University professors and public school teachers? I sense feminism dominated this woman’s upbringing. And no positive male role models anywhere to be found.

Anyway here’s her thesis:

I’ve realized recently that when I picture myself with my own child, there’s no father in the frame. I imagine it being just the two of us—a team, like my mom and me. Perhaps because of how I was raised and how happy my childhood was, I often wonder whether I wouldn’t rather just have a kid alone.

[…]I feel apprehensive at the idea of sharing parenthood with another person. Having never experienced the traditional family unit, raising a kid in tandem with someone is as difficult for me to imagine as having another set of limbs. I can’t help but think that having a partner there with an equal stake in the matter would complicate the process.

[…]It isn’t conventional wisdom, but in many ways it seems easier to raise a kid alone. Being a single parent by choice would mean not having to deal with another person’s sets of demands or expectations of what child-rearing means. I wouldn’t burden a child with the emotional baggage of divorce or the highs and lows of an unhappy relationship. It would just be the two of us and a supporting cast of extended family.

Note how clearly she rejects men who might want to fulfill their traditional roles:

  • provider
  • protector
  • moral leader
  • spiritual leader

It actually bothers her that a man might disagree with her with respect to parenting.

Now think with me. What kind of man do you think a woman like that chooses in relationships? Does she choose men who have very firm views on morality? Of course not. How about a man who has very firm views on religion? No way. How about a man who tells her that the children would need to be pushed towards careers that will make them independent? Not in a million years. How about a man who thinks that guns are good for self-defense, and that the armed forces do excellent work to protect us? No way.

And I think there is where the problem lies. Far from being helpless victims of selfish men, women today are actually undermining their own mines by preferring men who are not qualified to be fathers and husbands. After a few disappointing and embarrassing mistakes, many of them look at the free money, free health care, free public schools, free food stamps, free this and free that, being offered by the government, and they do exactly what this woman is planning to do. They just can’t be bothered to choose men who can perform the traditional male roles. I have actually seen fatherless Christian women complain to Christian men for being chaste, for not drinking alcohol, for working in well-paid boring jobs, and for having too many strong opinions on morality and religion. The root of these comments is that they don’t want men to lead them. They didn’t have fathers so they disrespect the roles played by fathers.

Now let’s take a look at some data on fatherlessness:

  • Even after controlling for low incomes, children growing up with never-married lone mothers are especially disadvantaged according to standard scales of deprivation.40
  • According to the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, children from lone-parent households were more likely to have had intercourse before the age of 16 when compared with children from two-natural-parent households. Boys were 1.8 times as likely (42.3% versus 23%) and girls were 1.5 times as likely (36.5% versus 23.6%). After controlling for socio-economic status, level of communication with parents, educational levels and age at menarche for girls, the comparative odds of underage sex actually increased to 2.29 for boys and 1.65 for girls.
  • Girls from lone-parent households were 1.6 times as likely to become mothers before the age of 18 (11% versus 6.8%). Controlling for other factors did not reduce the comparative odds.59
  • In a sample of teenagers living in the West of Scotland, 15-year-olds from lone-parent households were twice as likely to be smokers as those from two-birth-parent homes (29% compared to 15%). After controlling for poverty, they were still 50% more likely to smoke.65
  • In a sample of British 16-year-olds, those living in lone-parent households were 1.5 times as likely to smoke. Controlling for sex, household income, time spent with family, and relationship with parents actually increased the odds that a teenager from a lone-parent family would smoke (to 1.8 times as likely).66
  • In the West of Scotland, 18-year-old girls from lone-parent households were twice as likely to drink heavily as those from intact two-birthparent homes (17.6% compared to 9.2%). This finding holds even after controlling for poverty.67
  • British 16-year-olds from lone-parent households are no more likely to drink than those from intact households. This is mainly because higher levels of teenage drinking actually are associated with higher family incomes. After controlling for household income and sex, teenagers from lone-parent families were 40% more likely to drink.68
  • At age 15, boys from lone-parent households were twice as likely as those from intact two-birthparent households to have taken any drugs (22.4% compared with 10.8%). Girls from lone-parent homes were 25% more likely to have taken drugs by the age of 15 (8.2% compared with 6.5%) and 70% more likely to have taken drugs by age 18 (33.3% compared with 19.6%). After controlling for poverty, teenagers from lone-parent homes were still 50% more likely to take drugs.69

I consider single motherhood by choice to be child abuse. Not only does it impoverish children, but is puts children into dangerous situations. I think that we need to be clear and persuasive about arguing against women who are so self-centered that they are willing to deliberately expose a child to fatherlessness. We must not enable their poor choices by telling them that what they are doing is OK. It’s not OK.