America Breeds Irresponsibility

I don’t hop on my soap box very often anymore… In the past it seemed that every week I had something to gripe about, but since I started doing Yoga and Kabbalah and Bhuddist Meditation techniques, I no longer allow myself to fret about the world around me. Instead, I search for inner peace and divine tranquility hoping to reach a primordial plan of Nirvana, and on this plane the rest of the world will cease to exist. Yeah. Right. Not so much.

Recently I was watching and episode of Tyra, Tyra Banks’ new talk show. (I was on the treadmill and so I was forced to watch it.) There were 3 overweight women on the show and they were all complaining about how they were treated because they were fat. Tyra even put on a fat suit and went out with hidden camera’s so that she could capture first hand how she was treated. Of course some people were very nice, but others were rude – blah, blah, blah. None of this was new information, sometimes overweight people are treated unfairly – or at least impolitely, the world is full of jerks and I don’t think people should ever be nasty or rude just because someone is fat, or of a different race, or poor, or ugly.

However, what I don’t like is when a person sues an airline because they are obese and they can’t fit into one seat. When people that are too fat to fit into one seat and they sue the airline it ends up costing me more money to fly.

I used to think that seatbelt and helmet laws were stupid. If I want to gamble with my life I should have that option, shouldn’t I? No. The problem is that if I have an accident and I get injured it causes insurance rates to go up which causes everyone else’s insurance rates to go up.

I think the same thing goes for drug users. Why are drugs illegal? Because using them doesn’t just hurt you, it hurts others because it impairs your judgement.

So why do we make excpetions for fat people? I am fat and I over-eat all the time and when the seat is too tight for me to sit in on the airplane, I don’t blame the airline or the manufacturer, I blame myself. I knew what I was doing when I ate 32 Flautas at Panchos. No one forced me to eat that quart of Starbucks ice cream, and no one put a gun to my head and told me to sit on my couch and order a pizza and eat the entire thing – nope those were all choices I made myself. Choices that have consequences, and I knew the consequences with each and every delicious bite.

Which leads me to my next gripe – abortion…

I was watching Fox News last month, again I was on the treadmill at the gym, and this lady was talking about a woman’s right to choose. She made a very good point, “Each woman should be allowed to choose what she does with her own body. She should be able to choose if she wants to be a mother or not and that she should not have to submit to the religious convictions of a government official. ” I agree 100%. However, once again, if we apply the same logic that we applied with seatbelts and drug abuse then we can come to the same conclusion with abortion – it isn’t just about you, it is about someone else’s life. Taking out all emotion and using only science it is obvious that a new child forms rather quickly in it’s mother’s womb. Even after just 1 week so much life has occured. I think in our heart of hearts we know abortion is wrong, but we have lied to ourselves so much about it being okay, that we have begun to believe it. (at least many people have)

What abortion allows for is irresponsibility. Men and women are allowed to ignore safety guidelines because their is a built in fail-safe. Abortion is the seatbelt, the safety net beneath the trapeze, the eject button in the cockpit. No. Wait. Those things were created to save lives, abortion was created to end it. The sad thing is that sometimes we place more value on the life of a newborn puppy than we do on a newborn baby.

I realize that in all situations there are extenuating circumstances. There are health risks sometimes involved in pregnancy, and sometimes women are raped, and there are horrific cases of incest – but I think if you look at the numbers, only 1% of abortions are from these types of cases. It just ain’t right, and I am tired of what ain’t right.

And lastly…

This morning on the radio Greg Behrendt, the guy who wrote He’s Just Not That Into, said that it is okay for guys to look at porn. He actually told a listener that he sometimes looked at porn and that his wife new about it and that it was something couples could look at together to spice up their sex life. Gulp. Thousands of men and women across Dallas are listening to this guy and I am sure most guys are yelling out, “Right on! Preach it brother!” While the women are sitting back thinking “really? Should I allow my husband to look at porn as long as it is within reason?”

Some studies have shown that porn is more addictive than heroine and if marijauna is the gateway drug then Playboy is the gateway porn. It is seemingly harmless and the next thing you know we have child molestation rings. The funny thing is, people don’t seem to want to use their brains when it comes these ugly matters. We just mentally shut them out. Apparently child molesters and rapists were just born that way, they were a “bad seed” – are you kidding?

As a mentor I got to see first hand how porn destroyed two young men’s lives. One of the boys was born into a wealthy family and had lots of opportunities in store for his life, but because of his addiction and 6,000 dollar 1-900 number phone calls he no longer has a relationship with his family. He lives an excommunicated life because he let something get out of control. Who would have thought a 1-900 number could be so harmful. The thing about porn is that destroys men from the inside out leaving them hollow and incapable of having a sexually satisfying relationship. Some women may believe that by allowing their husbands or boyfriends to go to the strip club or to look at porn that it will only make their love life better – the truth of the matter is it is just the opposite. Eventually all sin will come back to bite you, some more than others.

So once again, this post really wasn’t so much about obesity, abortion, and porn – it was really about responsibility.

America has become irresponsible. We used to stand for so much. Now it seems we have no moral compass. We have become the parent with the screaming kid and whichever kid screams the loudest – we let them have their way.

For me on certain issues there is no middle ground, things are black and white, but I am always open to hear different points of view.