Category: Culture

I have been reading these blog entries about women who have suffered tragically from having to terminate their pregancies. They’re sad and poignant stories and I can’t begin to understand what it must be like to have to make a life-threatening decision. However, the real issue is that people don’t want to take responsibility for their actions. We live in a society that medicates instead of dealing with the root cause of the issue.  I have to admit that sometimes there is a gray area when it comes to the life of the baby and the life of the mother. In those extreme situations I can say that women and the doctors should make that decision and the law should allow for these types of situations, but when a girl and guy have sex without using condoms or birth control they know that their may be consequences. 

What is interesting to note about our culture is how quickly we are “evolving”. When I was in 8th grade everyone talked about sex, but very few people were actually having it. But now, kids are having sex as soon as they hit puberty.  Why not? I mean, no one is saying not to, on the contrary, everything in our culture encourages it. 

On this site I found a person saying this about an abstinence video:

The Department of Health and Human Services’ latest abstinence ad commands the viewer to “tell your kids you want them to wait till they’re married to have sex.” That’s the Bush administration for you: Forget about the heaps of data that show a strategy doesn’t work and just keep throwing money at it.

Besides, is it even psychologically healthful to wait until marriage to have sex?  The ad might as well say, “Tell your children you want them to be that weird guy in the dorm who takes really long showers.”

If you watch the video, these are young kids who should be waiting! You can’t even vote until you are 18, you can’t buy alcohol until you are 21, in some states you can’t even get a tattoo until you are 18, but sex, pshh, it’s not big deal. Yes, you may get a life threatening disease, sure you might end up with genital herpes for the rest of your life, yes, you may get HPV or Pregnant, but we can deal with all of those things. It might not be pretty, but we can deal with it. 

Personally, I’d rather not have my daughter having sex with some boy at 13 or giving oral sex in the back of the bus. The people who cry out, “We have rights! We need to educate our children” are normally ignorant to the reality of what goes on in high schools, junior high and now even 5 and 6th grade. 

Recently there was an episode of Private Practice where this 14 year old boy was planning to have sex with his girlfriend and he didn’t know he had AIDS. His parents knew, but they didn’t want to tell him and they hadn’t expected him to and be healthy for as long as he had.  The doctor couldn’t tell the parents that the boy wanted to have sex and he couldn’t tell the boy that he had AIDS. Finally, he called the parents into the office and said, “You need to talk to your son about him having HIV.” The parents were irate and stormed out of the office. A couple of days pass and the doctor gets both the parents and the boy in a room and the doctor tells the parents, “Your son wants to start having sex.” The crap hits the fan everyone is upset and later the boy tells the doctor, “I trusted you. Why didn’t you tell me? My girfriend and I had sex last night.” 

It’s easy to make bad decisions when the consequences aren’t all that great. Humans seem to think they are immortal and we have such high expectations from life. We expect to get everything we want, even when it might hurt us, or in the case of abortion, an unborn child.

It is funny how when your team loses you are always quick to point out all the mistakes that the referees made or what the other team did wrong. “Did you see that call? it cost us the game.” Sometimes it did, but perhaps if your team had been playing a little better then they could have overcome one bad call.

Recently I watched the recap of the Palin/Biden debate and then I went to Twitter and there was nothing but negative remarks about Palin and how she is a liar. What I find the most interesting about Democrats is that they are extremely vocal with the negative criticism. Why not focus more of that energy in proving why your candidate is the better choice and less bitching about the opposition?

I think as Americans we all know that people will say whatever they think the public wants to hear. Every president has made promises that they were later unable to keep,it didn’t mean that the time those promises weren’t heartfelt, it only means that the circumstances changed and they can’t call a press conference every time they have to go back on their word.

I watched this link on Obama’s website and I have to disagree with his comment that small businesses are the backbone of our economy. It is true that small businesses make up 95% of all businesses in the U.S. but they only generate 5% of the income. I work for a big company and I have to tell you that my pay is excellent and my benefits are outstanding. Tax breaks for corporations allow them to get started in areas and then later the community reaps the rewards from those taxes that are later incurred.

I also read on McCain’s site that he proposed limiting the gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor day. I am not sure if this is a good strategy for the economy, why not just make the tax less year round? I realize American do more driving during the summer, but this seems like one of those ideas that sounds good on the surface – like the Lottery, but in reality it is just a way for someone else to make money.

John McCain believes we should institute a summer gas tax holiday. Hard-working American families are suffering from higher gasoline prices. John McCain called on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

• Reuters: Gas Tax Holiday “Of Most Immediate Effect To Consumers.” “Of most immediate effect to consumers was his appeal to the U.S. Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day at the end of May to Labor Day in early September.” (Steve Holland, “McCain Proposes Tax Cuts And Lashes Democrats,” Reuters, 4/15/08)
• USA Today: “A USA TODAY Analysis Showed That McCain’s Gas-Tax Proposal Could Save Motorists $6.8 Billion In Taxes During The Summer.” (Kathy Kiely, “Gas-Tax Holiday Among McCain’s Plans For Economy,” USA Today, 4/16/08)

I’ve still got a lot of research to do, but when i asked some of my friends that live outside of the U.S. who they would vote for they immediately, without hesitation, said Obama.

Either way it will be an interesting election year and my vote is still undecided and so if you have some good information to swing me one way or the other, I’d like to hear it.