Bullpucky!

Out local paper posted an opinion piece crying about the struggle for birth control. 
In it, the author attempts to paint the latest attempt of the Obama administration to force all entities to provide health insurance that provides birth control and  abortofacants, regardless of personal religious conviction as the next step in human rights and a continuation of the struggle against opression.

 To quote MASH's Colonel  Potter, "Bullpucky!"

I take two execptions to the article.  First, I don't think that Margaret Sanger should be lauded with near sainthood status, and secondly, the argument that it's about birth control is specious at best.

About Sanger, the author states that ...

Margaret Sanger, began crusading for birth control to save women from excessive pregnancy.

Was Sanger's motivation to save women?  Maybe, but I believe her motivation went deeper.  You see, she was a true believer.  A member of the church of  Eugenics. 

You remember Eugenics, don't you?  Eugenics a pseudoscience; the illegitimate offspring of evolution and genetics which lead Hitler to murder six million Jews in an effort to  purify the human race.  It was to motivation that lead the good old US of A to sterilize over 65,000 people against their will.  It viewed humanity as mere cattle, to have the weaker strains bred out.

While Sanger didn't support the gas chambers and firing squads of Hitler's Eugenics program, she wholeheartedly believed in reducing the population of the feeble-minded and inferior (which, in her mind, included non-whites.)  A chilling example of her mentality can be see from this quote from her 1920 book, Woman and the New Race

The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.

But, even granting that Sanger's legacy was not one to be proud of, the author still missed the point.

The debate isn't about "birth control." Birth control remains legal, available, and relatively cheap. Government subsidies allow local health departments to distribute contraceptives at low or no costs.

The debate isn't about birth control.  It's about just who has to pay for it.

Obama's mandate is about forcing organizations and companies to pay for health insurance for their employees that may contain provisions which violates their most deeply held religious beliefs.  The policy indicates that religious freedom must stop at the church door.

Most of the attention is on the Catholic hospitals and charities.  I am not a Catholics.  I do not have any problems with birth control that prevents conception.  I tend to think that the Catholic view of birth control is much too rigid and is influenced by the church's desire to breed more Catholics.

Regardless, the central fact remains, that faith cannot abide by itself.  A real, true abiding faith that changes lives and communities cannot help but to influence how we act.  The Bible puts it well:

James 2:17-18 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

True faith informs all aspects of the lives of the faithful, and thus the exercise of our faith must extend into the public sphere. 

Women who want contraception can get contraception.  Walmart and nearly every drug store in the nation sells it. 

Making people violate their religious convictions for another's convenience is just wrong.

Sad Story

Image from Bushmaster.com

In Webster New York, four volunteer firefighters were ambushed while responding to a structure fire on Monday, two were killed.

William Spengler, 69, who had spent some 17 years in prison for beating his grandmother to death with a hammer, set his house afire.  When the fire department responded, he attacked with a bushmaster, the civilian version of the M-16, an assault rifle.  He finally shot himself.

Police Chief Gerald Pickering said the first police officer on scene "in all likelihood saved many lives" by chasing and returning Mr. Spengler's  fire.

This brings up several very important points in the debate over gun control.  

First, how effect are gun laws at preventing violence?  As a convicted felon, Mr. Spengler was banned from owning firearms.  Most of the laws that congress is discussing would not outright ban firearm ownership.  If laws could prevent gun violence, surely an outright ban would have been effective.

Second, to those who lampoon the NRA's call for armed guards in schools, I would like to ask, was Chief Pickering wrong when he said the officer engaging in a firefight with the crazy felon saved lives?  When evil men take up arms, history has shown repeatedly that only good men with arms can resist.  

A quick web search turned up several instances where guns saved lives.  Like a homeowner fending off a home invasion, or another instance where a drunk kicked in a man's door?

Cops carry guns, not because they are evil and wish to do harm, but to be able to resist evil.

Lastly, a man who killed his grandmother should never have seen the light of day.  The way the mentally ill and criminal are dealt with only exacerbates the problem of violence.  If we wish to prevent gun violence, we need to make sure our jails are not revolving doors, and we need to ensure we have deal with the mentally ill.