An Open Letter to Representative Gwen Moore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-q0EP8HjA0

Dear Ms. Moore,

How sad I was to hear your remarks about the tragedy of kids having to eat Raman noodles and mayonnaise sandwiches and going without fresh fruit as a justification for providing funding to Planned Parenthood.  While your remarks might sound compassionate to some ears, they sounded cold and hard-hearted to mine.  What you said to a woman like me is that it is better that I were never born, better that my mother should have aborted me.

You see, my mother gave birth to four little unplanned blessings.  We did grow up eating Raman noodles. We never ate mayonnaise sandwiches but we did eat a whole lot of peanut butter and jelly.  That's not a tragedy. Things were hard, it's true, and sometimes we didn't get as full as we'd like.  We wore hand-me-downs from other kids, and sometimes we got made fun of because we didn't have the money for a haircut.  What we learned growing up, though, was important.  We learned how to make the best of what we did have, and we learned that life doesn't owe you anything. We learned to be creative and innovative, to see potential in things that other people think are junk.

I was 19 years old when I found myself pregnant with my own unexpected blessing.  I wasn't sure how I was going to make it. I didn't have a college degree, or a decent job. I didn't know how the future would go.  I simply decided to put my trust in God and I gave birth to a happy, healthy baby boy two weeks before my 20th birthday.

I wasn't the perfect mother, and we didn't have the perfect life. He's eaten his fair share of Raman noodles and peanut-butter jelly sandwiches. Nothing turned out the way I planned it, but that's the truth about parenthood - there is no planned parenthood, it's not a script or a formula, and it never turns out the way you thought it would.  I have an associates degree, but not a bachelor's like I planned.  I never did climb the corporate ladder and I have never made more than $70,000 in one year.  That unplanned blessing, though, saved my life.  I am a better person because he was born. So is the world.

Don't you dare tell me my life has no meaning because I had to eat a few bowls of Raman noodles, or I had to eat a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Don't you dare tell me my son's life is worthless because he had to do the same.  If you really want to help those kids, stop giving money to Planned Parenthood.  Planned Parenthood never once did anything that helped a kid in poverty to get out of it.  You can't eradicate poverty by exterminating the poor as if they were insects, Ms. Moore, and you can't end child abuse by destroying children.  If you really want to help the poor, Ms. Moore, and give those children something better to eat, then fight the HHS mandate so that people who actually value all life can continue to do the work they already do helping poor kids eat and live better.  Stop giving to Planned Parenthood and start giving to charities who actually value life.
Sincerely,

Brandy M. Miller

P.S. Growing up in poverty isn't a real tragedy.  Never being allowed to grow up at all because you were killed before you were born is.

Civil Disobedience and Freedom

As it becomes increasingly clear that Obama's administration intends to strip American business owners of their right to refrain from providing their employees with health insurance that includes birth control, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, I am forced to make a decision.  I am forced to decide whether I will stand with Christ, and defend the sanctity of all human life by refusing to participate even though I know what the cost will be to me personally, or whether I will seek to save my life and my comfort and thus lose my place in eternity.  You might not be surprised to hear me say this, but I've already decided.  I am choosing to disobey Obama's mandate so that I might obey the more important mandates given to me by Christ. This means that I will not only  not be providing my employees with health insurance, but I will not be purchasing it for myself or my family either.  We will trust in God's providence for our health care, and we will deal with the consequences.

Since it is still a year before Obama's administration intends to force the issue, I will take the time now to remind people of the reason that freedom is spoken of as an inalienable right in the Declaration of Independence written and published by our forefathers in the late 1700's.  Freedom cannot ever be taken from you, and guns do not change that fact.  Someone wielding a gun does have the power to limit your choices - they can reduce the choices you have to "obey and live as a slave" or "disobey and die free".

Some might say it is crazy to trade your life for a principle or belief, but I will point out to  you that it is crazy to place your faith in someone who is so morally corrupted that they view threatening your life as an appropriate motivational tool.  If you obey the person who has the gun, you are placing your faith in their willingness to honor their promises and to do as they have told you they will do, a highly questionable thing to do given their demonstrated lack of morality. The truth is, you have no reason to believe them when they say they will let you live if you do what they tell you to do.  It is better to die doing what you believe is right than to compromise your own values in the vain hope that such a person will honor their word.

I leave you with the lyrics of a song I wrote almost two years ago, entitled Freedom. I hope that you keep these words in your heart and in your mind, and remind yourself of them no matter how dark the days may grow.

Refrain

Your freedom doesn’t end

Where the barrel of a gun begins

It’s still up to you

What are you going to do?

====================

Don’t believe the words they say

Don’t let them take your freedom away

Hold your head up high

Don’t give in to the lie

===================

They can limit your choices

They can silence your voices

But in spite of all the pain

The Truth still remains

==================

If you do what they say

They might kill you anyway

Better to choose what’s right

Than to go down without a fight

====================

Freedom takes courage

And courage takes heart

Love is the fountain

Gives courage its’ start

==============

Restoring Economic Freedom

It all started with the passing of the abomination of a bill known as Obamacare.  This law was supposed to care for the poor, making sure that no one went without health care services.  In reality, all it did was take away the freedom of Americans to decide when, where, and whether to purchase health insurance.  Next, the Obama Administration approved a mandate by the Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services which would require all employers, including religious organizations who served or employed people outside of their own faith, to purchase health insurance that would include free birth control, free abortion-inducing drugs, and free sterilizations to their employees. In response to the immediate and fervent uproar that arose from religious leaders of all faiths, the Obama Administration said that they would no longer require employers to provide the free birth control, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilizations to their employees.  The caveat, of course, was that the Administration has now mandated that all insurance carriers provide these things to those they insure.

This is not merely an issue of religious freedom, as many are calling it, but an issue of economic freedom. Will we allow this administration to tell us what we have to buy? Are we going to stand by while business owners are forced to provide services or carry products that they have no desire to provide?  Will we let the government dictate to retailers what items they must stock on their shelves? If they can force insurance carriers to provide these things, will they then force companies that carry pharmaceuticals to carry condoms, birth control pills, and abortion-inducing drugs?  Will they force doctors to write prescriptions for birth control pills and abortion-inducing drugs? Force them to perform sterilizations?  Does the government have the right to dictate to a business what products to carry or to tell an individual what services they must purchase?

When the government can dictate to you what products you must carry and what services you must offer, it stops being your business and starts being an arm of the government.  I am a small business owner.  I am firmly against birth control, sterilization, and abortion.  I do not wish to purchase health insurance that pays for those things as I know that any money I give to such a company is contributing to the problem.  I will not give my money to those companies.  I will go to jail first. I would rather lose ever possession I own than be responsible for the death of an innocent human being.  This isn't just an issue of religious freedom.  It's an issue of economic freedom, too, the right to dictate where and when and if I spend the money that I earn - and I'm not going to stand by and allow the government to take that freedom from me.  

The Insanity of Safe Sex

In classrooms everywhere around the United States, there are talks given on the topic of "safe sex" and "sex education".  The subject is usually presented, in the beginning, as strictly anatomical and goes something like this: Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina, and when the boy inserts his penis into the vagina, his body becomes excited and releases a substance known as semen.  The semen contains sperm which, when united with the egg or eggs that a girl releases each month during ovulation, causes a pregnancy to occur.  That boys and girls will naturally want to have sex is also made clear, and that sex is good and nothing to be ashamed of is stated. All of this, of course, is true - but it isn't the whole picture.

Never covered in the sex education talk is the bio-chemistry behind attraction and human attachment.  You see, human beings are not built for multiple partners.  Bio-chemically, our brains are built to be monogamous.  Every time we have sex with someone, there are chemicals released into our brains that cause us to bond with them.   The more partners we have, the more confused the brain becomes and the weaker the bonds are that we form.   In the short of it, the more partners we have the more difficult it becomes for us to attach to one partner, and the harder time we will have in being faithful for a lifetime to a single partner. In addition, when we are rejected by someone to whom our brains have bonded, the effect is devastating.  Teenagers who are sexually active are far more likely to become depressed and even suicidal.

The safe sex part comes in next.  Here they tell the boys and girls that if they decide to have sex with someone they should take steps to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, either by using a condom or by taking birth control pills or by having some device such as an IUD implanted in them in order to prevent such a tragedy as a baby born out of wedlock or born before the sexually active are ready to be parents. They also tell the boys and girls that there are diseases which can only be passed on to someone during sexual activities when bodily fluids like blood, saliva, and semen are exchanged and so in order to prevent that outcome from happening to them they need to be sure and use some kind of barrier such as a condom when having sex.

Our current administration has defunded programs which teach children that the only kind of safe sex is no sex at all, stating that it is not "scientifically proven" to work.  I know of only one example in the entirety of human history in which a virgin was known to become pregnant, and since I seriously doubt that any of the children in that classroom are likely to be the Virgin Mary, I do not see how they can possibly say that abstinence is not scientifically proven to work.

Furthermore, this same administration which is so thoroughly unconvinced that children can be taught to say no and mean it, spends millions of dollars teaching children to "Just say no" to drugs.  I find this to be insane. If a child has the will power to say no to drugs, why can they not be expected to say no to sex?  Going even further on the insanity list are parents who, on the one hand, take their young daughters to clinics to get them birth control before they have even gotten out of a training bra because "kids are going to do what kids are going to do" but do not hesitate to tell those same children that they are to say no to cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs.

For those who support safe sex, I offer this food for thought: Imagine that a person walked into your child's classroom purporting to offer a "safe drug" talk.  This person explained that while it's best for them to "just say no", it wasn't realistic to actually EXPECT them to say no and so proceeded to teach your children how to correctly insert a needle in their veins to insure that they don't blow a vein, distributed clean needles so they wouldn't feel the need to share them, gave them a pamphlet listing all of the "reputable" drug dealers - the ones who won't cut their goods with rat poison or other guaranteed-to-kill fillers, and gave them a list of crack houses where they could be sure of finding welcome and refuge while they were tripping out of their minds.  All in the interest, of course, in a child's safety and best interest.

If you're any kind of parent at all, you would be outraged if a school allowed this kind of thing to go on, and rightly so. You understand that although there are appropriate times and circumstances in which drug use is okay and even good, every drug has side effects and should not ever be used in a recreational fashion. You also know that the consequences of recreational drug use can be life-long and devastating to the future of those who use them incorrectly.  Sex is no different.  Under the right circumstances, sex is not only okay but it is a very good thing, but it is never something that should be used in a recreational fashion.  The consequences of recreational sex can be life-long and devastating to the future of those who in engage in it irresponsibly.  Teaching about safe sex is insane.  The only truly safe sex is either no sex at all, or sex with a spouse who is monogamous.  Anything else is just dangerous.

Language Matters

This topic doesn't come up very often anymore in politics. After all, the economy and other issues that are important are taking up the stage right now.  So why do I feel that language is important enough a subject to bring up? Because, as the title says, language matters.

The greatest crisis the United States faces right now is one of identity.  We can't agree on who we are, what we believe, or even what direction we think the country should go.  We are divided, and because we are divided we are vulnerable to anyone who wants to use our divisions to pick us off.  If you want an illustration of how effective this tactic is, think of a wolf pack and how it hunts down the giant caribou.  It does not take on the entire herd at once. The wolf pack knows that to do so would end up in defeat, if not death.  No, the wolves scope out the weak ones first and then work to separate the weak from the strong.  It's worked since the dawn of time for them, and believe me when I tell you that it will work on us as well.

Language may seem like a small thing, but it's huge.  Ideas and information can only flow freely when all parties understand one another.  An illustration of the kind of damage that can be done just by blocking the flow of communication can be found in the Bible in Genesis, where it talks about the Tower of Babel.  Here we had a group of human beings working together, communicating in the same language, and doing great - if dangerous - things.  All God had to do to destroy their unity and dismantle their ability to accomplish much of anything was to change their languages.  If America is to survive, she must adopt a single language and make it law that all men, women, and children who are citizens of this country learn that language.

It doesn't have to be English. It would be easier on me if it were, but maybe English isn't the best route to go.  Maybe we need to come up with a language completely our own - representative of our people and our heritage - a conglomeration, if you will, of the best of each.  I don't know what this new language would be like, but I do know one thing: America cannot continue to stand divided, and she will not be united until all can speak together as one.

A Cure for the Economy

There is a simple cure for our world's economic problems.  It's simple, but it won't be easy.  It will take courage and sacrifice, hard work, and lots of changes.  It will mean taking a gigantic leap of faith.  However, it is a cure that has already proven to work time and time again. What, you might ask, is this simple but overlooked cure that can save the world and solve the economic crisis?

Babies. Babies are the cure for what ails the world. Throw out the contraception, cancel the abortions, and have more babies.  I can hear it already. "Won't that just cause more problems? How can people who are already broke and out of work afford to have another baby?"  I'm glad you asked. Please allow me to explain.

You see, when a woman believes she might be pregnant, she heads to the store.  She makes a purchase of a home pregnancy test.  If she is pregnant, her next expenditure is a doctor's fee.  She begins spending money on that new life right away.  She buys some prenatal vitamins, and possibly some iron pills.  She isn't the only one who will be spending money, either. The father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends of the family, and co-workers will all be spending money on this new baby.  The purchases they make will help pay the wages of workers, support businesses both local and national, and with all of the buying going on, I guarantee the economy will begin to right itself.

Furthermore, the money that gets spent on that child doesn't end when it is born. Pregnancy is just the beginning of the boost to the economy.  A child is a gift that keeps on giving when it comes to the goods and services that will be consumed over its lifetime.  And the more children that are born, the more families that open themselves to life, the healthier the economy will become.  So, if you really want the economy to grow and stop dying off, I highly recommend babies.  They really do bring new life to the world.

Abortion: It's not just an issue. It's THE issue

Pop quiz: There is a fundamental human right that the framers of the Constitution deemed inalienable - meaning it was not something that anyone had the right to take from another - and without which, there is no other right possible.  Which human right would that be?

If you guessed that it's the right to privacy, you guessed wrong. If you guessed that it's the right to bear arms, you are equally wrong.  If you guessed that it's the right to pursue happiness, wrong again. Here's a hint: it's not mentioned in the Constitution at all, but is the first of the "inalienable" rights mentioned by the Declaration of Independence.  That inalienable right is the right to life.

If you think that Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that Declaration, just happened to place life at the forefront of the rights which all human beings have been "endowed by their Creator", I would contend you are sadly mistaken. You see, the right to life is the one right upon which all other rights hinge.

If you remove the right to life, then does it matter if the law has granted you liberty? If you remove the right to life, can a man pursue happiness? If you do not have life, does it matter if there is free health insurance? If you do not have life, can you speak up against or for going to war with this nation or that? If you do not have life, does race matter? If you do not have life, can you speak for the poor? All other issues matter ONLY if a human being has life! This is why abortion matters, and why it is so fundamental to the very underpinnings of our society and its destiny. This is what makes abortion not just AN issue, but THE defining issue of our times. When the government feels that it can strip one group of human beings of so fundamental a right as the right to life, there is no limit to the rights it will feel it can strip from all human beings.

There have been arguments given to permit abortion in cases of rape or incest. I ask you: does the nature of a human being change simply because of the method of its conception? No, of course not. Therefore, no child should have to suffer death for the crimes of its father. Is rape and incest a tragedy? Most certainly. However, you cannot fix one tragedy by causing another. Encouraging a woman to murder her own child will not bring healing to the heart of one who is suffering already from the psychological damage caused by rape and incest. She should be supported, helped, encouraged, sheltered, protected, and given every opportunity necessary to make the most of her life - but to help her in killing her unborn child will not free her from the damage done by that man's transgressions.  Furthermore, in killing the child you destroy the evidence which might secure a conviction against the one who has perpetrated this crime against her, and ensure that the rapist or the one who commits incest is left free to continue engaging in his criminal activities. The only one who is "helped" by providing an abortion to the incest or rape victim is the criminal, certainly not the woman.

And what shall we do in cases where the mother's health is endangered by her pregnancy? Work to save both lives! This is the only humane answer possible.  Although it may not be possible to get every person out of a burning building, we know it is only right that every effort is made to save all parties, and the same is true of a pregnancy. If we have made the effort to save them both, but one dies, we cannot do anything about that but at least we walk with a clear conscience. However, any nation who can support sacrificing the weak in order to save the strong is a nation who has lost the basic concepts inherent to decent civilization.

I do want to be clear.  I am pro-choice. I am for a woman's right to choose which man she marries, or if she wishes to marry at all.  I am for a woman's right to choose whether or not she wishes to pursue a career, and which career she pursues.  I am for a woman's right to choose when, where, and whether or not to have sex with someone.  I am for a woman's right to choose whether or not to keep a child she conceives, and I grieve for her when she feels that she cannot handle the job she's been entrusted with and I applaud her courage when she instead gives that child into the arms of another to raise.  However, let me be clear on this matter: no woman has the right to choose to end her child's life.  Her right to choose ends where the body of that child begins.