Working Man And The Voice Of An Angel

Working Man, by Rita Macneil. Hers is the voice of an angel, to be sure. Turn up the volume, just a bit. You’ll know why.

For more on the coal mines, see this.

Rita Macneil’s Home I’ll Be.

For The Love Of A Child And Evolution

 

Shrinkwrapped has written a post, Where Do I Come From, in which he discusses the case of a woman who is suing two doctors and Planned Parenthood because of a failed abortion.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to these issues than this reporter, but all I could do upon reading this was imagine the struggles this poor young girl is due for. She will inevitably know that her mother didn’t want her, that her life was weighed against the cost to her mother’s life style and found wanting. In fact, her mother did not even love her enough to decide to tolerate the discomfort of a pregnancy and then give her to someone who might have desperately wanted her enough to adopt her.

Teaching a child that he or she is loved is perhaps the single greatest gift we as parents can give to our children. There is no replacement for the comfort, safety and peace of mind a child feels that comes from knowing he or she is loved.

Love is many things of course, and cannot be easily defined. In a world in which science plays so crucial a role, it is also clear that in many ways, love can be counter evolutionary.

In discussing love, we must also clarify the kind of love we are talking about. There is reciprocal love and there is unconditional love. They are very, very different.

One kind of love can indeed be described as an evolutionary derivative. The other is entirely antithetical to the notion of strict scientific evolution.

Reciprocal love can be very powerful. It is shared- that is, I love you because you love me. I fulfill your needs because you fulfill mine, and so one. There is a balance, an equilibrium- an exchange. That kind of loves implies a great intimacy, and certainly, popular culture reinforces that. “He/she completes me. He/she understands me,” and so one. In fact, that kind of love is an exchange, a trade, a basic economic principle in action. Love is conditional, freely given as long as certain needs are met. In the end, however, that kind of love can be reflexive- that is, feeding the evolutionary model. We are satisfied and sated as long as we get what we want.

Of course, reciprocal love is not a bad thing. Reciprocal love makes the world go round- we can marry, have a family and live perfectly comfortable lives. It is also true that human nature does respond to to the give and take dynamic. We are after all, self oriented.

Now, while reciprocal love is beneficial, it is also conditional- and often temporary. People change. They grow, change and sometimes, they regress. The only thing for certain is that people do change. When that happens, some of the original ‘deal’ of reciprocal love is abrogated. What happens then? What happens when you find someone who exhibits superior qualities, or qualities more in line with your own? Is the relationship over because some elements of the ‘deal’ have changed? Those realities have contributed to and will continue to be the cause of more exsanguinated marriages.

Lastly, reciprocal love by itself, no matter how powerful, cannot capture the greatness that each of us is capable of. Reciprocal love may sate our egos, but it cannot support our yearning for something more.

Unconditional love is very different. You don’t have to look far to find it. If you have siblings or parents, you can comprehend that kind of love. Still, those relationships are only warm-ups to the potential of unconditional love. Finding the right mate and having children take center stage in the life drama of unconditional love.

That kind of love is decidedly not evolutionary, because it is not easy or reflexive. Unconditional love requires effort and investment. We choose to behave in certain ways with no guarantee of a payoff. In fact, we make our choices with the full understanding that the payoff may a long way off in the future, if at all. We make choices because they are the right choices, the right thing to do, not necessarily because they are the most expedient or logical of choices.

Unconditional love differs too, because when we say ‘ I love you,’ we are not referring to that part of you that makes us feel good. We are rather saying that we love who you are. We see the true picture- the strengths, the flaws, and despite it all, we love who you are, what your potential is and what you can teach us, in our quest to be better. That love recognized because we share a unique bond. We ’see’ each other, without filtering that intimacy through our needs.

I do not love you because you are beautiful- but rather, you are beautiful because I love you. I do not love you because I need you- I need you because I love you. Of course, we recognize and value the qualities of our mates, but the love is not limited by the parameters of those qualities. To love someone simple because they are smart only, is a recipe for disaster. Real love is not defined by the parameters of those qualities. Unconditional love transcends those qualities, and reaches into the very essence of the object of our affections. There is no rhyme or reason. To those that understand unconditional love, the mantra is as follows: I may never see that ‘payoff,’ but in fact, I don’t care- I still love you because we are one soul.

As the counter-evolutionary dance of unconditional love unfolds, we do not- and should not, escape the realities of romance, reciprocal love and all the other necessary ingredients necessary to bring to people together. If however, in the process of finding true love, we allow our souls, our very beings, to emerge, we can reach a space and place where unconditional love can be found. We can reach the point were we can recognize the shared bond that cannot be broken.

We reach a point where partners become a part of each other- and life without each other becomes almost unimaginable.

Love is neither physical or romantic. True love is about the acceptance of all that is, and all that has been and and that will be.

Shrinkwrapped’s few words thunder at what is an unnecessary tragedy in the making:

I have treated many people who have had to confront feelings of being an unwanted child, an imposition and intrusion on their parent’s life. Often enough there has emerged evidence that their parent(s) did harbor significant ambivalence toward them… The recognition and resolution of such feelings is difficult and painful. It is hard to imagine the pain for a child who is forced to confront, in the starkest terms possible, that she was unwanted.

 

“Yeah, leftists really do care about justice. Just like pedophiles care about children”

When asked to define pornography, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart relied, ‘I know it when I see it.’

In reading and listening to the leftists shouting on the blogosphere like Glenn Greenwald, the brilliantly below average minds at Firedog Puddle and the assorted leftist apparatchiks at the Huffington Post and elsewhere, one would imagine that the possible pardon of Lewis Libby were tantamount to the legalization of porn and subsequent introduction into the nations kindergartens.

For the left, Libby is the tip of an (imaginary) iceberg of crimes and corruption so great that only prosecutions and convictions at the highest levels of government will rid the nation of evil.

In the same way that Bill Clinton pointing his finger at the camera means he is lying, the maniacal and frenzied outrage by many on the left when it comes to moral issues means the same thing. Their phony outrage is self serving hypocrisy and no more.

The Left doesn’t care about injured soldiers returning from the battlefield or Walter Reed Hospital any more than it cares patients or about dilapidated and run down County hospitals in far worse condition, serving a far greater population, all over this country. The leftists don’t care about VA facilities any more than they care about run down and failing schools that have produced generations and legions of poorly educated and illiterate students, notwithstanding the heightened ’self esteem’ programs imposed on teachers by the leftist ‘agendistas.‘

The Leftists are attempting to define pornography- as the beliefs of anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Like the pedophiles that piously go to church, the leftists insist that they have a kind of moral authority that is unique to them.

Of course, that is poppycock. The leftists are uniquely unqualified to opine on political morality because they and they alone have promulgated the deviancy of corruption and deceit for decades.

The leftists were strangely silent as the pornographic images of real political corruption, deceit and hypocrisy played out.

Under the Clinton administration, Chinese ‘businessmen‘ acquired access to sensitive satellite technology. Once the transactions were completed, China refused to allow the US to follow up on just how that technology would be used.

(If the leftists were really concerned about justice, they would pursue the matter of Johnny Chung, who made 50 visits to the White House at times with Chinese ‘businessmen’ in tow. (Turns out Mr Chung gave over $300,000 to the DNC from questionable sources. The DNC reluctantly returned the funds.)

Unlike the Bush administration, it was the Clinton administration that set the standard for deceit and hypocrisy (which explains a lot of the attraction for the left). The following are some , but by no means all, of the benchmarks set by the Clinton administration:

• Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates*

• Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation

• Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify

• Most number of witnesses to die suddenly

• First president sued for sexual harassment.

• First president accused of rape.

• First first lady to come under criminal investigation.

• Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case.

• First president to establish a legal defense fund.

• First president to be held in contempt of court

• Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions

• Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad

• First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

So let’s recap:

• The number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47

• The number of these convictions during Mr Clinton’s presidency: 33

• The number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61

• The number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122

If the left were really concerned about justice, they would be concerned about Hillary Clinton’s Rose law firm billing records, ‘lost’ for two years after they were subpoenaed by special prosecutors. They were found in the book room of the personal residence at the White House. Clinton say she has no idea how they got there.

Clinton also had no idea how over 900 FBI private files of Clinton ‘enemies’ found their way into her private office in the White House. For some reason, the left wasn’t concerned either, though they do have a great deal of trouble with the Patriot Act and the monitoring of calls between known Al Qaeda agents and US citizens.

If the left were really concerned about justice, they would consider Hillary Clinton’s performance during the Watergate Investigation.

Jerry Zeifman was the Democrats’ general counsel chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation. In a WSJ piece, reviewed and summarized Hilary Clinton’s performance as a staff member:

Hillary Clinton violated House and committee rules by disclosing confidential information to unauthorized persons.

More than a few of the legal procedures she recommended were ethically flawed.

In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel.

Ms Clinton proposed that the committee should neither 1) hold any hearings with or take the depositions of any live witnesses, nor 2) conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon. Instead, the committee should rely on prior investigations conducted by other committees and agencies.

Ms Clinton also advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses.

Jerry Zeifman decided that he could not recommend her for any position of public or private trust.

If the leftists were really concerned about justice, fairness and the little guy, they would question why Hillary Clinton sat on the Walmart Board of Directors.

Yeah, those leftists really do care about justice. Just like pedophiles care about children.