Speaking of Dr. Laura, if you look for stuff written about her online, you can find all sort of angry ranting about her.  That’s how I found this.  Since it was put online publicly, I feel free to analyze it publicly.

Andrew in southeast Alabama posted an entry entitled “Shacking Up” on his blog. He’s talking about a phone conversation with Rosa, a woman with whom he is fornicating.


Daughter, eh?  Is her daughter still a minor?  If she is, then Dr. Laura would say Rosa shouldn’t be dating or fornicating, so I can already see that Andrew would not like Dr. Laura.


Why apologize for pointing out the obvious truth?  If Rosa is looking for marriage, she is better off dating men who want to get married and are ready to get married.


No, shacking up is when she lives with you.  You’re just fornicating without the shacking up part.  As for the “unpaid whore” label, I think “fornicator” is a better term.  Dr. Laura and many other women imply (some specifying, actually) that women should be compensated for sex.  For some reason, enjoyment is compensation enough for men, but not for women.  I understand that women tend to desire a feeling of security and love and commitment and those things make sex more enjoyable for them.  Actually, they make sex more enjoyable for men, too.  But that is not the point. The point is that some women, as Dr. Laura has pointed out, have no problem having sex with men they’ve barely met.  So clearly they don’t need security, love, and commitment to have sex and enjoy sex.  So if both parties are getting their jollies, why should one require additional compensation?

But I have gone off on a tangent.

Rosa is a fool to fornicate with Andrew in this manner if she wants a lasting, happy marriage.  Fool and fornicator are the labels that fit.


This is a common tactic these days.  Fornicators don’t like being told that sex is for marriage, so they point out to the person who says sex is for marriage that they aren’t perfect, either.  This, of course, does nothing to counter the moral proposition that sex is for marriage.  As for Dr. Laura, she has admitted to past anorexia.  So what?  If she needs to put on weight now, she need not eat a cheeseburger to do it.

Now on to the comments after the blog posting, prompted by his casual reference to Dr. Laura.

“Bridget” wrote:

(“justLacey” basically repeats this again later in the comments)

Here again is a ridiculous argument.  Because Dr. Laura posed nude for private pictures long ago (this is long before the digital pictures online) taken by someone with whom she was fornicating (and yes, she made mistakes), she can’t point out that fornicating is a bad idea?  That doesn’t follow.  Everyone sins.  So, what these people really want is nobody to ever bring up morality, because everyone has sinned.  Strangely, they think it is wrong to tell people what is right and wrong.  Therefore, we shouldn’t listen to them.


This is a non-argument.  The date on the calendar does not determine morality.


This is true.  But it does not negate that too many people also jump into fornicating because they want to, and broken hearts, bonding with the wrong person, STDs, and unmarried pregnancies are the result.

“Anonymous Boxer” wrote:

This is another stupid “counter” that doesn’t address the issue at hand.  Dr. Laura haters cite a lack of or a strained relationship between Dr. Laura and her late mother.  But you know what?  It takes two to make a relationship work, and Dr. Laura did not choose to be born of her mother.  We don’t really know what was going on there.  As for her son, a MySpace page that may or may not be his had some rough material on it that may or may not have been put there by him, relating to his military service.  Assuming he did put it there, a person should be judged on their behavior, not that of their family members.  Duh.

“Lady Elaine” then treats us to the tired old “open letter to Dr. Laura” that was written by someone in a tizzy over her pointing out the truth that the Bible teaches against homosexual behavior.  This letter was adopted by lazy “West Wing” writers, who had a character go on a diatribe against a talk show host and the Bible.

Here is a decent response:
http://www.equip.org/atf/cf/%7B9C4EE03A-F988-4091-84BD-F8E70A3B0215%7D/DP801.pdf

Anyway, there is no shortage of bad arguments online.  Dr. Laura has helped many people through her show, books, and other means.  If you don’t want to live by traditional morals and values, then so be it.  You don’t have to listen to her, you don’t have to read her books.  Meanwhile, those of us who want godly, lasting, happy marriages where both femininity and masculinity are affirmed and enjoyed and where children are the priority will continue to be thankful for what Dr. Laura and others like her do.

Since I enjoy checking advice columns so I can respond to the letters and analyze the response by the columnist, perhaps I should have a frequent topic on this blog called “Dear Playful Walrus”, where I pretend the letter was written to me.

Anyway, here is stuff from a recent Dear Abby column:

AMBIVALENT IN YAPHANK, N.Y. writes:


What does this mean, exactly?  Did both of you expressly agree to be monogamous?  Even so, you are both fornicating.  So it is okay to cheat on God and your future spouse (should you marry), but not okay for Dawn to fornicate with someone else?  Why?  At worst, she broke her agreement to be monogamous – if she did agree to that in the first place.

This was “early on” in the relationship.  Once you are willing to forsake the moral that sex is for marriage, then I don’t understand why people think there is a moral requirement for monogamy “early on”.


Then don’t.  Tell her as much.  Both of you should either commit to saving any more sex for marriage, or start openly seeing other people.


Shacking up is one of the worst things you can do.  If you want to get married, it bodes ill for a lasting marriage.  If you don’t want to get married and are just fine fornicating, you are limiting yourself and exposing yourself to all kinds of risks by shacking up.

HAD IT WITH THE SOUND TRACK writes:


Dear Abby responded:


If the letter writer is male, this answer is WRONG.  He needs to go straight to the supervisor.  Talking directly to the young woman could open the man to charges of harassment, especially if the young woman isn’t attracted to the man.  Anti-sexual harassment measures in the workplace are based on the sensitivities of women, overly sensitive ones at that, and designed to punish unattractive men.  Usually, claims of harassment are investigated and processed by female-dominated human resources staff, sympathetic to the complaining woman.  It sounds ridiculous, but this is how men can protect themselves.  He should interact with her as little as possible.

The same issue of the column goes on to deal with a child who is acting out because his mother either didn’t choose wisely or didn’t treat kindly, per Dr. Laura, and thus is divorced from his father and out of the home working.

When I hear campaign aides talking about their candidate’s “appeal to Latinos” or “appeal to African-Americans”, or even worse, when I hear a candidate specifically address people as these groups, I have to wonder why it is okay to be so racist?  Why do they assume people think a certain way because of their skin color?

With this in mind, I would very much like it if someone would ask a candidate on-camera (and insist on a direct response):

Is it okay for the government or for Presidential candidates to treat people differently based on their ethnicity or gender?

If the candidate says “no”, and yet has addressed “the Latino community” or “the African-American community” with their speeches and campaign materials, I want the questioner to point this out.

Aren’t all voters supposed to be Americans?  Why not address the concerns of Americans, and stop dividing us?

At least, that is according to a letter to the Pasadena Star-News written by J.O. Fitzgerald of Arcadia.

Fitzgerald writes:


I would be curious to see the specifics of this.  I tend to be for free trade.  True free trade doesn’t really require agreements.  But perhaps the “few” enriched are the people who have the ambition and creativity to take advantage of what is out there.  It is a myth, though, that businesspeople get rich by impoverishing people.


What have they done differently in this regard from the Democrats?


Really?  I have decent health care and I’m not rich.  Walk into almost any American hospital, and you have access to some of the best health care in the world, regardless of who you are.  Health care costs are largely up to health care professionals and insurers, with some costs artificially inflated through red tape from government regulation and from monopolies, including labor union monopolies.  Very little of this is the fault of recent GOP elected officials.


I’d really like to see some examples of this.  How can Bush-Cheney put children to work when they are busy bombing them, as the Left charges?


When are where?  We've had no trouble organizing.  We just organized a Superbowl pool.


Unlawfully, huh?  How do they get away with that? And independent contractors can negotiate their working conditions and enough compensation to cover their lifestyles.  It isn’t the President’s job to do it for them.


I love all of these assertions.  Were they translated from Spanish from the union mailers?


When and where?  I want to know so that I can open up a business and force children to work for me for $2 an hour for 16 hours straight.


I don’t know where this stuff is coming from.


They did?  As I recall, the only jobs that the Administration and Congress are responsible for are Federal government jobs.  So was the Pentagon moved to Mexico?  If a business CHOOSES to relocate facilities, what is the Federal government supposed to do to stop them?  Businesses are supposed to just stick around no matter how costly and difficult it becomes to operate, when they can do more and do it less expensively elsewhere?

There is a letter above this one that talks about parental responsibility in education.  Perhaps if someone gets a good education, they can get a job where they won’t be forced to join a union, and they won’t live in constant fear that they’re services are so useless that they need the President of the United States to keep them employed by executive order.

Why are there now so many guys who party and shun marriage and parenthood into their 30s?

Kay S. Hymowitz, contributing editor of City Journal and the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has created a bit of a stir with her piece entitled “Child-Man in the Promised Land”, with the teaser “Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood.”

It is about a trend among young men of choosing not to subject themselves to voluntary responsibilities such as home ownership, marriage, and parenting, and instead spending their time, money, and energy pursuing what amuses and entertains them and feeds their physical desires.


“Limbo” implies that the men want to own homes, get married, and have children (and I've heard her cite studies that most do.)  If men don’t, isn’t it better that they earn enough to pay their taxes, pay their bills, and save up for the future, instead of  buying homes they can’t afford, spending a lot of money trying to impress women, and getting into marriages they don’t want and having children they do not want?


Women are now capable of leading completely independent lives.  Underachieving is bad, but what do you call it when someone marries the wrong person and has children they can’t raise?  Those are major blunders, not achievements.  I also do not see playing games as any more immature than shopping for things that are not needed or spending more time than necessary on shopping.


Some men like that just fine, which is why they are doing it.  Others want it, but allow themselves to end up in situations they didn’t really want.  That isn’t good.


Men are reptilian if they don’t want the home, wife, and kids?  What if the sexes are reversed?  We call women like that "liberated feminists" and "career women".


Not wanting to the home, wife, and kids does not equal not wanting to grow up.  It only does if that is what the guy really wants, but doesn’t want everything that comes with it or seems mentally incapable of obtaining it.


Not necessarily.  They want an education for earning potential.  And how many women that young men find most physically attractive know anything about serious art or philosophy, much less want to discuss it?


This is a result of shortened attention spans and the fast pace of life as much as anything else.


Would it be preferable if they were all of those things, and then dishonest about it?  Isn’t it better to be honest so that women who want a marriage-minded man know to avoid these guys?  Do you really want to browbeat someone into doing something they really don’t want to do?


What about all of the stuff geared towards women that tells them they deserve to live in luxury created by a man’s earnings or at least have him come along and bail them our of their debts, or tells them that it is okay to cheat on their man, or disrespect him?


Exactly.


People adapt to technology.  For example, people have always played cards or board games.  I don’t get this hostility or dismissiveness towards video games.  I’m not a video game player myself, but it is possible for mature, married husbands and fathers to enjoy them without neglecting their obligations and responsibilities.  How is watching a movie or television show or Broadway play okay, but playing video games isn't?

In response to websites targeting these males, she writes:


Of course they aren’t.  Some women aren’t laughing because they want to find a marriage-and-family-minded man, and these things give them the mistaken impression that all men want to stay unmarried and childless.  Others are not laughing because they have used and abused males to feed their egos, cater to their every whim, pay their way, be sperm donors, and be their bodyguard/mechanic/furniture mover/chauffeur and these males are learning how to avoid being manipulated into doing things they don’t want to do.  I’d be upset, too, if I was used to being put on a pedestal and still able to act any way I pleased, and someone was making it tougher for me to find people to go along with this.  As for the women in the first category, isn’t it better that these males have clear thinking about what they want and how to get it, so that these women don’t end up with one of them?


The truth is, some males will do whatever they can get away with as long as they can still find a woman to sleep with them.  It also feeds the situation when males are raised by their mothers without a father to show them a happy, functional man who is a married father.  So, when women engage in casual fornication and deliberately raise a male without a father, or end up doing so because they choose their own male poorly, they are perpetuating the conditions that bring this about.


For some males, it isn’t a matter of “not ready”.  Some don’t ever want to marry or have children.


Is this surprising when we have raised people with moral relativism, instant gratification glorification, and the idea that we’re all the products in purposeless accidents of nature?


A male can be a man without getting married and having children, and women should not get into the idea that nagging a man to marry them and getting pregnant will really change a man who doesn’t want these things.


Welcome to the world that feminism and the sexual revolution created.


While some of these males will buy homes, get married, and have children, it is best that they do so because that is what they truly wanted.  But not all will decide to do these things, and some of those males will “settle down” as men without getting married or having children.


So stop trying to make them husbands and fathers.


For many of them, it isn’t a fear of commitment.  It is a lack of desire to commit, and a lack of trust that their commitment will be matched and rewarded.  They ask how it can really be commitment when it is so easy to get a divorce, when so many of these “commitments” do end in divorce, and when their spouse can cheat on them with impunity.  This is especially true for men who have seen their fathers, uncles, cousins, coworkers, and friends in marriages to women who do not care about their needs and then end up getting ongoing financial support if they divorce.


What should we expect in a society that no longer maintains that sex is for marriage?

Why are we surprised that some males have changed their behavior when the women with whom they are interacting have changed, and the world they live in has changed?  The man living by traditional morals, owning a home, and becoming a devoted husband and father in his 20s was more strongly reinforced in his behavior when women were “mature” and ready to be devoted wives and mothers with all of the traditional roles that went with that in their late teens and early 20s, when sex outside of marriage was shamed by society, when a man could afford a home and have a great career without ever moving out of his hometown, and when he was respected as the head of that home.

But we no longer live in an agrarian society where having children meant having more on the farm and having someone to take care of you in your old age; where your entire life would take place in the same town; where homes were more affordable and you weren’t likely to have to move in order to advance in your career.  We now in a society where children aren’t put to work; when a parent can be sued because their child, who is out of their supervision for most of time, hugged a classmate; where we expect the government to take care of us in our old age and we can save and invest so we can pay others to take care of us; where males as young and unestablished as middle schoolers can get sexual gratification with no commitment or shame.  Children go to school for at least thirteen years instead of learning their parents’ trade.  We commute for jobs, and move for career boosts.  Women go to college and have their own careers and earn their own income, and many will happily encourage a date to treat them to a night on the town knowing full well they won’t marry him or give him sexual gratification, and then will cap off their night by calling over a booty call who never treats her like a lady or to a night on the town.   Many refuse to stay home to raise children.  Most women who marry do so to men who earn more than they do, and our legal climate dictates that they thus can cheat on their husbands and divorce him, and then exact alimony from him – sometimes for the rest of her life - and the social climate does not punish them.

Is it possible for a male to be a real man without a steady “professional” career, owning a home, getting married, and raising children?  It is possible for him to contribute to society without doing these things?  Yes.  But a male who has worked in an honest job, owns a home, gets married, and raises a child is more likely to contribute to society in greater ways and more likely to take an interest in the long-term effects of his decisions and behavior.  Also, being a husband and a father makes it much easier to grasp certain truths about his own relationship with God, which the Bible often compares to marriage and parent-child relationships, and that definitely is better for society.  You can't expect the godless to grasp this fact.

The bottom line to all of this is that life has changed.  Males can be happy and keep busy and feel fulfilled without getting married and having kids, just like the feminists demanded for women.  Males can find regular sexual gratification without marriage.  Since people in general seem to be having more dysfunction in their lives, males who “settle down” with a woman not only have to deal with their own problems and dysfunctions, they have do deal with hers as well, and they decide they are better off not becoming emotionally and financially invested and subjecting themselves to the drama.  They have enough "step" family and half-siblings to deal with without marrying a woman who brings along her own.  But the good news is – there are still healthy, “old-fashioned” people out there who want to build a nest, marry, and raise children and be devoted to their spouse and devoted to parenting and take on complimentary roles.  The trick is to keep those males and females interacting with each other, and separate from the males and females who focus on hedonism, who should be interacting with each other and not us old-fashioned types.

Choose wisely.  Treat kindly.

We can all give a sigh of relief about Edwards being out of the running.  Now we just have to make sure he doesn't end up as Attorney General or a Supreme Court Justice.  That's a very real possibility if we get a Democrat administration.

The "objective" mainstream news media that I saw on television this morning seemed positively giddy that John McCain won Florida.  Why would that be?  Hmmmmmm.

Are there any credible surveys that show McCain beating Clinton or Obama in a general election?

A sad story is playing out in Orange County.

Doug Irving and Maria Chercoles of the Orange County Register report on teen mothers who went out partying and ended up dead.


It’s a good thing that nobody else was killed or harmed.  This could have been a lot worse.


Someone was using that container for either unneeded speed on the road, or a high.  Either way, it is bad news.


So let’s review.  Blanca got pregnant at what – 15 or 16?  She had a baby.  Then, she got pregnant again at 17 or 18, and had another baby.  Without the benefit of being married.  She had “begun” to talk about marriage with Armando Nunez.  The article doesn’t say if he was the father of either or both of those children.  He may not be even if he thinks he is.  Lovely picture, isn’t it?


So this sister, who got pregnant at about 17 because she didn’t learn anything from her older sister, is studying to become a nurse?  I wonder where she finds the time, taking care of a 5 month-old, and all.

But it gets better.


So these teenage mothers were out partying it up instead of taking care of their children.  Lovely.


Again, it is a good thing nobody else was hurt or killed.


I wonder if ANY of the people who are leaving roadside memorials ever once told these girls that 1) “partying” is a bad idea; 2) driving fast is a bad idea; 3) keeping children as unmarried teenagers is a bad idea; 4) once you are a parent, you shouldn’t be out partying; 5) intercourse as an unmarried teenager is a bad idea; 6) "dating" or having intercourse when you are already an unmarried teen parent is a bad idea; 7) there are a dozen forms of effective contraception; 8) plenty of people want to adopt babies and give them a good home; 9) California allows you to “surrender” your newborn baby to a hospital or fire station or police station with no strings attached and no obligations.

Now, these children, who were already facing tough odds, have lost their mothers.

Actions have real and lasting consequences.  Even if the person committing the act is a teenager.

True to form, online readers of the Register are leaving comments, and some people connected with the Lopez girls are defending them.  It’s not that these girls aren’t worthy of being mourned.  It is that their mistakes should be used as lessons to others, lest other people make the same mistakes.  It is precisely because these girls made some bad choices that this story is as sad as it is.  Those who “judge” these girls hold them to a higher standard than those who are defending their mistakes.

Someone in my family said she liked what Senator Hillary Clinton was saying and she asked me what’s wrong with her, as in – why not vote for her?  This person is not a partisan and not a staunch conservative.

This is my response.
=== === === === ===

Should Senator Hillary Clinton get the nomination to be the Democrat candidate for President, I will be voting for whomever the Republican candidate is – Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, or Mike Huckabee.

You mentioned that you liked what Clinton was saying.  The problem is, she has demonstrated time and again that you can’t rely on what she says.  This is a woman to voted to use force again in dealing with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, but then turned around and criticized the effort for political gain.  I can’t rely on someone who plays such politics when it comes to military matters.

The President has some basic responsibilities.  He or she is Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, nominates judges, and signs or vetoes legislation developed by Congress, and thus has some sway in setting the legislative agenda.

There is no bigger threat to Americans right now than terrorists motivated by their Islamofascist ideology.  They hate us more than they love their own children.  We need a President who is willing to kill these terrorists, disrupt their plans, and keep them from wielding weapons of mass destruction.  Any one of the four Republicans is likely to be more aggressive in that area than Senator Clinton.

Part of defending our nation is securing our borders are much as possible.  Any one of the four Republicans is more likely to secure our border than Senator Clinton, even John McCain.  The public has spoken very clearly on this – we want the border secure before – or whether or not – any kind of amnesty is offered to illegal aliens currently here.  Clinton’s base contains people who do not want the border secured.  She is less likely to listen to those who have demanded the border be secured.

Since we have many public amenities and tax-supported programs, such as health care, public schools, infrastructure, and various forms of public assistance, border control is also a financial issue.  In southern California, our emergency rooms, schools, jails, and roads are crowded with illegal aliens and their children.  This lowers the quality of life for citizens and legal immigrants and residents.

Speaking of spending and taxes – each of the four Republican candidates has a strong commitment to slow government spending and to keep taxes down.  Senator Clinton is more likely to support tax increases and even more government spending.  She is more likely to support centralizing even more power and control in Washington D.C., while the Republican candidates are more likely to allow states more freedom and control.

Judicial appointments are another significant concern.  Senator Clinton is more likely to nominate activist judges who cite foreign laws, thereby imposing the laws and judicial decisions of other countries on us against our will.  It is the job of legislatures, who are elected by us, to make and repeal laws.  Judges who serve for life should stick to interpreting and applying law, not making law.

Finally, if Congress remains, as it is now, in the control of liberal Democrats, it is very important to have a more centrist or conservative President who can issue a veto when they clearly go too far.  Senator Clinton, if elected President, is less likely to veto what a liberal Democrat Congress sends her.

Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts, and so is clearly not an extreme conservative.  He has a proven history of leadership as Governor, in making the 2002 Olympics a success, and in business.  I’m no fan of Mormonism as religious truth, but Romney appears to be a sincere Mormon, and sincere Mormons believe they are accountable for their actions, live cleanly, and they are very patriotic about the U.S.A.  These are good qualities to have in a President.

John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mick Huckabee are far from being my ideal candidates for President, but any of them would be significantly better President than Clinton.

Shouldn't a property owner be able to charge what the market will pay for use of their property?

Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, reports on a ballot measure that would phase out rent control laws in California.


It is typical for these stories to pick “hard luck” stories.  But I have to wonder what Ms. Kubancik did with her earnings, since she was working since age 14?  Why wasn’t she living within her means with some money left over to save and invest?  It’s too bad she was paying into Social Security.  She would have been better off investing that money herself.


So the place gets closed down entirely.  How does that help anyone?


There is a private way to control rent.  It is called leasing or buying.


It’s all a matter of protecting property rights.


See – that is an important aspect of this.  People won’t be thrown out onto the street, although I can see landlords doing whatever they can to encourage people to leave.


Artificial government controls can have negative effects, no matter how good the intentions.


How so?  People can remain where they are and still have their rent controlled.  Lifting rent control won’t suddenly make more people.  There are only so many “wealthy” and “young” people seeking a place to rent.  While the “poor” and “elderly” new to an area may not be able to live exactly where they want with as much room to themselves, they’ll likely still have a place to live.

A more free housing market will mean more investment in housing.

Amy Taxin of the Orange County Register reports on the usual band of “I want you to pay for me” protestors in Anaheim.  If you go the story, you can see by the pictures that the groups love to exploit children.


So why don’t these groups buy the land and do with it what they want?  Why do they demand that “someone else” do it for them?  Churches have a command from Jesus Christ to care for the poor, not government.  Let’s remember - separation of church and state.

There would be more people counterprotesting, but they are too busy being productive.  Notice how much time unions have to protest.


Child care?  Why are these people having children they won’t raise themselves?  Who defines “adequate wages”?  It seems to me that if someone agrees to the wages, they must be adequate.  Why aren't the unions negotiating "adequate" wages?  “Low-cost housing” almost always means high-cost housing that someone else subsidizes.


Unemployed, huh?


The only reason the company should meet with the group is if the group is willing to buy the rights to the site.


Most of the whiners can’t think critically, though, so they fail to grasp such realities.


How about using the money to fight crime, boost emergency services, and fix infrastructure?


How annoying.  What’s with people who insist on letting other people do the work and put up the money, and then butting in where they have no right to?

D.R. Tucker over at Human Events blogged a defense of President Bush.  Bush’s approval ratings are around 30 percent.  But why is that?  The drive-by media tries to make it look like Bush is too far right, and that most people don’t approve of Bush because they are “progressive”.

The truth is, however, that there are a lot of conservatives and libertarians who have a hard time giving Bush a blanket job approval.

We knew in 2000 that Bush wasn’t very conservative, and certainly not libertarian.  That has been shown to be true with all of the spending and new programs during his administration, and his willingness to interfere with the mortgage situation.  The border control and amnesty situations have angered many, too.

But as far as the Democrats and Leftists go - let’s be honest.  They hate him because he is a Republican.  Some of them see hating Bush as justified payback for how Republicans reacted to President Clinton.  And while politics has always involved some vitriol for opponents, we now have generations raised with a short attention span, an entitlement mentality, and a global, mobile, around-the-clock, ubiquitous media spin machine.  Pop music mocks Bush.  Television shows and movies of all sorts attack Bush.  What do we expect the wishy-washy independents to think?

There are way too many people who think it is the President’s job to make sure they are happy with their job and their pay, happy in their marriages, happy with their local schools, happy with their education, and happy with their medical care.  There is no pleasing such people.

Go ahead and ask some of these Leftists who insist Bush is a horrible President and that everyone agrees exactly why they disapprove of Bush.  Very few can cite a specific reason.  Even fewer can cite a reason based in reality.

The 9/11 conspiracy nuts hated Bush anyway.  Their hatred of Bush (and for some, any President) feeds their willingness to believe in a conspiracy, not the other way around.

Such people are likely to cite a “loss of civil liberties” under Bush.  Has anyone noticed any loss of their civil liberties?  Being inconvenienced at the airport is not a loss of a civil liberty.  If we’re talking about guerrilla terrorist combatants in foreign lands who are interrogated at Gitmo – our Constitution does not apply to them.

Plenty of Bush critics point to situation in Iraq.  Many of these people only approve of military actions when a Democrat is President, so there is no way Bush can please them.  Some of them are disappointed that Saddam didn’t unleash WMDs on our soldiers.  They dislike Bush for having the guts to follow through with enforcing the terms of the cease fire agreement with Saddam, for having the guts to act on even what most of the Democrats believed.

Some cite the initial response to Katrina, but state and local authorities have the responsibility for disaster preparedness and response.  FEMA comes along and pays some of the bills.  It isn’t FEMA’s job to be first responders.  People concerned about this should be upset with the local and state authorities, not Bush.

The “man-made global warming” faithful would never think a Republican is doing enough.  It’s a religion to them, and Republicans are the devil.

There are people who cite Bush’s strong faith as a problem, yet they are hard-pressed to cite how his faith has impacted them negatively or caused him to do something they don’t like.

Some people cite Bush’s move to deny Federal tax dollars to fund the destruction of human beings for new embryonic stem cells.  But if such research is so promising, why the need to tax money anyway?  Private funding should be plentiful.  Washington, D.C. does not have a Constitutional mandate to fund such research.  Besides, other advances are showing promising research without the need to kill human beings.

Finally, some haters may cite “world opinion” – that people in other countries don’t like Bush.  This is a little like saying a Pepsi factory worker isn’t thrilled about the CEO of Coca-Cola.  So what?  It is President Bush’s job to defend us and our Constitution.  The evidence shows he’s doing a great job in that respect, and people still want to come live here.

Bush’s failings have largely involved his attempt to please the Left and to grow government.  Let’s hope we’re not choosing another soft conservative to be our candidate for President.

Let's return to Dear Abby.

“Seaching for the Right Words” says she has been dating a guy for more than two years, but that they do not want to get engaged without her parents’ approval.


I’d bet that most of the people doing that are women.


One of the problems here is that these two have tied themselves down to each other before they should have.  They should be dating other people and should not be serious and steady until they are old enough and done with school.  Travis should be focusing on school anyway, and not what to get her for Valentine’s Day.

As far as pressure from other people - it is none of their business.

Dear Abby’s advice is...


That’s perfectly fine.  There are also some other good lines to use, but most of them don’t work if you have already tied yourself down to one person.  Most women expect a relationship to “go somewhere”, as if they aren’t happy with the way things are (and, if they are dating to marry, they should look for a “progression”).  So, once you have tied yourself down to one person, expect other women to nag.  They all want to be invited to the associated parties.  They won't be the ones doing the hard work when the going gets tough.

Then there’s Broken-Hearted in Washington, who asks…


It is possible she still likes the security, the financial support, and the “relief pitcher” in case the other men aren’t around.  Love is shown by what someone does.  Her actions were not loving.  And at some point, you have to ask yourself – what is her pledge of love worth anyway?

Dear Abby responded...


I really wonder what the response would be if the sexes were reversed.  I think it would be more along the lines of “throw the bum out and live off of his alimony.”

By the way, in most places, that child is the legal obligation of the husband, and if Washington is like California, once they hit ten years, he’ll have to pay her alimony for life in addition to child support for a kid that isn’t his.  Nice, huh?  Is it time to recriminalize adultery?  Men: choose your wife wisely.  Treat her kindly.

ABC television network stations are facing FCC fines over showing "multiple, close-up views" of a woman's behind on the television show NYPD Blue.  What I found interesting was that the network tried to defend itself by insisting that the part of the body shown is "not a sexual organ".

That is a very interesting claim, because ABC, like most other television networks and "Hollywood" businesses, has a history of voluntarily promoting homosexual behavior as normal sexual behavior and depicting or alluding to "anal sex".  ABC and parent company Disney, like any other company in the industry, has supported open homosexuals throughout the ranks, including in high executive positions, and has not only promoted homosexual behavior in its media offerings and theme park "weddings", but to its employees.

So, which is it?  Is it a sexual organ or not?  You can't have it both ways.

Just to be clear - I'm not advocating Disney or ABC punish employees for private homosexual behavior.  But it is a little funny to see the company make such an argument.

Is it just me, or are the usually loudmouthed Leftist Dem Congressional leaders keeping relatively quiet these days?  Perhaps they are trying to stay under the radar in the hopes that voters will forget that if a Democrat is elected President, and the Leftists remain in control of Congress, Leftists will control both the Legislative and the Executive branches?

Is it them, or is it the drive-by media?

I think even they know that most Americans would not be happy with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid having more power.