Maine tips a little more toward Loonyville

Ok, by know everyone who is a news junkie has heard the story going on in Portland, Maine. A Middle school (grades 6-8) has decided to allow a school health center to give girls as young as 11 access to birth control pills. Story here.

This is insane! First off, isn’t it against the law for 11 yr olds to have sex to begin with? Who are these girls having sex with? Why the hell is this decision acceptable to the good people of Maine? Here is a story from Baylor University that actually supports this measure. The author makes the point that “At some point in a child's life, the "birds and bees talk" will no longer do. Curiosity and temptation will creep in. And then what?”. Is that the best we can do? Basically throw in the towel on what obviously makes the most moral sense (keeping instilling children with definitive guardrails that offer them the chance to avoid temptation) and instead promote a lackadaisical attitude amongst society and children as a whole and tacitly promote dangerous and unhealthy behavior? Maine should be ashamed of itself for not instead seeing that the culture is working against parents trying to raise their children how they see fit and instead assuming the role of parent and confidant toward the children in their charge.

The columnist from Baylor continues with this witty statement “The ultimate decision whether to engage in premarital sexual relations lies with the child, not her parents.” Recall that Maine is talking about girls as young as 11 here. I feel that with all the other crap that parents need to deal with, you would think that the school would take a more aggressive stance for the parents rights to have some say in the matter as to whether or not they feel their child should have the tools (no pun intended) to have sex “safely”. One of the arguments for the decision in Maine is that some kids may not feel comfortable talking to their parents about sex and would feel differently talking to some nameless clinic worker whose agenda is questionable at best.

This is not a battle to give up on but instead to realize that there are a lot of external threats to traditional (or functional) parenting. What is next, passing out drugs to take the edge off unruly kids so the teachers have an easier time controlling their kids? I mean kids are going to act up no matter what a parent says and quite frankly the ultimate decision whether to engage in classroom disruptive behavior lies with the child, not the parents. Parents should understand (if they don’t) that this is not compassion and understanding that is being sold to them and their kids. It is a noose by which the children’s innocence and values will be hung on.

Why not instead reinforce the joy of delaying sexual activity? What is wrong with that? Why do we want kids to have sex? What benefit does that serve? If the issue is all the middle school pregnancies that are occurring (17 in the last 5 years) shouldn’t the focus be on ways to curb the behavior and not encourage it? I am waiting for some answers on these questions.

Columnist Michael Coren writing in the Toronto Sun online has a great point that I would like to quote (about the “pill” solution):

“On an ideological level, the Pill was supposed to liberate women and give them control over their bodies.

Instead it has empowered irresponsible men who can insist on sexual intercourse because, after all, "if you love me you will and anyway you can't get pregnant." “

Well said Michael! Basically this decision in Maine does not see sexual intercourse as having any other meaning than above the animal level (up there with eating, drinking and of course using the bathroom). Instead of encouraging children to elevate themselves they provide the tools for children to act on their basest instincts and act with no responsibility to their actions.

Aren’t they (and we) better than that? If not, we should be.

Outspoken Roman

Red Sox going to the World Series Again!!!

Ok so I am a native New Yorker but am transplanted to Massachusetts and have adopted the Red Sox as my team (I still remain a loyal NY Jets fan even in face of their impressive 1-6 record) and wanted to send out my congratulations to the Sox once again making it to the World Series. I have been here for about 6 years and have seen this happen twice now since their 86 year absence in the World Series. For Sports Fans this is a great place to live. For Conservative folks like myself...well the jury is still out but it keeps me amused.

Let's Go SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!

AP Story on the Sox win is here.

Harry Reid has guts – but not in a good way

Ok so I already blogged about Rush Limbaugh’s comment on phony soldiers. What makes this story more interesting is that the Democrats in Congress actually sent a letter to Mark P. Mays, president of Clear Channel, the parent company of Limbaugh’s radio broadcast which said in part “We call on you to publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their (the “phony soldiers”) service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments”. You can see the actual letter here.

So Limbaugh puts this letter on Ebay for auction with the money going to a charity for the children of fallen Marines and the letter nets a cool $2.1 Million, which Limbaugh matched for a total donation of $4.2 Million to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. Story from Fox News here.

Harry Reid, Democrat Senator from Nevada actually had the nerve to say:

“Never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature... I don’t know what we could do more important than helping to ensure that children of our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in the line of duty have the opportunity for their children to have a good education.”

First off Mr. Reid, you have some gall taking credit for this at all as Limbaugh is the one who raised the money to help the “children”. Why the hell isn’t some network news anchor smacking this guy verbally upside the head for having the balls to say something like this? He (Reid) is giving him and his anti-first amendment cronies a verbal pat on the back for doing something so “important” when he should be hiding his head in shame (like that will happen) for actually using the supposed power of Congress against a private individual. And the left thinks the Republicans abuse power.

Secondly, I didn’t see Reid acknowledge the generous contribution that Limbaugh gave to this “important” cause for the children of fallen soldiers and police officers. Limbaugh donated $2.1 Million of his own money to this charity and has done pledge drives during his syndicated show annually. Certainly if Reid is looking for credit shouldn’t he also acknowledge Limbaugh as well? Quick – I need a pic of Harry Reid with a dumb look on his face.

Final thoughts about this issue. Limbaugh raised (and continues to raise) money for a charity supporting the children of our real heroes. What was Reid’s financial contribution to this cause or any Democrat for that matter? I guess the self congratulations are the only thing that they can muster and quite frankly do nothing to help the children regardless of how well the issue is spun in the media. The only thing they should be congratulated on is their shameless exploitation of someone else’s success.

Well done Rush. Senator Reid - please go away and take your "phony" senators with you.

Outspoken Roman

Nobel Peace Prize for Al Gore

So what criteria have to be met to get a Nobel Peace Prize? I couldn’t believe that Al Gore’s efforts in the Global Warming arena would support any notion of peace as the believers of Global Warming (GW) basically feel anyone that doesn’t believe in GW is only worthy of scorn and outright ridicule. So Wikipedia states that according to Nobel's will, “the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"”

Ok so we have our criteria. What did Al Gore do to work for fraternity between nations, abolish standing armies or promote peace congresses? Well – nothing actually. Al Gore got his shared award (shared with the U.N.) for "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" (source is Wikipedia). I am still drawing a blank here.

In the vein of past winners such as Mother Theresa, Henry Kissinger, Martin Luther King Jr., we can add the name of Al Gore for educating folks about Global Warming. That just doesn’t seem to fit.

I heard somewhere a few years back that the term “Art” becomes meaningless if anything is called “Art” (including a photo of a crucifix in a jar of urine). I think this award has gone the way of the “Art” term and has lost its meaning. Quite frankly wouldn’t a better recipient by President Bush or England’s PM Tony Blair for their liberation of the Iraqi People?

PatriotPost has a much better summary of this on their website here including how the Nobel Committee is elected by the Norwegian Parliament which is currently controlled by the Labor Party whose political ideology is “social democracy” or seeking to “reform capitalism democratically through state regulation and the creation of state sponsored programs and organizations which work to ameliorate or remove perceived injustices inflicted by the capitalist market system.” (source is Wikipedia). Ok – so basically leftist ideology is in charge of picking the Nobel Committee. Rush Limbaugh never had a chance. This award is politically motivated and is basically more hot air to pump up Gore’s already full opinion of himself.

What about Free Speech?

Isn’t one of the sacred cows to the Left the idea of Free Speech? Doesn’t Rush Limbaugh had the “right” to call anyone he wants to phony? Doesn’t Bill O’Reilly have the “right” to offer an opinion on some restaurant in Harlem? I mean it is ok to call President Bush a liar and it is apparently ok to imply Republicans are racists for not attending a debate on minority issues but opinions can’t be offered on fake soldiers and fine dining in Harlem?

The left uses free speech to defend all manner of ridiculous crap since they claim it is “protected speech” but seem to forget that in the words of the ACLU “How much we value the right of free speech is put to its severest test when the speaker is someone we disagree with most.” And in judging from the Left’s apoplectic fit over O’Reilly and Limbaugh exercising their First Amendment rights, they do not value free speech at all.

So then I see this story about Moveon.Org suing a T-shirt maker because the owner is selling among other things, T-Shirts that state “General Petraeus has done more for this country than MoveOn.org.” or “MoveOn.org, the worst friend a Democrat could have! Move Away from Move On!” Apparently their General “Betray Us” ad in the New York Times ticked too many people off and MoveOn is feeling the backlash which is ever so sweet. Uhh what about free speech you pinheads!!!!

I guess that is one of those selective rights that only apply to the left. I knew that the left was pro-choice but I thought that was only with regard to Abortion, not the Bill of Rights as well. Live and learn I guess.

Phony Soldiers

Ok, as some folks know, I am a fan of Rush Limbaugh. I don’t get to listen to his show as much as I would like but I turned onto Rush when I was in college at the suggestion by my father and was hooked ever since. I am also a veteran so when I heard that Rush had somehow maligned soldiers who spoke out against the Iraq War. Seeing as I have not been the biggest fan of the war and its conduct this was really interesting. So I went and did a Google and Yahoo News search and read the reports and then went to Limbaugh’s website to get it straight from the man himself. You can read about it on the Limbaugh Site here or see what Media Matters says.

My opinion is that this is an overblown attempt by the left to try and establish their “support the troops” bona fides while slamming Limbaugh’s attack on "supposed" free speech. The story is of course without merit. Media Matters who has been following this story even makes a big deal that Limbaugh supposedly plays an edited conversation with a caller where the “phony soldier” comment stating that it was the entire conversation. In fact, the edits from the conversation have nothing to do with phony soldiers. The one error that Limbaugh made was the actual conversation was not 3 + minutes long but edited was about half that. So what? What Limbaugh obviously did was give those listening to his program the meat of what was said (again “in context” as Limbaugh states) and never says this is the entire discussion period. Is this the sort of word parsing the Left has to do to generate a phony scandal so to speak? Where was Media Matters when Kerry and Murtha disparaged the troops? Heck where were the troop supporting Democrats at all?

So here in context is what the frenzy is about (note to Media Matters – this is not the complete discussion). Source is http://www.rushlimbaugh.com.

Transcript begins with discussion in progress (Limbaugh and a caller named “Mike”).

RUSH ARCHIVE: It's not possible intellectually to follow these people.

CALLER: No, it's not. And what's really funny is they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and spout to the media.

RUSH: The phony soldiers. (emphasis mine)

CALLER: The phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they're proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they're willing to sacrifice for the country.

RUSH: They joined to be in Iraq.

RUSH: It's frustrating and maddening, and why they must be kept in the minority. I want to thank you, Mike, for calling. I appreciate it very much.

So this was not the entire call but it was enough so one could see the context of what Limabugh said. And by the way, there are phony soldiers such as Jesse Macbeth that become darlings of the left because they are slamming the military when they are in fact phony (i.e. not who they say they are). Limbaugh went from the “phony soldier” call right into a story about Jesse Macbeth that he recently had reported as part of his morning update so it stands to reason that although Jesse Macbeth didn’t come up during the caller’s discussion, Limbaugh was certainly well versed in how this loser (Macbeth) lied to just about everyone. This story notes “…MacBeth apologized for snookering anti-war groups with his claims of killing unarmed, helpless civilians in Iraq -- which were translated into Arabic and posted on the Internet -- and also to U.S. soldiers whom he defamed.” Why the hell are we worried about what Rush Limbaugh said and not why this bozo had such a national forum (note his lies were translated into Arabic and posted on the Internet)? In fact Limbaugh didn’t go far enough. The crime wasn’t being phony, it was being treasonous.

- Outspoken Roman