Women! Listen!

I wanted to discuss an important topic.

Ladies.

Yes, ladies. I am making some generalizations in this little rambling, but I think about everyone could take something out of what I am saying. I might sound like I am on some kind of high horse...and maybe I am. But I think this needs to be said and repeated over, and over and over and over...

The reason this is such an issue is that there is a serious lack of ladies in the world today. Even fewer little girls will grow up to be ladies in the years to come.
By lady, I mean a woman who is confident, modest, strong, and values herself as a person and refuses to be objectified as a "piece." I mean a woman who is strong enough to live and be happy without selling her body for acceptance and "love."

Too often, on TV, in movies, in songs, in every aspect of life, girls are taught that letting a boy have his way with them is acceptable and encouraged. Girls are ingrained with the idea that sex is their only asset to get what they think they want. And what they think they want is also ingrained by the same venues that teach them that they are only as good as the amount of cleavage they show or partners they have.

So, today, as a man, I want to stop the trend. I don't want some easy tramp who thinks the only way I might love her is if she sleeps with me. I don't want some woman who is incomplete by herself and needs to feel wanted, and they stoop to any level to get that feeling of want, even if it is misguided and more lust than true want.

Instead, what I want is a woman with confidence. A woman who knows that she is more that just a notch on a bedpost. A woman who thinks for herself and doesn't buy into the idea that showing more and giving more is the right way to live. A woman with morals. A woman with her head on straight. Someone who can intrigue me without unbuttoning her blouse.

Women, its time to stand up for yourselves. Stop letting yourself get walked on and treated as a piece of tail. You have so much more to offer. Be proud of who you are and be strong. Stop listening to what 50 Cent or Ludacris or Eminem or any of 1,000 singers might say...stop looking at movies and TV shows....you can still watch and enjoy them, but stop learning their misguided lessons.

Girls today have lost the innocence and modesty that makes women so incredible. High school girls compete for lovers and numbers of partners like boys used to only claim to have done in locker rooms. Far too many girls are running out of fingers to count their partners on before they get a high school diploma. Too many girls are under the impression that it is okay to be promiscuous and to dress in revealing and slutty clothes. Too many girls are growing up as cheap, easy, incomplete people whose life consists of too high an emphasis on sex.

Girls might want to blame guys...say guys are the reason because guys are brought up to think the same thing. To an extent, the girls do have a point. However, girls, it is up to you to take a stand and teach the boys that you are worth more than that. Stop giving in to the cute guys just because they are cute. Stop giving yourself away and stop degrading and devaluing yourself.

And guys...stop thinking with your penis. It is almost as much our fault for acting like sex-craved horn-dogs as it is the girls' fault for giving in and rewarding that kind of weakness. It is a far stronger man that waits to have sex for love then have sex for fun.

Having sex can be fun...but it can be so much more. It can be truly fulfilling and truly gratifying if you wait for the right partner and the right reasons. Having sex is not a way to create love where it doesn't exist, nor is it a way to extend a relationship. Sex is not an avenue to keep a person you care about with you. If you have to go to bed to keep someone, then they obviously do not value you enough. So, don't give in to pressure. That is not love, and that is not healthy.

We have become a free-sex society and it is tragically destroying our world and any semblance of morality. Guys and girls, stop going to bed with people you aren't married to. If you wait until there is a real sense of love and meaning between partners, everything will be so much better.

Ok, I am off the high horse now...but I am still right.

"Love," "Marriage," and "Divorce."

As of this morning, the dream turned nightmare will officially be over. We go before the courts and make official that admittance that, yet again, the words "love" and "marriage" are just catchphrases, and hold little real meaning.

What has happened to the world? Where is the character? Where is the moral values? Where is the strength in spirit? Why have we, as a society and the world at large, allowed the sacred institutions of love and marriage become so trivial?

We stand up with our anti-rainbow rings to shut down lesbians and gays from using the term marriage, pretending in that instance that it still means something. Yet, as a society, people constantly get married and divorced as if we are all trapped in Salem and "Days of Our Lives."
No matter how entertaining and exciting and intriguing it might be to see Bo go from Billy to Hope to Billy to Hope and back again....or see John with Kate, Kate with Roman, John with Marlena, Roman with Marlena, or any of 1,000 combinations...one thing holds true: the constant switching with little to no real thought or emotional attachments is immoral, wrong, and disgraceful. It might be a show, but our society is just like it.

Far too often I hear or see people getting married because they should, because its what they are supposed to do. Instead of finding the person who you want to spend your life with, the goal is to find the person who hangs in the longest and then get hitched. It is few and far between to find a REAL marriage based on REAL love..and that is sad.

When I got married, as quick as it might have been, I got married for the right reasons. I was in love and intended to spend my life making my wife happy and was willing to fight with every ounce of my being to make us work through the hard times. I intended on marrying one person and spending my life loving that one person. Sadly, she had other reasons for getting married, and those reasons are still a painful mystery.

Part of our problem is that we are all programmed to think sex is a major function of EVERY relationship. If you are with a girl 3 weeks and she's not giving in, there MUST be something wrong, right? If a guy resists the temptation, the woman feels its an insult and its because he really isn't attracted to her. If one partner doesn't want to have sex immediately, there MUST be something wrong with the people involved and the relationship itself.

I gave in, sadly, and devalued the gift of sex by participating before marriage. I only gave in for two reasons: I knew in my heart that I was with the woman I was going to marry, and I felt pressured and that my not giving in was hurting her feelings and would hurt our relationship.

Unfortunately, giving in did hurt the relationship and we didn't allow the proper foundation for a relationship to be built. Perhaps because of that she was able to drop me so easily...in her case there was no real foundation because we rushed every part of the relationship and it distorted her views.

That is the biggest problem...most people today don't know how to build a relationship without getting into bed immediately. You can never really love someone if the growth of the relationship depends on sex. That is the root of the problem. Sex is devalued and used as a recreational activity with little to no moral responsibility.

If the gift designed for a husband and wife is devalued, it only stands to reason and logic that the next step would be the crumbling of the meaning of marriage. If you can have sex for free, why go through the rigamarole of building a relationship and a solid marriage?

This blog has probably ranted enough. I just wish that the next time I am able to give someone my heart and marry again, they will share my beliefs. Beliefs that say marriage is sacred, and not a legal agreement that will eventually become an inconvinience because they didn't enter it with the proper beliefs and values.

I hope that those with children, or those still growing themselves, will become examples of this idea. The idea that love and marriage really do mean something and should not be thrown around like the term "lol" in an IM conversation. The idea that divorce should be avoided at ALL costs, and only be a LAST resort, and come about after both parties have given each other the best effort they can.

Happy New Year 2006!

Happy New Year!

Just an idea...this goes out to my women friends. Please tell two of your friends, and tell them to tell two more and so on.

Stop letting yourselves be cheapened.

Stop letting yourself be convinced that you have to look slutty and or act slutty to get a man's attention or to get somewhere in life. Stop encouraging my fellow menfolk to think from their zippers by giving in to their childish demands.

Stop being so forgiving of men for cheating. Cheating is the ultimate hurt and insult. Forgiving is just slightly different than encouraging. Forgiving a cheater gives them control...gives them the power to cheat more often because they know they have you around their finger.

Stop acting like the women on TV. Women, like us males, have so few positive role models. The only time a woman should let a man into her bed on the first date is if that first date didn't come until after they fell in love and were married.

I am not trying to be holier-than-thou. I am not trying to insult or berate or come down on. It is merely an idea I propose. I did, in fact, lose a friend of three years over a difference in ideas over the summer...so I know how overreacted people can get. But I hope you can take this in the spirit in which it is intended.

Happy New Year! May God bless your 2006.

Publicly and Judicially Endorsed MURDER!

March 30, 2005-- Terri Schiavo's Death Sentence

Everyone is talking about it, so let me join the crowd. (Which is something I usually try not to do, hence I have never seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, read or watched Harry Potter, or cheered for the New York Yankees...hate bandwagons.)

First, I want to send my condolences to anyone who knows Terri and is suffering as a result of her long murder. Her situation is a tragic one that we must all learn from and prevent from happening again.

Now, to the many issues at hand within this case.

Unfortunately, many people have forgotten one simple concept in this case: Terry Schiavo is a human being...a woman...a life...someone with a beating heart...working organs...a human. Too many judges and too many others in power, and too many others throughout the world, have forgotten this simple fact. Why is this concept hard to grasp? Or, do the people who fight for the "end of this case" need to forget that simple fact so they can live guilt free when she does succumb to the murder? Is it easier to think of her as a "case" and not a human? Is that how one can eat dinner with their own family...their own daughters...by neglecting to remember the fact that Terri is a person?

After that sad fact, we have to consider why we are here today? Why is there such a rush to yank her feeding tube out and let her starve? Pope John Paul II is receiving a feeding tube as we speak...why not yank it out? Yes, there have been 19 judges in 11 courts who have "looked at" this case over the past seven years. However, only once, seven years ago, has this case been thoroughly examined. ONCE. Since then, Terri Schiavo's desperate parents have been fighting to keep her alive and try to get her the necessary rehab to bring her back to a higher standard of living. Then, once the feeding tube was removed nearly two weeks ago, the US Congress fought to pass a law to allow the federal courts to open the files, testimonies, and hold a "di novo" review...a complete, thorough, head to toe look at everything in and around Terri Schiavo's case.
What did Judge George Greer and his colleagues do? Thumb their nose at the US Congress and the President of the United States by taking less than 13 hours from the passing of the law to write a rejection of the review. Greer forgot that TERRI IS A HUMAN BEING.

Terri's parents, siblings, and family counselors have been joined by Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and even Jesse Jackson, in the fight. Governor Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush have fought hard within the law to help Terri Schiavo. However, an out-of-control judiciary has taken over the nation...and the liberal media and liberal leadership over the past 50 years has allowed and fought to allow this. The judiciary, legislative, and executive branches are supposed to be of SEPARATE BUT EQUAL powers...not the legislative and executive branches bowing before the mighty gavel and robe. Perhaps this is lesson one from Terri Schiavo.

Perhaps this is agenda item number one for America to fix once we recover from this situation.

For me, there are two very, very scary ideas that are coming out of this situation. First, the most heart-wrenching and sickening thought is that Terri Schiavo is NOT in a Permanent Vegetative State, a claim made by an accomplished neurologist and several nurses who have been treated Terri, and instead there is a woman, fully aware, trapped in a failing body as she starves to death. I am worried that because of the denied rehab that could have brought Terri back to a more prominent level of consciousness, she is mentally locked in a prison within her body. Can you imagine how scary that would be? How overwhelming that could be? To be trapped in that situation with a husband fighting to kill you off once and for all? To see your family weeping and praying at your bedside, the whole time you are fighting to tell you mom, "I love you, don't worry mom."? We do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that she isn't in pain...that she isn't suffering...that she isn't fully aware of what is being done to her. We do not know. That is what Congress and the President wanted to accomplish on Palm Sunday: find out for sure before she is killed.

Now you might be one of those who whines that Congress and President Bush overstepped their bounds...they should not have gotten involved in this case because the federal government does not belong mettling in personal, private, state affairs. I believe that the involvement of Washington was because Bush and the Republicans saw the big picture...they saw the second thing that scares me about this sad situation...they saw the looming question that could haunt and destroy our country in the years to come. That dark question that none of the judges nor anyone else who is on the death-to-Terri side will, or can, answer is: Where does it stop?

Where does it stop?

If we allow Terri Schiavo to die like this, where will this type of medical "treatment" be stopped? Where and when will the limits be drawn? If we can take the word of an adulterous husband as proof positive of a wish to die, what kind of a Pandora's box is now open?

Perhaps this can open up a way to fix social security. Perhaps we can start killing off seniors who are in less-than-conscious states by cutting them off from food and hydration. Perhaps we can starve children with down syndrome? Where will it stop? Yes I am predicting a slippery slope, and you might scoff now. But, in 20 years, where will the murder of Terri Schiavo put us as a society?

Based on this case, someone who has serious Alzheimer's can be euthanized because they once said they wouldn't want to live that way. A mentally retarded individual can be euthanized because a legal guardian decides it is what is best. A severely mangled car accident victim can be killed because they would not want to live with the scars and injuries...according to a guardian.

Based on this case, a spouse with an obvious conflict of interest (i.e. a new common-law wife and two kids) can determine your medical treatment and decide to have you euthanized.

We are headed in a wrong direction. Terri Schiavo is not the first, and, unfortunately, won't be the last. However, her situation is the most crucial because it has become so well known. It is in the public forum, and we, as a society need to make some serious decisions. We do...and not heartless, humanless judges hiding behind a gavel and a bench.

There is so much more to this situation....too much. A woman is dying because her husband wants her to. She has not gone through the rehab she needs to see if she can recover. Her husband has left her to rot in her body and now wants her gone so he can continue his adulterous relationship. And, with her death, she will immediately be cremated and her ashes taken to Pennsylvania...just one more slap in the face and dagger to the heart of her family. Also, and more vile, the cremation will prevent anyone from knowing for sure how Terri fell into her condition...perhaps because Michael Schiavo has something to hide.