LIFE, DEATH, ABORTION, SCARFACE AND HAMLET

AN ESSAY

I grew up in a ferociously pro-choice household. From my earliest memory, my mother told me that abortion was a woman's right. It was her choice to decide what to do with her body. Those ideas filtered into my mind. I never thought much about it. I never thought abortion amounted to murder. In fact, I remember my mother used to say: "It's nothing but a clump of cells. It's not even a person. You're not hurting anyone when you pull it out of there."

I was satisfied with her explanation. It passed my empirical scrutiny. After all, I had no memory about my own life before I was three years old, let alone memory about my time in the womb. I recalled no pain from that time. In that light, I perceived no moral problem in terminating a pregnancy: It just didn't hurt anyone.

I could not identify with a fetus; I may have once been a fetus, but if someone had rooted me out before I was born, I would not have known the better. There seemed to be no suffering in abortion. I had no problem with it.

When I was a little older, my mother told me that she had had an abortion three years after I was born. That made me understand why she so fiercely advocated abortion rights: She had needed an abortion and she got one. She told me she could not have supported another child. I completely agreed with her. I did not want another sibling, either. I liked my mother's undivided attention. So we both had some self-interest in our beliefs about abortion. I never regretted the idea that I "may have lost a brother or sister." I supported my mother's decision. In fact, I fully endorsed her main argument: That no one has a right to tell a woman what she should do with her own body.

I carried these beliefs with me to law school. They informed my understanding about the Constitution. I read Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as if I already knew what it said. In essence, Roe held that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy at any time before "viability." It reaffirmed my own belief that the State has no right to interfere with a woman's reproductive choices because we all have a right to "privacy" in our bodies.

But there were people in my class who strongly disagreed with Roe. They thought that abortion was a crime. They thought that there was such a thing as "potential life," and that the State had a right to protect "lives that did not yet exist." My own values clashed with that argument. I had always believed--thanks to my mother's explanations and my own empirical conclusions--that fetuses were not people. They were just "clumps of cells." I did not consider them "alive." And even if they represented "potential life," that concept was far too nebulous for me to defend.

Still, many people vociferously believe the opposite. In fact, there are probably some people out there who would kill me for my belief that abortion is acceptable in virtually every circumstance.

In recent years, I have been obsessed with death. When my father died suddenly in 2006, it forced me to reevaluate every assumption I had about life. I pondered life's meaning, its "rewards" and its expectations. After all, I saw that life can end without warning. And all the things that we learn to expect from life can evaporate in an instant. We are all just going to die--in fact, we might even die tomorrow--so why stress out about little things, like careers and money? What do they gain us in the end? Why waste time on them? Why waste a single day on something unappetizing? If all we have are our bodies, why torture ourselves doing things we would rather not do?

I developed a contempt for life. I am still quite contemptuous about it. What does life really have to offer, anyway? Food? Sleep? Orgasms? Comforts? Feather beds? Money? Joys? Is this everything? Are we mere slaves to our senses until the day our senses cease functioning? What difference will food and orgasms make once we die? None, none, none. In fact, those are only the good sensory things that can happen to us in life. More often, life inflicts unbelievable sensory suffering on us. We endure physical pain and emotional turmoil. We endure heartache, delay, disappointment, rejection, boredom, stress, betrayal, mockery, abuse and frustration. The bad moments usually far outnumber the good ones. Then we die. Taken as a whole, then, life is a losing proposition.

That's not to say that I do not sometimes like living. It feels good to eat, sleep, have sex, talk with friends, love people, be loved, sit in a comfortable chair, listen to music and read books. I like being alive in those moments. But is this all there is? And do I have to endure all the bad stuff for these few good moments?

Many others have come to these same sad conclusions about human life. In Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), drug kingpin Tony Montana achieves the height of earthly success. He has a beautiful wife. He has untold riches. He has a huge villa in Florida. He has a massive hot tub. He throws mammoth parties. He wants for nothing. Yet after an argument at an expensive restaurant one night, he turns to his best friend and despondently says: "Is this it? Is this what it's all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, fucking, sucking, snorting, then what? You're 50 with a bag for a belly."

Tony Montana developed a contempt for life. He did not care about what it had to offer, even though he had it all. And he did not mind dying after he saw how little life really matters.

Shakespeare's Hamlet thought the same thing. In several scenes, Hamlet rues the crude banality of human existence. Like Tony Montana, he says: "What is a man,/ If his chief good and market of his time/ Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." Hamlet, Act IV, sc. iv, l. 31-33. Hamlet understands--as I do--that life's so-called "good things" add up to little more than "[b]estial oblivion." Act IV, sc. iv, l. 38. In fact, Hamlet grows so disenchanted with life's petty potential rewards that he prefers death to living: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixt his/ Canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!/ How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!/ Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in/ nature/ Possess it merely." Act I, sc. ii, l. 129-138. Later, he dismisses the world as "no/ other thing [] than a foul and pestilent/ congregation of vapors." Act II, sc. ii, l. 308-309. And he dismisses man, too: "What piece of work is/ man!...what is/ this quintessence of dust?" Act II, sc. ii, l. 309-310, 314-315.

Is this what it's all about, Manny? A "quintessence of dust?" "Bestial oblivion?" An existence "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable?" "An unweeded garden that grows to seed?" "A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors?" Taken in the abstract, Hamlet is dead on. Life pretty much sucks. And even the good stuff is a pretty poor palliative for the endless difficulties it inflicts upon us.

I am permissive toward abortion because I really could care less whether another person enters this brutal world. After all, earthly life offers little more than "bestial oblivion," anyway, so why should I care whether some new beast gets to eat, sleep or feed? It just doesn't matter to me. If a woman chooses to end her pregnancy, good for her: She's saving the little tyke a whole lot of trouble.

But what about abortion opponents? They must have different expectations from life than I do. They must not really ponder human existence. They must genuinely like what life has to offer. They must really like eating, sleeping, fucking, sucking and snorting, even if they wind up with bags for bellies. After all, they are willing to kill doctors in order to defend potential life. Let me say that again: Potential life. They like life so much that they are willing to commit murder so that a clump of cells may one day eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are committed not just to an existing person's right to eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are also committed to a non-existent person's right to do so. Now that shows real dedication to earthly life. It's a dedication I certainly do not share. To each his own, I suppose.

In my experience, life is no bowl of cherries. It is hard. It is full of misery and pain. When we do enjoy good moments, they are precious. But how rare they are! And viewed in the abstract, how petty! Is this why we're alive, then? To undergo endless difficulty punctuated by a few slender moments of bestial joy? We cling to life like any other mammal. We fear death because we do not know what awaits us. So, as Hamlet says, we "bear those ills we have/ [rather] than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i. l. 83-84.

We are the only ones who can create meaning in our lives. Hamlet found meaning by finding a purpose: Taking revenge for his murdered father. He did not seek mere "bestial oblivion" or "worldly comfort." He impressed his soul on his existence to transcend his "mortal coil." His life took on greater significance. And fittingly, he died in the process.

I have not died yet. I know that life does not offer much. Yet I try to do what Hamlet did. I am trying to live for something greater than bestial oblivion. I like bestial oblivion as much as the next man (beast). But my real joy flows from the idea that I am doing something beyond the flesh: Writing. I had to find something to make this maddening journey bearable. It was my choice.

Even then, I do not hold my own life in high esteem. On the whole, life is more trouble than it's worth. Only instinctual self-preservation holds me in check.

So from my view, so what if a woman gets an abortion? I have no philosophical problem with any activity that saves another from this harrowing sphere of pain.

IF YOU RUN FOR SENATE, I DEMAND IMPECCABLE GRAMMAR FROM YOU : THE SENATE IS NO ARISTOCRACY

AN ESSAY

New York prepares for an extremely nasty Senate race. For the second time in a decade, an out-of-Stater has taken residence in New York in order to run for Federal office. Eleven years ago, Illinois-born Arkansasan Hillary Clinton bought a house in Westchester County so she could run for Senate. Now, Tennessee native Harold Ford, Jr. has moved to Manhattan in order to battle Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand for her Senate seat.

Technically, there is nothing wrong with out-of-State people moving to New York to run for Senate. It's not like everyone can run for Senate. After all, the American constitutional system is no democracy; as a practical matter, you need to be "part of the club" to run for Senate--the most hallowed clique in the United States. You can't be a plumber from Queens to run for Senate. You can't be a drug dealer or even a university professor with modest savings. No, you need to be in the political elite. You don't need to be an "elite person" from an ethical or moral perspective. You just need to be bred for the job. Generally, that means coming from an extremely wealthy, well-connected family. That's what "elite" means in American political discourse.

Harold Ford meets the criteria. He comes from money. He has served five terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Tennessee delegate. He has sufficient political and economic connections to qualify for Senate membership. In essence, he is "elite." He has the backing and pedigree to join the club.

But unlike Hillary Clinton, Harold Ford's political philosophy does not find an easy home in New York. New York is a famously liberal State. That is why few people had a problem with Hillary Clinton when she waltzed into Westchester to run for Senate. Her political views matched most New Yorkers' views. They elected her by a wide majority, even though some Republicans squawked about "carpetbagging." They thought New York offices should be for New Yorkers, not transplanted former First Ladies from Arkansas.

Harold Ford votes like a southern Republican. New Yorkers like to think that they are nothing like southern Republicans. Yet the same Republicans who complained about Hillary Clinton "carpetbagging" to New York in 2000 now say nothing about Mr. Tennessee.

Who is Harold Ford? New Yorkers should ask that question. They did not have to ask the same question about Hillary Clinton. She was a household name long before her election to the Senate. Everyone knew where she stood on major political issues. Most New Yorkers liked her long before she moved to New York. But what about Ford? Most New Yorkers know nothing about him. He's not even 40. He served ten years in the House. What's so special about that? Unlike Hillary Clinton, he is nothing close to an internationally-recognized celebrity politician.

Ford wrote a brief article yesterday in the New York Post to inform New Yorkers about his candidacy for the Senate. He struggled to deflect early Democratic criticism that he is a "right-wing nut" who opposes abortion and gun control. After all, according to the critics, New Yorkers strongly support both abortion rights and gun control; it would be anomalous if their Senator opposed these things.

I do not know what to think about Ford. I can only speculate based on experience and intuition. Applying my experience, I can say that most representatives from Tennessee would not have their jobs if they supported abortion rights or gun control. Folks from Tennessee don't care much for abortion, and they certainly don't tolerate no Yankees taking away their guns for no thang, no how. Despite Ford's contention that he supports both abortion rights and gun control, I have trouble believing that he could have won five terms in Tennessee with that position. I mean no disrespect to Tennessee when I say that the State is not known for its grand liberalism. That reputation informs my intuition about any politician who serves there.

I know the Civil War has been over for a long time. But former Confederate States are still former Confederate States. Some things survive the generations. Just talk to a drunk Southerner to find out what I mean.

Ford wrote in his article: "I am pro-choice--have always been since I entered politics almost 15 years ago." N.Y. Post, Ford: I'm gearing up for Senate race, Jan. 12, 2010 at 5. But immediately below his article, another blurb disclosed that in 2006 he said to MSNBC's Tucker Carlson: "I'm pro-life, Tucker…I don't run from that." N.Y. Post, Obama elects to stick with Gillibrand, Jan. 12, 2010 at 5.

In lawyer-talk, this is called "impeachment." You're the jury. You decide which statement you want to believe.

No matter what Harold Ford actually thinks about political issues, I insist that he write clear, grammatical English. If someone wants to join America's most elite legislative club, he or she had better know how to write well. Unfortunately, Ford's article reveals that he does not.

First, Ford does not grasp the magical rhetorical art of the semicolon. On terrorism, he says: "Defeating terror isn't a talking point in New York, (sic) it's a way of life." N.Y. Post, Ford: I'm gearing up for Senate Race, Jan. 12, 2010 at 5. Whenever two sentences can stand on their own and they depend on each other for rhetorical effect, commas do not suffice to connect them. Only a semicolon can achieve the desired impact. First-year law students learn this very quickly under pain of academic chastisement. Ford apparently never learned his grammar lesson. He proves it in the next paragraph when he writes: "Rebuilding an economy isn't an item on an issue checklist, (sic) it is what New York does--and must do." Id.

Oops. Same boo boo. Aren't Senators supposed to be rhetorical wizards? This guy doesn't even get his grammar right.

But Ford's grammatical woes do not end with semicolons. He also has a problem with run-on sentences. Try this one on for size: "And New Yorkers want an honest and serious debate about how to grow our economy, create new jobs downstate and upstate and keep New York state (sic) and our country safe." Id.

Whew! Talk about trying to cram too many ideas into a single breath. Let's try to unpack this linguistic crate: Ford thinks that New Yorkers want honest debate about the economy, jobs and safety. He also thinks they want serious debate on the same subjects. He further thinks New Yorkers want both "honest and serious" debate about those issues from an upstate/downstate perspective, not to mention a State/Federal perspective. That 's a lot of debate from a lot of perspectives. It took me a good four sentences to mention all the ideas he squeezed into one. Needless to say, you can't effectively communicate so many things in one line. Multiple adjectives and conjunctions do not make the reader's job any easier.

Some will inevitably label me petty for criticizing Ford's grammar. After all, we all make grammatical blunders from time to time. But I respond that anyone who wants to be a United States Senator must adhere to a higher linguistic standard. I could forgive a college freshman's incessant run-ons and semicolon misuse. But I can't forgive the same foibles in a man who wants to join America's most elite legislative club.

On the other hand, perhaps I demand too much. Ford fits the bill for membership in the Senate. He's wealthy, he comes from a political family, he has connections and he has powerful friends. He comes from the right social class to get in the door. Sadly, that's all you really need to hold high office in the United States. If you happen to be intelligent and eloquent, that's great; but it's not required. In this sense, we see once again that America is neither a democracy nor an aristocracy.

In the original constitutional understanding, the Senate was supposed to be America's "aristocrats' club." It was supposed to comprise the "excellent" people from across the land. Yet as Ford's case shows, Senators need not be intellectually "excellent." They need only fit the property and pedigree requirements for membership. Quality is irrelevant.

I wish quality were more relevant in American government. The word "aristocracy" has a dirty meaning in American discourse because Americans allegedly believe that everyone is equal. They also associate "aristocracy" with the arrogant British nobility that led the colonies to revolt from England.

But in the Aristotelean sense, it is no insult to call someone an "aristocrat." To the contrary, it is the best thing a politician can be. A true "aristocrat" is a person with naturally excellent moral, intellectual and ethical characteristics. Aristocracy implies inequality; not everyone can be "excellent." Yet this is not a bad thing, because it is only prudent that "naturally excellent, unselfish" people rule the State.

Ford's case shows that American Senators are not aristocrats. They are oligarchs. Oligarchy means rule by a few, irrespective of personal excellence. To be a Senator, you don't need to be excellent. You just need to be part of the "few" who are eligible for the job. In that sense, it is incorrect to call Senators "aristocrats." If they were truly aristocrats, there would never be any scandal, corruption or acrimony in the Senate. But a quick glance at congressional history reveals that scandal is the rule, not the exception.

Instead, we have an oligarchy. Oligarchs don't need to be excellent. Far from it: They don't even need to know how to use semicolons.

WHOM WOULD YOU RATHER KILL? A MAN OR A DOG?

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

We learn from earliest childhood that "killing is bad." We have a natural moral sense that ending lives is generally not a good (and certainly not a nice) thing to do. Along the same lines, we learn that "life is valuable." We especially learn this when it comes to human lives. Animal lives are, well, not as valuable.

Some people genuinely take these lessons to heart. Abortion opponents, for instance, say that "all potential life is valuable." That means that not just full-grown adults do not deserve to die, but also tiny cell clusters that might one day develop into fetuses. Some even think that any potential life is valuable. But this reaches into absurdity. After all, every ejaculation and ovulation cycle represents "potential life." Surely it is neither sin nor murder to have a period or to ejaculate without an intention to procreate.

But all "life rhetoric" is vexingly biased. After all, who speaks up for non-human life? All cellular organisms are "alive." They all "die" when their necessary cellular functions cease. Is it somehow distressing, then, when a cow dies? How about a cockroach? Or a tree? These things are all "life." Yet no one marches to stop "tree murder," and no one wails when a raccoon dies in the wilderness. Put simply, when people say they "believe in life," they really mean that they believe in "human life." After all, people have an interest in staying alive. From a biological perspective, no living creature wants to die. A few people, of course, want to kill themselves. In the aggregate, however, most living humans want to stay alive.

Despite all this, even those who feverishly "defend human life" are not absolutists. Even people who fight tooth and nail to defend the unborn--or lament wasted sperm--have exceptions to their rule. After all, many people think that some human life is not worth preserving. When a man "deserves" to die, even the staunchest life defenders do not intervene to save him. I always found it amusing that most abortion defenders support capital punishment. I find it even more amusing that some particularly fiery abortion defenders murder doctors in order to prevent abortions. How's that for a problematic principle? All life is precious; but some people deserve to be killed. It's enough to boggle one's mind--or even laugh, if it weren't so serious.

Perhaps it is not so surprising after all. In fact, I venture that most people actually have little problem killing their fellow man. In fact, I think most people would have an easier time killing a man than a "lesser life form," like a dog or a deer. Despite all the things we learn about killing others, I think most people just need to be pushed far enough in order to kill another human being. And not just kill--gleefully kill.

And that's the difference: Men must be pushed to kill another person. Only human beings have the capacity to taunt, insult, degrade, abuse and denigrate their fellows. They can cause untold misery to one another, both physically and psychologically. The urge to kill builds in proportion to the misery a person endures at another's hands. Sometimes it does not even take that much to push a person over the edge. Think about road rage killings and drunken barroom squabbles. Men exchange words. Their emotions fly off the handle. Next thing you know, someone is dead. In other cases, a person suffers chronic abuse and finally snaps. Consider the beaten wife who just can't take it any more and slits her husband's throat while he sleeps.

In short, people kill each other for comparatively little. Maybe life is not that sacred after all.

But the same people who gladly kill their fellow man might have trouble killing a puppy dog. After all, people who kill over abuse or petty arguments do so because humans have a unique ability to arouse enmity in one another. In the moment before a man stabs a rival who insulted his girlfriend, he thinks: "I'm gonna kill this fucking asshole." In other words, the human capacity for intent leads men to kill each other. It even makes killing easy in the right circumstances.

Not so with a dog. Why would anyone want to kill an innocent little puppy? Everyone knows that a puppy can't cause any harm. It can't lie, deceive, insult, connive, abuse, beat, torture or tyrannize. It can do none of the things that arouse homicidal rage in human beings. If it came between an innocent puppy dog and a hated tormentor who slaps and insults you all day for weeks on end, I don't think I'm stretching to suggest that most people would much rather kill the man than the dog.

In a word, it is facetious to claim that "all human life is sacred." Our own behavior proves us wrong when we do. The truth is that human beings drive us crazy from time to time. They drive us so crazy, in fact, that we become all too willing to kill them if the circumstances impel us. Only humans have the capacity to arouse such furious, homicidal rages. Puppies have no such capacity. That is why-- if given the choice--I think most people would rather kill a detested, tyrannical person than an innocent dog.

STOP SOTOMAYOR : SHE DOES THINGS THAT YOU CAN SCARCELY IMAGINE

A MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE

By : Mr. John Cornyn III (R-TX), United States Senator; Member, Judiciary Committee; Former Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court; Member, Texans’ Alliance for Strong Borders and Marksmanship; Chairman, Lone Star Lethal Injection Fan Club, Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter; 1998 Champion Rifleman, “El Adios” Wetback Target Practice Gun Club; Believer in Christian Forgiveness (with qualifications).

Under our Constitution, the United States Senate has the power to confirm “Judges of the supreme court” following our “advice and consent.” See. U.S. Const. Art II, § 2, cl. 2. That means we have the power to interview the President’s nominees to the Supreme Court in order to determine whether they will protect our Constitution and the American people. Today, the United States Senate must decide whether Sonia Sotomayor has the requisite character and intellect to serve on the world’s most influential court. We must provide “advice and consent.” We face a serious task.

For two days now, Judge Sotomayor has given testimony concerning her abilities as a jurist. So far, she has entertained friendly questions from Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee. She has carefully refused to answer questions concerning her personal views about the Constitution, liberty, freedom and justice in America. She says she “respects the rule of law” and does not allow her “personal feelings” to interfere with her “legal judgment.” On the record, she puts on a good show. From her public testimony, it appears that she is thoughtful, circumspect, judicious and calm. If we had only her public testimony to evaluate, there would be no reason to say that she is not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice.

But this “performance” is sheer theater. Judge Sotomayor is no detached legal technician like Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Thomas. She is a maniacal lesbian Puerto Rican communist determined to sabotage the United States with Latin perversion. Although several of my Republican colleagues on the Judiciary Committee have reminded the world that Judge Sotomayor belonged to the “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund,” no one really seems to notice how dangerous this is. The “Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund” does not just pay lawyers to argue cases involving Puerto Ricans. It practiced—and continues to practice—voodoo. Its members, including Judge Sotomayor, take part in pagan Caribbean rituals to the grass goddess La Mama del Verde Eternal, during which they burn pungent incense, curse “gringos” and chant prayers to make “Boricuan” the official language of the United States. In short, Judge Sotomayor is deceiving the American people. She is no judge; she is a Puerto Rican radical communist witch doctor with plans to wage war on every white English speaker in America.

I am determined to set the record straight on Judge Sotomayor. I refuse to listen to her song and dance any longer. I know a Puerto Rican woman when I see one, and there is a Puerto Rican woman sitting before me in the halls of the United States Senate, not a federal judge. I am duty-bound to tell the American people that there is much more to Judge Sotomayor than meets the eye. Put simply, she does things that you can scarcely imagine. If I do not tell the world about this Latina viper, she will slither into the Supreme Court to permanently taint our constitutional order. Unless I speak, every American will soon be forced to sing salsa songs and drink mango juice every morning. As an American and a Texan, I refuse to condemn this country to lesbian Puerto Rican terror.

We should have known from the outset that Judge Sotomayor was not what she said she was. Although we could not locate many public statements revealing just how dangerous she could be, we did find a speech in which she called herself a “wise Latina” who could answer some questions better than a comparable “white male.” That should have immediately raised red flags. If George W. Bush were still leading this failing Republic, Judge Sotomayor would have faced impeachment, not elevation to the Supreme Court. But we live in perplexing times. How can we possibly revere a judge who claims that Hispanic women are “wiser” than white men? This is a proposition too outrageous to entertain. To be fair, perhaps Judge Sotomayor meant that “wise Latinas” could be wiser only on certain matters, such as the best place to watch the Puerto Rican Day Parade or how best to translate Spanish phrases, such as: “Ay papi!” After all, there is no way Latinas can be wise when it comes to deciding a securities fraud suit. They don’t even know what a security is. And how can I elevate someone to the Supreme Court if they don’t know that?

But this is not just about legal knowledge. This is about character. I am informed that Judge Sotomayor does unimaginable things. She is not the hard-working, careful jurist she leads us to believe. No, she is a monstrous racist devil-worshipper who dresses as a banana in her private chambers. She castigates white men in Spanish, calling them “pedejos,” “maricons,” “cabezas de vaca,” “coños” or worse. She carries on lesbian affairs with married women in nursing homes. She eats mice, broils frogs and casts Puerto Rican voodoo spells on white litigants before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She has lived at over 56 addresses throughout New York City since 2001. She has robbed banks while dressed in a Puerto Rican flag shawl. She drives a small Toyota automobile and blasts obnoxious Caribbean music through an expensive, bass-heavy stereo purchased with money filched from the Federal Judicial Fund. This is not the conduct of a prudent jurist. This is not even the conduct of a “wise Latina.” To the contrary, this is the conduct of a hateful racist criminal communist lesbian gypsy vagabond who is determined to undermine American society as we know it. We must stop her from wiping her culo with the Constitution before it is too late.

Judge Sotomayor’s jurisprudence is just as radical as her lifestyle. Although she would have us believe that she takes an “incremental” approach to deciding cases, I know better. So far in her confirmation hearings, she has refused to disclose her beliefs on abortion, choosing instead to say that Roe v. Wade is “settled law” before praising the importance of stare decisis to “careful judging.” But I know the truth. I know that Sotomayor hates children and belongs to the International Latin Fetal Roasting Society (ILFRS). That organization promotes the public disembowelment of pregnant white women, then the ritual boiling of unborn children in a skull-shaped cauldron—all conducted in the Spanish language. She not only supports abortion, but she verifiably boils children—then eats them. How can we defend children in America with an avowed child-eater on the Supreme Court? If we confirm Sonia Sotomayor, we risk enshrining child-eating as a constitutionally-protected right. Put simply, Judge Sotomayor doesn’t fool me when she says she will “carefully consider” abortion regulations. I know she secretly yearns to throw screaming white children into a boiling cauldron, then greedily devour them like scalloped potatoes. This should give us all pause before confirming her as our next Supreme Court justice. Liberal constitutional interpretation is one thing. Eating children is quite another.

But all these personal and intellectual flaws pale in comparison to Judge Sotomayor’s intention to interpret the Constitution in a “ compassionate, humanitarian manner.” In speech after speech and opinion after opinion, she has said that the Constitution should protect the weak and powerless. She has issued opinions granting asylum to Africans and faulting city governments for “not hiring more minorities.” She has freed criminals because the police searched them without warrants and she has said that public school students have a “free speech right” to mock their principals. She is prepared to open our borders to every foreign ruffian who shows up for welfare benefits, and she believes that major corporations should be subject to strict governmental review. In a word, these are dangerous sentiments. If we confirm Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, she will rule for freedom, not precedent. She will rule for justice, not procedure. She will rule for the individual, not the bank. And she will rule for compassion, not commerce.

This is simply unacceptable. Our Constitution does not stand for justice, compassion, freedom or sympathy. Rather, it stands for commerce, procedure, private property and banks. There are ways to interpret the Bill of Rights to protect commerce and banks; Chief Justice Roberts has already shown a marvelous ability to reconcile individual rights with the rights of banks and police investigators. In fact, in my view, a Supreme Court justice proves his worth by skillfully deconstructing dangerous individual rights in order to protect banks and police forces in America. If we protected individual rights too zealously, both government and industry would grind to a halt; every black fellow on the street could bring the police force to its knees simply by saying: “That cop beat me.”

This will not do. Our Constitution is not about sympathy, compassion, humanitarianism or justice. Rather, it is about order, procedure and commerce. Yet Judge Sotomayor threatens to bring sympathy, compassion and justice to the Supreme Court. That would betray the very ideals for which America stands. We must stop this revolutionary lesbian from destroying our country.

We still have time to stop this madness. If America knows the truth about Sonia Sotomayor, they will urge their Senators to vote “no” on her confirmation. At the moment, she is dangerously close to success. Unless we act now, we will promote an inveterate Puerto Rican child-eating communist to our high court. Unless we act now, the police will no longer be able to search people without warrants. Unless we act now, we will be forced to hold dinner parties at state expense for convicted Muslim terrorists. These are Sotomayor’s plans. We cannot allow her to bring her witchcraft to the heart of American government. We cannot allow her to hoodwink us with her calm, collected public demeanor. This is no detached jurist. This is an activist Puerto Rican voodoo dyke from hell who would rather castrate a white male this afternoon than have lunch with her immigrant mother.

For the sake of our Republic and our Constitution, we cannot allow Sonia Sotomayor to bring justice, fairness or “humanity” to the Supreme Court.

THE PROCREATION PROBLEM : WHO WANTS KIDS AND WHY?

AN ESSAY

Last week, a friend told me an amusing story. He told me that a woman sued a man for battery after he put horseradish sauce in a used condom to determine whether the woman was “using” his sperm without his consent after they had “protected” sex. Sure enough, the couple had sex and the man threw the condom in the bathroom trashcan. Then he put horseradish sauce in it while she was in a different room. He went back into the kitchen. She went into the bathroom, and a few moments later the man heard a bloodcurdling scream. The woman irritated herself with the horseradish sauce; she did not suffer permanent injury. The relationship did.

This all might sound funny. But it raises some interesting issues about men, women and procreation. In vitro fertilization aside, men and women need to have sex with each other to reproduce the species. That, in turn, implicates monumental emotional problems, because men and women view sex in very different ways. In the horseradish story, for example, there was tension between the man and the woman because the woman was in her 30s and said she wanted to start a family. To use a cliché, her “clock was ticking.” The man, by contrast, said he just wanted to have sex. He didn’t want to be a father or alter his lifestyle to care for a child. More cynically, he also did not want to pay child support and compromise his income. This difference in opinion led to mutual mistrust between the two parties, which ultimately culminated in the woman’s duplicity and the man’s mean-spirited trick. Men and women do not see sex in the same way. And amid all this suspicion, children usually are a consequence to be either feared or exploited, not a gift to be treasured.

Several male commentators asserted that the horseradish story proved women are “natural gold-diggers.” That assertion assumes that women only want to procreate because it entitles them to a paternity check. It does not acknowledge the fact that women may have deep spiritual and emotional reasons for wanting to have children. Nonetheless, these commentators marshaled some evidence to support their conclusion that women “just want to make a profit” from “unauthorized procreation.” Specifically, they pointed to recent “legal warnings” issued to NBA stars “to guard their used condoms” and always to “assume that women want to get pregnant for money.” In a less extreme example, they also pointed to the right-wing-proverbial “welfare mother” who just wants to mass produce living children in order to maximize her individual benefit check.

As superficially convincing as this “evidence” may be, I am hesitant to label all women inveterate gold-diggers. I have no doubt that some unscrupulous women are willing to bear the pain of childbirth and the difficulty of motherhood in order to get a check. But there are unscrupulous men, too. Women do not have a monopoly on duplicity and deception. In this sense, these modern “male as victim” arguments are at best self-righteous and at worst hypocritical. Historically speaking, men have always enjoyed superior power over women. As recently as the 19th Century, for instance, women faced “petty treason” conviction (and burning at the stake) for killing their husbands, while men only faced “murder” prosecution (and hanging) for killing their wives. In virtually every way, the common law regarded the woman as the husband’s “property” and, as such, the husband had “exclusive rights to use it.” At common law, a husband could not legally “rape” his wife, even if the sexual intercourse was nonconsensual (“Rape be the carnal knowledge of a woman, not the perpetrator’s wife, against her will”)(common law rule, emphasis added). Women could not vote or serve in official positions (unless they were monarchs). They were barred from traditional employment. They depended on men for income and inheritance. At the same time, men had virtually free rein to “discipline their wives;” husbands’ domestic brutality toward their wives rarely troubled the law or society. In short, women have not been roughly “equal” to men until relatively recent times. And for centuries, men could freely tyrannize women without the slightest consequence. To that extent, I find these modern “male as victim” arguments strangely pathetic.

When it comes to procreation, why do men consider themselves victims? Obviously they do not like the law’s approach to child support. For better or worse, the law throws the financial risk of sexual activity on the male. It does not matter whether the male employed measures intended to prevent pregnancy; if the condom breaks, he is the “father” and he owes child support payments. He might consider this unjust, but society has decided—through legislation—that men must pay to help raise their children, whether they wanted them or not. This indirectly benefits women, since a wealthier father must pay more money to support the child. But in the abstract, child support laws are not intended to provide a windfall to women. Nor are they intended to express moral contempt for irresponsible men, no matter what the talk shows say. Rather, child support laws are intended to promote procreation and to protect children. The fact that they breed mutual suspicion and enmity between men and women does not alter their social purpose.

We have seen that men and women think about procreation in very different ways. But child support laws reveal that society and government see procreation in yet another way—a demographic way. For law and government, procreation is not about emotion, love or even suspicion; it is about numbers. Specifically, the law vigorously promotes procreation. After all, the law would not force unwilling fathers to pay money to support unwanted children if it did not have a policy preference for births. The law could care less about a woman’s comfort; the law merely wants women to give birth. More births mean more citizens. And more citizens mean more workers. More workers mean a bigger economy in the future, and a bigger economy means more taxes and more national power. National strength has everything to do with population. Nations with large populations can produce more than nations with smaller populations. More production means more power and influence. Just look at China. The fact that China has the most people means it has more labor capacity and the best economic potential. These are fundamental government interests—and they depend on procreation. No matter how mechanized a Nation’s economy may be, there is always strength in raw numbers. Nations with flat birthrates will not stay strong forever.

In America, both State and Federal governments employ many subtle methods to further their policy preference for greater procreation. Mandatory child support payments are only one example. More significantly, American governments frown upon abortion and contraception, even though the Federal Constitution technically provides a right to both. Many States, for instance, carefully regulate the circumstances under which citizens may obtain consultation about abortion or birth control. They purposely bias the informational debate to favor procreation over contraception and abortion. They tell women who want abortions that the State will pay for hospital stays and adoption services. They exclude contraception from health plan coverage. And from a historical perspective, American governments criminalized “frauds on procreation,” including homosexual sex and nonprocreative heterosexual practices. From the government’s perspective, every ejaculation should be well spent because it needs more citizens to compete in the global economy. Wasted sexual energy, in other words, represents wasted national potential. This is not a moral question. It is an economic one.

In short, governments in America take a positive stand for “potential life” and “procreation,” even if the woman—or the man—does not want to procreate. After all, America needs more Americans. If America promoted contraception and abortion too much, it would flatten the birthrate and allow China and India to overtake us.

I am not writing satirical scrawl. I am reflecting on genuine geopolitical strategy. Governmental support for procreation has nothing to do with mistrust between men and women, nor does it reflect real compassion for children. Government does not care about children’s emotional lives or spiritual well-being; it simply wants them to be alive and healthy so they can mature into productive citizens. Of course, government takes a risk that every live birth may degenerate into a crack addict, welfare recipient or murderer. But every live birth also represents a chance that the child will become Albert Einstein, Bill Gates or at least a bourgeois with taxable income. Abortion may snuff out future criminals, but it also may snuff out future industrial barons. Government would rather save everyone in order to protect the potential industrial baron. Again, this has nothing to do with caring or compassion. It has merely to do with national strength. Government’s support for procreation over contraception, then, reflects government’s national self-interest, nothing more.

There are two realities at work here. On the micro level, men and women bicker with one another over money and child support. Men want orgasms without financial consequence; women want orgasms, child support payments and the emotional fulfillment of motherhood. On the macro level, government just wants men and women to keep having sex. It does not foist financial obligations on men to morally denounce their ill-advised (or even unlucky) sexual practices. Rather, it foists financial obligations on them so that their offspring can develop into productive citizens. Indeed, government may say it prefers that men and women procreate only when married. But from a geopolitical standpoint, this is an inane requirement. Children are children. They all have the potential to later pay taxes, serve in the army and perhaps invent things. Marriage may provide a stable platform for procreation and a child’s emotional well-being, but government just wants births. A child’s emotional well-being is a peripheral concern.

Governments do not exist without people. Procreation is the only way to generate more people. Bearing that in mind, it should not surprise us that government prefers procreation in every circumstance. As obvious as this sounds, however, it is somehow unnerving to think we are just grist for the governmental mill. After all, we were all children once. Although our family lives may all differ in some respects, we all experienced family dynamics. We experienced love in some form. Some of us were more fortunate than others on that score. When we were children, we did not think about our country’s geopolitical fortunes or the State’s goals. Rather, we just wanted to live and experience life because it was new. We knew our families and little else. Yet little did we know that government had very different ideas about our existence. Our concerns and our emotional connections to our families meant nothing. Rather, we were simply “new citizens” with “future potential.” We not only would pay taxes and contribute to the economy, but our future sexual activity might one day result in more taxpayers and workers. Emotion and compassion have nothing to do with these expectations. No: For the government, procreation is about national survival, not the individual mystery of existence. And no matter what private squabbles men and women wage with regard to procreation, they are mere pawns in a much larger chess game.

Procreation is valuable because more people mean more power. Our sex is instrumental in creating power because it creates more people. Government does not want us to waste it. If we did, government would eventually have nothing left to rule.

Women want children for their reasons. Men want children for their reasons. Sometimes neither men nor women want children; they fight about it. But government always wants children. And it wants them for very different reasons than any individual man or woman.

ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, BUT ALL MEN ARE NOT EQUALLY VALUABLE

AN ESSAY

I often write about equality in the United States. From an early age, American children begin to form an idealized understanding about their country. They hear phrases such as “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and “all men are created equal.” They watch television and it appears that every American has equal chances to succeed. There are white doctors, black doctors, Hispanic doctors and Pakistani doctors. They all speak English and it seems that everyone has relatively equal advantages.

But perceptions change with age and experience. One merely must visit a major American city to see that all men are not equal. If they were, then some men would not be driving around in limousines while other men starved in rags on the sidewalk. That is an extreme example, but experience reveals subtle inequalities all around us. When we begin to make money and support ourselves, we see that some people get jobs more easily than others. Others make more money. Still others live in larger homes. Some have little difficulty at work or in relationships, while others struggle to make ends meet. Even two equally intelligent people may face totally unequal circumstances in life. In fact, many advantages in life flow from birth; a rich child will invariably face an easier path in life than a poor one. This does not mean that “rich” is categorically “better” than “poor.” It simply means that some people in our society face fewer problems, and hence stand a greater chance to succeed than others.

I am probably a bit more disillusioned with this country than most Americans. In fact, my experience in life has left me with two general conclusions about equality in the United States: (1) Equality is not the goal; to the contrary, Americans live to become unequal to one another; and (2) Because people truly pursue inequality in the United States, they have created a culture of unfairness that functions under a “pernicious myth” of “equality for all.”

Unfairness and inequality go hand in hand. If one wishes to be better than his rival in the “life game,” one must “win.” It is always easier to win if one can tilt the table in one’s favor. Unfairness helps increase one’s chances of winning. Thus, in a society in which people strive to be unequal to each other, it should not be surprising that unfairness abounds. After all, not everyone can be successful. Successful people want to keep their numbers small. They achieve that goal by making life unfair on everyone else. True, some people manage to overcome the unfair obstacles and join their ranks. But they are few and far between. To illustrate, consider African-Americans in the United States. Statistically, they have a much lower chance to achieve success in America than any other ethnic group. Despite institutionalized unfairness in education, employment and criminal justice, however, some African-Americans become highly successful. P. Diddy is richer and more powerful than almost everyone in the United States. Despite all the odds, he overcame the obstacles and “succeeded.” Still, he is a rare example, especially among blacks. In most cases, unfairness keeps inequality in place.

Why do I say that equality is a “pernicious myth?” It is pernicious because it runs contrary to everything Americans learn as children. In school, we all learn about the Founding Fathers and their quest to make America “a home for liberty” against European oppression. In fact, we learn that Europe represented the “Old World,” in which noblemen were literally “better” than commoners, and where Kings ruled the masses by Divine Right. In a word, we learn to associate Old Europe with birth-based inequality and unfair rule. America, we learn, rebelled against that order and established a representative government committed to human equality and dignity. We do not have noblemen and Kings; we learn that “anyone” can be President, commoner or not. But this is a myth. America may not institutionalize inequality through a caste system or noble titles. Yet only a fool could claim that all Americans are equal, or that all Americans stand an equal chance to gain power. In truth, there are American nobles; they may not have titles, but they are superior to virtually everyone else in American society. Generally speaking, they own the property, they preserve their power across generations by inheritance, and they do not readily allow new members into the club. Equality is a myth because it really does not exist in America. And it is a pernicious myth because we delude our children into thinking that our Nation stands for equality, when the opposite is actually true.

This may all sound like bitter scrawl. But there is substance to my claims. I believe that hypocrisy dominates American life. I say this because there is scarcely a Nation on earth that deviates more drastically from its guiding principles. I mentioned the “pernicious myth” to begin this essay because it provides a framework to understand hypocrisies in American life. Our very principles are a “myth.” The Declaration of Independence is a myth. Equality is a myth, and so is freedom. When we see features of American life that deviate from the principles enshrined in our founding documents, we see hypocrisy. Our Nation embraced hypocrisy from day one by dedicating itself to liberty while defending slavery. Today, I take up another one of our mythical commitments: Human value.

In theory, American principles dictate that all men are created equal. We profess social mobility and equal access to wealth. Our Constitution makes similar guarantees through the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the Supreme Court has emphatically pointed out that constitutional “legal equality” does not mean “precisely equal advantages for every citizen,” San Antonio School Independent School District No. 1 v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), most Americans feel intuitively that they should be equal to each other because that is what we all learned as children. After all, it is hard to be patriotic if we know that we fight to support an unequal social order in which we stand no chance to advance. On the other hand, it is easy to fight for a cause that you believe stands for you. But it is quite another to die for a country that consciously frustrates social mobility. Nonetheless, most Americans believe that the United States stands for equality. Within that principle is another belief: That all men in America are equally valuable.

Human value is an appealing idea. It is not uniquely American. Many Nations believe that every human life is valuable, and that no man is intrinsically “more valuable” than another. In fact, Germany’s Basic Law sets forth in its first Article: “Human value (or “dignity” or “worth”) is inviolable.” Grundgesetz, Art. 1. In America, human value and equality imply one another. People are equal because they are equally valuable. No man’s life is worth more than another’s. Everyone can feel equally valuable in our society, from the meanest beggar to Donald Trump.

Yet precisely here we see that reality shows us to be hypocrites. In “real life,” no one really thinks that a smelly, urine-covered half-mad beggar is “as valuable” as mega-millionaire Donald Trump. In fact, if both men died as a result of negligence, the law would award Donald Trump’s kin far more money in a wrongful death suit than the beggar’s kin would receive. In this sense, the common law voices American values far better than elementary school myths about equality. In the common law, life can be valued. It examines life earning potential, probable life span, job status, property ownership and other factors that suggest a person’s “lifetime economic worth.” It puts a dollar amount on every life, just as a life insurance company does. The law does not fool around with ethereal rhetoric about “equality.” It comes right to the point with cold, hard numbers: “Donald Trump is worth $600,000,000. The beggar is worth $34.12.” Six hundred million is more than $34.12, so Trump is “better” and “more valuable” than the beggar. This may offend our elementary school sensibilities about “American equality.” But our experience in commercial life tells us that it is glaringly true. There are “more valuable people” in our society. If we can tack a larger dollar amount on their backs, they must be worth “more” than people with smaller dollar amounts on their backs.

Several weeks ago, I watched a television program that brought home the “pernicious myth” of equality to me once again. A narrator told the story of a halfwit who ran away from home in Ohio when he was 20. He was poor and black and had spent some time in jail for extremely petty offenses that involved far more stupidity than malice. He had no chances for success at home, so he decided to just drift across the country. His foster parents knew he was not fully sane. He could not even wash his clothes, let alone manage his finances or go to school. He had awful hygiene and could not speak properly. He wound up begging for money in Los Angeles. Most of the time, he haunted a 7-11 Store on Santa Monica Boulevard. He was never pushy; people gave him change from pity. One night, security cameras showed him standing in his usual place outside the 7-11. Then two men approached him. They appeared to be speaking to him. Then one man pulled out a pistol and shot him in the face. After that, the two men left the beggar to die in a pool of blood. A few minutes later, passers-by saw the body and called the police.

Apparently, the shooter was a gang applicant and had to show his mettle by killing someone. Why not kill the most worthless guy in town? No one would really care, right?

I mention this example because it reveals that all men are not equally valuable in the United States. True, the television program called this murder a “senseless killing” that targeted a “poor, defenseless man.” But how many other killings like this happen without media attention? The killers singled this man out because he was the neighborhood beggar. No one cared about him. He was homeless. He was retarded. He was smelly. He was “worthless.” If there was one man in society whom no one would miss, he was the man. This proves to me that no one really believes in “human value” if they do not care about the person at issue. Who really cares about the stinky, insane beggar on Santa Monica Boulevard? If someone shoots him, does anyone cry? Does anyone feel loss? Would a District Attorney waste time pursuing the killers? But wait, isn’t everyone equal in the United States? Doesn’t everyone have “equal worth?” If we truly believed in those principles, this killing would outrage us as much as it would if Donald Trump were killed. But it doesn’t. If Donald Trump were killed, it would be national news for weeks. A prosecutor would jump on the case instantly. Yet if a beggar dies, no one hears about it. And no one cares. After all, he is not “not worth talking about.”

Why even bother talking about “human value” if we do not really care about our fellow men? Why sink further into hypocrisy? Most Americans do not ask these questions. Nor do they question the immense theoretical difficulties that arise in a commercial society that supposedly takes inspiration from principles like equality, justice and freedom. Rather, I think most Americans cling to the “human value” shibboleth in order to soothe their collective conscience. It feels good to pay lip service to “equal human value,” even if we believe something completely different. After all, it is easy to recite magnificent generalities while pursuing a life path that contradicts those generalities. All the rhetoric about “human value” rings particularly hollow when it appears alongside arguments praising the “sanctity of life.” If all human life (and even potential life) is valuable, then both capital punishment and abortion should raise moral qualms. But most abortion opponents support killing convicted criminals. If all men (and fetuses) are equally valuable, then killing should not be an option in any circumstance. We know from experience, however, that abortion opponents sidestep this theoretical inconsistency by qualifying the rule: “All life is sacred…except as otherwise provided.” In other words, life begins as “valuable” but can “ lose its value” if the “living person” commits certain acts that deserve condemnation.

In my view, this is pure hypocrisy and inconsistency. One either believes in a principle or one does not. It is better to declare oneself a scoundrel than to profess sainthood and act a swindler. Yet America has already sunk deep into the morass. Until we stop deluding our children with the idea that America stands for equality and “human worth,” we will not escape the blatant hypocrisies that hound us every day as we strive to outdo our neighbors in the “commercial life competition.” We cannot say yes and no at the same time, no matter what lawyers we hire to make the argument for us.

THE LIFE IS SACRED SOCIETY IS PROUD TO PRESENT

ALL LIFE IS SACRED, UNLESS OTHERWISE PROVIDED

By : Mrs. Doreen Maybetter-Goodspeed, B.A., Spokesperson & Honorary Life Defender, Life is Sacred Society (LISS)

Life is beautiful. Outside our windows, birds sing and squirrels scurry. Dogs and cats lie curled up beside toasty fires. Somewhere out there, a mother gives birth to a beautiful child. Children play with their new Christmas toys. All over the world, people sit together at dinner tables with their families, happily eating, drinking, laughing and giving thanks for their lives. Life is beautiful. Everyone deserves to live because life is precious.

Yet in our society, there are those who wage war on life. Baby-killing abortioneers snuff out life before it leaves the womb, denying our world wonderful new inhabitants. Claiming “freedom of choice,” murderous women stamp out potential life before it begins. Doctors, who swear an oath to protect life, help these killers accomplish their wicked ends. If only these coldhearted killers would recognize that they are destroying life. All life is precious. When an abortioneer roots out a clump of cells, who knows what future Nobel-prize winning physicist he kills. When an abortioneer roots out a clump of cells, perhaps he kills the man who will one day defeat cancer. Life is too precious to squander before it has a chance to flourish.

Here at Life is Sacred Society, we have a simple principle: All Life is Sacred, Unless Otherwise Provided. While we believe that all life is precious, there are some forms of life that are so utterly repulsive that we are justified in destroying them. For instance, cockroaches are “life,” but we are prepared to say that their lives are not precious. Additionally, E. Coli bacteria are technically “living organisms,” but we do not hesitate to destroy them because they threaten human life. Vipers, centipedes, earwigs, maggots and even dangerous dogs are all “living creatures,” but they are not precious. Thus, we do not violate our principles when we systematically eradicate them from our midst.

While all life is precious, we are entitled to kill some living creatures in order to eat. For example, deer, buffalo, fish and cows are all living creatures. Because they are alive, they are precious. But they are not precious enough to continue living because we need to eat. We kill them in order to eat. Moreover, although plant life is also precious, we are entitled to uproot lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and onions in order to eat. Although all life is precious, there are circumstances in which we can make exceptions for survival.

All human beings have a right to live because all life is precious. But when one human being attempts to kill another human being, it is fully acceptable to kill the human being to protect one’s own life. In that situation, life is not precious enough to preserve. After all, we would lose our precious life if we did not kill the potential killer. When it is you or him, there is nothing wrong when you kill him to save yourself. Your life is more precious than his.

Human beings are beautiful living creatures. We are all unique, special individuals. We all matter and we all have a right to live. We are all precious, no matter how much money or wealth we have. But murderers, rapists, thieves and killers are not precious. When the State puts condemned criminals to death, it technically ends life. Yet it does not end precious life, because criminals’ lives are not precious. Although all life is precious, criminals do not deserve to continue living. Here at the Life is Sacred Society, we reject abortion but we support capital punishment. Innocent children are precious. We will protect their lives no matter the cost. But if an innocent child grows up to be a murderous killer, we have no hesitation ending his life. He is no longer precious. Thus, he need no longer live.

Unemployed, homeless, bankrupt and economically impotent people are not precious, either. If a living human being becomes a financial or social burden to all other living human beings, there is no need for him to continue living. His life may once have been precious, but now he is of no use to anyone.

Human beings inhabit the entire world. They are all precious. But human beings who live in the Middle East and Africa are not as precious as those who live in North America and Europe. Although Muslim terrorists are “alive,” this alone does not entitle them to go on living. While all human life is precious, terrorists lose their right to live when they bomb innocent civilians and make war on large-scale employment ventures.

Some may blame the Life is Sacred Society for selectively applying our principles. We respond that we have never deviated from our principles, because our principles contain exceptions. Our principle is: All life is sacred, UNLESS OTHERWISE PROVIDED. In other words, there is a general rule favoring life, but we provide for limited, meaningful exceptions to that rule. In any discipline, practitioners must be flexible. Without exceptions to principles, we would find ourselves in an intellectual straitjacket. It would be absurd to say simply that “All Life is Sacred.” That would require us to accord the same respect to our sons and daughters that we accord to a tarantula or even a serial Muslim rapist/terrorist. That is unacceptable.

We truly believe that life is precious. Every creature on earth deserves respect and dignity; provided that we do not make an exception for them. We favor life. Yet we do not hesitate to inflict death whenever we determine that a living organism does not deserve to live.