Conserving Life

    There is no doubt one of the most divisive and contentious subjects of today’s socio-political environment involves the topic of abortion. Should women have the right to “chose” or should their unborn baby have the right to life?  In this post, Concept Conservative will present the position of conservatism regarding life without delving into the philosophical, the emotional, or the illogical.

    At the base of the discussion of abortion is the question of exactly when life begins. There are so many ridiculous positions being pushed by pro-abortion advocates that one must ask if they are intentionally misleading others or if they themselves lack the scientific understanding of what life is and when it begins.  For all of you who may be pro-abortion, take a moment to consider the information in this post.  Allow yourself, for just a moment, to consider the merits of this discussion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtDknjng8TA    Living within each and every one of us are trillions of cells and although there is some debate as to what constitutes something as “alive” or not, there is absolutely no doubt that cells die and if they die, they must have been in some stage of life prior to that death.  Femal reproductive egg cells (the largest human cell) and male sperm cells (the smallest human cells) are both living.  The union of the two in any other state will not result in the growth of a human child.  Another way to think of this is to ask yourself this question: “Is it called death when the sperm enters the egg?” If it is not death, it must, therefore, be life.  The answer to this question provides a simple answer to an unnecessarily complicated question.  Assuming the sperm and egg are alive, they are clearly not human by themselves but each contain half of the material to make a human.  The sperm and egg must join to become human.  Not only human, but a completely unique human being, with a completely unique DNA separate from either its paternal or maternal donors.  Although the very earliest stage of human development, the fertilized egg IS alive and is human.  It is scientifically an impossibility for it to be anything else.

    Is it really a woman’s right to chose to kill her unborn child? Certainly, we all have the right to chose what we do to our bodies, how we feed it, how well we maintain it and whether or not we chose to end our lives prematurely though suicide or other destructive behaviors.  But, if the child growing in the womb is genetically unique, containing its own unique DNA, doesn't the child also have rights?  Conservatism seeks to secure the rights of every human being as defined in the Declaration of the Independence, that all men have some basic fundamental rights that include the right to life; not necessarily a happy life, but a life none-the-less.  This is one of the most basic, fundamental tenants of conservatism.  And, if there is so much debate surrounding when “life” actually begins, shouldn't we, as humane and compassionate civilized beings, assume that every fertilized egg is alive and subsequently a human life?  Why are illogical, opinion-based assumptions sufficient to make decisions about another human being's right to live or die?

    If a fertilized egg is human (remember, there is no possible way it can be anything else), how is abortion justified?  Where a human resides or how large it is does not determine the rights to which it is afforded in the Constitution. Just because a human being calls its home a uterus for 9 to 10 months does not mean it is not protected by the Constitution.  There is NO debating this fact.  It does not matter if you live in your car, in a tent, in a boat or a mansion.  It doesn't matter if you live on the Space Station or in a deep, underwater ocean habitat, you are protected by the Constitution, and so should be, for that matter, the unborn.  No rhetoric to the contrary changes this fact.

    “But the growing baby is just a blob of cells and is part of my body.  I should get to chose what happens to my body.”

    This statement is based on a lack of understanding and misinformation.  Yes.  The first couple of weeks, there is mostly a large mass of cells growing but undeniable characteristics develope inside of three weeks, including a beating heart.  Every person should have the right to chose what they do to THEIR body.  It is a scientific fact, however, that a baby is NOT a part of a woman’s body.  It is a separate entity with a separate heart beat, a separate blood supply, and separate autonomous movements.  It breaths and thingk independently of the woman.  And, unfortunately, feels pain uniquelly and separately of the woman.  The woman, in this case is a host for another completely separate, unique human being.  Any argument against these facts are designed to distract pro-life supporters from the merits of the truth.  The innocence of the unborn should always be protected.

    The act of aborting an innocent child is barbaric and is neither safe for the mother or the baby.  There is nothing humane about the process.  It is neither entirely safe or harmless for either the mother or the child.  It is a violent and destructive process that involves several different methods. The most heinous of these involve the dismemberment of the unborn while still in the uterus and collapse of the baby’s skull to facilitate extraction.  It is a tragic and extremely sad end to a new beautiful life.

    Pro-abortion supporters argue abortion protects unwanted children from lives of debauchery, drug use, homelessness, and lack of opportunity.  There is no data that supports this claim.  What is a measurable fact is that aborting a child eliminates any chance he or she may have had to have a prosperous life.  Another false argument is that abortion protects teen mothers from a burdensome life of becoming premature parents, ruining their futures and eliminating opportunities.  Although this may bear some truth, the suggestion that teens are having the majority of abortions is patently FALSE.  The fact is the majority of women having abortions are not teenagers and are in their twenties and thirties.  Additionally, many teen mothers go on to be successful, raising their child and working toward brighter futures.  Athough challenging, the alternative for these women is a life lived filled with guilt and a new life destroyed because of false facts and uneccessary fear.

    True conservatism espouses the natural beginning to life and natural death for every human being.  Even the most hardened criminal is protected from the death penalty if true conservatism is practiced.  However, when one person infringes on the liberties of another, (liberties otherwise protected in the Constitution), there are typically some consequences set forth in the volumes of law throughout the United States, whether it be defined by federal law of state law.  To date, the penalties for killing a turtle egg are more severe than aborting a child.  Penalties for animal cruelty are more severe than aborting a child. And there are more protections for criminals, than unborn children.

    Concept Conservative will not discuss the minutia of various circumstances that could possibly justify abortion. This post is only intended to present the merits of the conservative argument in support of life, not circumstances that justify the termination of it.

    Even with science proving inutero babies feel pain, think, seek comfort, in as little 3 weeks, the pro-abortion movement is aggressively attacking the sanctity of life.  A bill in New York recently passed that allows a baby to be aborted all the way up through the 40th week.  A full term pregnancy.  Virginia's governor recently stated he would support a measure that would allow a woman to abort her child up to 28 days AFTER birth.  It is incomprehensible to think a society as advanced as ours can justify this aborrant practice.  In the same way we look back at history and consider slavery of human beings one of the most heinous crimes against other human beings, Concept Conservative hopes that in the near future, our civilization will consider the horrific act of abortion heinous and outlaw its practice.

    There is no way to view the act of abortion as being anything other than prematurely taking a human life and in almost all cases, a demonstration of evil.  When you remove the emotional aspect from this subject and consider the scientific merits of what constitutes a human being, a life is a life regardless of its stage of development or where it resides.  Until something significant happens with the human genome, every life that grows in a woman’s womb is a human being.

    May our justice system bring sanity to this crisis by outlawing abortion and may the scientific community cease their silence and start bridging the gap that separates ignorance from knowledge and understanding.     

What is Freedom?

      Freedom means different things to different people.  I am sure that for some, the word freedom invokes images of the slave trade early in our nation’s history.  A history that has cost the lives of over 1.3 million people who fought for the defense of freedom.  For others, the term freedom brings to the forefront of their minds the Declaration of Independence, a document created by brave men and women who defied the king of the most powerful nation on the planet, Great Britain.  Whatever your personal feelings are about the word, it is important to place the concept of freedom within the context of our lives today.  And, the reality of the life we live today is far from the ideals espoused in our constitution.

Juxtoposed to freedom is slavery.  Slavery is indiscriminate.  I cannot think of a  race of people who have been immune to enslavement, and contrary to what many people think, not even Caucasians have escaped the whips and chains of slavery.  Consider a review of the Barbary States War.  I also recommend the book Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror 1801-1805 by Joeseph Wheelan as an excellent historical reference to look into how white men, women and children were enslaved.  

The act of enslaving a group of people is the result of misguided ideology.  It is not necessarily a result of ignorance.  In some cases, maniacal men seeking power have effectively used the tactics of enslavement to build nations and build wealth as a means of securing the power and dominance they had sought after.  In other cases, enslavement was a result of cultural and societal acceptance as “normal” behavior.  Slave ownership of the past was akin to indentured servants and almost everyone during that time was familiar with and acknowledged its place in society.  In fact, some of our Founding Fathers owned slaves at the same time they began rousing the masses for support against England in seeking independence from a tyrannical king, King George III.  There are many ironies here.  

Today, much as they have been for centuries past, human beings are still bought and sold in slave markets.  Every year, millions of women and children are sold into sex slave trades and labor camps with little hope of escape.  The magnitude of human trafficking is appalling and far surpasses the numbers of slaves from our nation’s past.  This is not to discredit the magnitude and harmful impact enslavement has had on the various races of the past, but only demonstrates the dark truth that even today, there are many human beings who literally live in chains.

For the rest of us who do not wake up every morning chained to a bed or locked in a room, a different kind of enslavement has befallen us.  We have become slaves to taxes, technology, and time.

Taxes are a necessary result of a government's rule of its people.  The first Americans came together as a people in the 1600’s and agreed to establish a government for the people, by the people and of the people in the creation of the Mayflower Compact.  In this act, they exchanged complete and total self-reliance for a life that was mostly free.  The Constitution, over one hundred years later, would establish very specific things for which the congress was authorized to take (tax) from the people.  All other taxation was supposed to be left to the individual states by way of the 10th Amendment.  In our society today, we pay taxes or face imprisonment for tax evasion.  We pay taxes to ensure the federal government is able to provide the protections and other services guaranteed in the constitution.  Welfare stops, food stamps stop, defense stops, and a myriad of other programs stop.  Programs so many Americans are now reliant on cannot remain solvent if Americans stop paying taxes.  Working has become a process by which to pay taxes and not a process by which we build personal wealth.  Paying our taxes has become our first responsibility and for the portion of Americans that pay taxes, there are punishments for not being responsible.

Technology has done the most to build us up and make us stronger as well as leave us vulnerable.  The dichotomy of technology can be seen in numersous ways.  The same technology that allows us to see in the dark is the technology that has allowed us to forget how to build a fire without a lighter or a match.  The technology of refrigeration that allows us to purchase our meat from a grocer has allowed us to forget how to hunt for our own food.  Most Americans would be completely destitute due to a lack of basic survival knowledge should a natural disaster, EMP, or other crisis occur.  We work to pay taxes and to buy technology (things) to help make our lives more comfortable but we exchange our personal self reliance and abilities for these things.

Time is everyone’s worst enemy.  There is never enough of it.  We are slaves to the clock.  The world is excessively competitive and idle minutes equal lost opportunities.  We all scramble to pack as much into a day as possible, work, family, friends, entertainment, reading, cooking, etc.. and never feel quite satisfied we have done enough.  There is always something else that needs to be done and again…not enough time to accomplish it.  Not accomplishing things makes us feel like we have wasted time and what a tragedy that is when there is so little time to begin with.  We are slaves to time.  Time is our master

Freedom is truly a relative concept.  Some may find fault in my line of reasoning regarding things that enslave us and I willingly acknowledge the extremity of these examples.  However, my point is to demonstrate the massive reliance society has demanded of itself.

Does that make sense?

We vote to increase taxes on ourselves to provide services we apparently could never have lived without.  What did we do before we taxed ourselves for the service?  The people who work and pay taxes rarely, if ever, participate or take advantage of the services and programs their money is used to fund.  These are also the people who usually have the least amount of time to enjoy the little time they have.  What we have created is a society where the most free among us need only exist, not work.  The most free among us pay no taxes, and receive pay checks, housing, food, and are able to take advantage of the myriad of services available including free health care, educational grants, preferential treatment based on race and so many others.  The money they received didn't grow on trees.  Somebody, somewhere worked hard for it.

Taking something from one person to give to another is not a policy Concept Conservative endorses.

These forms of slavery are a result of socialistic ideals that are founded on one simple rule: those that have give to those that do not. From each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs.  As outlandish as this might sound, our Government has created an environment that has literally enslaved one group of people to another group: those who are forced to give of themselves to others who are required to give nothing or very little.

To be fair, absolute freedom exists only in fairy tales. So long as ‘we the people’ chose to be governed by our peers, we exchange true freedom for the benefits associated with societal gains.  In fact, the application of laws, although benefiting society as a whole, detracts from absolute, individual freedom.  Conservatism seeks governance that has the least amount of impact on the individual without degradation to our society, our communities, and our families.  The moral fabric from which conservatism is sewn envelopes Judea-Christian principles.  Without these guiding principles, it is doubtful the US would have emerged as the world’s only true, global, super power.

Conservatism seeks to remove The People from the shackles of government regulation, government infringement into personal lives, and government decisions that pick winners and losers through re-distributive policies.  Conservatism is an ideology that seeks equal opportunity where every American has the right to pursue their own happiness but is not necessarily guaranteed happiness.  Conservatism opposes policies that promote equal outcomes among all people.  The premise behind this logic is fundamentally flawed and has proven disastrous throughout history. 

The conservative concept regarding freedom is not one based on absolute freedom but seeks a balance that is most beneficial to the individual first and than society.  Conservatism also opposes any law or removal of a law that would be to the detriment of society and the individual. 

Let man do for himself that which is in his own benefit and decide, based on his own merits, capabilities, and desires, how much he is willing to give.  This will result in a natural unification  of benefits and unification of communities and societies vice an artificial utopia that is forced on the people through increased taxes, forced technologies, and the decreased amount of personal time.  People will do naturally for others on their own accord that which the government seeks to impose on people to do artificially.  Concept Conservative believes conserving the rights of the people and promoting rugged individualism is the most natural means in which to increase the freedoms of The People.

 

Launch Date.

After much deliberation, I have decided to launch Concept Conservative; a blog with the sole purpose of bringing to light the benefits of living in a society that promotes conservative ideology and more importantly, lives by that ideology.  I am happy to announce the site will launch January 1st 2013.  

Why the delay?

The fact is, providing you quality content that is worthy of your time takes time and research.  I want to provide you the best product I can and present the truth of conservative ideology and our vision for the future.  There is plenty to talk about of course and I look forward to the comments offered by you all.