repost of SPIELBERGS LINCOLN....RATIONALIZATION

I recently went to the Spielberg movie about the last few days of Lincoln’s life.  It turned out, at least for me, to be a story about one man’s fight to remove the practice of slavery from the relatively new republic of the United States of America. 

In today’s world it’s difficult to know the difference between fact and fiction when watching that type of presentation because of the propagandic state of our society.  We seem to be pummeled by point of view rather than the facts and we tend to react like a herd of mental sponges soaking up whatever is spilled in front of us.  Real or fiction this movie did make my mind whir with a multitude of questions and observations, so many in fact that it is hard to settle down and approach my thoughts with any real sense of order. 

(part one) POLITICAL PASSION

I was struck by the passion that Spielberg’s depiction attached to the congressional members involved in the conflict, and the effort put forward by the Executive as well, and the depth of purpose behind that effort.  The passion depicted was not that of party politics but of morality, a passion of the right thing to do versus a status quo.  In this portrayal I saw distinct differences between imagination of what may have been at that critical juncture and the faux political discourse our government bodies indulge themselves with today.  The struggle to achieve true emancipation has been an ongoing problem in our country.  This enactment shows the torment involved not only during the Civil War itself but that of our President to achieve a purpose worthy of that war.  Politicians in today’s government do not exhibit (as a whole) the resolve of purpose in addressing the needs of our country.  Rather it is the political stage play that will coerce the public into choosing their party over the other in the next election cycle.  Unlike the times in which the Lincoln era politicians seemed to be aided by strong public sentiments forcing them to act, our politicians are acting and reacting to sentiments of our society that are persuaded and provoked.  Their goal seems to be re-election rather than the success of our great nation.

The United States of America, a republic formed under the banner of the Declaration of Independence, had existed in the presence of hypocrisy.  Economics had created the need for rationalizing among the slave owners and in order to fill their needs the slaves needed to be de-humanized.  Support for that rationale is and was impossible to find.  Slavery has been a part of humanity as long as man has been a territorial being, but in most instances the slaves were regarded to be human beings.  Our country has always been filled with beliefs flowing from fear and fiction but in the end our collective conscience brings us to differentiating between right and wrong and a confrontation of fact.  Lincoln was the figure put in place to help power that confrontation.  The struggle of conscience for a society holds a definite similarity with our own individual conflicts of right, wrong, good or bad.  If there is something we want we will rationalize enough good to counteract any wrong involved grabbing our goal.  Conscience will eventually be impacted by our choices and to lose that part of our being, as a person or as a society, is loss humanity cannot survive.  The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, were not just about right and wrong they were needed for the survival of our conscience, the victory of fact over rationalization.

(Part two) NATIONAL RATIONALIZTION AND PERSUASION

I look at some of the similarities and divergence of our moral pendulum today versus that time (the Lincoln era) in our history.  Perhaps a different conundrum, different rationalization, but still about right and wrong and the rationalizations required to deny the existence of humanity.  That instance would be regarding the fetus as no more than, as one proponent of abortion stated, road kill.  The abortion question allows for rationalizations on a major scale and the enormity of it will certainly cause a fracture of conscience within our society.  Part of our society has decided to enforce and strengthen the argument in favor of all forms of abortion with the rationalization(s) of women’s rights, the dehumanization of the unborn, the inability to afford, and a mother’s health (this is an unending list of why’s). 

The supporters of abortion use those rationalizations as speaking points accusing opponents as being against women in general and specifically against a woman’s right to control and care for her own body.  The two aspects, a woman’s rights and the rights of the unborn, are never really viewed as equal points of morality by those in favor of abortion.  Disregarding the presence of human DNA at conception as the beginning of a human life makes it acceptable to take away the life of the unborn child.  Rationalization and denial of fact makes it easier to hide the conflict of conscience involved in the act of abortion.  Rationalization circumvents logic when one tries to use the argument that women have the right to choose.  The choice is no less than condoning the right to murder any other human being in similar circumstance. 

Logic dictates continuity and the logical argument might go as follows:

 It is illegal to take the life of another human being except in the protection of another life.

A fetus is a human being with all the potential and rights of humanity because of the existence of human DNA.

Therefore it is illegal to take the life of a human fetus excepting in the case of saving the life of another human.

Seems so simple excepting when the insertion of partial truth mixed with rationalization components are put into the mix. 

Human beings are able to think and to act on those thoughts

Fetuses are unable to think  (supposition?)

Therefore fetuses are not human

Therefore it is legal to terminate their existence

We are all too often forced back by arguments filled with innuendo, political correctness and name calling when we should be demanding the argument be conducted with fact and logic.  The removal of these two components allow for propagandizing and fabrications that support the factually unsupportable.  The facts may not be readily available and in the case of deciding at what point in time human life exists that is certainly true.  Belief structure calls the shots in these cases and they are swayable in all directions in favor of what one wants to believe.

 The one similarity that I am able to put together in the depiction of the time of Lincoln and today is that passion is weighted in favor of morality questions and has little to do with the facts.  Morality is something that can be directed in societies through the beliefs put forward through the education of the children.  Conscience can be dampened by indoctrination and propaganda.  To quote, "As a man thinketh, so he is."

To expand the thought, "as men thinketh so goes their society".  It is truly each mans responsibility not to accept the thoughts of others, but to seek truth.

Uncle Jack

My uncle Jack Burres was probably one of my first heroes and in my mind is still held in that esteem even at my later time in life.  The funny thing is he is still alive at this time but we do not touch base any too often.  Probably what has prompted this writing today is a recording project I am undertaking to combat my inclination to procrastinate.  Some twenty years or so ago Jack put his early memories into a collection of cowboy poems, Reata Buckeros, which I intend to record vocally  for him and his remaining family.

Jack was born to my grandparents as one half of a set of twins, his sister Louise shared his spot in the line-up behind Lewis, Chester (my dad), and Loretta, and was followed by Kenneth, and Jay.  The common practice in those days was for families to lend their children to relatives and neighbors as a means of labor and as training for the child.  This is a practice that is probably frowned on by our politically correct society today, but as in Jacks case it made him into the hero my memory cherishes today.  Jack and his younger brother Kenny spent time under the tutelage of a turn of the century cattleman John Shelton Burres whose name uncle Jack was given at birth.  Shelt, as he was called, was a true pioneer type cattleman.  Shelt ran his cattle on a rough and rugged portion of the John Day river,  in Eastern Oregon, and it was this part of growing up that made Uncle Jack into who he was.  This time is the time that Jack was always able to recall vividly. He could paint historical pictures with the stories and tales that almost made imagination seem real. These were the stories told in his cowboy collection.  If I get time and inclination I will re-write and include this in my writings. Jack had this collection published and is sold with all proceeds being donated to the Veterans of Foreign Wars from WWII who have had to fight to get their medical conditions cared for by the VA. 

Jack and his brothers Kenny and Jay had joined in the fight, against the German onslaught in Europe, as sailors in the United States Navy.  I never got much of a story from Kenny about his service time,  Jay from what I heard was kind of wild one spending a lot of brig time, but Jacks was a different story altogether.  Jacks time in the service put him in the position of mechanic on the large diesel engines that powered the ships on which he served.  He never really talked a lot about the war, that I heard anyway, but over time I learned that he had three ships blown out from under him.  During one of these Jack was blown into the air over a hundred feet and came down landing on his head.  As his shipmates were leaving the ship he was passed by as being dead until someone noticed he was still alive.  That occurrence put a steel plate in Jacks head.  In later years that brought another battle to Jacks life which was enjoined by his son Jimmy against the VA to receive the benefits he should have received for this injury.  He and Jimmy prevailed in this fight and they continue to fight for others who faced similar situations.  This War occurred prior to my ability to understand but, as in all things, history is necessary for perspective.

I really knew very little about my uncle Jack until he started working for us on our ranch and even now my early focus was on what he did more than who he really was.  Physically he was bigger than life to me and certainly compared to his siblings he was the cream of the crop.  He had a great sense of humor and, as I said earlier, he had a knack for story telling that excited the imagination.  I was probably around eight or nine years old when he started working steady with dad.  We had moved from a farm that dad was renting, something in the order of sharecropping, to an adjacent place called the Couture ranch and Jack moved into the place we moved from.   The two ranches were adjacent and so it was natural for the brothers to work them together and did so for the next fifteen years or so.  Without really understanding everything that was going on I in effect had two great men as my teachers.  It wasn’t until just recently that I understood that Jack was more than just someone I admired and wanted to be like, he was in fact a second father to me.  Jack was there for me to emulate until we sold out and moved to Canada in my early twenties.  It wasn’t that he out shined or replaced dad it was more like a different perspective on life and doing.  Dad did everything Jack did but dad was dad and Jack was a hero.

Our life was that of most eastern Oregon ranchers, a mix of farming and raising cattle.  Our ranch was fifteen miles from the nearest little town and sixty from a city of any size.  There was a necessity of self efficiency that required the ability to repair our equipment with whatever was closest at hand as it took time and money for part replacement.  Throughout the years I watched Jack answer situation after situation with a determination and can do attitude that showed me things don’t always have to be perfect in order to work and that just about anything can be fixed.  Jack taught me how to weld and use acetylene and many times I watched him take mangled and broken to make useable and functional parts so we could continue our tasks.  He taught me there are solutions if you look for them, He helped me to understand how things work together.  That was mostly learning from what he had learned as a machinist in the Navy mixed with what he had learned from his dad and his uncle.  You survive by proceeding.  The cowboy part I learned from both dad and Jack and I have ridden many miles up and down many canyons with them both.  Dad was probably a far better cattleman than Jack and a better rider.  I think Jack had probably gotten his fill of being a cowboy when he worked for uncle Shelt, and after reading Jacks collection of stories I can understand why.  There were a couple of things that Jack did, on the cowboy side of things, better than anyone I have ever known.  He had an uncanny way of understanding the sneaky and contrary side of the cattle we were working and was usually able to get himself and his horse where he had to be.  The main thing though was Jacks ability to train horses.  Today we are aware of guys like the horse whisperer but that was not common knowledge when I was growing up.  The first horse I saw Jack take from raw to useful was my own horse little Joe.  Most all of the horses I had been in contact with prior to that time were already saddle and rein broke so I didn’t have any idea of what made them that way, now I know.  Jack removed the element of fear from Joe by using hobbles on him then rubbing and petting him from top to bottom, showing Joe that we meant no harm and by the end of that process we could do anything around that horse without spooking him and that included being able to walk back and forth under him.  This got Joe used to people and used to his saddle but his training didn’t stop there he still had to learn to take directions.  There are a lot of different ways to teach a horse to do what you want him to do, some hard handed and some gentle.  Jack seemed to be quite a bit toward the gentle side.  Just as he eliminated fear in the horse by creating trust his guidance was easy and painless.  Instead of starting Joe out with a steel bit in his mouth, a quirt to his rump and spurs in his side Jack used softer methods.  Joe was trained to rein with a hackamore and this was pressure enough for him to take directions without making fearful.  All in all I think Jack taught me with the same degree of gentleness and all the while I never knew that was happening.  It just did. 

Don’t misunderstand me, Jack was not perfect he had a horrific temper and out of him could spill a lot of language that I really didn’t need to learn, but for the most part what he taught was good.  I have been fortunate in life by having not just one but two great father figures, my own dad and one of my first heroes, Uncle Jack.

ABORTION?

Today it has really struck me as to just how many in our country view abortion as a freedom. It is viewed as a right of womanhood to disallow the birth of a child. Yet the majority of Americans abhor the deaths of humans in any other form. I wondered how my grandchildren and their children would internalize this subject. I decided to incorporate my thoughts on the subject into a book that I am writing, a sort of letter to my children called “Don’t Lose My Marbles”.
This subject encompasses all varieties of underlying beliefs and feelings, as well as creating new moral and ethical dilemmas for our society and as individuals. Abortion has given rise to both political and religious groups on both sides of the issue. Here are my thoughts and my beliefs on the subject and they are directed, as I mentioned, to my family. If any of the rest of my extended family, “mankind” wishes to think along my path you are welcome. If not, at least keep an open mind.
In 1973 our Supreme Court legalized the practice of abortion based on the plaintiff’s plea to abort her unborn child due to her perceived inability to provide for that child. The other portion of the decision came as part and parcel of her acquisition of an illegal abortion which in general has been proven to be quite unsafe for the mother of the aborted child. The argument used by her attorneys was that a woman’s right to privacy includes the right for her to choose to bear a child to birth or not. McCorvey wrote that she had "wanted to terminate my pregnancy because of the economic hardship which my pregnancy entailed, and because of the social stigma attached to the bearing of illegitimate children in our society." Since she could not afford to travel to another state for a legal abortion, she said: "I fear that my very life would be endangered if I submitted to an abortion which I could afford."This subject has been hashed over and rehashed millions of times, and that is not an exaggeration. I can’t really imagine that it has not been mulled over by at least half of those who have chosen to terminate their pregnancy. The basic questions are simple, it is the definitions that come into play and increase the complexity.
Our society has increasingly become “me “orientated over the last century and our ethical moral sensitivities have adjusted accordingly. This is not unusual and is something that has occurred many times over the course of history. Our society is no different. The question will eventually boil down to who and what comprises human decency towards another human, and at what point does the human animal come into being. Humans as societies have, for the most part, stood against the unjustified taking of another human life. The terms of justification for that action have fluctuated during the course of history but have generally tended toward the restrictions of such justification, i.e. the elimination of death penalties as a form of penalty for certain acts. The political and societal position against nation’s acts of war against each other is another example. It seems that our position regarding abortion has taken a turn against the trending tendency of protecting life. The subject also encroaches into areas of education, legality, personal choices, physical and mental health as well as what is passed on to our children.
I have many good friends and acquaintances with all facets of agreement and disagreement of how to deal with this subject. It is one of the most critical underlying subjects facing our society today. I don’t see that changing soon. Our current political and law making factions tend to go with the easy choice of agreeing with those that can make noise and against those who are unable to speak because of their lack of formation inside the womb of their mothers. Abortion is a subject we each need to make a choice on as individuals; a choice that defines us as a person and jointly as a society. There is no other subject since the inception of time that is more critical to our species with the possible exception of war as a method of total extinction. There has never been, in the course of humanity, any scourge or war inflicting the number of casualties equal to that caused by abortion. That some may be justified to insure the safety and life of the mother is a given, but allowed as a matter just for choice is morally corrupt. I don’t state that as a Christian, I state that as a human being.
Our nation today is more polarized on more subjects than at any time I can remember in my life. I have tried to understand both those I agree with and those I don’t. I have to admit failure in many instances. I do not understand how someone can disagree with violence to protect the life of their neighbor if force equals force. I do not understand how any faction of a society can stand against their nation’s history, and I certainly can’t understand the taking of an innocent life as justified because of inconvenience.
I do understand that abortions have been taking place for most of our history, and that most of those prior to the twentieth century were extremely dangerous to the childbearing mothers. Something had to change in that regard. There is no way the numbers involved prior to “RvW” were anywhere in proximity to the numbers that have occurred since.
We as a society have taken a role and position of total permissiveness sexually and that has driven the numbers of abortions to the high numbers we now see. This permissiveness is exacerbated in our educational system by trying to treat the symptom of pregnancy as a matter of prevention rather than a matter of responsibility that should be part of parenting. As those children move into young adulthood choosing sex as a recreational activity because they have the ability and the right to do whatever is also than a matter of responsibility that should have been taught them by their parents as a part of parenting responsibilities. Our children need to be taught that it is not ok to do everything and that the things they do have consequences. If you have sex when you can’t afford to give up your life for your children’s food, clothing and lodging, don’t have sex. It’s not ok just because you can take time off school to have an abortion and no one will be the wiser. At some point in time the reality of your action will come back to slap your psyche. The taking of your child’s life will be a hurt that bandages can’t cure for you. If you decide to keep the child your young life will never be the same. The loss of freedom that having a child while you are a child is monumental and no matter how much you love your new baby, resentment is right around some dirty diaper or some missed dance or party. Having a child is a responsibility that makes having sex a responsibility. Having sex just this one time, with or without protection, is like eating one piece of candy it’s not going to happen that way. We could eliminate a good portion of unnecessary abortions by the reinstatement teaching responsibility to both parents and children. The fact that our society accepts termination of life as an alternative form of contraception is a terminal sickness that should not be condoned by any of us. If you have a unwanted child inside your body give it to someone who cares. Adoptions are a much better solution and it gives your child a chance at greatness and the new parents an opportunity for unimaginable love.
There was a time in my life when I was not in solid belief regarding God and His Son Jesus Christ and during this lapse I considered the abortion of one of my children. It was a decision based on not wanting to ruin a relationship with another of my children by having to share love with two rather than one. I am happy to say that the birth came to fruition, and because of that the world is a richer place. I also found out that love is an unlimited, boundless blessing from an all understanding God.