A reader-friendly guide to the truth: destruction of human embryos is not necessary for success.
Pam & Chip with Beverly, Oto, Tomas, & Laura
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Jimmy "The Fish" Maxwell
Click here for Jimmy the Fish on youth sports in the age of political correctness. Click below for more from Jimmy the Fish.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Proof That My Book Is Needed
Ignorant. Irrational. Illogical. Aren't those the terms lefties apply to opponents of embryonic stem cell research?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Shoe-Flinger: Another Test of My No-Death Position
If I allowed exceptions to my opposition to the death penalty, the Iraqi shoe-flinger would qualify.
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Conversation Just Got a Lot Livelier in Heaven
The founding voice of Omaha talk radio falls silent at 68.
Steve Brown died over the weekend. The testimonials are flowing. I simply want to note that he was very friendly and helpful to me as I learned to put one foot in front of the other hosting radio shows.
"Talk of the Town with Steve Brown" -- that was the show that launched talk radio in Omaha.
As a state senator I had been a guest of Steve and other local hosts, but my foray into being on the other side of the microphone began by guest-hosting for Steve. I tried to impersonate Steve. Lasted about 30 seconds and ruptured my vocal chords. No one could replicate that voice.
It could get a bit rough, especially for liberals, on a Steve Brown show, but he also invited Tom White, a staunch liberal Democrat, for a weekly gig and was willing to let all viewpoints have a say. That included "candidate soup," an election eve tradition of allowing politicians of all stripes to hop on the air for a couple minutes to give their spiels.
I was on the periphery of Steve's life. I offer my condolences to those who were close to Steve. I hope the mourning gives way to celebration of great memories.
Steve Brown died over the weekend. The testimonials are flowing. I simply want to note that he was very friendly and helpful to me as I learned to put one foot in front of the other hosting radio shows.
"Talk of the Town with Steve Brown" -- that was the show that launched talk radio in Omaha.
As a state senator I had been a guest of Steve and other local hosts, but my foray into being on the other side of the microphone began by guest-hosting for Steve. I tried to impersonate Steve. Lasted about 30 seconds and ruptured my vocal chords. No one could replicate that voice.
It could get a bit rough, especially for liberals, on a Steve Brown show, but he also invited Tom White, a staunch liberal Democrat, for a weekly gig and was willing to let all viewpoints have a say. That included "candidate soup," an election eve tradition of allowing politicians of all stripes to hop on the air for a couple minutes to give their spiels.
I was on the periphery of Steve's life. I offer my condolences to those who were close to Steve. I hope the mourning gives way to celebration of great memories.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
On Abortion, Obama Offers False Solution
I agree with Dan Schinzel of Catholic Democrats for Nebraska (November 29 Omaha World-Herald Midlands Voices) that abortion isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, a partisan issue. What I found hard to swallow was his call to follow the leadership of Barack Obama to common ground on abortion.
Obama said signing the federal Freedom of Choice Act to wipe out state restrictions on abortion would be a top priority of his presidency. As a state legislator he opposed the Born Alive Act, which said a baby who survives an abortion should be cared for – not put in a room and left to die as was happening in Illinois hospitals.
So, the journey to common ground begins with a declaration of open season on preborn humans by someone who defends infanticide-by-neglect for abortion survivors.
I was surprised Mr. Schinzel cited President Clinton to support his argument. Clinton was a tenacious protector of abortion, including defending the procedure of pulling babies almost all the way out of the birth canal and then ripping open their heads and sucking out their brains.
The Clinton common-ground mantra on abortion was to make it “safe, legal, and rare.”
A similar approach was tried with slavery: restrict it and hope it dwindles. That attempt at compromise failed because it confused "common" ground with "middle" ground.
Common ground is where the most people are. It isn’t always the middle ground. There may not be middle ground, even between reasonable people of good will, when a fundamental human right is at stake.
Imagine having told abolitionists that the solution was for them to calm down and accept the status quo on slavery, with promises that efforts would be made to discourage it. Or this one: If you really care about ending slavery, abandon your divisive push for abolition and instead advocate changing the economic situation of slave-owners so they won’t resort to slavery.
In the same vein, Mr. Schinzel told abortion abolitionists to quit “posturing” and instead help the next president reduce the number of abortions with enhanced parental education, health care, job training, and child care. The problem is that even if we could look into the most wildly optimistic crystal ball and see a new array of government programs ending poverty and reducing the number of abortions by half, there still would be more than a half-million abortions annually.
I’ll keep “posturing” for abolition. When you see severed heads and limbs from dismembered fetal bodies positioned in proper-but-disjointed relation to make sure everything was retrieved from the womb, it’s hard to envision an acceptable common ground that permits such butchery.
I appreciate the desire to reduce the carnage by eliminating poverty as a factor, but I doubt it would make much difference. The formerly poor will still want abortion for the same reason middle- and upper-class abortion protectors want it – birth control.
Abortion is legal because proponents want it passionately. It’s fiercely emotional and personal: You are not going to deny me something central to my ideology and way of life.
Mr. Schinzel paid lip service to the ultimate goal of eliminating abortion, but pro-choice leaders and major donors in his Democratic Party would squash him if he got serious about it. Anti-poverty programs are fine, but don’t mess with the right to choose.
By the way, plenty of people in my Republican Party wish I would shut up about abortion and related issues. It truly cuts across party lines.
The only way abortion will be eliminated is if the pro-life majority that existed prior to Roe v. Wade reasserts itself.
Mr. Schinzel said overturning Roe wouldn’t matter because most states likely would preserve the status quo or make abortion easier. I’m more optimistic. Before Roe, most states banned abortion. Since then, technology providing a window into the womb has helped convince people of the humanity of fetal life. I welcome the opportunity a Roe reversal would present.
Better yet, President Obama could call on Congress to put before the nation a constitutional amendment on abortion. It wouldn’t have to protect or outlaw abortion. It could say that abortion is to be decided by the people or their elected lawmakers. That’s how we find true common ground in our system. Reasonable people don’t always agree, so we count the votes and respect the result.
If that’s too ambitious, maybe all the pro-lifers who voted for Obama could at least get the president-elect to reject the Freedom of Choice Act and show mercy to babies who somehow emerge alive from the abortion death machine.
Obama said signing the federal Freedom of Choice Act to wipe out state restrictions on abortion would be a top priority of his presidency. As a state legislator he opposed the Born Alive Act, which said a baby who survives an abortion should be cared for – not put in a room and left to die as was happening in Illinois hospitals.
So, the journey to common ground begins with a declaration of open season on preborn humans by someone who defends infanticide-by-neglect for abortion survivors.
I was surprised Mr. Schinzel cited President Clinton to support his argument. Clinton was a tenacious protector of abortion, including defending the procedure of pulling babies almost all the way out of the birth canal and then ripping open their heads and sucking out their brains.
The Clinton common-ground mantra on abortion was to make it “safe, legal, and rare.”
A similar approach was tried with slavery: restrict it and hope it dwindles. That attempt at compromise failed because it confused "common" ground with "middle" ground.
Common ground is where the most people are. It isn’t always the middle ground. There may not be middle ground, even between reasonable people of good will, when a fundamental human right is at stake.
Imagine having told abolitionists that the solution was for them to calm down and accept the status quo on slavery, with promises that efforts would be made to discourage it. Or this one: If you really care about ending slavery, abandon your divisive push for abolition and instead advocate changing the economic situation of slave-owners so they won’t resort to slavery.
In the same vein, Mr. Schinzel told abortion abolitionists to quit “posturing” and instead help the next president reduce the number of abortions with enhanced parental education, health care, job training, and child care. The problem is that even if we could look into the most wildly optimistic crystal ball and see a new array of government programs ending poverty and reducing the number of abortions by half, there still would be more than a half-million abortions annually.
I’ll keep “posturing” for abolition. When you see severed heads and limbs from dismembered fetal bodies positioned in proper-but-disjointed relation to make sure everything was retrieved from the womb, it’s hard to envision an acceptable common ground that permits such butchery.
I appreciate the desire to reduce the carnage by eliminating poverty as a factor, but I doubt it would make much difference. The formerly poor will still want abortion for the same reason middle- and upper-class abortion protectors want it – birth control.
Abortion is legal because proponents want it passionately. It’s fiercely emotional and personal: You are not going to deny me something central to my ideology and way of life.
Mr. Schinzel paid lip service to the ultimate goal of eliminating abortion, but pro-choice leaders and major donors in his Democratic Party would squash him if he got serious about it. Anti-poverty programs are fine, but don’t mess with the right to choose.
By the way, plenty of people in my Republican Party wish I would shut up about abortion and related issues. It truly cuts across party lines.
The only way abortion will be eliminated is if the pro-life majority that existed prior to Roe v. Wade reasserts itself.
Mr. Schinzel said overturning Roe wouldn’t matter because most states likely would preserve the status quo or make abortion easier. I’m more optimistic. Before Roe, most states banned abortion. Since then, technology providing a window into the womb has helped convince people of the humanity of fetal life. I welcome the opportunity a Roe reversal would present.
Better yet, President Obama could call on Congress to put before the nation a constitutional amendment on abortion. It wouldn’t have to protect or outlaw abortion. It could say that abortion is to be decided by the people or their elected lawmakers. That’s how we find true common ground in our system. Reasonable people don’t always agree, so we count the votes and respect the result.
If that’s too ambitious, maybe all the pro-lifers who voted for Obama could at least get the president-elect to reject the Freedom of Choice Act and show mercy to babies who somehow emerge alive from the abortion death machine.
Monday, December 08, 2008
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