Problems are for Solving

The Jamesberry Dictionary defines it:

friend – noun. A person who meets the following three criteria:

a) will tell you when you’re being an ass, even when he doesn’t want to

b) will sacrifice his own comfort or pleasures for your good when needed

c) misses you when you’re not there

May the Lord give me the grace to be a friend to others and may He cut my selfish bones to the core and fill them with His love and grace.

I’ve been writing quite a bit of late about politics, and especially about abortion. Every two years I long for a parliamentary system or a Godly king. I believe firmly in the republican form of government (representative democracy, not democracy despite what you hear in the evening news), but how it has become is saddening to me.

What is sad as well, is the level of rhetoric that is displayed in campaigns. American voters (or so the media and advertisers seem to think) don’t want to vote on issues. Not on character. Not on firm convictions of the person they’re voting for–convictions that will turn into actions when elected. Nope, we must be voting based on how we feel about the candidate, what the candidate’s family looks like, how good looking he/she is, where they buy their clothes, what goofy things the pastor says and his broad thoughts about “stuff” in general–because that’s what we’re told about. No specific solutions. No sound, hard principles that will be fought over and died upon.

Sarah Palin has, in her short time as the Vice Presidental choice of John McCain, taken quite a few knocks, especially in her comparison to Obama. One thing I truly respect about her is her true (not rhetorical, actual) convictions about party corruption:

Palin vs. Obama on Reform and Ethics (Cato-at-liberty)
In 2004, she joined a Democratic representative in filing an ethics complaint against Republican Attorney General Gregg Renkes over a trade deal. Renkes resigned.

As a Murkowski-appointee to the Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Palin went after fellow commissioner Randy Ruedrich, also chairman of the state GOP, charging him with doing political business on state time. That investigation led to his resignation and a $12,000 fine. Quick: name one member of Chicago’s Democratic machine that Barack Obama took down along his rapid ascent to the U.S. Senate. (emphasis mine)

I live in Illinois. Barack Obama is my senator. And Illinois politics, as most people are aware, are very corrupt. And Obama may talk a rhetoric of change, but he’s changed nothing. He asked a six term Washington insider to be his VP candidate. And talk is just talk.

And that’s why I’m not voting for McCain.

I really like Palin. I think I could probably vote for her. But she’s not running for President. John McCain is. And his proven record is that he does not care enough about the one thing I think is most important, the life of unborn Americans who are murdered by the thousands every single day.

He says he is pro-life. He says that human rights should be extended at conception. But his actions have shown otherwise. He has not voted only for judges who will sustain that belief. He has supported the experimentation on human embryos, nay even the taxpayer funding of such heinous acts. And he contributed to a PR bait and switch, wherein the Republican congress, instead of doing what they (in their platform**) believed they should: supported a constitutional amendment declaring the personhood of the unborn, the Congress outlawed a procedure called Partial-Birth-Abortion that placed, according to the majority opinion, no real restriction on abortion. He has voted to use taxpayer funds for Planned Parenthood.

So John McCain may have changed his mind. But I do not trust him. And so I cannot vote for him with a clear conscience, because as I said yesterday, there is only one most important issue, and that is the lives of the thousands of murdered children who die every day while the magistrate does nothing.

**”We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.” p. 52, GOP Platform)

The browser in my old blackberry wouldn’t let me log in to the old version of wordpress. If you can read this, then some combination of the WP upgrade, the new server, the new Blackberry, and the new cell provider make it possible to post while mobile.

Yay!

You should see more frequent posting then.

Mom is in good spirits today and talking and smiling and laughing.

She’s got quite the shiner and a punk haircut but considering what she’s been through she looks great.

Preliminary pathology os that the tumor ios benign and final pathology will be in tomorrow. She’ll be moved from ICU in a little bit and may go home as soon as tomorrow.

Praise God!