Slaughter of the Innocents in India

A friend sent me an absolutely depressing article this morning about the estimated 10 million girls killed in India in the past 20 years. The ratios of female to male births in India right now is alarmingly low, and the explanation is simple: girls are seen as a liability. As an overall concept this is nothing new. Countries like China which are overcrowded usually only allow a family to have one female child. This is why so many Chinese girls are available for adoption.

In India, however, they simply choose to terminate the life of the child instead. The article describes some of the horrible ways this happens. For instance, upon delivery when it is visually confirmed that the infant is a female, and when the baby opens its mouth to give her first cry, they will shove sand in her throat to suffocate her.

When I first began reading this article, it didn't take long for me to consider posting it here. But when I reached the end of the article I knew I absolutely had to because I wanted to comment a little further on some of the ridiculous things I read.

Towards the end of the article, Renuka Chowdhury (India's Minister for Women and Child Development) said that the key to changing this practice was the "economic empowerment of women." According to Chowdhury, this practice stems from social prejudices against women, and that if women are empowered to earn as men do that such social prejudices will vanish (and this horrible practice along with it).

That is quite demonstrably false.

One need look no further than the United States in the past 50 years. Women in this country have been increasingly "economically empowered" to the point where the single working mother has been glorified in news, television, movies and print. Much is made of the divine right of women to do whatever they choose, and in particular the choice of whether or not to terminate the life of an unborn child is militantly defended. One of the byproducts of the "economic empowerment of women" is a dramatic increase in the practice of abortion....NOT a decrease as the Indian Minister suggests.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no trouble with the notion of women being given equal pay for equal work. I do not in any way support the notion of economic discrimination on the basis of sex. But I do know that the issue of abortion is invariably closely tied to the push for "economic empowerment" and that simply empowering women in this way is not gonna do it.

The root cause of the problem is failure to recognize the sanctity of life, and the fact that that extends to conception. Until the culture moves to embrace that, and the laws of the nation reflect it, you will not stem the tide of infanticide. May God's people work in an amongst the nation of India to stop this horrible practice.

Global Warming Alarmism

Let me get this straight. According to Sen James Inhofe, the media is engaged in alarmism over "global warming" and engaged in "hyping scientifically unfounded climate alarmism?"

Gee...say it ain't so.

It's pretty funny (and telling) when the Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee refers to global warming as "the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people." That sure doesn't jibe with the movie by the new Prophet of Environmentalism, Al Gore, that the liberals have been hailing as a modern-day version of The Jungle.

There's no doubt that Al Gore has finally found his niche in America. He is perfecting the art of extreme liberal alarmism and chucking batteries from the sidelines. Hyperbole seems to be integral to his speech (after all, according to him the present war in Iraq is "the worst strategic mistake in the entire history of the United States." Al Gore failed out of divinity school, law school, and the electora college (ba-dum-bum), and now he apparently is working hard to fail out of a history program somewhere.

Anyway, I digress... Sen Inhofe will soon be replaced by Sen Barbara Boxer as Chairman of that committee. Boy, if that isn't like hiring an alcoholic as a bartender. Can't wait to see what ridiculous legistlation she tries to push through as sacrifices to the God of Environmentalism (aka Mother Earth).

Folks, I firmly believe in responsible conservationism. I go out of my way to recycle and not be wasteful. But this is getting absolutely ridiculous. Between the pervasive Environmentalism and the militant Evolutionism my children are being constantly subjected to I certainly have my hands full deprogramming my children.

Maranatha!

Put Down That Fritter!

Not to be outdone by the intrusion of the state into how private businesses conduct business when it comes to smoking, the city of New York has now passed a law banning trans-fats from eateries. That's right...the state is dedicated to protecting its citizens from themselves.

Some of the statements in the article deserve commentary:

"We're not trying to take away anybody's ability to go out and have the kind of food that they want in the quantities that they want, but we are trying to make that food safer." - Mayor Bloomberg

Translation: you don't really want some of that food because it's not good for you.

"I don't care about what might be politically correct and what's not," said Murray Bader, nursing a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts on Tuesday morning. "I want to live longer!"

Here's an idea: if you want to live longer, the solution is to take responsibility for what you eat. That means know what's good and bad for you and choose what you eat accordingly. That does NOT mean support a law that allows the state to dictate what people can and cannot eat.

"It's hurting us, all this fat, but the kids really like it," said Ramirez, pointing to 3-year-old Amber, who had just finished her dinner. "It would be better to know what we're getting."

So the 3-year-old dictates their own diet? While I agree that you should be aware of what you are eating when you order food, you have choices to make. You don't have to eat there, especially if they do not provide the information you want. Heaven forbid though that we citizens make choices for ourselves, including "depriving" ourselves of something for the sake of conviction. No, we have to pass laws to exempt us from having to make those tough decisions and relieve our fellow citizens of their need to do so for their own good.

So, as it stands right now, the state can take away your home if they decide it would be more beneficial to have a shopping center on your property, the state can tell a private business owner that they cannot allow smoking at all in their own business, and now the state can tell private businesses that they cannot cook food a certain way at all. All, of course, for the good of the people...us poor oblivious folk who are too burdened with choosing who we think will win Survivor to make difficult decisions like where to spend our time and money on things that matter.

Mind you, I'm not supporting smoking or the habitual eating of trans-fat foods in and of themselves. I'm simply becoming more and more discouraged by the general trend towards shirking personal responsibility, which is a far more dangerous and deadly habit than either of those things. The state has become the dealer of this drug. I say Just Say No.

NBC: Never Backs Christianity

I will always roll my eyes every time I hear about how Christianity is "intolerant" and therefore bad, mainly because of the inherent hypocrisy in such a statement. After all, we must not tolerate intolerance, right?

(I can't even type that without rolling my eyes)

Anyway, I had heard awhile back that Veggie Tales had been picked up by NBC to be shown as a Saturday morning cartoon, and that NBC had elected to edit the show to remove some of the more overt references to the Bible and Christianity. Well, as I read this morning in an article from The American Conservative Union Foundation, NBC will not allow its broad audience to be offended by the advocation of "any one religious point of view" such as that presented by Veggie Tales, but they will quite willingly allow the Christians in its audience by ridiculed and mocked
by its show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

Basically, from the very first episode of this series, Christians are portrayed as "crazy." Two of the main characters ended their relationship because one couldn't stomach the other having sung a religious song for the "bigot" Pat Robertson on the 'fanatical' 700 Club ("Throw in the Halloween costumes and you got yourself a clan rally"). Of course I then read a defense of the clear anti-Christian sub-theme of the show that points to the fact that there is a "Christian" as a main cast member. No, what they have is a stereotype, docile, lukewarm "Christian" as a token to deflect criticism of the anti-Christian material and a convenient plot device to further it.

As Rebecca Cusey of NRO put it, "Perhaps writers and producers in Hollywood don’t know any people of faith. They surely receive letters from boycotters, and proposals for religious projects from Christian artists, but when they sit down to dinner at Spagos, people of faith aren’t likely to be at the table. They portray what they know, so we have a TV world populated with atheistic, hedonistic urbanites. Believing characters come from a stock set of stereotypes."

Not that I'm surprised. We're fortunate to live in a time in history where the persecution one endures for the sake of Christ is largely limited to some scornful looks, indirect insult, and general ridicule. Men and women have died in horrible fashion proclaiming the name of Christ, and would continue to do so should such level of persecution return. Indeed there are many brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world that endure such persecution.