Initiative 11-"For the Children"

Initiative 11 is a law to prioritize selflessness over selfishness.  

The proposed law redirects our attention from ourselves to our children by setting a state standard to prioritize a human life over a culture of egotism and narcissism. This law is vital to the survival of our way of life as it reemphasizes the dignity of human life over the a self centered lifestyle that damages children to a degree that is irreversible. 

Imagine the life of a 15 year old girl, and all of the negative influences over her future.  If you would like to know what it is like to grow up in our current popular culture, I would suggest you look past the fashion party lifestyle of Brittney Spears and simply download the lyrics of some of the music pop culture is pushing. 

The most popular rapper of this generation, 50 Cent (no joke, that is the name he goes by), a culture warrior of the worst sense,  has a song, "Candy Shop." I think you should hear it just to catch a glimpse into what your children or grandchildren are listening to. You can link to it here.

Lil Wayne and the East Side Boyz, another culture warrior, has a real catchy toon.  It's called lick my lollipop.  I don't care who hears these lyrics, but if you have a daughter that is 15 years old, you should be worried what these lyrics are telling her.

Okay, lil mama had a swag like mine
even wear her hair down her back like mine
i make her feel right when its wrong like lyin
Man, she ain never had a love like mine
n' man i aint never seen a ass like hers
and that pussy in my mouth had me at a loss fo words
told her to back it up like erp erp
and make that ass jump like shczerp shczerp
and thats when she said i lo-lo-look like a lollipop

If you still don't believe me, listen to the lyrics of every rapper and rock group out there.  The lyrics devalue the self esteem of women.  The lyrics aren't just about sex.  They are about a life without a love, not on a life centered on helping other people, definitely not on God, not on what makes a person happy for the rest of their life, but on the most basic and crude of human desires.

Some people think they can separate the popular culture from that of a life of love and fulfillment.  After all, this culture has blossomed from the flower children that grew up on a "make love not war" mantra, who rebelled against the staid, cumbersome relationships of their parents. They believed their solution was the proper alternative, a counter culture of sorts, to the traditional family values, dare I say, Christian values, of their parents. Maybe they can talk about how bad families have been in the past, how people were unhappily married, but the alternative culture has created a real problem.  

Every one of you with a daughter (or a grand daughter) would want her to grow up to be respected and loved for the rest of her life by someone who could value her.  Every one would want her to fall in love with someone who was loyal and cared about her. Your daughter, without even knowing it, would want a long term, loving relationship. Such a strong relationship, that it would last for the rest of her life so that she could look back, in her old age, and see a husband, children and grandchildren who love and adore her.

But the culture we live in devalues a long lasting love.  Falling in love is such a chance these days, because the love is based on popular culture values.  Unfortunately, many of us who grew up in this pop culture haven't really thought about the ramifications of such a "pleasure me now" culture.   That culture leads to children--unwanted children.

And that leads us to Campaign 11.  A law that values a child.  Whether they are wanted or not, the emphasis is about placing these children ahead of our own needs, wants and desires.  A satisfying selflessness. This goes against popular culture.  They will tell you this is about a womans right to choose.  

But it is more than a womans right to choose. The current laws are actually about a mans right not to choose.  Not in the way you are thinking.  The current law is about a mans right to not choose to do the right thing.  The current law is about a choice of saying we don't have a problem with today's popular culture.  The current law is about one night stands. The current law is about sex with out consequence. The current law is about women as and object, not a person.

Campaign 11 is about how you want to raise your daughter.  Do you want to teach her about the standards, the responsibilities and the possible love in her life.  Or do you want to teach her about all that is going to go wrong in her life.  

Whitney Houston once sang, "children are our future."  But as we shamelessly watched her marriage with Hip Hop artist husband Bobby Brown disintegrate and her life shattered by drug abuse, we are reminded that children may be our future, but a self centered life leads to destruction.

Hillary Clinton, boasts how she has been fighting for children for over 35 years.  I actually thinks she gets children.  But she is afraid to speak truth to her power.  How can she say she is for the children when her financial supporters are the purveyors of the smut that is called pop culture?  Hollywood, the music industry, and the womens magazines from Cosmopolitian to Playboy produce a eternal parade of degradation in the name of advancing the feminist agenda. Give me a break. Make no mistake, Hillary understands the destruction of children, but for her to turn her back to children in the name of political expediency, is a much greater evil.

A culture war exists today, and millions of Americans face it and fight it every day.  I describe the war as where popular culture and moral values collide.  Cliches are the weapons in this war. Words such as "pro life," "pro choice," "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion" are the banners under which both sides fight.

I choose to frame this debate as an internal struggle with ourselves that is as old as time. It is a struggle within ourselves about "right and wrong," and "good and evil," separated by a conscience. 

Noted, and controversial psychologist, Sigmund Freud, describes the struggle between selfishness and selflessness as a battle between the "id" and the "super ego."  Each of us are born with natural primitive instincts (id) to hunt and gather food, protect themselves and a drive for sex and an opposite superego, a natural law of what is right.  In philisophical thought, we each possess a governing mechanism to choose between the two.  This is called the conscience or the ego.

In Christian thought, we are taught about the mind, body and soul.  The body is taught to have natural physical urges.  The soul represents the goodness of God, the human connection with the supernatural power of right.  Our mind is the intermediary in our choice between the desires of the body (Greed, Gluteny, Audultery, etc) and the soul (the connection we have to God).

So why is this important?  Popular culture tells us we can have everything we want. Unfortunately, we can't get everything we want unless we hurt people to get it.  This is the real unfortunate problem with pop culture.

Many people are hurt in our pursuit of what we want in our popular culture.  First, and foremost is the long term well being of the woman.  She is not helped by reducing relationships to primal, short term passion filled trysts.  Secondly, men are not encouraged to pursue long term relationships by a constant attention to short term relationships.  Third, another person, the unborn child, is an uncomfortable truth that is created by selfish unions of two people.

Our battle is the battle between right and wrong, good and evil, and selfishness and selflessness.  If there wasn't a battle, then there would not be emotion on either side.  Every woman that has had an abortion I have ever talked to has become very emotional.  These emotions tell me there is a conflict.  However you call it, whether in the prism of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, or selfishness or selflessness, there is no denying it, there is conflict.

The country struggles with how abortion should be regulated by the Federal Government.  One camp shows the struggle from the perspective of women, indicating there is a Constitutional right to have an abortion.  The other camp shows the perspective of the child, indicating there is a Constitutional right to life.

A study of the Constitution would be necessary to understand the legal arguments.  One group believes that the Constitution grants rights based on the popular opinion of the times.  The other group believes God grants certain rights, and those rights are enumerated in our Constitution.  I am quite certain that neither group would claim God grants the right of a woman to abort a child.  So the legal battle that is ongoing is to determine how our government is to treat the third person involved in the decision of abortion, one group decides to acknowledge the presence of a third person, the other group can't.

Caught up in all of this debate is the role of women in our society.  Do women have a right to "not have a child" if they don't want one.  The price of a progressive sexual attitude, that one can have sex without consequences, is at stake.  If abortion would be outlawed, the results of sex (a child) would limit the ability of a woman to "plan" for a future filled with career while engaging in a sexual relationship. 

So should you be pro life or pro choice?

I think the best way to find that out whether you should vote for Initiative 11 is by finding out your true feelings about what you want out of life.  If you are looking to meet someone and spend the rest of your life with that person, raise children and eventually enjoy the grandchildren, you should support laws that encourage this behavior and should be in favor of the initiative.

Now this is a purposefully inflammatory comment.  But I would like to explain.

Popular culture pushes wrong values that run contrary to spending the rest of your life together with a husband (or wife), to raise children, and grandchildren.  Why?  Simple.  Popular culture is a culture of self centered behavior.  To have a family requires self sacrifice and selflessness.  The two can not coexist without conflict.

Read any Cosmopolitan or Us Weekly magazine and you will see the most self centered lifestyle imaginable leading to a culture of egotism and narcissism.  A culture of openness and toleration put forward by leading culture warriors such as Hugh Hefner and Larry Flint places selfish gratification as an awful alternative to the structure of family.  If you can look me in the eye and tell me you would want your 14 year old daughter to become a stripper or pose nude for Playboy, then you have already taken sides in destroying the desire of your 14 year old daughter to have a life completed by family, children and grandchildren.

Unfortunately, the popular culture has been winning as of late.  Degradation of women has risen and will continue to rise.  One needs to look no further than the lyrics of famous music titles that are played in every dance bar in America.  I am not naive enough to think that times were ever better, that popular culture was more pure.  But popular culture has never been on display 24/7 in our daily lives as it is now.  There is not escaping the negative effects of popular culture.

For every waking hour, the radio plays lurid music, television pushes banal explicit themes, and movies, magazines, entertainment and even our politicians reach further and further into the popular culture themes of sex, drugs and progressive lifestyles.

When you choose to vote for or against Initiative 11, there are several issues to decide.  Some will decide based on their religious beliefs, that God miraculously breathes life into the mouth of a child and that dependent, yet seperate life is entitled to the same protections given to all life.  Others will decide based on protecting a lifestyle of women, that each woman should not be forced to carry a child to term on the demands of government.

But there are many in the middle who would like this issue to go away without having to deal with it.  It is to you that I write this article.  This initiative is a referendum on culture.  If you think our culture is positive to women.  If you think your 15 year old daughter or granddaughter benefits by the continual stream of sexual objectification pushed on them by a popular culture that promotes self aggrandizement and narcissism.  If you think the objectification of women is beneficial to the self esteem of girls.  If you think the promotion of popular culture is beneficial to the well being of women and girls, then continuing a policy of protecting the rights of women to have an abortion is beneficial.

However, if you long to encourage your daughters to grow up believing their worth should be measured by who they are, instead of what they look like.  If you believe that popular culture is placing the wrong pressure on your children.  If you wish to protect your daughters from a culture promoting exhibitionism and sexual expression, then voting for a policy that would help counter the popular culture is beneficial.

An unwanted pregnancy is most often a result of a union between two people not in love.  We should encourage children to believe in things more important than self.  The love between a man and a woman is something that should be cherished, not derided.  Initiative 11 promotes the values of family, and we should encourage alternatives, such as adoption to loving couples yearning for children to love.

There are very few times in our life that we can selflessly make a difference in another person's life. Voting 'yes' on Initiative 11 is one of those times. More importantly, looking at this issue in a different way, may actually help you look differently at the value of your own life. 

And wouldn't that be something.