All Lives Matter, Including the Lives of the Unborn

   I think of the riots in Ferguson, and across the nation, and see the power of protest. I think of the people chanting, "Raise your hands -- Don't shoot." And, I think of the slogan, "All lives matter."
   Look what Ferguson hath wrought: With it, we have become wary of death at the hands of police. Before Ferguson, we were a nation accepting the notion that if a policeman shot a person, it was because the person had it coming. Since Ferguson, we wonder if all the deaths are warranted, if all are justified. We are indignant, angry and defiant.
   We demand justice.
   The other day, a Facebook friend posted on police violence against blacks, and I commented, "All lives matter," on the thread. I scrolled down to read a meme of an unborn child, with the caption, "Raise Your Hands -- Don't Abort." I lost that meme, but made my own version, above. I added the line, "When the mother is the law." It is ironic that even as police are the ones who should protect us, even so it is that mothers should protect their unborn.
    I find myself, tonight, wishing the nation would rise in outrage against taking the lives of unborn children, that there were outrage equal to what there has been in Ferguson. I look at Ferguson, and think of the slogan, "All lives matter," and consider that certainly that should include the unborn. Their lives should matter.
   A life taken amiss is a life that should be missed. What? an estimate 1.2 million lives lost to abortion each year, and yet we go on about our affairs without considering saving them? If we were to rise in protest, mny or most of those lives could be spared.

When Society has Warts, the Soothing Balm is Public Protest

   Anger can bring healing. When there is hurting, when there is wrong, when the ills of society get us so worked up we pour into the streets in anger, then is when change will come. The warts of society fester until we find them so offensive, we treat them with a balm called public protest.
   When a nation rises in protest, the powers that be will bend.
   Has it ever been so? From the first revolution, outrage has healed America. We shed the injustices of tyranny first with such protests as the Boston Tea Party and then with war. We cast off slavery only with war, and dispersed much of the discrimination against blacks only with marches and banners and outcry in the public square. We gave women the right to vote only after they stood up with pickets and shouted.
   Protest has helped make America great. If there are wrongs that remain, we must not think they will be healed in our silence.

Does Constitution Whisper for the Senate and President to Get Along?

    I sit down to write about how, if we are to do things the way the Constitution outlines, the Senate should vote on the Iran deal.
   I'm barely started, when I realize the funner story is that, if we are to follow the way the Constitution paints that things should happen, then just maybe the Senate and President Obama need to get along and work together. Yes, to me, that venerable document seems to be suggesting as much.
   It's only a little more than one line, but listen to what the Constitution says. It starts by talking about the president, and it says, "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur."
   I don't know, picturing the the president taking advice from the Senate seems to suggest they sit down and work together as a team. Now, in the days when the Constitution was written, that might have seemed possible. But . . .
   Then, enter the parties.
   And, I wonder if partisan division has ever been so divisive as it is at present. Sit down and cordially come up with an international agreement? Not likely in today's world. I would love to see that happening, though. I would love to see the Constitution being loved so much that the participants would say, "If a little love between us is what is being suggested -- if the Constitution so much as insinuates that -- we will make it happen."

Iran Deal Appears to be Binding -- So, Constitution Says, Let Senate Vote

   An example of President Obama's executive actions I do not agree with comes in the form of the proposed deal with Iran. Treaties must be approved by the Senate, but Secretary of State John Kerry suggests this is not a treaty, but rather an executive agreement.
   Are we sidestepping the way the Constitution would have us do this by choosing our own language? Kerry says the agreement would not be binding. I wonder what that means. Does it mean we can go ahead and impose sanctions even though Iran is keeping its part of the deal? Because, if we are obligated to keep our part of the deal, it seems it is binding, and it is a treaty, and the Senate should be allowed to vote on whether to approve it.

I and the Cabbage Patch have the Same Distant Grandparent?

  Now, did man, cabbage and insects all evolved from the same organism? Am I related to cabbage through an eons ago common ancestor? Then, again, was there just a single organism that we all evolved from?
   Or did man evolve from one organism, cabbage from another, and insects from a third? For, it does seem if there was one time that amino acids spawned a living creature, then there was a second and a third.
   Doesn't such a thought leaves open the possibility that different sets of species evolved from different starter organisms?
 

From the Earliest DNA, Did a Map Exist for Far-Flung Generations?

   I once read how in the embryo that becomes a baby, the mapping exists for all the features of what the person will eventually look like, the hair color, facial look -- everything. And, this makes sense -- doesn't it? -- since if a person inherits features, then everything must be passed through the smallest of portals, the very smallest of organisms that is to grow into a person.
   For those who oppose abortion who face the criticism that early on, the embryo is not a human because it bears no human features, the argument is clear: All the features of a human being, even before they are visible, are present in the embryo, indeed, in the zygote.
   But, there is also an argument for the design of man hidden in this. If human features are mapped out before the person becomes what he or she eventually becomes, and they are passed from generation to generation, then at least portions of the map existed as far back as the first -- shall we say -- zygote.
   I'm would guess everyone agrees on that. After all, evolutionists have long spoken of the percentage of DNA in a current person that is the same as that of a person living eons ago.
   Here's what I wonder: Did that earliest of all ancestors include coding within it allowing descendants to differ? The question is very significant, for if the original genetics contain mapping for one descendant to look one way, and another to look another, then there existed from the earliest inception, design. Whether you want to tack the word "intelligent" on it front of it, design, itself, is a fact.
   This runs counter to what current evolution teaches, if I understand correctly. For, my understanding is that evolutionists will tell you there is no design, there is no plan. The creature is molded and changed by its environment, becoming one thing if the environment molds it that way, and another if the environment molds it another.
   If there is advanced life on other planets, the creatures do not look like our humans.
   I look at all the different creatures, and wonder. I look at just the animal kingdom, and wonder. Did a bear become a bear and a horse a horse based solely on differences in environment?
   This is all supposing we believe evolution does mean one creature evolves into another. And, I may share tomorrow a reason for wondering whether that is as true as what current evolutionary thought suggests.

Laws can Serve as Good Influences

   What of the argument that laws against drugs, and smoking, and gambling and prostitution all take away our agency?
   To me, they do not. I suggest that while the law does impose consequences, there are consequences to most any choice. If a person chooses to take cocaine, long before the law comes along, there will be consequences. The threat of those consequences can be a good thing, for if a person can see drugs are going to ruin his life, he will be less inclined to take them.
   Good influences are good, so laws that influence us for good are a benefit to us.
   So, if we are so worried about laws taking away our agency, why do we not worry that these natural consequences also are robbing us of agency? Why do we not protest that God has set up a system that cuts against our ability to choose without being forced to choose? He has not. And, in the same vein, laws do not take away our agency. They add to the consequences, yes, but our agency remains. They influence what we do, yes, but they are good influences, even as many natural consequences serve as good influences.