I Will Decide

The topic of the last post was about the proposed legislation in California to make it illegal to spank a child under the age of two years old. If this law were passed it would make California the first state in the nation that regulated how a parent could discipline their children.

The comments I received from this post were really interesting to me. Although they seemed to center more on the value of spanking as a form of discipline rather than whether government should be allowed to dictate how a parent can and should discipline their children. So that brought other questions to my mind.

Such as...Is it the role of government to tell a parent how to raise their child? If we say its ok for them to tell us we cannot spank as a form of discipline then what other rules will this bring about? Will they also tell us where we can educate them, what they wear, what they are allowed to watch on TV and for how long? What about music and dating? Will these things also be deemed necessary to be regulated? And if we consent to all of these things... can we still say we are raising our own children? Or at this point are we allowing government to do it for us? And if we do this....what type of society will we become?

If we are going to take that step down the slippery slope....then what of the abortion issue?

I personally feel that once a sperm and egg are introduced and unite..that we are now dealing with a person. I don't care if at that point the person is just a mass of cells dividing amongst themselves. At that moment, when those two things meet, genetically speaking we are now on the course to creating a full fledged walking, talking, thinking human being.

You see, the problem I have with giving things a name......such as fetus for example, is that it seems to minimize its importance in the big scheme of things. But if you look at it as though it is just another descriptive name in a long list of names during the different stages of development.....such as Infant....Toddler....Child...Teen...Adult. Then you have to realize that you can call it whatever you like, but the end result is still the same. Its still a human.

Just as a caterpillar left alone becomes a butterfly......a tadpole becomes a frog......those few small cells dividing and dividing again, have everything it takes to one day walk...talk....think...and love.

Having said this....Do I want my government delving into this part of my life? Do I want them to have control and say so over my body? Do I want them to be able to tell me how to raise this child if I have one?

HELL NO I DO NOT!

I have a real problem when a government thinks they know what's the best thing for me even better than I do myself. I do not want others to do my thinking for me. I do not want others thinking they are smarter than I am and therefore NEED to do my thinking for me. I suppose the only way I can prevent such a thing from happening to me.....is to indeed think for myself and vote. And by doing so making sure that no one ever has a chance to pass laws that will take away my right to decided what kind of society we have.

I don't like everything in the world around me. I think there are a lot of things that could be said have gone straight to hell. But as bad as we seem to think things are, I do not want ANYONE taking away my rights to speak and think and live freely.

They say that when you loose things like freedoms that you never lose them all at once. That evil is not something that comes and falls on you like a wall. It is the small, insignificant day to day things that we give up because we are too lazy to do them for ourselves. Like parenting our children.

Maybe I am to idealistic in my thinking....but if you think so...maybe you need to be too.