Flags and Issues

On March 19, 1777, Capt. Moses Dunbar was hanged for being a Loyalist. He had not only joined the King's army, but he was caught trying to recruit others to the cause. He was the only man in Connecticut ever hanged for treason. It is said that his own father gave them the rope that made the noose.

His (second) wife gave birth to their youngest son, also named Moses Dunbar, almost exactly nine months later. I am directly descended from that youngest son.

Am I proud of ol' Moses Dunbar? Well, no and yes. I don't support the ideals that he appeared to the patriots to endorse by joining the soldiers who were fighting them. I definitely don't advocate taxation without representation, or other methods by which the monarchy  refused proper governance to its territory in the New World. But honestly, I admire his willingness to stand up for what he believed, and he wrote a fascinating letter which he read at his execution, in which he forgave all involved and asked forgiveness for his own sins from anyone affected by them. He went to his death expressing confidence in God, and that is something to be proud of.

I wonder what the reaction would be if Connecticut insisted upon flying the British Flag from the State Capital in order to proudly declare their deep and abiding appreciation for the old British Colonial Empire. I wonder, furthermore, what we might think if the people who supported this action used the British Flag as a symbol to explain their distate for post-Christian government-forced social issues such as abortion and gay 'marriage'. What should such people say to those who question the wisdom of flying a flag of colonialism while claiming to be the only group in America who are truly interested in freedom?

This is a problem that we are facing now, with the Confederate Flag being flown by people who insist that it is all about "states' rights" and that anybody who is squeamish about Confederate history must be a big-government liberal. I can't help but wonder if, when the Southern States pushed through the Slave Fugitive Act, if they told abolitionists that it didn't have to affect them because "if you don't want to own slaves, just don't buy any slaves - nobody is forcing you to be part of it", while making anything but the whole-hearted pursuing and capturing of fleeing ex-slaves punishable by government action. In short, my point is this: Yes, it is possible to be in favor of deregulation and lowering taxes without flying the "Stars and Bars", and the Southerners would do well to remember that.

This said:

I can't say I like the push to remove the Confederate Flag from Civil War memorials in the South, or ending re-enactments, or basically pushing it 'under the rug' the way that Germany has done with the swastika. I also think that any choice to remove it from a state building should be the decision of the state itself, not the Federal Government, though I also see nothing wrong with The People pushing to make it happen through popular opinion. Granted, I don't think personally that the Confederate Flag belongs with the "Flags of the Present" on government buildings meant to administer the Present - tax collection, license renewal, etc. - but I would be about as 'shocked' at seeing a Confederate Flag at a Southern Civil War memorial as I would be to find a cross in the chapel of a college. (I would, however, encourage all who want to fly the flag personally to read the Reasons for Secession historical documents. You may find the modern perception of the Civil War, as being primarily about "states' rights" or "economics" rather than slavery, challenged... strongly.

And now that I'm on the outs with both sides, let me say what I want most to say about the issue.

This is not as important as keeping the government from imposing further gun control laws upon us. It is not as important as keeping the government from redefining the sexually-dimorphic pair-bond to exclude sexual dimorphism and pair-bonding. Every single Confederate flag in the nation is not worth the life of one baby destined for abortion. And killing Obamacare dead will save many more lives than are affected by that particular piece of cloth.

So debate it all you like, work it out all you like, choose sides... but don't let this issue make Southerner Republicans hate Northerner Republicans. The Democrats are weak. This is our country to win or lose, and breaking out into virulent hatred over this particular issue could leave us with Four More Years... of Clinton, or even worse, Sanders the Full-Out Avowed Socialist.

Ask yourself this: What means more to you? What do you think will do more damage to this country?

The Stars and Bars?

Or the Hammer and the Sickle?

Better the Stars and Bars in South Carolina than the Hammer and Sickle over all of us. That's my stance on the issue, as a Northerner Conservative Republican who has no love for the Confederate Flag.

Dr. Ruth and the Evil Warnings

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the mildly scandalous sex therapist, now in her mid-80's, has suddenly managed to turn the entire feminist movement against her. Oh dear. What on earth did she manage to say to rattle them so much?

"I know it’s controversial, but for your program, I’m going to stand up and be counted and, like I do in the book, be very honest. I am very worried about college campuses saying that a woman and a man or two men or two women, but I talk right now about woman and man, can be in bed together, and at one time, naked, and at one time, he or she — most of the time they think she can say, I changed my mind. No such thing is possible."

 Aye, that's relatively controversial as stated, However, in subsequent tweets, she clarified what she meant - and didn't mean - to say:

I am 100% against rape. I do say to women if they don't want to have sex with a man, they should not be naked in bed w/him.
That's risky behavior like crossing street against the light. If a driver hits you, he's legally in the wrong but you're in the hospital.

So what's the problem?

Apparently, the naysayers insist that Dr. Ruth is claiming that the man's action is no longer rape and should no longer be prosecuted as such, that the man has no responsibility over his actions whatsoever, and that she is basically placing the full fault of rape on the woman. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be able to refute her position without resorting to the bizarre, possibly because her position is quite reasonable. One commenter on an American Thinker article claimed that "blaming women for the rape", as Dr. Ruth was supposedly doing, was like "saying that if a dog humps your leg, it's your fault for having a leg." Others have brought up the old "asking for it by wearing a skirt that exposes her knees" claim. I find it strange that feminists are so bent on their goals of "free sex" that they cannot bear the thought of a woman engaging in any sort of selective behavior in her sex life without having to come to the bizarre conclusion that men are incapable of being responsible for anything they do.

But that isn't, at the core, what is bothering me about this "controversy".

What the naysayers are doing, at the core, is claiming that a private individual, however notable, cannot give advice to women in order to minimize the chances of them becoming victimized without somehow affecting the legal responsibility of the perpetrator of the crime. The reason this bothers me is because it depends upon the belief that we cannot simply choose how to regulate our own behavior; it must be unregulated entirely or under government control.

It seems that people are losing sight of the excellent "third way" between regulation and deregulation, the way upon which this country was founded. John Adams said, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Putting aside the question of Christianity and religion in morality for the moment, I would hope that we can all agree that the intent of structuring the Constitution such that the government should not regulate us was to allow us to take up the responsibility of regulating ourselves. If we lose sight of that, we may deserve the tyranny we risk bringing upon ourselves.

Women should have every right to take control over their own sexuality by setting boundaries, starting with the very simplest and easiest to understand: if you don't want to have sex with a man, it will be much, much easier to avoid doing so if you do not climb naked into bed with him.