REASON

 Binary arguments plague us these days. These are situations which offer only two opposing sides or choices, often implying that if one is true, the other must be false. A form of "either/or" thinking, it is sometimes considered a logical fallacy because it may ignore the possibility of more nuanced or complex realities.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that I don’t believe in abortions, but health care choices should be determined by a woman and her physician, making abortions safe and rare.

If I am a far-left progressive, I can’t say that gender dysphoria is a medical phenomenon affecting less than one percent of the population who should be loved and cared for, but that some gender-selection advocates have pushed the extremes of thought to uncomfortable levels.

If I am a MAGA, I can’t say that regulations stifle the economy, but some are necessary to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general population.

If I am a far left progressive, I can’t say that protection of the welfare is essential, but that America has become over-regulated when we fine companies for not placing "Do not stand." warnings on the top of stepladders.

We must, as in some Biblical admonition, choose whom we will serve and how we will serve them, never in the lukewarm, or rational, middle, but hot or cold.

 Increasingly, we don’t seek to serve the vast general public.

Increasingly, we avoid reason to guide our thinking.

Increasingly, we approach life from the extremes of thought.

That’s how we have ended up where we are.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Many people admit to being a one-issue voter. They would canonize Hitler himself in support of that one issue. I'm not, but I understand how someone might be. We could call it selective reasoning.

One of the top single issues these days is, of course, abortion.

As I have stated before, I don't have standing to judge this issue. It represents an issue limited to the female of our species. She must make a decision based on a situation I can't even imagine, much less pass judgement on.

But let's say, for argument's sake, that I could. How would I face the complex factors associated with it?

First, I would redefine the problem to be one of unwanted pregnancies. The question of whether to abort or not seems, to me, to be a result of, not an initiating factor of, a pregnancy which a sister faces, but decides against, because of health, rape, incest, poverty, or lack of knowledge. This resides within a society that is currently exhibiting less care and comfort for life outside the womb.

I would tend to address the question of how to avoid unwanted pregnancies rather that making it a capital offense for a mother facing debilitating health issues or a 12-year-old rape victim to seek medical salvation.

Thus defined, sex education would seem appropriate. I have read that in Brahm's day, it wasn't odd for puberty to initiate in one's late teens. I have also read that dietary improvements have reduced that to early teens, meaning a child must deal with raging hormones for much longer periods of time. Wouldn't it be wise and merciful to elucidate them to the consequences?

Then there is the question of sperm-donor responsibility. Most abortion laws originate from all-male or nearly all-male legal bodies. As a result, males receive little or no burden due to unwanted pregnancies. This will be true as long as highways, trains, buses and airplanes offer males the opportunity flee from consequences in a matter not available to the female. The womb can't "hit the road a'running."

Yes, I am aware that the uniform application of sex-offender laws might be fatal to high school football in the United States, but it might go far in addressing the problem as I see it.

Then there is the matter of contraception. The ability to hold, in one's mind a negative attitude, simultaneously, against both abortions and contraceptives is one of the inexplicable mysteries of the human mind.

I would support placing health care, and its myriad complexities in the hands of those trained for the purpose.

Finally, I would urge that any deserted mother would know she had the full support of her brethren to make sure that a child in America will not be born into a world of shame, neglect, and abandonment.

Above all, it is not a matter for political grandstanding. Society blossoms when we join hands and reason together, not when we choose sides and fight.

THE CENTER

 Heard a new phrase today that fits me perfectly: "The sensible center." Do you sometimes feel like you are in a crater in the middle of "no man's land" and both sides are firing heavy artillery at one another and it passes over you in a dreadful exchange?

That's me. I don't think there is a place in the center for me. Not to trivialize the poor, but I feel that I, and many of my friends, represent the politically homeless. Life wants one to choose from the extremes these days. I don't feel comfortable with either. Here are some examples, not intended to change your mind but to illustrate how I feel as the bombs pass overhead.

I believe strongly that I have no standing on the abortion issue, and I support the privilege of a woman's deciding, along with her physician, what is best for her body.  On the other hand, the use of abortion to determine the sexual makeup of a family's children bothers me.

I believe that there is a portion of my homo sapiens colleagues, some 0.6 percent of the adult population, born with a condition called gender dysphoria. I believe they deserve acceptance, grace, and treatment. On the other hand, I accept the consensus of scientists who state that there are two sexes, male and female. Telling young children that gender is an arbitrary choice from which they may choose disturbs me.

I believe that capitalism, along with the exercise of life, must be regulated. On the other hand, I think America is often over-regulated. When one's job is to address the problems that confront dense living, one must often use regulations to meet those problems. When one's job is to write regulations, one does so, regardless. Using regulation for aspirational purposes and not for the betterment of society disturbs me.

I believe, as Oliver Wendell Holmes stated, that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. On the other hand, waste and pork-barrel spending suck the lifeblood from America. Rewarding loyalty with government largesse disturbs me.

In short, I think that societal choices are complex and not to be addressed with sound bites or on social media. For example, I think the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan was a horrific act. But then, I was not a 22-year-old man who had landed on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944 and had helped defeat the Nazis only to be assigned to a legendary infantry division that would have been in the first boats ashore if the United States military had landed at Kyushu.

Don't get me wrong, my safe place tends toward the left. But I don't choose blind dogma. I think, and therefore I ponder and evaluate. At the end of the day, I love America more than I love a political party.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

LOGIC

 Last week I saw a video of a speech where an evangelist claimed that an abortion for a 12-year-old girl who had been raped by a stranger, or even a father, should not be allowed because, “all lives are precious.”

Last week I saw a video of a speech where an evangelist claimed that we shouldn’t be concerned about the annihilation of children by his god’s people since the murder of a child would immediately send that child to paradise, preventing a life of toil and trouble. Joshua was really doing the children of Jericho an act of graciousness by following his god’s orders when he “… destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys..” Although not evangelicals, the conquistadors received absolution for bashing the heads of Indian babies against walls for it sent them immediately into Heaven.

In another epoch, we read of the Iraq-Iran war during which Iranians marched young children across mine fields to clear them after assuring their parents an immediate entrance into paradise where virgins awaited their pleasure. Oh, only for the boys.

What might we gain from this?

Perhaps it is that the concept of congruity in our thought process has escaped too many people. That is why so many ultra-religious among us vocally and actively support the candidacy of a man who has achieved national prominence by gloating over a life marked by love of the seven deadly sins and who campaigns in direct repudiation of the Sermon on the Mount. How is this possible?

When I was young, they tried to keep us occupied on trips by giving us what they called “connect the dots puzzles.” Completed successfully, isolated lines produced a coherent picture of something recognizable.

I think it taught us, subconsciously, that the same might be true of our thoughts. When connected carefully, an acceptable conclusion would appear. It requires logic. What should concern us today is that a startling percentage of American voters could not answer the following with confidence:

A equals B

B equals C

Does A equal C? Yes or no, and why?

Shame, oh shame. Where art thou?

Carol Lynley died this week. Not many people paid notice. That’s what happens many times to former film stars who gained fame in their youth and saw it fade away. It seems the press best remembered her for most for her sexy role in The Poseidon Adventure. Lots of people my age remember her as the co-star, with Brandon deWilde, in the 1959 film Blue Denim.

Yes, that’s the one where a bit of fooling around in the basement by a teen-aged couple led to an unforeseen pregnancy. What was the impact on the largely youthful audience that flocked to see it? Depends on who you ask.

The film evolved from the 1958 Broadway play by writer James Leo Herlihy. The play told the story a bit differently from the film version. In the play, the young protagonist obtained an abortion. Of course, movie censors of that time wouldn’t hear of that. The film showed the chastened and frightened couple boarding a bus to a secret location to face marriage, parenthood and the future.

Again, what impact did the film have on young folks? I’ve read where some young girls thought it was sexy. I don’t know. I know, from memory, that it scared the hell out of some of the boys. “What, me pay a price? I had nothing to do with it. Why screw up my life?” That male attitude probably wasn’t as strong in 1959 as it is now, but we see that the idea of males having no responsibility, no price to pay, no shame, and no retribution to face in the case of unwanted pregnancies has been with us for a long while. The attitude has gained a systemic and formidable position in American society. It will not, “… go gentle into that good night.”

Funny thing is, I don’t remember the causal act to be that sexy in the film. Bear in mind, though, that I last viewed it some years ago. In the key scene, all of the boy’s buddies have left the basement and the (uninvited) young girl remains to joke around a bit. In the next scene, he finds her in the library with a medical book turned to the pregnancy section. That leads to the most memorable line in the film.

“It doesn’t say how to stop it,” she says, with tears in eyes that stare into a bewildered face.

For a bit of bad-taste trivia, I’ve read that In Cold Blood murder victim Nancy Clutter wanted to see the film but never got to.

Why bring it up? I don’t know. It did represent a morality play of sorts. The young couple suffered from a life interrupted. We don’t know though, what might have happened. The marriage might have flourished and the boy might have grown to be a stock fund manager. On the other hand, he might have earned a spot on the black granite wall in Washington, “leaving a wife and child behind,” as they say. Or, it may have dawned on him that he could walk away scot-free and he did.

I heard a comedian say something yesterday to the tune of “shame is the first step to restoration.” I don’t know why so much truth about our national salvation is coming from comedians these days, but it is.

Shame. If that film generated a dread of shame in a few young children, I suppose it served a good purpose. I’m not sure that was endemic, though. There still remains the legend of a slightly older contemporary “rich kid” in my home town. After impregnating his girlfriend, he dutifully showed up at the wedding, played his role, and then drove the bride to her parents’ house and deposited her like a prom-night date, never to be bothered with “husband-hood,” or fatherhood, again.

Then there was a closer acquaintance who, at last count, had fathered two children from separate girls, never paying a price, due to the blessings of his parents’ money. Ironically, he became one of our strongest opponents of a girl’s making the “wrong choice” in such dilemmas. Yes. We live in a strange world.

Oh, and Miss Lynely? A short while after setting the young men of America mentally aflame with her role in The Poseidon Adventure, she did a nude gig in Playboy Magazine. We have no record of the counterbalancing number of “Honey, guess what?” surprises that act may have generated.

Life goes on. Maybe Brother Hunter S. Thompson was right. “Buy the ticket. Take the ride.”