What to teach our daughters about rape.

Other than raising boys who respect and protect women, is there nothing women can do to help prevent or protect themselves against the rape culture out there? 

Things like this are all over the web & social media in response to recent horrible stories of rape on college campuses. "Rape isn't caused by dressing slutty, getting drunk, or hanging out with the wrong crowd."


And I have to say that I 100%, absolutely agree. No matter how immodest the dress or how low the inhibitions, a male still has the ability & responsibility to walk away, to take her home, or call a cab. That is truth, and we need to expect such from our sons & friends. 

But is that all there is? Must we leave women there, with no defense, no suggestions whatsoever about how they might lower their chances of it happening to them? I'm a little surprised that feminists would be OK with leaving women as helpless victims, with absolutely no ideas or strategies for how to protect themselves. Because leaving it at the above graphic, with no other clarification, does exactly that. 

Statistics matter, and they should matter to us as parents & friends of women. One-half of all cases of sexual assaults involve victims who were drinking at the time. Some studies suggest that statistic is as high as 79%. 1 in 3 perpetrators were drinking at the time. 82% of rapes were by acquaintances, not strangers. While there is no way to know for sure whether someone is capable of rape, there is something to be said for our grandmother's admonition to be careful whom you hang around. Hanging out at frat houses can also increase your chances of being raped. (an actual statistic) 

I don't think there are any statistics on modest dress and rape, since it's such a subjective topic. While it certainly does not guarantee immunity, it goes against common sense to think that dressing modestly wouldn't decrease the chances. (I am NOT saying fault; fault is a completely different. If you're not wearing a helmet & pads on your skateboard & someone pushes you down hard, & you break something, it was NOT your fault. But wearing the pads COULD HAVE prevented a broken bone. Make sense?) Teaching our daughters to dress reasonably modestly will help protect them. If you, as her father & mother (but especially father), are not setting limits in this area, you are not doing everything you can to protect your daughter, not just from rape but from being mentally ogled as well. Wives, we need to trust our husbands in this area; we don't have a male mind. Another thing that can help is not letting your kids attend sleepovers.

I had a great college experience, never had a drop of alcohol until I turned 21, have never been drunk, didn't go out with guys I didn't know, didn't hang out in bars, etc. Could it have still happened to me? YES! And my point is not that I'm some morally superior person (that was all the grace of God), but that those things helped protect me while still allowing me to have a blast in my college experience! 

Please, let's educate our daughters about what do if something should happen to them, to go to the authorities & that it is never never their fault. But let's also equip them with strategies that will help to protect them. 

Why I don't Celebrate Earth Day

 I guess you have to understand my roots to understand why I would make such a terrible, and very counter-cultural claim. A few years ago, my father & I happened to be talking on the phone on Earth Day, and he mentioned he was letting his water run all day, and had all the lights on- to make up for the environmentalists trying to save the planet. I laughed. He WAS only half joking!

First of all, as a Christian, I have problems with Earth Day's pagan roots and its post modern present ideology. (that article, BTW, is AMAZING!)

Secondly, it has strong connections to Lenin's birthday, socialist liberal agenda, and even Communism. 

Third, its founder was a cold-hearted murderer. And yet he is still is an honored hero among many liberal leaders. 

I do believe we should be good stewards of this world God has blessed us with! But most environmentalism today is based on fear, money, and a social agenda of control that has NOTHING to do with wanting to help the environment.

Oh, and by the way, most recycling does more harm than good!

Obama 2016 is Coming!

I was watching my computer screen the second Fox News changed the map of OH to blue. The way things were going that night, I was not as hopeful as I had been earlier in the day. Shocked, to say the least, then depressed, then scared- I mean, scared out of my mind for where this country is heading. That is my personality though, to turn to fear automatically. God is delivering me from it slowly. :) I have been listening to this incredibly timely song over & over.

(The video on the story behind the song is also really good.)

 

While I desire God to take away my fear, wisdom will require that concern for our country remains. What happened? What could possibly be the explanaition for the election results? We no longer have the excuse we had 4 years ago of not really knowing the man. I am not as upset that Obama has 4 more years as I am that more than 50% of the people in this country are the kind of people who would vote for him. 

 

Three kinds of people voted for Obama...

1- The people who know exactly who he is and what he's about and completely agree with his worldview, strategies, and goals for (really against) this country. These are smart, well-informed people with a worldview so different from you or I, it's scary. They purposefully want to bankrupt this country, so that we'll be forced into soliacism or something worse. These people make up a VERY small percentage of those who voted for Obama.

2- Then you have those, mostly young, mostly women (although increasingly not so), who voted their immature, pop culture, popularity seeking, feelings. You could also include in this group those who voted for him because he's black, and they're perhaps not so immature as they are just simply racist. One girl on Facebook commented, "There's just something about Romney's face and smirk I don't like. I don't know if I could handle hearing his voice for 4 years either." Obama's good looking, charismatic, sarcastic, and confident- all qualities that Gen Y'ers really take to. These people don't look deeper; they don't even know his policies.

3- Then you have the largest group who are just uneducated and misinformed. Or perhaps I should say mis-educated, because some of them are very "educated" in the worldly sense. They do not know or understand history. They've been educated by the public school system's revisionist history. They know very little of the Constition. And HOW can you vote for a good leader for this country unless you know what they're supposed to be like, which is found in the Constitution? These are the people that think the Democrat party is for helping the poor. This group is also full of poor people who simply don't know, because they've never been taught, that more government involvement in thier lives really will dig their pit deeper and NOT help them out! I, first and foremost, blame the public schools for the mindset of this group. According to exit polling, 6 million "evangelical Christians" voted for Obama. I blame pastors, mostly, for this number, who are so scared to touch politics, that they won't teach what the Bible has to say about government and how a country should be set up. (Most of them don't even know themselves.)

 

But there is something else at work. No society is perfect. God has blessed this country because it was founded on Christian values and on the Bible, but we live in a fallen world. This quote from Alexis de Tocqueville, a French historian who traveled to the US in the 1800's and wrote about our life here, sums up what's happening and what will happen. This is what happened to Rome- not just the fiscal irresponsibility but the moral collapse as well.

 

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (Liberality in bestowing gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville

 

I'm sickened and sad for our country. I'm not too good at making predictions, and I hope many of mine are wrong, but one thing I do think will happen is that we'll see a clearer dividing line between Christians and non-Christians. Not in the sense that Christianity will pull away and hate the world, but that those who are nominal Christians will sell out, and those who are real will become so much more commited. More predictions and where to go from here in a later post, perhaps.... (or maybe you could tell me! ;) )

 

 

Oh, and here's a link to the movie if you haven't seen it...



 http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=2SLa-poeHY4&feature=mv_sr

And an interview with the filmmaker...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9L-lK5QBPk

The Choice in November (& is not voting a choice?)

Was trying to find a good comic, but this is all I got. ^^


Thoughts on the debate last night...

• When discussing how to balance the budget, neither candidate talked much about cutting spending! That's so disappointing. Romney said tax cuts add to the deficit. No, actually, they don't. Spending & borrowing adds to the deficit. And the formula Obama talked about ("simple math") completely left out cutting spending as an option. That's not even on his radar screen!
• Evidence that Romney is really a liberal: He wants to lower tax exemptions, He "likes green energy", and "You have to have regulations!"
• Does anyone besides me seriously doubt that Romney will follow his rule of asking, "Is this program important enough to borrow money from China for?" to justify government programs. If we followed that rule, 80% of govt programs would cease. But then again, that's a pretty subjective rule.
• Most laughable quote of the night: "My grandmother was independent precisely because of Social Security & Medicare." (paraphrased) This is not just a case of needsadictionary. This is at the heart of his worldview, and we saw it very clearly here.
• Best argument of the evening: Obama says a voucher option for Medicare would leave seniors at the mercy of the insurance companies. (& yet being @ the mercy of the govt., who has never in its history been able to run anything more efficiently than the private sector, with the exception of the military, is just fine!?) But Romney says, "That's why they have a choice! They can choose to be @ the mercy of whomever they please! May the best product win!" (paraphrased)
• Romney's debating skills are far superior. Obama repeated himself too much, and talked too slowly.

The choice in November....

I definitely used to believe, as many say, that if there is not a candidate that supports most of my views, I should not vote or write one in, or vote for the 3rd party. In '08, I did write in. I don't believe that anymore, and here's why. It's a protest, but it's a wasted protest. What good did it do us last election? We told the Republican party that we didn't want any more moderates running with our lack of votes & votes for 3rd party candidates, but who won the primaries again this year? Another moderate! They are not getting it. Our energies need to be spent CHANGING the way the primary system works. That's foremost. Once someone wins that, our only choice is to throw our vote away or vote for whom we think is best. You may not like it; I certainly don't like it, but you can't change it by throwing your vote away, as that accomplishes nothing. We can change it by supporting people like Ron Paul or Herman Cain in the primaries, and then by working to change the primary process.

If you live a swing state...
Your choice is between running full speed ahead over the cliff or putting on the breaks a little bit. 

If you don't live in a swing state....
Because of our current system, what you do really doesn't matter much.

"I just won't vote"....

If you think it'd be better to just stay out of it and not vote, I'd challenge you to think again. You really don't have a choice, morally. Voting is not just a right, it's a responsibility. If you don't know enough about the candidates and the issues to make an informed decision, then inform yourself! People in my generation seem to think of politics as a hobby. If it's your thing, that's cool, just don't bother us too much about it. If it's not your thing, well you help the planet in different ways. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people who thought that way 200 years ago. And I'd venture to say our country would already be down the tubes by now if they had! 
If you still don't think you'll vote, I'd just ask one thing- drive up to Arlington Cemetery where the soldiers who gave their lives for your freedom are buried, or any other veterans memorial or cemetery, and just spit all over their graves.  That's what you're doing when you choose not to vote. (courtesy of my dad, only he didn't use the word "spit" ;) )

Religious Hostility in America

 

...against Christians. It's happening, folks, not just in New Hampshire and Connecticut, but right here in Texas! This is a new website put up a couple weeks ago, but the Liberty Institute, who represents Christians whose rights are being stifled in the work place, in public schools, in colleges, and even in their own private homes! Some of these cases read like they're taken straight out of the former Soviet Union or North Korea. (Apparently, some folks get really offended if you compare what we endure to what others have endured in countries like those. I am NOT saying that our situation is as terrible as theirs, but if we don't see the connection and where this could lead, we will not stand up when we still can, and we will find ourselves there sooner or later.) 

This is not a game. I believe the first step is becoming aware of what's going on. My generation is FULL of people who have no idea what's going on and, what's worse, think it's inevitable because "separation of church and state is, in the end, a good thing, right?" (holding myself back from that one for now, lol.) 

Here is the link. PLEASE take just a few minutes to read through some of these cases...

Copy and paste if the above link doesn't work for you: http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PG12H03

"I'd be a Liberal"

I was listening to the Joe Paggs radio program the other day. He was talking about how you cannot be a good Christian without believing that your way is correct and other religions are wrong; or a good Jew, or a good Buddhist, or a good Muslim, for that matter. 

A caller called in saying, "Joe, you say you hate people from other religions. Why do you hate people?" It always amazes me how standing on principle automatically translates into standing against people, in many people's minds. Joe went on to explain that he never said he hated anyone, and if he didn't believe his religion were true, he shouldn't believe in it at all. 

The next caller was a Muslim. Right off the bat, Joe asked the Muslim if he believed Islam was right. "Of course I do," he replied (duh!) "And you believe Christianity is wrong?" "Of course!" "If you didn't believe that, you wouldn't be a good Muslim." "No, I'd be a liberal!" 

ROFLOL!!!

What would the world look like without rich people?

Have you ever wondered this? With Obama talking of letting the "Bush tax cuts" expire for those making over $250,000, it has me thinking. Who really needs more than $250,000 a year anyway, right? What are they going to do with all that money? That's more than enough to live off, support a family, and in the words of Obama, "buy a flat screen TV." I have even been guilty of judging those I thought made too much or lived a little too luxuriously.

I think that we are forgetting what the rich do. I can't find the exact statistics, but I remember hearing that the vast majority of the income of churches is given by a very small percent of the congregation. Rich people fund our churches. They help fund our hospitals, universities, and charities. The next time you stroll through a park and think your tax dollars supported the entire building of it, take a look at the name plate on the bench you're sitting on. This is the same reason the dorms on your college campus were named after people, not as much for recognition as for the fact that they gave boo-coos of money to help pay for your education! Why do you think you keep receiving alumni donation letters from your Alma Mater? Because, believe it or not, some actually send those back in with money, and it's not the middle class giving the most. Have you ever been on a missions trip? Who did you make sure to send support letters to? Probably those making over 250 grand a year, huh? They were also probably the ones who sent the most back to you. How many countless missionaries would be doing something different were it not for the rich? Think of the YMCA, the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, homeless shelters, pregnancy centers. These are not kept on their feet by the middle class.

So before you think about stealing money from these people to give it to an organization who can't even deliver mail without going into the red, think about all they do for our society. Really picture our society without that. Do they need a new BMW, 3 vacation houses, or even a flat screen TV? Maybe not, but do you need a college education, a church to attend, or someone to bring you a bottle of water & a blanket after a hurricane rips your home down? Do you need a job that that BMW, 3 vacation homes, and big screen TV helped create? I think so. We need more rich people in this world, not fewer. If we tax them like they have plenty of money to lose, these things that are the fabric of our society will be greatly affected.

"A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson