Leader or Not?

Posted on November 4, 2011 by ehurst

Sometime back in the 1980s, the US Army leadership decided every soldier will take leadership training. All personnel were presumed leaders in training, and anyone who didn’t like it was out the door. They did away with the entire premise of there being a technician class within the ranks, folks who could be promoted up their own scale without standard leadership training. A minor manifestation of this was removing all the Specialist grades above E-4 — no more Specialist 5, 6 or 7. If you weren’t a troop leader, a sergeant, you didn’t get promoted above that.
One major problem: The entire culture of leadership was corrupted by the bean-counter management mentality. In actual practice, it was little more than pasting the command leadership labels over corporate supervisory training. The proud talk of combat leadership and real battle courage continued, but if you weren’t a craven fake, an organizational team player, you often didn’t get promoted. This become even more pronounced in the officer ranks. Generals have always been politicians, but soldiers are terribly ineffective when they are transformed into dependent psychopaths.
This is part of why we have the most extravagant military budget in human history and can’t defeat the Taliban with their ancient rifles and no armor. Modern American military culture is a vast layer of mythology lying atop one of the sickest societies in history.
In any society or culture, there is a place for the non-leaders. However, the bulk of them are rightly presumed leaders in their own homes. That’s fundamental to very definition of manhood. While we expect a certain portion of ruined and broken dependents of both sexes and at all stages of life, a society is dying when the bulk of men aren’t men. An essential element in manhood is a sense of mission, something which makes the world a better place. Every society depends on that for existence as a society.
It’s not cowardice to avoid things for which you possess no talent or skill, and no interest. Manhood does not necessitate every social skill and grace. Rare are the men equipped for that, and they are rightly legendary. The cream rises to the top, but manure floats even better. We see today the social corruption which purchases command for the worst of society, because we have forgotten how to keep the process sanitary. The mythologies of Western Civilization are now close to completing the process of destruction. You cannot simply imagine an ideal structure and proceed forcing people into Utopian roles by external conditioning. Every man can excel at something, and it’s usually related to his mission, his divine calling in life.
Wisdom sees all this and recognizes you must cynically participate on some level. Only the most rare individual should expect to rebel completely, or it is meaningless. Most of us have to find a place in the system where we can pursue our mission, and bring what little good we can to our world. No sane man seeks control and power for its own sake, but accepts the necessity of leading in some contexts as the means to their mission. This is why we learn Game, for example, because it introduces an element of sanity into the process. Much of what makes Game work in socio-sexual contexts is fundamental to human nature in all contexts. In our world, we can ill afford to ever cut loose and follow our pure instincts.
One of the deepest longings of human nature is acceptance as we are. Right now, that comes at a very high price. Don’t expect to get much of it, and maybe none at all. The primary reason people get drunk or high is for the excuse it offers to drop all the artificial social constraints of our broken society, and act however much a fool we all can be. It’s the moment we let loose all our raw emotions, and in most cases, it’s really ugly. It’s also totally honest. Only among our most trusted confidants, in the most protected and secure environments — which paradoxically might also mean in a context where we are totally unknown and can’t be traced later — can we afford such a luxury. As our world continues to deteriorate, you can easily give up trying and let it all hang out, because you simply cannot win. Or you can learn to measure out such extravagance with the greatest care, and keep on your game face all the rest of the time.
The US military service has become a microcosm, a leading indicator of where our world is headed. A great many service members simply come apart after short exposure to any austerity, never mind combat stresses. They may be functional in that environment, just barely useful because the military can’t afford to dismiss that high proportion from what they can get. Some will keep a good grip and get promoted faster than their peers up to a middling level. Most will do no more than absolutely necessary to keep life going. The combined trends of what we see around us today will soon put us all in a battle environment.
Nobody in their right mind wants to control other people. However, if you have any hope of sanity, you will take the lead in some fashion or another, or you’ll find a place to hide and withdraw from it all as far as you can get.

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Cain Don't Know Game

Posted on November 3, 2011 by ehurst

As a management tool, nothing compares to Game.
Be the man. Your number one concern in life is the mission. Know what that is for you, and never deviate from the course. It’s largely the same for men and women, but when a women decides her mission isn’t her man, she needs to be a man.
A genuine Alpha Male would get away with the minor crap for which Cain is accused. From what little we know of the accusations, they arise from encounters where he forgot himself. Few men can remain Alpha all the time. The rest of us have to do what we can to obtain some of the benefits of Game. As always, I note this has nothing to do with scoring, and everything to do with sanity and keeping your mission intact.
The best way to avoid charges of sexual harassment is never think of any female coworker as a real friend. Please notice the double standard inherent in the PC social culture. A woman is free to act as randy as she likes, making all sorts of naughty jokes, but men are not. That’s because women are born with angel’s wings and every man is a rapist, or so the mythology goes. Let the women act as friendly as they like, but always maintain that barrier with any female who isn’t family or spouse. Only those who pay the price earn the right to see what is inside. If you happen to be working in the wider world outside some small family-run operation, that means no female coworker is your friend, guys.
Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, but then there rules for the exceptions. Even if you are looking to score, never do it with coworkers. Every woman who comes onto you at work is a threat, someone looking for leverage to control you. Context is everything. Tie a string around it, dudes. Make her work long and hard to get you to open up. The risk is too high if you have genuine ambitions of any sort.
Game itself teaches you to develop a standard operating procedure in all social situations, to the point it actually becomes who you are. The reason we learn about Game is because we have all the wrong instincts, all the wrong behavior patterns, and we need to break them and change how we act all the time. It teaches you to become adjustable, but teaches you to understand when you are deviating from the underlying basic rules. It teaches you to be deeply cynical about women in general. If you don’t absorb the truth about socio-sexual interactions, and how they factor into virtually every human interaction in every setting, you can’t expect to get anywhere in this world.
There are other lessons I may write about dealing with skeletons in the closet, but here the point is: Look what it costs Cain to not know Game. At some point he tried to be friends with female coworkers, and it threatens to destroy him politically and tarnish his reputation. Never mind what I think of Cain as a political candidate; learn from his mistakes. Men get into such messes by thinking they can be nice to any female coworker without putting, and keeping, the barricades in place first.
Let the women be as social as they like. You don’t have to be cold, but you place your mission on such a high priority you don’t have time for such things. Learn early to be regal and masterful. Scripture uses the phrase “put a knife to your throat” when dealing with someone who has power over you, and in our modern workplace, that’s every whiny female. Learn to evaluate personality types and learn caution. As you would not trust yourself, don’t trust anyone else. Know how females act, not what propaganda says we should expect from them.
In modern Western society, the successful man can’t afford to be warm and friendly until he is in a situation which can’t be turned against him.

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Truth No Hindrance to Oppression

Posted on November 2, 2011 by ehurst

Whether through the fraud of Global Warming taxes or some other mechanism, oppression is not going to suffer the slightest hesitation in the coming days.
Whenever any particular group of people gain some economic ascendancy, regardless how it happens, they will use their wealth to purchase the power to keep their ascendancy. It’s not enough they keep theirs, but the fallen human instinct is to make sure others don’t get any. That’s what history proves again and again.
I believe we have been given a mandate from God to take care of His Creation. Even after the Fall, wherein nature is subjected to all sorts of vanity and human lusts, and knowing beyond all doubt He will return and destroy the universe as we know it, there is no excuse for poor stewardship of this fallen world. My ranting about the moral fabric of the universe includes the necessity of respecting Creation as a gift from God.
But we can’t rely on outright lies in proceeding to take care of this world. Global Warming is a lie. It’s been proved false again and again, but it keeps coming back. There is a heavy vested interest in using this propaganda as a means to clamping down on the economic choices available to you and I.
Even if we managed to bury this crap once and for all, it will not stop the oppression and tyranny. They will simply find another lever to pull. It’s coming; count on it. In this case, I insist they will succeed, and any revolt will be feeble, at best. The only revolutions we see will be false ones, which actually serve to advance the Illuminati rule. We will have a crushing global government as evil as all your worst nightmares, though I warn it is not precisely what we have been led to expect. The images drawn up for us are almost universally mistaken, because they are sponsored by the same folks who are going to be doing the ruling. It’s to create fear and dread, but also to keep us distracted from the bigger picture.
Don’t get too excited if we win this battle, because the war is just begun.

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The Bernays Effect

Posted on November 1, 2011 by ehurst

There are probably other names for it, but the Bernays Effect is simply convincing everything they can’t do what they’ve been doing for centuries, and should have to pay money for something which supplies an inferior result.
Thus:

In the last few decades, thousands of babies in Third World countries have died from contaminated baby formula. Wait, did I say amusing? I typed the wrong word there. Anyway, what happens is the mothers mix the baby formula with contaminated water, because sanitation is poor. So why the hell do the mothers feed their infants poison formula when they can just produce milk, for free, from their own bodies? The answer is that they do it because the manufacturer of the formula, Nestle, ran lots of ads telling them to.

There are a zillions ways we’ve been robbed, and our lives have been turned upside down. Thanks to guys like Edward Bernays we think of breakfast as “bacon and eggs” instead of all the stuff our forefathers used to eat in the morning. Granted, we’ve drifted away from it a bit, but that’s only because of another horrendous lie called “The Food Pyramid.”
This is why I despair of any good from things like OWS or any other protest, rebellion, etc. So now we have had our blood in the streets in several of the cities where OWS is happening, and it’s just got going good. Meanwhile, the same crazy lies put us in the position to see the whole financial world crash because someone dared to suggest the Greek citizens stuck with the bill should have a say in paying it. Greece got into this mess through a thousand lies for which OWS is only partially attacking.
I’m ready to come home, Lord.

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God Does Not Use a Computer

Posted on October 31, 2011 by ehurst

If you can’t step outside the whole debate, you can’t possibly understand any part of it.
I know how David Gewirtz feels. He makes it pretty clear he’s not part of any of the computer religions. He’s just a power user who wants to use his computers to get things done. The computers and the operating systems are just tools. Without actually saying it in so many words, he understands the computer technology field reflects the wider world of human politics. Most of us have things to do and just want a reasonable opportunity to proceed without undue harassment. It will never happen.
What makes this worthy of comment is the vast layer of putrid propaganda which hides the truth. I’ve noted often here the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) world is not fundamentally different from the standard commercial software industry in terms of morals and character. Only the methods are different.
I read Gewirtz’s original post on the issue and some of the comments. Some of it is predictable minor gripes about nit-picking differences between the two systems, and I’m sure he admits that. When I consider the comment on both articles, the first thing I notice is how many ignore what he’s trying to say, and react to some perceived blasphemy against their demigods. Then there are a bunch who are using his article as a forum for disputing which religion is superior, never mind what the article was actually about.
The real issue no one wants to confront is FOSS promoters are capable of lying, same as any Microsoft advertising slimeball. We have a lot of people warning you about the snake oil from MS, and they get kudos. What happens when someone reveals there is a Linux brand of snake oil? “Jihad” might be putting it mildly. You aren’t permitted to discuss your negative experience with Linux unless you are a recognized high mullah.
Credible threats of physical harm? This is the part of FOSS I hate. I hate it most because this points out everything wrong with FOSS as a means of delivering the product: Too few give a darn about what the user experiences. I didn’t have time to read all the comments; there were too many. In my brief scanning, I didn’t see too many folks offering to help, especially with the same level of “free” that is supposed to characterize the software development process.
Having the opportunity to use lots of different operating systems, and not possessed of a zealot’s devotion to any of them, I can tell you Linux is more secure, but it doesn’t work as well over the broad range of activities most computer users engage. That’s because the FOSS agenda is excellence for what the developers want to do, and user experience has never been a priority. Indeed, as I’ve often noted, too many FOSS developers are hostile to users. The opportunity to develop whatever you really want, and with all your personal prejudices of how you want it work, tends to appeal to the “boastful pride of life” be-your-own-god instinct in fallen man. And the product will not find wide adoption outside the relatively small community which embraces this as the norm.
So you have essentially two options with your computer. You can deal with those who worship Mammon, or those who worship themselves. So rare are those who operate from a genuine concern for the users, so negligible their impact, you can ignore them as a factor. Until we see the kind of sacrificial love which drove Christ to carry His Cross — just a tiny shred of compassion — there won’t be any good choices in software, just some which suck less for the job at hand.

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Gutting It In

Posted on October 30, 2011 by ehurst

Men, one of the worst things we can do is allow the gut to sag as we age. It’s not a matter of mere appearance, but causes health problems.
The stomach muscles are designed to contain the organs, holding them in place with proper internal pressure so they work right. When those muscles relax too much, stuff gets out of place, and things break. As we age, anything stomach related becomes some of the hardest exercises we do. I’m sure we all have our favorites, but I want to introduce to you the Olympic Sit-up — that’s what a high school coach called it.
You’ll need some room, so you can’t do this in the hallway of a mobile home. We will be engaging the entire abdominal muscle collection, including the sides. Rest supine on the floor, legs straight and arms extended out to the side. As you lift your back from the floor, at the same time lift one leg. Reach for the toes with the opposite hand; just touch them. Drop back and switch sides. Repeat as many times as possible.
The idea is to twist your torso just a bit as you curl it up. One shoulder will rotate forward across the midriff, the other dropping back a bit. You’ll be pulling across the middle and down one side each time. Most people have trouble keeping a balance when first trying this. The gluteal muscles should be bearing the weight, and you may need to adjust how high you lift one end or the other, and which moves first, etc. It’s a balancing act.
This permits toning the entire abdominal support system. If you need to tone your back to match, just flop over and do the swimmer, where you simultaneously lift feet and chest off the floor. Stretch your hands up over head. For just the instant you are up, you’ll look like the rocker on a rocking chair, balanced on your stomach.
It’s not as if women can’t benefit from this, but they are built differently. Failure to keep the stomach capable of pulling is a bigger threat to men.

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Weight Lifting without Weights

Posted on October 29, 2011 by ehurst

There are several terms for it, but I prefer to call it isotonics.
The key to keeping your weight where you want it is burning calories with the largest part of your body’s muscle mass. Typically, lifting weights does this best, but to get the most from it, folks have taken the time to study ways to maximize the benefits. We have developed particular body movements which engage more or fewer muscle groups, depending on the purpose. There are particular motions, along with proper form, and even a measure of mental concentration to make sure we kick the muscles the adapt to various needs.
It has been found weight machines are convenient, but free weights are by far the superior means, because they engage a lot of need for fine motor control, which encourages a broader base of development. But what if your arthritis makes weights hurt too much? Or other types of injuries to the joints and muscles? How about you simply don’t have access to free weights?
What follows assumes you have had some experience with weightlifting and already know something about proper focus, form and such. No amount of writing can replace learning from your buddies, so if you haven’t done this before, it’s going to be exceptionally difficult to benefit from this post. That’s because this method requires you to be your own coach. You are in total control, and the amount of work you do is a function of your body awareness.
One more caveat: You surely should realize you will not get quite the same balance as with free weights. Your muscles will be working against each other, and only the resistance available between them is all you have. Then again, you have full control over the intensity and resistance, and can back off without having to change anything more than the flicker of decision in your head.
Isotonics is toning with movements in isolation of any external resistance. It’s the same basic movements you might use in free weights and on machines, but without anything other than your own body parts. It can be so intense you’ll need days off between sessions. Since the whole scheme is full of interlocking resistance against muscle groups, you’ll do it all at once or not at all, and you can’t divide between pushes and pulls. Each exercise motion is no less than two exercises.
Start with the imaginary bench press. It must be done in conjunction with an imaginary rowing exercise. I recommend you try to do this in front of a mirror so you can observe your own motions and concentrate better. You get to do this standing up straight (as with almost the movements). Extend your arms, noting your hand positioning; I recommend shoulder width. It won’t matter if you close your fingers, except to help you visualize and imagine you are working that bar. Think of all the smaller motions — when you pull, you rotate your shoulders back; pushing rotates them forward. Set the tension in your muscles and slowly pull back as in rowing, until you can’t go any farther. Then in your mind switch over to the bench and push it away to full extension. Ideally, you concentrate on the working of the muscles and move slower than necessary. Repeat as needed.
At first, you’ll probably find this whole thing so odd, I often recommend folks start with low tension and perform 12 or more repetitions. Do one set for now. Then do overhead press/pull downs, then upright row/bar dips. Wait thirty seconds or so between exercises. Add some curls/arm extensions. If you are really ambitious, you can do very heavy midriff exercises the same way, simply by bending at the middle with proper form, then straightening back up. All this is under as much tension as you can bear. I recommend you not do neck exercises unless you take great care to reduce tension to a minimum. Most folks end up pulling neck muscles too easily.
After a couple of weeks doing this no more often than every other day, add a few shoulder exercises: Without bending your elbows, do flys (that’s how they spell it) back and forth, overhead, and to the front. Try adding a reverse grip on the curls, or put your arms overhead and drop the hands behind for your curls/extensions. Because we aren’t handling any heavy weights, build your grip by various combinations of hand squeezing and finger extensions, twisting the wrist, etc. You can add for the legs if you don’t have any other heavy work out for them. Add other exercises which mimic activities which need greater strength.
I note this is effective enough I am still able, with my arthritis, to swing that double-bit ax at all sorts of angles, ambidextrously, and maintain my reputation as a heavy hitter.
Again, you control the tension, the repetitions, the number of sets, the rest time between, etc. It’s all in your head, but the results are an excellent tone to the muscles. Keep the tension as high as you can bear, keeping in mind the number of repetitions you need: 6-8 for size and power, 10-20 for endurance and injury prevention.
Go for the burn, baby!

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Fitness Tips: Power Walking

Posted on October 28, 2011 by ehurst

Making the most of what you have physically can only contribute to your mental and spiritual strength.
So long as fitness is not your god, the Real God can always make good use of it. As always, for a Christian Mystic, fitness is not an end in itself, but a tool to enhance what really matters. As a matter of God’s Laws, it is your duty to develop all your assets as much as opportunity permits.
Right now, I am still on hold. My future mission is just over the horizon from my conscious mind, but my spirit warns me it’s almost on top of me. Until that moment arrives when I engage it directly, I’m doing what is possible. I have a lot of time for fitness activities. In my case, the emphasis is on recovering and keeping so much as is possible of my previous athletic level of development. Over the next few posts, I’m going to describe some ideas I use, and they will be skewed toward older folks with arthritis.
There comes a point when running is simply not possible, or is most unwise. I am there. The knee and hip joints might be capable, but not without serious complaint, and most likely making things worse as the cartilage degrades slowly. To replace some of what running does for the body, a movie hero of yesteryear (Steve Reeves) developed what he called Power Walking.
Let’s talk about weight. The only point here is a percentage of your own body weight. We will be walking vigorously with weights, and the upper useful limit is 20% of your body weight. If your fitness level is poor to begin with, you’ll be somewhere below that. We will need equal weights for hands and feet to start. Check the second hand shops and garage sales, or if you have a shop and materials you can make your own.
In my case, I weigh 230 pounds (104kg) so I would shoot for no more than 50 pounds (22kg) of added weight. Nice theory, but in reality I can’t easily obtain such things. From garage sales, I managed to get some 5 pound (2.2kg) strap weights. For now, I put one each on my ankles and wrists, and two on a belt and harness I kept from my old military days. You could use various types of purpose- made weight belts. I’ll eventually use a backpack. You can use ordinary dumbbells for the hands, and any number of creative methods for adding weight to attach to your ankles. Anything less than 2 pounds (1kg) is pointless. Even at my weight, anything over 10 pounds (4.5kg) on each limb is too much.
So with a body weight, say, 175 pounds (80kg) and up, start where you believe you should with weights on your limbs between 2 and 10 pounds, the add any additional weights to a belt. For less body weight, you might want to stop around 5 pounds for limb weights.
From wherever you start in terms of weight, work your way up after you have achieved a good base time limit. For most folks, that initial target is at least 15 minutes, and 20 is better. Work with the low weights up to a half-hour, then start adding weights incrementally, until you hit the upper weight limit. Then stretch the time out to as long as you like. If it hurts, back off. Stop advancing when your body clearly refuses to go farther. Distance really isn’t the point here.
Strive to walk with as long of a stride as possible. The proper motion is keeping your arm swing straight back and forth, which is not natural. The reason has to do with balancing the motion with your legs. Again, keep as long of a stride as your body permits, because it is the hand motion which determines your pace. This is why we start light, so we can give the hands and arms training in leading the way.
There are a hundred other details we could hammer out, such as padding under strap weights, etc., but I’m going to assume you are fairly intelligent and creative about most minor difficulties. You can work this into your current routine where you like, but I recommend you not do it daily, all the more so as you get older. On the odd days take a regular walk at whatever pace you can manage. The idea of Power Walking is to somewhat approximate the workout of jogging or running, but with a lot less pounding. I wouldn’t try to bump up the weight or time more frequently than every three weeks.
Once you’ve been at it a few weeks, the next time you’ll really need to hustle some distance, you’ll notice it’s far easier than previously.

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Different Kind of Prepper

Posted on October 27, 2011 by ehurst

I’m a prepper, he’s a prepper, she’s a prepper, we’re all preppers! Wouldn’t you like to be a prepper, too? (Hat tip to the old Dr. Pepper commercial.)
Survivalists and preppers are getting the word out. Lots of good advice if you are so inclined. I’ve done a few things, but nothing on the scale of most who take these things seriously. I’m not focused inwardly, but outward. I got stuff I knew I could use to help others, to be ready to rebuild what comes apart when things go crazy. I won’t pretend I can store enough edibles to help very many, not even really as much as I would expect to need for myself. Just enough to keep things going for a couple of weeks, at best.
That’s because, unless someone drops a nuke on Tinker AFB just a few miles from here, the supply of food locally will be safe. Maybe nothing like our current variety, but enough in quantity and quality to sustain life. The biggest threat is disruption of the supply chain for folks out on the far end, not for those of us who participate more near the first few links. Good thing, too, because we are poor. We couldn’t afford to actually stock up like the survivalists describe.
We’re living just about the official poverty line as a result of choices I felt obliged to make. You could call it a vow of relative poverty. Doing what it would take for me to have a lot more money, while possible, would also be a serious violation of my religion and my calling from God. That implies nothing about you and your sense of imperatives.
I’m prepping according to what I grasp as imperatives God has for me. That’s why the focus is on other people and their probable needs. That is, from what is surely the likely needs of others, I have prepared for those things I know how to handle. First comes blood kin, then anyone who intends to be treated like kin. If my choices end up starving me to death, or some other unexpected end, that’s alright with me. I’m not all the interested in staying in this world in the first place.
But while I’m here, I’m prepping to help my neighbors.

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A Step Too Far

Posted on October 26, 2011 by ehurst

Violence is not inherently evil; it is seldom righteous.
Over the years, I’ve learned there are a lot things I can and should absorb for the glory of God. When I look into the mirror of my soul, the greatest scars are not the things done to me. I’ve made peace with those events. These days, it really takes a lot to offend me. Perhaps somewhat more tender are things I’ve done to myself, but I can live with those, too. Far more disturbing and painful are the injuries I’ve caused others. Those scars on my soul are still quite tender. If we cannot be made the feel the pains of others, particularly those we have caused, we are something less than human.
There are things for which I am quite willing to die a hideous death. I’m altogether willing to pay the price to prevent or minimize human suffering. It’s not always that simple, because a certain amount of human suffering is simply part of this life. In the broadest sense, there is nothing I can do about most of it. Over the same years I’ve made peace with injuries done to me, I’ve also made peace with my limitations. There is a divine logic which determines the things we can change, and the things we simply must watch and feel our own sorrow.
So with the same logic by which there are some things for which I’ll die, there are other things where I am honestly willing to see others die. I suppose, in the final analysis, most of us have those certain few lines we simply will not cross without taking someone down with us. Yet again, over those same years, I’ve found certain fundamental commitments I simply cannot ignore, regardless of any logic. Such are those rare possibilities out there in the world where failure to fight is sin.
It has nothing to do with any reasonable chance of success. It’s the carved-in-stone necessity of trying. They aren’t likely to be precisely the same in any two of us. There’s always the high probability we cannot even know precisely what would set us in motion under every imaginable context. Chances are we will encounter some places where, after passing through, we realize we should have fought, regardless of the outcome, and that still having survived without fighting is somehow shameful.
As I read news accounts every day, some of them call out to a part of me: What would I have done? Asking that question can help us define the shape of that bedrock of character inside us all. For example, were I employed by Haliburton or one of it’s subsidiaries, and someone attempted to force me to participate in certain obscene private festivities revealed in the news, I’d be willing to kill as many as it takes to stop those efforts to force me. It won’t matter that I’d likely be killed myself, or at least thrown into prison on trumped up charges so as to cover up their filthy corporate culture. I’d have to fight with every means at my disposal. So long as I have the choice to dodge it, I have no interest in what people do to themselves, or agree to do to each other.
There are lot of things which do not alarm me in the least. I’ve seen some truly awful things humans can do — it was part of my job in composing Military Police command alerts. I found it repulsive a pregnant gal was smoking crack, but my convictions say it’s her right destroy her own child. I find abortion an abomination before the Lord, but I find His Word says I can’t choose for the mother except in a certain narrow context currently improbable on this earth. What’s the difference between her aborting that child and simply bathing it in toxic chemicals in the womb? On the other hand, try doing some things to a child for whom I am blood kin, and I won’t hesitate to snuff your candle. And afterward I won’t have so much as a tinge of regret, except to note you didn’t really have to be such a fool.
Or if someone can be manipulated into any number of degrading things, I say it’s their own fault for lacking character. That would be most of the human race. I’d condemn the manipulators, maybe even hope to take some action against them, but in the end, there’s really little we can do to end it. The case is stronger if the victim has no expectation of developing resistance — children and the disabled — but each case can be quite different. There are no hard and fast rules. So I do devote a little of my time to keeping a certain amount of physical fitness and even some martial arts practice.
Sometimes all I have left is praying for God’s justice. Yet, there remains a slender selection of events for which I’m quite willing to help people meet their Maker.

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