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Month: August 2008

Be careful in your "enlightened" analysis of Palin’s child

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/31/08

Those who know me are aware that my family has been blessed with Rebekah, the third of four children. Rebekah’s a smart, sneaky, hilarious young woman who is nearly 22 years old. Rebekah also has Down syndrome. It’s all caused by an extra 21st chromosome. Rebekah has more of something than most of the population, and it causes her to be slower both mentally and physically, but honestly, most of the time I forget. To us, she’s just Rebekah. And you’d better watch out, because she’s fully aware of people’s perceptions about her, and she’s more than willing to use it against you in one of her many sneaky attempts to get something out of you. She’s quite skilled in the appropriation of a Krispy Kreme and Diet Coke from a kind lady on any given Sunday morning at church, despite everyone’s awareness of her diabetes.

Growing up with a sister with Down syndrome seems quite normal to me. I can’t imagine anything else, and my parents have been absolutely wonderful in their raising of her. Unlike some other families we know, my parents disciplined Rebekah when she did something wrong. They didn’t let her get away with very much; at least, not any more than the rest of us got away with. Rebekah’s grown into a quite intelligent young woman who, despite her faults, does know the difference between right and wrong. Our family just doesn’t accept the idea that we’re unchangeable products of our environment. And Rebekah’s “affliction,” as I’ve seen Down syndrome referred to as of late, wasn’t a death sentence. She doesn’t have a horrible life. In fact, she seems to quite enjoy herself. For her, Prom came and went with zero drama. And if every girl there had been wearing her dress, too? She’d probably have been ecstatic: “Look at all my prom dress buddies!”

Get to know her, and you’ll notice something right away. Rebekah’s got too much love for others to not share it. The beginning of the Sunday morning church service doesn’t seem to be enough to get Rebekah to stop giving hugs and greeting everybody. Her friends have the diversity progressives can only dream about. She really couldn’t care any less about the color of your skin. Her best friend Keila is black. And she doesn’t seem to notice. She just knows that Keila is a lot of fun, and she wants to go bowling with her and the rest of her friends every Saturday at 2:00. (I normally get a text from Rebekah every Saturday around 3:30 to let me know her score. She can, and routinely does, trounce me. Without bumpers. Also, I now refuse to play Scrabble with her. There’s another example of using perceptions of her against you. Her vocabulary is surprisingly sharp.)

She’s clearly had an impact on the people in our community. Our parents arranged for us to each receive a book of congratulatory and encouraging notes from friends and family upon graduation from high school. Rebekah’s was at least three times the size of the rest of our books.

I write this because since the Palin nomination, there have been a slew of self-aggrandizing pundits that are sudden experts on a life with Down syndrome. And while the best of them are trying to be gentle with it, their choice of words shows how they feel about it. To them, hearing that you’re going to have a child with Down syndrome is terrible news. It means your life, and the child’s life, will be fraught with endless doctors visits and complications. It means you’re going to have a “retard” that won’t ever live up to your expectation. Your child will never be the sports star. He or she will never be very smart. It’s going to be so very hard, so why don’t you just abort the baby, right? It’s compassionate, really, because that kid’s life would just be so awful. Not even a life, not one worth living anyway.

It actually turned my stomach to write that, even with tongue firmly planted in cheek. This is the aggregate argument I’ve heard from the progressive left over the last two days. And it makes me so very sick. How dare you claim the right to decide someone else’s life for them? I thought being a progressive was all about creating maximum opportunity for individuals! Killing a living person certainly crushes that dream. Do you think I’m lying? Testing for Down syndrome has gotten more accurate and better at the earlier stages of pregnancy, and a recent study estimates that 91-93% of prenatal Down syndrome diagnoses end in abortion, with various other prenatally diagnosed diseases resulting in abortions to a lesser extent. (This, combined with the startlingly low rate of rape/incest/health-of-the-mother abortions, which sits somewhere at a measly 2-3%, should really be the death of the Pro-Choice movement for most reasonable people. If it’s not for you, grab a look at this chart, and I shall enjoy hearing your argument that abortion somehow isn’t post-coital birth control.)

In a piece written in the Washington Post several years ago about her experiences with a Down syndrome child, Patricia Bauer wrote:

In ancient Greece, babies with disabilities were left out in the elements to die. We in America rely on prenatal genetic testing to make our selections in private, but the effect on society is the same.

Maybe it’s the disgustingly high level of self regard we have as a society that enables justifying the abortion of any baby who might prove to be less than perfect. Our lives are so great, we think, that anything less would be “suffering.” And that is, in fact, the term that is used. And it is used by people who speak with authority in an attempt at compassion, but these fools clearly do not have love for any of these Down syndrome kids. How do I know? Because they observe from a distance. They do not speak with the experience that says, “I have intimately met some of them, and now I realize that they are people, too.” They speak with a ignorant arrogance.


Doctors used to call them “mongoloid idiots” and recommend locking them up in a mental institution. Now we’re so progressive, once prenatal tests reveal the “affliction,” we just kill them. You know, to save them from that horrible life they’ll surely have. Or is it to save ourselves from having to pour our lives into someone else? Tell me, how many kids with Down syndrome have you met that are suffering? I haven’t met any. And I’d wager that if you could actually come up with one example, their suffering would be the result of external factors rather than through mental or physical health complications.

Of course having Rebekah in the family has required extra effort! But her presence in my life has only added to my joy. My mother didn’t know Rebekah had Down syndrome until she looked at my sister’s eyes. But I am so very glad my mother didn’t listen to the “professionals.” A life where my experience with my sister consists of routine visits to some institution is wholly unimaginable to me.

So put your money where your mouth is; being enlightened means actually being even better informed. At least find a friend that has someone with Down syndrome in their family and talk to them at length before letting that overwhelming sense of always-rightness roll you right into making ignorant comments about a real person’s life.

UPDATE: It’s good to see that some pro-choice people are speaking out against the vitriol coming from the eugenics crowd:

Half the comments on Palin and her son Trig from etherpeoples seem to imply she is some kind of religious nutbar simply because she chose not to terminate her pregnancy. Or that she undertook her own misery in order to adhere to a misogynist value system.

Are we seriously not going to entertain the notion that she just plain wanted to complete her pregnancy and raise a child with Down syndrome? Seems perfectly rational to me.

UPDATE II: From a forum post I found here, another personal story about a fella with Down syndrome:

When I was thinking of Trig, I was reminded of an encounter I had a couple of weeks ago on the Delta Shuttle from Washington to New York. It was a mostly empty plane, but I went all the back to the very emptiest part of the plane to spread out and enjoy he quiet. And there was a man sitting in the very back row who immediately piped up, “Hi. I’m Ian. Would you like to sit next to me?”

He was a guy with Down syndrome, maybe in his twenties. I declined the offer, but we struck up a conversation. He was going to New York for a family celebration, including for his birthday. I told him I had a birthday coming up too and he lit up and came over to vigorously shake my hand in congratulations — more delighted by my birthday than his own.

When the plane began to fill up a woman and her daughter came all the way to the back with a huge bag. I began to wonder to myself if I should offer to help them with it, when Ian popped up, told them he’d get it, and lifted it up and shoved it in the overhead compartment. When two men came down the aisle with a box they weren’t sure would fit overhead, he intervened and told them it would — “trust me” — and put it up for them.

He chatted amiably with his neighbors during the flight, and when we landed was up out of his seat first thing to help that woman get her bag down.

From this brief encounter, I dare say Ian is friendlier, better adjusted and more considerate than about half of the people on the streets of Manhattan or San Francisco on any given day. Yet most of those people are perfectly unperturbed by the elimination of babies with Down syndrome in the womb. To hell with them. God bless Sarah Palin for bringing Trig into the world, and may he shower those around him with as much sunshine as the gentleman I met on that flight.

Dems, on the wrong side again

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/27/08

It turns out, when the media isn’t day in, day out reminding us how horrible things are in Iraq, Americans tend to think things are improving. And the recent results in this ongoing poll by Rasmussen suggest that the Democrats are on the wrong side of the debate again. Perhaps the Democrats are totally right. Their correctness here is totally irrelevant. But their being at odds with the American people on yet another issue is one more nail in this election’s coffin. So here’s on more reason they’ll lose come November:

Fifty-four percent of American voters have confidence that America and her allies are winning the War in Iraq. That’s the highest it’s been since Rasmussen began tracking confidence in the war only a year after it began, in January 2004. Americans seem to be able to separate the War in Iraq from their appreciation (or lackthereof) for the President. Only 30% credit him with doing well in Iraq.

So this doesn’t bode well for a party that continues to hoop and holler about getting out of Iraq. Again, whether they are right on this issue doesn’t matter. With their very negative vocal message about Iraq, one would assume that they’re preaching to an America filled with people fatigued by the War, and that’s just who their rhetoric implies they are targeting. But according to Rasmussen, this is only 17% of voters. Down from 47% this time last year. Yipes. Looks like the Dems just keep have bad timing with their platform.

Pelosi continues to argue, in less than a welcoming fashion, that drilling here will only produce a $0.02 drop at the pump 10 years from now, even after Bush’s symbolic release of the Executive Order against drilling has so far dropped prices by over $0.43. (Their argument is short sited anyway. It assumes that for some magical reason, we won’t need oil 7-10 years from now.)

Apparently they want the country’s energy needs to be powered by hopes and dreams, just like Obama’s increasingly lackluster campaign. They certainly don’t want to use clean, cheap nuclear. They preach the solution to energy prices is in renewable energy. But even renewable energy isn’t “green.” And as furiously as it’s rolled out, it’s not enough to meet the government mandated minimum. Sure, an energy system with a diversity of sources is a great solution; you just can’t cut out the vast majority of sources (oil, coal, nuclear) and expect the economy to not collapse. (Even the most hopeful goals for renewable energy peg it around 33%.)

Obama chose Biden, and even ardent Obama supporters are upset. The polls are showing it, too. Since the Democratic VP pick, McCain for the first time overtook Obama in the polls. That’s pretty astounding considering Obama held a 15 point lead over McCain only two months ago.

The Dems seem to be so agenda-driven (so much of it a result of drinking Al Gore’s kool-aid), yet continue to claim to be the party of the people, of the working man. But to a person who can barely make ends meet, their carbon footprint is the last thing on their mind.

So my prediction is that, amazingly enough and after 8 years of people complaining about Bush, the Democrats will lose this election too. It could be thanks in part to the wonderful job the Democrats have done, no promises kept, since they took power of Congress two years ago. (Congressional approval is at a staggering 18%, sooooo much lower than the President’s.)

Talk about catering to special interests. Democrats, you have made yourselves irrelevant. Get ready to hand the Presidency over to McCain as a result.

Scattered Flow-of-Consciousness on Hillary's Speech

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/26/08

Intentional diversity.

Mass-produced Apple pie.

Lies.

Why do they keep stressing Healthcare for everyone? Those who can’t afford it are already given government aid! Do they want the “ambulance stacking” system that seems to have been so successful in Britain?

Demonizing the “other side,” be that the oil companies, the “rich” or old, white men.

Self-congratulatory.

Caring about things that the rest of America doesn’t see as important. Being green won’t get them elected.

Barack will end the war? What a relief. Is his plan to just continue the withdrawal talks that have begun voluntarily between the current administration and the Iraqis?

Dems seem to be the party that focuses on the exception rather than the rule. In everything. GOP is exactly and extremely the opposite; many times ignoring the exception to a fault.

Dems keep stressing things unimportant to their “target market.” If they really want to sell this Hope and Change thing, quit telling the single mothers with cancer who work for minimum wage and adopted two children with autism to inflate their tires until they can afford a hybrid.

Not surprisingly, Hillary stuck to the script. We’ll see if Bill can do the same tomorrow night.

AT&T Continues to Impress…

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/21/08

So I call up AT&T yesterday to get an explanation for exactly why they have yet to issue me a correct bill for my phone since I signed my contract with them in May. Unlike the last few times I’ve called, I didn’t have to push that hard this time to get her to drop the bill by $124.88 to the correct amount. (How amazingly askew is that, by the way?)

When my business partner and I looked into the new iPhone and crunched some numbers on how to structure our plan, we found that going the family plan route would save us $10 on unlimited texting, among other things. Unlimited texts for individual phones was $20 each, or $30 for all phones on the iPhone family plan. Or so their very clear pricing structure would lead you to believe.

“No, it doesn’t work that way, sir. That’s for normal phones, not the new iPhone. It’s $20 each line.”

“Well then please explain to me how it does work because I just read to you the text plan pricing verbatim from the Answers to Common Questions section of the iPhone 3G page.”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you that it doesn’t apply to the new iPhone. It didn’t apply to the old iPhone either, so I don’t know why they do that.”

“Well, you might want to let Corporate know, because it’s right here in pretty plain language on the iPhone 3G site, and I don’t see how I could possibly be misunderstanding it. Seems like false advertisement to me.”

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/17/08

Not exactly a secret if everyone knows about it, now is it?

I am not a Democrat

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/15/08

If the Democrats in Congress actually lived up to the manifesto they published back in ’06, I’d probably be a proud Democrat. The promises put forth in the document are exactly those which a governing body that represents the interests of the people should uphold.

Democrats believe that America needs – and Americans deserve – a New Direction that provides security, prosperity, and opportunity for all.

Absolutely. I agree 100%. I love to hear my representatives declare that they work for us, the American people. Not for the special interests. Not only for the people of San Francisco who want to project their eco-religion on the rest of us, but for America as a whole.

Too many Americans are paying a heavy price for those wrong choices: record costs for energy…

(I should note, of course, that this was written back when the Democrats were about to take control of Congress in ’06. Since then, gas prices rose from $2.19 to $4.11, an increase of an incredible 87.7%! Congressional Approval is at an all-time low, the national debt has increased over 14%, and the Dems themselves will tell you that we’re in the middle of a recession. They’re wrong, but they’ll still admit to it. Which is astounding.)

With integrity, civility and fiscal discipline, our New Direction for America will use commonsense principles to address the aspirations and fulfill the hopes and dreams of all Americans. That is our promise to the American people.

Apparently they will not use commonsense principles, which would include dropping the Federal moratorium on oil exploration. Nor will they be civil about it.

Check out page 24 of the manifesto:

Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the Minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.

And yet, despite the GOP’s demands for the energy bill to come to a vote, Pelosi won’t allow it. What makes it all the more astounding is that she won’t allow a vote to be taken on a bill that the Dems would almost undoubtably crush! Why? Because of the misguided notion that carbon is a poison. If global warming is man-made and carbon dioxide is the primary cause, then we must get rid of it! And burning fossil fuels releases loads of carbon dioxide! So we must stop!

This is “fact”, decided upon by the dirt people of San Francisco and their expatriates, and forced down the throat of the American people by Pelosi and her wildly out-of-touch Congress.

This whole eco-religion is centered around the preposterous idea that us humans are fully capable of throwing the Earth’s equilibrium off kilter, putting Earth’s ecological and climatological state outside the bounds of its own recovery. It’s the peak of arrogance, to say the least. It violates Occam’s razor by making the assumption that the Earth could not possibly have a naturally fluctuating climate of as much as 1 or 2 degrees in either direction, and it flies in the face of actual science, from the likes of scientists who haven’t been coerced or threatened and whose work hasn’t been manipulated:

CO2 is a proxy for global temperature, and attempting to control global temperatures by regulating anthropogenic CO2 is unfounded, futile, and wasteful.

Whoops. In much the same way that proving a Jesus that was never raised from the dead would rock Christianity to its core, the absence of “carbon as a pollutant” really puts the whole man-made global warming ideology into serious question. Calm, clear-headed scientists are beginning to come forward with long-standing evidence that disproves man-made global warming. So close your eyes and ears, and chant to yourself as loud as you want Gorites. It doesn’t make truth go away.

If real Democrats are represented by Pelosi and her Congress’s track record, then Democrats are not reasonable. They are not commonsensical. They are not logical. They are neither fair, open-minded, nor realistic. And I am not a Democrat.

If I say it over and over, that must make it true!

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/13/08

You know, the willful ignorance that so many liberals show toward the idea of drilling absolutely befuddles me. Take Bob Herbert and his op/ed for the NY Times a few days ago.

As Senator Kerry and many others have pointed out, it would be nearly 10 years before any oil at all would be realized from new offshore leases. So your adorable 7- or 8-year-old would be just about 17 and clamoring for a license when this new oil started coming online.

Ok. Well, first off, they’re wrong. Drilling technology has come a long way since the 70′s, and it may take as little as 3 or 4 years to see some actual oil. But so what if it does take 10 years? If the Clinton Administration hadn’t blocked us from drilling 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be in this problem now. The shortsightedness is really quite astonishing. Not only would it drop prices sooner than 10 years from now, it would also provide for the Americans of 10 years in the future. Which will be us. So let’s think ahead, people.

Maximum capacity from these new leases wouldn’t be reached until 2030, when that 7- or 8-year-old is approaching 30, finished with college and graduate school, and very likely married with children.

And even then — after more than two decades and who knows how many graduations, weddings, funerals and family cars — even then, the amount of oil expected to come from these leases would have little or no effect on the price of gasoline at the pump.

Again, even if it takes that long, that alternative you’re offering is… what? Just wait it out? To have cars that run on Obama’s hopes and dreams by then? Please…

And to say that it will only have very little effect on gas prices ignores even our current situation with the deafest of ears. Like I’ve said, the only change in the last month has been the lifting of the Executive Order against offshore drilling. No new oil. Not even the lifting of the Congressional ban. Just a symbolic lifting of the Executive order. And oil barrels have dropped an incredible 23% from $147.27 to roughly $113.40. The average price at the pump dropped from $4.114 to $3.787. Almost $0.33!! To ignore this is engaging in a buffoonery of the highest order.

He then quotes the Energy Information Administration, a statistical agency that provides official data for the federal government. Given their dubious association, it’s not hard to believe they’re wrong:

“Because oil prices are determined on the international market … any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.”

Wrong. See above.

I wonder how [the chanting bikers at the McCain rally] would have responded if they had been told that lifting the offshore restrictions would risk serious environmental damage to the U.S. coastline over the next several decades while having no significant effect on the price of gasoline at the pump.

They’d know the second part was a lie given the prices they’ve seen with their own eyes at the pump lately, which would make them laugh all the more heartily at the first part. Seriously, how oblivious is Herbert? Has he not swiped the card himself at the pump lately?

Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, was on the case when it came to energy. He saw the challenge as “the moral equivalent of war,” and dared to ask the public to make sacrifices as part of a coordinated national effort.

Ah, yes, I’ve heard many stories about his daringness. I believe it only exacerbated the energy crisis, if I’m not mistaken. Obama’s energy policy seems eerily reminiscent of Carter’s plan. And as such, the Obama machine is hard at work trying to get people to rewrite the history of both the Carter and Reagan Administrations.

Former Vice President Al Gore has tried, more than any other public figure in recent years, to raise the consciousness of Americans by dramatically illustrating, not just the enormity of the energy challenge, but creative and practical ways of dealing with it.

I suppose no one has ever accused Gore of being a pragmatist. In his devising of creative ways he does seem to ignore the largest contributors to energy. Oil and coal. And nuclear. This new wave of radical environmentalism, backed by junk science, greatly exaggerates the current effectiveness of alternative forms of energy. Wind and solar are great, but even Captain McGreenie Al Gore can’t power his house using only alternative forms of energy. That’s why we need a multi-facted energy policy that encourages new technologies without first abandoning the only sources that currently produce abundant energy. That’s why McCain’s plan makes more sense. And why Obama is quickly headed in the same direction.

It's about time…

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/10/08

A new independent film, I.O.U.S.A., examines the growing national debt and it’s potentially disastrous effects. I’ll be interested (and hopeful) to see how closely it sticks to the facts. With something this serious, we can’t afford the accusation of fear-mongering.

Mind the dates

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/6/08

Now, while I know that correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, it’s pretty hard to argue that the President’s lifting of the executive ban on offshore drilling has nothing to do with the plummeting gas prices given the dates. The president lifted the order on July 14. Since July 16, oil in terms of price per barrel and per gallon at the pump have been in an unceasing downward spiral.

So despite what Pelosi and her out of touch party members think, it appears that it won’t take 10 years for the 2 cent reduction at the pump to come.

British forces held back?

Posted by Kevin Smith – 8/5/08

Yikes. Maybe fewer American lives would be lost in Iraq if our allies weren’t also allies with the enemy.