I Get Mail

Yesterday, I received the following email:

Dear friend,

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, approximately 1 out of 3 women in the United States will have had an abortion by age 45. You may be surprised, as were we; but it’s fair to say that the majority of Americans have either had an abortion or know someone who has experienced an abortion.

“Abortion” – the word stopped you for a moment, didn’t it?

Typically, the reactions that surround this word impede any reasonable discussion on the topic, especially the real feelings of those who have been touched by an abortion experience.

Please keep reading.

After 35 years of polarization and judgment, Michaelene Fredenburg is looking to change this. Using the Internet to provide a confidential space and support resources, Michaelene has created a safe environment for men and women who have been touched by an abortion experience. And she can relate to what they need. She’s been there.

The outreach Michaelene created acknowledges that each person’s abortion experience is unique - some positive, some indifferent, some negative. However, a common thread weaves through every story. It is this common thread that has created the outreach’s name - Abortion Changes You. These are words echoed by the hundreds of people Michaelene has spoken with over the years whose lives have been touched by an abortion experience.

I invite you to visit AbortionChangesYou.com. I am certain you will be surprised by the experience. After visiting the website and exploring the interactive content and amazing drawings, poems and stories that have been contributed, people from different abortion perspectives have remarked that it’s a “breath of fresh air.” This is not about debate. It’s about personal experiences that people have regardless of their beliefs or political views on abortion. The link to the movie mail is as follows: www.abortionchangesyou.com/aboutus. I also encourage you to visit www.abortionchangesyouresources.com to download the movie and banner ads for use on your blog.

Michaelene has also authored a book that will be released in early May. Changed: Making Sense of Your Own or a Loved One’s Abortion Experience is as unique as the Abortion Changes You outreach. Combining a collection of very different stories from people who have had an abortion experience with creative elements such as the Healing Pathways and a journaling component, this book creates a new standard for issue-inspired literature. These stories come from both men and women and provide a rare expression of feelings and perspectives following an abortion experience.

“Abortion” – it doesn’t have to be a word we avoid. This is a real opportunity for a conversation with your audience that will inspire, encourage and equip them.

Best,

Andrew Long

Sound friendly enough, doesn't it? Well, given my clear stance on abortion and my record vehemently defending choice, I was both skeptical and curious. Just who is Michaelene Fredenburg?

Turns out, she is an anti-choice activist from San Diego who is one of the darlings of Lifesite and folks like Jill Stanek. Hardly the person to change "35 years of polarization and judgment" - she has been one of the causes of it. Check out even a small number of those sites from the Google search - she is anti-choice and fighting for an end to a woman's choice in the US.

My reply:

Mr. Long,

With all due respect, please do not try to peddle your dishonesty with me. It only took me a few minutes on Google to find out who Michaelene Fredenburg is. It did not take long for me to discover she - and you, I assume - is nothing more than an anti-choice activist trying to peddle the unfounded nonsense about abortion causing mental anguish in people like fathers who don't actually have abortions. I suppose you have to grasp at something now that the abortion-breast cancer link has been proven completely false.

In other words, stop using stealth and subterfuge to try to force your agenda and opinions on people. Stop trying to "trick" people into thinking you and your organization are something you are not. You are an anti-choice organization but you know saying that will get you (rightly) ignored.

In my books, that makes you and your organization nothing but liars and cowards.

I am proudly and fiercely pro-choice. If you don't think abortion is right, don't have one. That is your choice.

I promise you that if you or anyone else tries to tell my daughter or wife what they can or cannot do with their bodies, you will be resisted and fought by any means necessary. Freedom of choice and security of the person are not negotiable.

Please do not contact me again with your lies. Your email address is being added to my spam filter. That is the price of dishonesty. I'll ask you to kindly remove my email from any lists you may have.

Good day.

And Mr. Longs quick reply back:

You completely missed the point of the email, and the nature of the outreach. It’s not about anti-choice –- it’s about pro-choice – and about some of those pro-choice people who may need help after an abortion.

I’m sorry your own personal agenda clouds something good. I couldn’t find the will not to respond, but out of respect I will remove your email address and you will not be contacted again.

And my final reply to him:

"and about some of those pro-choice people who may need help after an abortion.

"

Right, by someone so openly anti-choice that she is the favourite of the so-called "pro-life" sites and has testified before the US House of Representatives about her anti-choice views?

You really don't know when to stop lying?

No, I didn't miss the point of the email at all.

Good day.

Yes, once again another attempt at trickery and subterfuge. Another example of dishonesty and outright lies to further their own "personal agenda". Clearly honesty and ethics is something these people know nothing about.

And Andrew Long? Who is he?

Why Mr. Long is the Production Coordinator with the Maximus Group. Who are the Maximus Group? Why they are a "specialized and full-service communications marketing agency" who sell PR marketing of "Catholic or other authentically Christian products/messages to the secular world".

It seems then, based on all of this, that this email was part of a paid PR campaign to spread and promote a specious, unfounded connection between abortion and mental health of both women AND men, via stealth and subterfuge - by seeming to be part of a supposedly non-partisan group that is, in reality, the whole cloth creation of the Catholic anti-choice movement.

So, beware. And if you receive (or have received) a similar email from Mr. Long (or one of his co-workers) , be sure to let him know we are on to them.

I'll say it again, just to be really clear:

If you don't think abortion is right, don't have one. Feel free to do all you can to make the choices other than abortion the one chosen. Just stop thinking you can tell other people what they can do with their body and stop lying about your true position and intent.

2008, the Year of 'teh stoopid'

2008 is only 3 days old and already it is clear that the theme of this year will be unapologetic, unmitigated stupidity. Some conservatives are outright advocating on behalf of ignorance and stupidity, so how could it not happen? Others are merely demonstrating it. Over and over again (hmm, kinda looks like a BT anti-feminist blogswarm of stupidity, no?).

So, in honour of this, the Year of Stupidity, I present my 2008 Predictions (which I am certain will be more accurate than this idiot's.) for stupidity:

1. George Bush will do something stupid. I'm hoping for something Gerald-Ford-falling-down-the-stairs stupid, but more likely it will be the magnitude of nuke Iran stupid. After all, this is the man who thought it was a good idea to invade and occupy a country on the cheap, based on lies that would be obvious afterward and still give massive tax cuts. This is the guy that thinks Pakistan is an ally in the War on Terra(tm) and that Pervez Musharraf is a champion of democracy. This lame-duck moron's last year in office will likely redefine stupid and I think we will all suffer for that for a long time.

2. More of our soldiers will die needlessly in Afghanistan. That is stupid. Beyond stupid. But since our current government isn't willing to change the mission to create the winning conditions (like forgoing tax cuts and dropping $13 billion in surplus on debt relief and instead investing it in the military so there are far more than 2500 soldiers there and that they have way better equipment) or to pull out completely. So we get more of the same non-working strategy that has bogged us down in quagmire.

3. The Conservative government and their slack-jawed supporters will use #2 to try to stifle dissent and opposition to the war. If you disagree with the mission, or think it needs to be changed or want to withdraw, why you are a traitorous Taliban sympathizer who probably likes little boys too and should be locked up. Yes, they are that stupid. They will then tell you that continuing the mission as-is is actually supporting the troops, while trying to get them a chance to win or get out alive is treason. Morons, every one of them.

4. Tony Clement will speak.

5. A group of fundamentalist Christians who wish to force women to wear conservative clothing, to be baby machines subservient to men will condemn 'the Left' for wanting to leave Iraq or Afghanistan because we are there to help rescue women in those countries from their evil Muslim overlords. No, they will not get the irony at all, why do you ask? Of course, there will be others who continue to, on one hand deride ALL Muslims as the greatest evil because of the rantings and beliefs of the Islamists minority, yet on the other hand continually agree with those beliefs. Very stupid.

6. A group of fundamentalist Muslims (probably in London) will blather on about jihad on a BBC or CBC interview, giving fodder to the fools for both #1 and #2. Of course our media won't mention they are about as "mainstream" in Islam as The Church of the Creator is in Christianity, because that won't whip fear and sell papers or advertising spots. Damn Liberal media!

7. Some idiot will claim that true conservatism is about free markets and free choice when it comes to dismantling our health care system and selling it off to their corporate buddies in the medical and insurance industries, but will turn around and claim the only way to fight drug abuse (a medical problem, like alcohol abuse) is with neo-staliniod, draconian laws that interfere with a free market, criminalize victims and clear the field for organized crime to prosper and profit. They will probably own stock in some private prison venture or pharmaceutical company. The BT peanut gallery will think this is a great idea, cheer it on and deride 'teh Lieberals' for creating the rise in crime which isn't happening and hasn't for 18 years. See #4.

8. Some of us will still think using 'teh' is witty.

9. A disgruntled boob who thinks restricting Access to Information, stalling on regulations for lobbyists and trying to control the media is 'accountability' and 'transparency' will complain in the comments that this post is too anti-Conservative, and besides, what about the Liberals? He or she may or may not be an economist or a law student. They will be stupid.

Update:

10. Ah, thanks to the keen eye of JJ and via Dr. Dawg, we find that when it comes to stupidity, Kathy Shaidle (aka 'Five Feet of Cunt Snot') will never disappoint. Given the tone and quality of this post so early in the year, I predict she will regularly produce such horrendous, lying nonsense, as often as once very few day. Yet, she will still pass herself off as a "religious writer" and appear on The Agenda again, paid for, of course, by my tax dollars. And, again, no one on the show will challenge her hate-filled bigoted utterings and give her some respectability she most certainly does not deserve. One can hope that when that does happen, Dr. Robert Buckman will hold her down while Warren Kinsella beats her senseless with a leather-bound copy of the Law Society of British Columbia's decision against neo-Nazi defending lawyer Doug Christie.

Upper-date:

11. Sweet mother of Pearl, its a freakin' epidemic of stupid today. I could not possibly have imagined the 'halal=Sharia Law in Ontario run for your white lives!' stupidity, how cana I even predict anything other than Mesopotamia West will certainly top this...

Is that enough? I think not. The wave of simple 'moronicness' that is about to wash over us all will come in forms even I cannot imagine. If you have any add, please leave them in the comments. I'll add the good ones to the list above, with all due credit of course.

Now, if you don't mind, I have some books to read and some research to do. We need to stave off the stupidity any way we can.

Dear Christiangovernment.ca

Update: Seems Dave, JJ and I have been noticed. Apparently we are "blasphemous" or some such nonsense. For those visitors who come here from Christiangovernment.ca, welcome. Please read this post and feel free to peruse the rest of my blog. For the record, I am an atheist, not a secular humanist. I am a left-libertarian and as such don't particularly like my liberty being taken away by anyone. That also means I respect your choice to live and worship as you see fit, so long as you do not try to make me live by your religion or rules. I am willing to live and let live, even if I do not agree with you. Love thy neighbour as thy self, judge not lest ye be judged, as the saying goes. Read this with an open mind and feel free to comment. But remember, I am serious about defending my liberty. How serious? Ask Dave what he was doing 25 years ago. We aren't amateurs.

Thank and enjoy!

___________________________________________________________________

After reading this over at the Galloping Beaver, I thought perhaps I need to send a friendly note to Timothy Bloedow and his supporters - people like REALwomen, Focus on the Family, Institute for Canadian Values, Canada Family Action Coalition, Marriage Canada, NARTH, and various other authoritarian, fundamentalist Christians.

Here it is:

Dear Christiangovernment.ca and supporters,

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

Words to live by. As are these:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

and its corollary from libertarian thought

"No one has the right to initiate force against anyone or their property, or to delegate the initiation of force to others. One may only use force in self-defense."

Boiled down, these two sayings are the messages of every religion - the rest, as the old story goes, is commentary.

So it disturbs me greatly to see that you wish to create a Christian-based theocracy in Canada, even to the point of calling public servants "Ministers" in the real sense of the term. We've seen how well that kind of thing has turned out in both fact and fiction. Dare I say, I think you may owe Margaret Atwood some royalties after reading your site.

From what I have read, you intend force your narrow interpretation of Christianity on all Canadians, whether people subscribe to that view or not and whether people want it or not. You preach in nice tones and talk about things like "subsidiarity" and "decentralization" and how strong central government is un-christian (I suggest you let the Vatican know about that one - or the Mormons in Salt Lake or the folks in Westminster Abbey). But you also talk of "secular humanism as a threat that must be suppressed" and that "Christianity is the basis for the rule of law, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and equality before the law." In other words, you are stating that one can only have freedom if one agrees with your religious views otherwise they must be suppressed.

Sorry, but that isn't freedom or liberty. It isn't democracy. Neither Christianity, nor any other religion, should be "in the public square" in any way. You don't want freedom, but collectivist, conformist drones that all think like you, and it appears by wishing to form a government, you are prepared to use all of the coercive, violent powers of the state to do so.

Religion is a private, personal matter. It is the guide to the individual, because when it comes right down to it, you can only control yourself and not others. Not without tyranny. This is the kind of religion as practiced by the majority of Christians - learning the lessons taught by their faith, applying them in their personal lives. Living by example, not by force. This is also how the vast majority of Muslim live. And Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists - all religions.

May I suggest the following simple pieces of advice:

If you think abortion is wrong, don't have one. Or help make an environment where the choice to have one is the choice not taken.

If you don't like gay marriage, don't get married to someone of the same sex.

Indeed I suggest you consider looking at it this way: so long as you or your property are not harmed or taken, what other people do or believe makes no difference to you. Live and let live.

This is the creed I try to live by. I am an atheist and, frankly, think any belief in a God or gods is ridiculous. But I have many religious friends that I get along with just fine, because their belief and practice of their religion "neither breaks my legs nor picks my pockets." I have no problems with my Sikh neighbours, my Muslim friends or my Christian wife. We live in peace and harmony, thank you, and have no need of your "Christian" government or desire to live under it.

But I suspect, deep down, this is not really about something personal like religion anyway. Its really about power and authority. Your religion is merely a vehicle to power, so you may take control of the state, in order to force upon us your religious views, to coerce us and enslave us to do your bidding. You aren't religious, you are totalitarian, authoritarian dictators in waiting, dressed in preachers clothing. You want to rule over us for your own selfish reasons, even though you will certain say "its for our own good". You are, for lack of a better term, evil.

You are the Canadian equivalent, in every way, of the Taleban - the "Christaleban". The only difference between you and them is the length of the beards and the colour of the clothes.

So let me put this as simply and straight forward as I can:

You will not win. You will never be "ON THE WINNING SIDE in the culture war that is being waged today for the soul of Canada." You are advocates of slavery, not freedom and you will be fought at every turn.

I personally promise you that you will be fought and defeated by any means necessary. I have every right and every intention of defending my family, my property and my liberty from attack. I will defend these things with every peaceable means available, but through violence if necessary. I will not sit back and let you tell my daughter she does not control her own body, or tell my wife she cannot do any job she wishes. I will never be subjugated by those who would condemn me or my friends because we choose not to believe your religious nonsense. I will not stand by while my neighbours are oppressed and forced to convert, or have their personal religions destroyed.

The only person qualified to know what "is for my own good" is me, not you. Not your church and not the 2000+ year old writings of long-dead Middle Eastern mystics.

First you will be ignored. If that does not work, you will be defied. And if that does not work, you will be fought, to the death if need be.

Is that clear enough? Do you understand?

The choice is now yours. You can choose live in peace and freely practice and believe you religion side by side with the rest of us. We will not bother you if you do not bother us. Or you can choose this route of culture war and attempt to use the power of the state to enforce your narrow views on everyone. The first is open and tolerant, the second is authoritarian and enslaving.

I am willing to live and let live, are you?

Choose wisely, and let me assure you, you will not prevail.

-------

In other unrelated news, I have reversed my stance on gun control...

The Man Who Would be Mullah Omar...

...is dead.

I am reluctant to celebrate the death of another human. After all, the man did have a family who loved him and whom he loved. In those circles, he will be missed as any of us would miss our father or brother or uncle. But the world is a much better place now that this man no longer walks the earth, but is buried in it.

Jerry Falwell's legacy is one of hatred, bigotry and devotion to authoritarianism of the highest order. He taught not that we should love our nieghbours as ourselves, but that those not like us are evil and should be persecuted. He excused the murder of 2800 people as "God's will", punishment for "secularization" and the fault of his favourite whipping boys - gays, feminists and 'liberals'. His attitude toward individual freedom was utter derision - believe as he want you to believe or you are evil.

It is no accident that Falwell, along with Jim and Tammy-Faye Bakker and Pat Robertson inspired the theocracy of Gilead in Margaret Attwood in "The Handmaid's Tale". He would have happily transformed the US into a repressive, authoritarian Christian theorcracy similar to Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban is given the chance.

Ironically, perhaps, is that Falwell's greatest legacy was to forever damage and smear Christianity, both in North America and around the world. Christianity is now seen by most non-believers as a religion bent on world domination, willing to force itself on people through coercion, extortion and outright violence. Christianity is seen as an enemy of liberty, a supporter of the authoritarian ancien regime. Because of Falwell and his bile filled pronouncements wrapped in "Christianity", the religion is no longer associated with the good works of Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Bishop Romero or even the actual words and teachings of Jesus himself. In otherwords, he has managed to do what no atheist could ever do in a thousand years of trying- give Christianity abnd Christians a bad name.

Do not take the above as a blanket attack on Christianity or religion in general. I am an atheist, but I know and appreciate that when the supreme being myth and other fairy-tale nonsense is removed, most religions have the same message: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Help those less fortunate. Live and let live".

Falwell was more interested in forcing conformity with his narrow views than following the prinicples and teachings of his own religion. Indeed, religion was merely a vehicle for his authoritarian, fascist fantasies, rather than a way to make the world a better place.

Everyone, Christians especially, should be glad this man is no longer among us. He was indeed a "false prophet".

I don't believe in heavan and hell. Falwell is just worm food now. But if I'm wrong, I suspect that Falwell found himself in the neighbourhood of Gehena rather than Paradise this morning. And such a fate for him would be well deserved.

Good bye, Jerry Falwell, may those like you follow you soon to the gates of hell. Good riddance.