The Elusive Wapiti

Now Arriveth the Consequences

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:51:00 +0000

...of the adoption of anti-natalist attitudes and a refusal therewith to bother to marry early and have kids:

[A]s the baby boomer generation grows old and if the number of elderly care workers fails to grow with it, many people might end up being cared for by robots. According to the Health and Human Services Department, there will be 72.1 million Americans over the age of 65 by 2030, which is nearly double the number today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country will need 70 percent more home aide jobs by 2020, long before that bubble of retirees. But filling those jobs is proving to be difficult because the salaries are low. In many states, in-home aides make an average of $20,820 annually.

“There are two trends that are going in opposite directions. One is the increasing number of elderly people, and the other is the decline in the number of people to take care of them,” said Jim Osborn, a roboticist and executive director of the Robotics Institute’s Quality of Life Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. “Part of the view we’ve already espoused is that robots will start to fill in those gaps.”

The Baby Boomer generation, ever so enamored of navel-gazing and so full of self-love, were loathe to care for their own parents and instead were inclined to institutionalize their long-suffering parents into group homes. That's bad enough. Worse yet was their moral and spiritual example, which failed to foment in their children (i.e.,those of my generational cohort and those that followed, like Millenials) the desire to have children themselves. The result is that there aren't enough children to take care of mom and dad, and there are only so many low-skill migrants and down-on-their-luck native Americans willing to work for less than half the US median income to discharge this arduous task.

Another aspect of this developing phenomenon is that we are seeing yet another symptom--the hook-up culture being the most obvious attempt at forming emotional bonds in the relational moonscape that is American culture these days--of Americans' increasing social isolation.

Ban Guns

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:58:00 +0000

...in prison. Wait, what?:

Some links.

Freedom v Handouts

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:55:00 +0000

This is why amnesty and so-called "immigration reform", as currently envisioned by the "Gang of Eight:", will only inflict further harm on our republic. Not only are our legislators considering expanding the labor pool by upwards of 57M over 10 years--a crazy thing to do when unemployment is 14% and shows little signs of abating--but we are importing a low-skill, culturally dissimilar demo far less interested in liberty (and the accompanying responsibility) than they are in no-cost-at-the-point-of-delivery taxpayer-financed freebies.

Assuming that we should be allowing immigration at all in these economically and culturally turbulent times--a big assumption, to be sure--we are faced with the question: Which sort of electorate should we import? A high-quality, intelligent, skilled, disease-free electorate who values the rule of law and the historically exceptional gift of freedom? Or those still culturally attached to their homelands, disinterested in assimilating, and who even hate us for our freedoms?

The Root of Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:56:00 +0000

Killer Training

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Wed, 08 May 2013 09:54:00 +0000

While I am most certainly not on the "video games make my sons evil" bandwagon, I don't think it is unreasonable to at least partially attribute violent, homicidal behavior to the culture of death we have in America...how first-person-shooters desensitize players to human suffering and even enjoy it to a certain extent.

Gun Deaths By Race, &c

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Tue, 07 May 2013 09:46:00 +0000

I note that, once again, it is Obamerica that has the gun-homicide problem, although this graphic also makes clear that white America has a resiliency problem as well. It would be an interesting problem to explore--the reasons why black males tend to kill others, while white males usually direct their lethal intent at themselves.

For both populations, however, one thing is clear: No gun control law anywhere is ever going to keep those intent on harming themselves or others from doing so.

A Weapons Guide for Obamericans

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Mon, 06 May 2013 10:32:00 +0000

Fetus

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Sun, 05 May 2013 10:38:00 +0000

Only thing I would change for this would be to add another image to the "rabid feminist" slot...that of chattel property to be disposed of at will. Kinda like this:

12 Reasons Why I Voted (D)

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:32:00 +0000

Awesome.

Coming Out of the Closet

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:53:00 +0000

...as a Christian. This isn't going to go well:

Sports analyst Chris Broussard stepped briefly outside of the Christian closet on Monday and paid the price for it.

“Personally I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle or an openly premarital sex [lifestyle] between heterosexuals. If you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, the Bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that’s a sin,” Broussard said on ESPN. “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality, adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be. I think that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”

ESPN, not long thereafter, apologized for permitting these remarks to disrupt Monday’s canonization: “We regret that a respectful discussion of personal viewpoints became a distraction from today’s news. ESPN is fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.”

A past-his-prime ball player publicly declares his reasonably well-hidden homosexuality to much fanfare and is declared a hero about whom the President "couldn't be prouder". But dare to publicly repeat the clearly written Word, and you are a "distraction". Clearly God's popularity is on the wane, best to keep such extremist beliefs to oneself.

Makes Sense To Me

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:41:00 +0000

35 to be president. Used to be 25 to rent a car, but the age has come down recently. 21 to (legally) buy a beer and/or purchase a handgun. 18 to vote. 18 to go to war and/or be drafted. 18 to purchase a long gun. 16 to drive. 16-ish to get married. But only 15 to snuff out a human ife via the "Morning After Pill", no need to worry about parental consent.

Hate Us For Our Freedoms

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:32:00 +0000

The Boston Bombers and their parents evidently suckled quite comfortably at the public teat for a decade:

The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance - a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012.

Perhaps receiving $10K+ a year rankled so much that lashing out at the society that literally fed, clothed, and housed them was the only sane choice.

Oh, never mind. They just hate us for our freedoms.

Looking the Wrong Way

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:41:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if they're looking the wrong way on purpose:

The YouTube channel Patriot News Organization on Thursday uploaded a training video from the Department of Homeland Security that depicts a fake news broadcast about a police SWAT team raiding an American house and arresting "extremist" members of a “local militia group” for possession of illegal firearms and planning to commit terrorist attacks.

“Very disturbing video straight from DHS website - they use it to help train all of the deputized agencies during a crisis, even hospital administrators, media faces, everything and everyone that would be involved in such an event,” reads the Patriot News Organization’s description of the video.

Exactly when the video was made is unclear, but the video description links to a DHS website featuring documents that were uploaded in 2009 and 2012.

In the video, a fake local news anchor comes on the screen with breaking news.

“Reports of possible illegal activity by a local militia group appears to have spurred law enforcement into action,” the anchor says.

The video then cuts to “John Gleason” at the site in front of a house with fake fire fighters and SWAT officers swarming the area.

“This is the scene of an intensive investigation into the operations of an extremist group reportedly planning a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. cities,” Gleason says. “Details are sketchy, but allegedly the militia was using this house to store a cache of military weapons.”

While he says this, an image of an officer dressed in explosive-proof gear is shown heading into the house.

Gleason then says that the FBI and “other agencies” are on the scene, and that police raided the house of two men for “illegal possession of firearms, but they apparently found more than they were bargaining for.” As Gleason says this, SWAT officers are shown hauling two typical looking men from the house.

Last month, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis admitted that the DHS spies on "anti-government" Americans.

It's not as if the data isn't out there. White males, pretty much the only demo in liberalist DiversityLand that one may repeatedly depict as criminals-in-waiting without fear of accusations of "racism", "racial profiling", "stereotype threat", or whatever, are statistically not the threat law enforcement or counter-terror agencies need to be focusing upon. That is, if past performance in any way predicts present or future returns. Yet that doesn't stop the MSM and LEAs around the country from painting white males and/or the religious Right as the threat. With all that attention directed toward those scary religious white guys, and with generalized reluctance on the part of media or the .gov to even utter the "T" word or couple "terrorist" and "Islam" together in the same sentence, small wonder then that they don't recognize the warning signs when they appear.

HT: Wintery Knight

Book Review: Enjoy The Decline

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:54:00 +0000

The Book: Enjoy The Decline, by Aaron Clarey, 204 pages, published 2013.

Summary: Subtitled "Accepting and Living with the Death of the United States", this book asserts that the United States is in a terminal economic and social decline. It argues that readers, in order to live their lives to the fullest during this decline, should adjust psychologically to this new reality and re-organize their lifestyle so as to not only insulate themselves as much as possible from the decline, but even to enjoy life during this decline.

By far the most useful aspect of this book, in my opinion, is in the case that it makes for readers to realize that whatever bourgeois values they may presently possess, there is a high probability those values are maladaptive in the present economic and social climate. Up has become down and right has become wrong in these last days of the American republic. Work hard and save for retirement? Don't be ridiculous. Why save when the nation's leaders gleefully debauch the currency, pulling a "stealth Cyprus" to the tune of 8 - 10% each year? Why delay gratification when there will likely be little / no Social Security for Xers and younger generations, particularly if the government will simply appropriate your savings through an outright Cyprus/France/Hungary/Ireland/Argentina/Poland-style seizure? Why work hard, when doing so only qualifies you to be taxed even more to ~~support an income redistribution scheme consuming more than 2/3 of the Federal budget~~, "spread [your hard-earned monies] around a little", to bankroll parasites who didn't earn it? Why hope for things to get better when unemployment is presently at around 14% and the labor force participation rate is at a 30-year low, is trending downward, and has been so for decades? And why scrimp to pay for college while the higher ed bubble continues to inflate, making your parent's advice to "get an education" in order to succeed nearly financially suicidal and economically ill-advised in the new economic reality? For that matter, why marry and have children? Silly rabbit, very few men and women these days are equipped to be proper husbands and wives. Moreover, 5,000 years of traditional Marriage 1.0 has been subsumed by Marriage 2.0--and now, by homogamy--and is characterized by easy divorce and the subsequent trafficking in former spouses (usu but not always ex husbands) for the pecuniary interests of the state and ex-wives.

Pretty grim picture, to be sure. So what does Mr. Clarey advise? First, that readers of his book put into action the conclusions that naturally follow from a hard-nosed assessment of the ground truth: a realignment of their behaviors and habits. To this end, the author dedicates a chapter toward what he calls "the art of minimalism"--reducing possessions to the minimum essentials necessary, thereby lowering purchasing, maintenance, storage, and disposal costs. Techniques from the minimalizing playbook include buying things used or second-hand, avoiding having (expensive) children, acquiring a trade in lieu of an "education", performing repairs yourself, eschewing going out to eat and instead entertaining at home, avoiding buying real estate (a house is a liability, not an asset), and buying only catastrophic health insurance. Moreover, since the minimalist lifestyle will likely appeal to far more men than women, readers should have little issue with following through on his additional recommendation to avoid the expense of weddings--and if one does get married, elope. Do it all correctly, and Mr. Clarey calculates that a single fellow can live quite nicely for less than $USD 20,000 a year, depending on the locale. It doesn't take that much time to earn 20,000, even in today's poor economy, leaving the Enjoying the Decline (ETD) citizen ample time to take many vacations, work when he wants, and enjoy life in general, heeding Mr. Clarey's call for readers to "not waste their youth" like he did.

Continuing on the minimalism vein, for those ETDers who want to go the "full Clarey", he recommends not even bothering to save for retirement (see "why delay gratification", above). Won't that leave a person penniless in old age? Yes, it will, and Mr. Clarey suggests, in all seriousness, the .45 cal "Smith and Wesson retirement plan", as the last six months of life are extremely expensive and not all that pleasant anyways. Not a very Christian recommendation as far as recommendations go, but Mr. Clarey does not identify as a Believer and therefore has the latitude to recommend such a nihilistic option.

For those who do follow his minimalist advice, Mr. Clarey outlines several benefits: freedom from employers and the daily rat-race, better mental and physical health, a better social and family life, more travel, more sleep, and, paradoxically, a higher chance of becoming rich. In Mr. Clarey's accounting, minimalizing your life offers you the chance to enjoy your youth while you can and focus on things that really matter, such as family, friends, and other human relationships, rather than on busting your hump as a cube-drone for a faceless company to whom you are likely little more than a number. And even if you're not, is your work more important than your family? Will your work be there over the long haul? Or will your family?

Interestingly, Mr. Clarey's book contains a chapter called "Plunder", where he identifies ways in which an ETDer may take advantage of the many government programs designed to provide assistance to those with similar income levels as the minimalizing ETDer, thus aiding the ETDer in the effort to enjoy life and work less. From welfare to free meals to health care to food stamps, the author provides a road map to where the aspiring ETDer may obtain all the no-cost-to-him government cheese available. Won't that make the ETDer a member of the parasite class, those folks disparaged above (see "spread around", above)? Certainly, but then again, one may rationalize doing so in view of (a) they're giving it away anyway, (b) the ETDer is merely taking back what he paid in, and (c) in taking some of the cheese, the ETDer is helping accelerate the decline and fall of the United States and the presumably the spawning of whatever political entity will eventually replace it.

The last chapter of the book was also the most uplifting one. Titled "Revenge", it has nothing to do with directly harming one's adversaries; instead, it advises the ETDer to "get back" at the leftists who have destroyed this country simply by being happy. By living life to the fullest, by doing fun things, grandiose-fun things, working less, being a better, more cultured person, having better friends, by truly enjoying and making the best of a finite life, the ETDer rubs the leftist's nose in the equalitarian misery he has made for himself. Thus while the leftist on his death bed compares the ETDer's life, lived to the fullest, to his, and is filled with envy, in contrast, the ETDer will die with few regrets but many good memories.

All told, I thoroughgoingly enjoyed this book, despite some jabs at my male-heavy semi-industrial home town in a flyover state suffering from chronic "brain drain"--as well as ethically dubious advice to mooch off church groups as part of the Plunder program. In addition, even though I am not in a position to minimalize as much as he recommends (married, three kids, etc) there is wisdom in here for just about everyone. Especially for the single male, for whom I think this book is most applicable. For it is he who is not subject to baby rabies, not genetically hardwired to "nest", and likely to be marriage-cautious if not marriage-avoidant, single males are the population subgroup best positioned and most inclined to enjoy the decline, such as it is, and will be.

Out of Town

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:34:00 +0000

...for a week. No internet where I'm going. Comments off while I'm away. See you folks when I get back!

White Dudes Need Not Apply

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:40:00 +0000

Screen capture of the blog where

a woman allegedly claims to have

systemically discriminated against
white males. Click to enlarge

UPDATE (Apr 29, 2013): It is possible (HT Paul Elam) that the quoted text and the linked blog below are part of a hoax in which many who ought to be more skeptical, including myself, bought into. That said, I stand by the second half of this post, which asserts that poor and/or rural white dudes really need not apply to colleges these days.

These are the types people who staff admissions offices at American colleges and, upon graduation, can't find any other productive employment other than the public sector, non-profits, or HR departments:

I’m working in my school’s admissions office for the time being. This is a great opportunity for me, and I’m so glad to have the ability to decide who will come in and who won’t. We are here to make future leaders of America and the world, and as such we have the responsibility do keep those who would make the world a worse place far away, while admitting those who have potential to use their abilities to improve the world.

For instance I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege [sic]. Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions[sic] were. If I saw an application from a white male that basically was just good test scores, and activities like chess club or math club or what not then it shows me this person is not interested in a diverse environment. Obviously he made no effort in integrating with minorities or to sympathize with them and is counting on male privelege [sic] to get in. So that kind of application should get ignored. In their[sic] place I admitted a female student. This goes double especially for math/science majors.

Another time this I had an application for what sounded like an arab[sic] male who wanted to study computer science. On paper he looked good enough, decent above average scores, and such. But I checked facebook and sure enough on his wall I came came upon a particularly hateful post about Israel supposedly not having a right to exist. I promptly trashed the application and sent out a rejection letter.

The lesson here is that people are multi-dimensional. We can’t boil people down to numbers or statistics, or reject people based on the color of their skin. I’m happy to say that I approved nearly 90% of all female minority and 80% of all (white female applicants especially if the girls want to study math or science) while rejecting over 50% of white males this week and hope this trend holds out.

Emphasis mine--EW

Wow. No wonder rural white men are disproportionately refused admission to colleges, what with sexist liberal-arts masters-degree-holding-yet-can't-spell-for-dammit white females running the joint. Especially ones who think "white male privilege", like "patriarchy", is anything other than Orwellian liberalist obfusco-speak to provide political cover for their own race- and sex-preference agenda. I find it interesting how merit subsequent to hard work and talent are evidence of "white male privilege", the sin of sins for which white males must atone by demonstrating "integration" with "minorities" or interest in "diversity". Everything a white male accomplishes ("you didn't build that") is ill-gotten, a product of a supposed advantage due solely to accidents of birth (possession of a penis + relative lack of skin pigmentation).

Goldberg was right, the white male is the Jew of liberalist cosmology, a being so inherently evil that the construct of "white male privilege" is concocted to justify using state force--Jim Crow, redux--to shove him aside so that others may take his place:

Each day in America, white males face government-sponsored discrimination. If in high school, the white male may be denied a chance to apply for special programs because he is not a preferred minority, or in some cases, a female. There are scholarships available, but many cannot be awarded to white males. In applying for university, admissions will admit “basically qualified” minorities, but reject better qualified whites. When applying for a job, the same type of discrimination occurs. If the teen finally succeeds in finding employment, special on-the-job training may be denied him in order to guarantee slots for minorities, even if they be lesser qualified, even if they have been on the job for a shorter time. At the firm, he may be subjected to the racial and sexual harassment rituals called “diversity training,” whereby he is supposed to confess guilt to crimes committed before his birth. Yet, at the same time, he must deny his own experience; he must utter not a word about the discrimination he has encountered because he is a white male. His is the discrimination that dare not speak its name; were he to mention it, he would immediately be labeled “racist,” disruptive, and a possible threat to the firm’s good graces with the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and its commissars in his employer’s personnel office. If he tires of such oppression, or if he is fired, or wins a lottery, or somehow scrapes together enough money to begin his own firm, he will be denied even the opportunity to bid on many government contracts simply because he is a white male—those contracts are set-aside for minority or female companies.

Yeah. Sounds like privilege to me. So much for "equal treatment" and "equality of opportunity". Just words, mere stalking horses meant to distract the gullible from the real objective, and that is "justice", "getting even", for everything those out-group Jews, er, I mean, white Xtian guys, did and are doing to in-group "we"/"us". This is "diversity", the feel-good word redefined as "not a white guy".

Mark Twain said that the past doesn't necessarily repeat, but it certainly does rhyme.

Regrets? I Don't Think They Have Any At All

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:19:00 +0000

One news article and four videos that underscore the wonders of universal suffrage. The Founders would be proud.

First, the article:

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that 65 percent of women favor stronger gun laws, compared to 44 percent of men. That's consistent with previous polling; a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed 61 percent of women and 45 percent of men in favor stricter gun laws. [P]olling has long shown that women favor stricter gun laws, and the emotional effect of the Newtown shooting has brought those feelings to the fore. "There's a post-Newtown effect that, in particular, hit women, who were more likely to say that Newtown made them want to support stronger gun laws as a result," said Margie Omero, Purple Strategies' managing director of research. "More women are concerned about a mass shooting in their community and the culture of violence, broadly speaking."

Here is a youtube vid that documents SoCal (naturlich) universally suffraged citizens signing a petition to institute door-to-door confiscation of white folks' firearms, those "crazy", "right-wing", "extremists", leaving unregistered" weapons alone, and repeal the "too old" Second Amendment:

Or this one about a faux nuclear exchange between China and Russia:

...or a petition to ban water:

...or this petition to hike inflation 100% and spark hyperinflation:

Universal suffrage...the gift that keeps on giving...to the Statist. Not surprised one bit that giving the vote to populations disposed to emotionally trade real liberty for a little bit of symbolic (and temporary) security, populations inclined to property- and rights-strip those with whom they disagree, populations who can't be bothered to keep up on major current events, or population inclined to ban any benign substance with a scary-sounding name, would result in anything other than a loss of liberty and a creeping tyranny, the kind the statists want and frankly, the kind that is required to keep this level of idiocracy contained.

Generation Death

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:49:00 +0000

There is much not to like about the social or fiscal mores of the Baby Boomer generation, especially from a Gen X or Millenial perspective. The generation that made divorce and unwed childbearing not only acceptable but commonplace and unremarkable, the generation that gave us liberalism in all its Frankfurt School horror, is also the generation that gave us the sexual revolution, abortion on demand (56M Gen X, Millenial, or younger US babies dead since 1973), and now is agitating for euthanasia.

Baby boomers, like Burzichelli, a former education manager at Rutgers University, are at the forefront of a new movement. They brought on the sexual revolution, demanded natural childbirth, fought for legalized abortion and turned the mid- life crisis into a force for self-improvement. Now they're engaged in transforming how Americans experience death.

In states across the country, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, graying baby boomers have been lobbying lawmakers in recent months at hearings, in letters and by phone, pushing to make it legal for doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients. Advocates and opponents say there is more support this year than in past attempts with five states considering such legislation.

I suppose I should be comforted by the fact that, at least this time around, they're "doing it to themselves" so to speak, and are taking a break from inflicting their seed corn-eating culture of death and navel-gazing solipsism on the rest of us. Unfortunately, their morals will echo into the future, and I have little confidence that my generation or those being born today will be inclined--or even able to--to repudiate the social, moral, and fiscal wreckage they've inherited from the Selfish Generation.

This Is Why The 2d Amendment Really Exists

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:06:00 +0000

To enable We The People to protect ourselves, not wait for the State, which has no obligation to protect-serve anyone, to get around to it:

HOUSTON -- A Houston-based company with offices in London and Dubai that helps protect cargo ships from pirates is now helping a southwest neighborhood protect itself against common thieves.

[Officer Leroy Bill] and his fellow officers are certainly armed like cops and even have their own K-9 units. In reality, they are security officers for Seal Security, and they've been contracted by the subdivision since November. "We actually patrol districts and subdivisions like this one to give them a little more security for their money," said James Alexander, Seal's director of operations. "The civic association used to contract with the constables office for a deputy to patrol the area, but now that it's gone with Seal security, it has three to four officers patrolling the streets at any given time, and at half the cost."

Also cut in half: the number of monthly burglaries.

Many on the right cite resistance to tyranny as the primary object of the Second Amendment, and while that may be true, that is not the primary use of the Amendment in my considered opinion. Instead, the Amendment reserves for the people the ability and the responsibility to protect themselves, and in doing so, forestalls the security vacuum (that typically results in heavier government policing) from occurring in the first place.

Interesting that this private security firm provides better security at half the cost. Another benefit for the people--specifically their civil rights--is that this private security firm, like any private party, will be held accountable for their actions in ways that police officers, as public officials, have not been and are not likely to be anytime soon.

The Prayerful Abattoir

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 13:25:00 +0000

Charnel house image found here

St. Catherin's Cathedral, Sinai

VD unloads on the charnel house operators, the most visible of whom these days is Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who apparently had a teenager in his clinic as part of high school training program:

Let's make it perfectly clear. If you are a doctor or a nurse who performs abortions, you are every bit as bad, every bit as purely evil, as the SS-Totenkopfverbänder who slaughtered people in the National Socialists' extermination camps. And if you are a woman who aborts her child, you are every bit as bad, every bit as disgusting, as the SS guards at those camps, who may not have bloodied their hands themselves, but collaborated by making the killing possible.

And if you simply support the so-called "right" to legal abortion, you are no better than a card-carrying member of the National Socialist German Workers Party. In fact, you are even worse. For all their many flaws, the National Socialists at least had a substantive cause: the preservation of a defeated and economically devastated German nation. Your cause is mere [personal] convenience, rendering you even more repellant and abominable in the eyes of anyone who values human life. Their symbol was the reversed Swastika, but yours should be a pyramid of infant skulls.

I understand you have your rationalizations and your justifications. I am aware that you firmly believe that an unborn, or partially born, or newly born, child is either not human or is for some reason or another unworthy of the same right to life possessed by adult human beings who hate racism, support sexual equality, and voted for Barack Obama. I appreciate that you are absolutely convinced that acting to terminate the life of a genetically unique individual who is dependent upon his mother for his continued survival is no different than cutting one's hair or trimming one's nails. But remember this: the Nazis had their justifications too. And those justifications were considerably more soundly rooted in science, history, and logic than yours are.

Our antecedents will likely judge us as harshly--maybe even more so--as we presently pass judgement the National Socialists who slaughtered millions of Jews and other undesirables two generations ago. Who knows? Maybe we'll even erect another museum to document man's continued inhumanity to man. And if not, surely God will judge us all for our part, however large or small, in this murderous social habit. As well He should.

Image from Lifenews.com

But then again, maybe not. For Planned Parenthood, held a "40 days of prayer" vigil for abortion rights last year. To which god their prayers were directed, I do not know, but they did name-drop Jesus, which makes it alright I suppose:

A branch of Planned Parenthood in Eureka, California is holding a prayer vigil in support of abortion. The 40 Days of Prayer Campaign: Supporting Women Everywhere has sprang up in opposition to the pro-life vigil 40 Days of Prayer for Life.

Six Rivers Planned Parenthood (SRPP) is hoping to bring a different view to abortion. Some of their prayer topics include asking Christians to "embrace the loving model of Jesus in the way he refused to shame women" and praying for "a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility. May everyone feel calm and loving."

As to the question, "how could religious figures support and/or enable abortion", we get a clue by looking at the leadership and staff, which include late-term abortionist Leroy Carthart, of "Faith Aloud", a faith group that partnered with Six Rivers PP for the campaign. Note the prevalence of "ordained" female clergy, which helps 'splain the, erm, flexible interpretation of the Bible. Maybe they use the Women's Bible?

All Your Children Are Belong To Us

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:03:00 +0000

While MSNBC runs PSAs about how much awesomer it would be if American children were raised in one great society-wide kibbutz...controlled by, naturally, wise liberalists like her...Rich Lowry at NRO seizes upon a reason why the equalitarian leftist's desire to ~~make all equal in misery~~ make "better investments" in the nation's children are doomed to fail...parents' uneven investment in their children:

As the ultimate private institution, the family is a stubborn obstacle to the great collective effort. Insofar as people invest in their own families, they are holding out on the state and unacceptably privileging their own kids over the children of others. These parents are selfish, small-minded, and backward. "Once it's everybody's responsibility," Harris-Perry said of child-rearing, "and not just the households, then we start making better investments."

The truth is that parents are one of society's most incorrigible sources of inequality. If you have two of them who stay married and are invested in your upbringing, you have hit life's lottery. You will reap untold benefits denied to children who aren't so lucky. That the family is so essential to the well-being of children has to be a constant source of frustration to the
egalitarian statist, a reminder of the limits of his power.

Indeed, it is increasingly apparent to even the most willfully blind that family breakdown is not some social accident, but the intended effect of enemy action by equalitarian reformers bent on obliterating the family altogether and replacing it with something that looks like an panoptic ant colony. Or something.

Quitcher Bitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:02:00 +0000

I'm coming to the conclusion that those who haven't yet pulled your children out of state schools, and those who live in solidly blue states like New York, Conneticut, Maryland, and California, should be banned from complaining about the quality of public schooling in their states or the consequences of their state leaders' hoplophobia...or at least be required to 'splain why they're haven't yet moved to a more liberty-loving red state:

In the latest example of anti-gun hysteria, police in New York State confiscated a man's firearms and revoked his pistol license after his son threatened to use a water pistol against bullies who had taunted his friends at school. Commack resident John Mayer is now pursuing legal action after Suffolk County Police visited his home and threatened to embarrass him in front of his neighbors before confiscating Mayer's handguns and rifles, firearms worth around $6,500 dollars. Mayer also had his pistol license revoked and was told it would only be restored when his son reaches 18 years of age and moves out of the home.

The police visit stemmed from a March 1 incident at Pines Elementary school in Hauppauge. Mayer's 10-year-old son discovered that some of his friends had been bullied by other boys and there had been a scuffle on the schoolyard. Mayer's son discussed a plan with two other boys to bring a water pistol, a paintball gun and a BB gun to the home of the bullies involved in the incident. A few days later, Mayer received a call from the pistol licensing office informing him that his pistol license had been revoked and that police would visit his home to confiscate his weapons.

"I attempted to explain that this must be a mistake, no wrong doing occurred on my part. My son has no access to any of my guns. The officer that came to my residence saw that all my guns were secured. Pistol Licensing was not interested in my side of the story. They were only interested in what happened with my 10-year-old son in school," said Mayer.

Can't say we paranoid right-wing gun nuts didn't warn ya. Infringement on the Second Amendment, firearm registration, and licensing eventually lead to confiscation. Regular as clockwork. And now that gun-grabbing pols have a pretext to gun-grab (school safety in this case, as well as mental health (seen recently in NY, CA, and CT)), well no surprise that they're not letting a crisis go to waste.

Don't complain. Pull your kids out and leave Obamerica for America while you can. Just be sure to not agitate for the same stupid liberty-for-safety tradeoff your fellows made in your former home state.

Ban Assault Weapons

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:59:00 +0000

14 victims in this senseless attack in Texas:

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Multiple victims have been injured in a stabbing attack on the Lone Star College Cy-Fair campus, with one person taken into custody. Authorities now believe there was only one attacker. The violence broke out at about 11:20am at the rear of the Health Sciences Building on the Cy-Fair campus on Barker Cypress Road. The Harris County Sheriff's Department confirms 14 victims, and one suspect in custody. James, a student at the school, told Eyewitness News he helped authorities take one person into custody. He says the suspect, who appeared to be a student, may be hearing impaired, and was armed with a knife similar to an exacto knife, that may be used in animal dissections.

That's it. I've had enough. Time to ban knives with scary features, like beveled edges and pointy ends. Because beveled edges and pointy ends turn a tool of animal necro-vivisection into a threat to school safety.

Lumping Evangelicals, Mormons, and Catholics Together With Al Qaeda and Hezbollah

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:34:00 +0000

Material presented to soldiers

at training session.

Yet another indicator that liberalists consider religious folk and right-wingers who oppose their agenda to be the enemy. Not just fellow Americans with whom they disagree, but threats on the order of al Qaeda or bad actors like Abu Sayaaf:

A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned. “We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”

The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam.

The military [briefer] also listed “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism. Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that this was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army. This slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine,” he said. “It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission". Wright said after the complaint was lodged, the presenter deleted the slide, and apologized. “We consider the matter closed,” he said.

“In the notes it was clearly stated that the presenter was not a subject matter expert, and produced the material after conducting Internet research,” Wright said. He said he had a chance to speak with the officer who conducted the briefing and she told him that she got her information from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"Why is there such dependence upon the work of the SPLC to determine hate groups and extremist groups?" Crews said. "It appears that some military entities are using definitions of 'hate' and 'extreme' from the lists of anti-Christian political organizations. That violates the apolitical stance appropriate for the military."

The $PLC? Why am I not surprised that this training, administered by an officer (commissioned or warrant, not sure) to a captive audience under the soft, fuzzy-feeling auspices of "diversity" or "equal opportunity" or "anti-discrimination/racism" training, originated with that crowd? One wonders just how far the presenter's Overton Window was skewed left, to permit her to think that libelling Christians and Catholics in this manner was anything other than (to use the name-calling vernacular of the Left), anti-religion extremism?

But then, the intolerant, illiberal, secular religious Left has been on a roll for a while. Secularism is as much a religion as the Christian, Mormon, or Catholic belief systems it seeks to replace. Consequently, it is intolerant of other gods held before it, and its acolytes demand that the Ashera poles of other religions be struck down and their adherents ostracized and/or suppressed. Mark Steyn of NRO has noted the same dynamic elsewhere:

I can see why gays might dislike Scalia's tone, or be hurt by Irons' "lack of strong feelings." But the alternative - that there is only one approved tone, that one must fake strong feelings - is creepy and totalitarian and deeply threatening to any healthy society. Irons is learning, as Carrie Prejean learned a while back, that "liberals" aren't interested in your opinion, or even your sincere support, but only that you understand that there's one single, acceptable answer.

The tolerance enforcers will not tolerate dissent; the diversity celebrators demand a ruthless homogeneity.

"You're either with us, or against us" seems to be the Progressive Left's mantra these days. The "tolerance" mask worn by the Left has finally been ripped away, revealing itself to be nothing more than a stalking horse to foist an aggressively intolerant ideology into the racist/sexist/homophobic red-state mass-man they wish to rule. In other words, most people reading this post. You are the enemy dontcha know? Moreover, having been designated the evil enemy, be warned that "we'll sic the machinery of government upon you to 'encourage' your cooperation".

Update: The SPLC denies the materials came from them:

Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Fox News they did not provide the military with any list about religious extremism. “It’s emphatically – 100 percent false,” Potok said. He said the SPLC has never labeled Evangelical Christianity or Catholicism as extremist groups.

While the Daily Mail has three of the presentation slides on display, and captured the hectoring tone of the briefing as well:

The opening slide warns that 'the rise in hate crimes and extremism outside the military may be an indication of internal issues all [armed] services will have to face.'

Citing a Southern Poverty Law Center report as evidence that extremism is on the rise, the Army Reserve presentation blames 'the superheated fears generated by economic dislocation, a proliferation of demonizing conspiracy theories,the changing racial make-up of America and the prospect of 4 more years under a black president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.'

The Army Reserve presentation defines religious extremism as 'beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions, or strategies of a character far removed from the "ordinary."' It concedes that 'ordinary' is a subjective term, but condemns religious Americans 'who believe that their beliefs, customs and traditions are the only "right way" and that all others are practicing their faith the "wrong way," seeing and believing that their faith/religion [is] superior to all others.'

Progressive propaganda, administered to a coerced, captive audience under the auspices of command approval, paid for by your tax dollars 'Apolitical stance'? Not quite.

Two Marriages, Two Postmortems

noreply@blogger.com (Elusive Wapiti) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:41:00 +0000

The holidays, and the weeks immediately afterward, seem to be the time for marital dissolution. Something about all that feel-good Christmas music, free-flowing libation, and talk of family and relationships, must put dissatisfied spouses in the mood to head for the door.

For instance, Athol Kay reported in late January that five fellows running his Male Action Plan had their wives leave them--for other men. And in my immediate social circle, three friends had their wives bail on them in January as well, to include this guy. Well, it turns out that this last couple, whom I've known a long time, were having quite a bit of trouble behind their smiling public facades.

Apparently, after several near-sexless years of emotional turmoil and lots of arguing and fighting, he caught her in an affair with a physician from the office, an affair that thus far she has refused to stop. Consequently, they are well on their way to Splitsville, he a 42 yo father, emotionally devastated and financially stressed, she an attractive-for-her-years 39 yo mother who is likely happy to be rid of a fellow she doesn't love anymore. In a pattern that many readers will readily recognize, conveniently, she's still keeping his three middle school-aged boys, a nice 5 bedroom Colonial in the country, and a fat monthly chalimony check that, frankly, an entire family could live on in most areas of the country. All secured with an emergency ex parte TRO strategically obtained to forcibly separate a legally unimpeachable man from his children and his property--all on the mere word of a vested-interest adulteress.* This while his standard of living has taken a sharp turn for the worse in a tiny rental house in a far less tony, much more vibrant neighborhood. To my friends' woes, I'll add my own unhappy experience, for it was ten years ago in early February that my former wife, the woman I loved and implicitly trusted, my confidante and effectively my only close friend, absconded with my kids across the continent in a pre-emptive nuclear divorce strike.

I learned about the divorce via a phone call from her father. She didn't have the sac or the decency to tell me herself. And for the next year, she busied herself regaling mutual friends, her family, the Archdiocese of Washington, and her attorney with fancifully horrific tales of psychological abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, and, or course, rape, at the hands of big, bad, old me.

Yet that is not the point of this post--to pen yet another testimony regarding those flightly flesh-controlled people who choose to wreak intergenerational pain and suffering, who lie and perjure and kidnap, because they are unhaaapy. Rather, my objective is to provide the opportunities for readers to acquire the second best sort of wisdom there is: Wisdom and judgement one doesn't have to acquire for him- or herself the hard way, through direct experience. In aviation, there's a saying, usually in response to a completely avoidable fatal mishap: "It may be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others". A bit harsh, yes, but it alludes to the opportunity to pick through the wreckage of mine and other divorced dudes' previous marriages for hints and clues of what not to do. For although marriage rates are declining, and divorce is now apparently on the upswing again, most men will formally marry or common-law marry-by-default at least once. And it is with those fellows (and gals) in mind, that this post is written.

So, if you will permit me, reader, I will now share with you some of the common threads that contributed to the failures of two marriages, one having lasted 7 years, the other 14. Free lessons learned below, for those so inclined:

First one up is one that I've already touched on here at EW...that of being unequally yoked to one's spouse. Both myself and my friend were nominal Protestants, Baptists actually, wedded to nominal Catholics. No problem, right? Both Christians, right? Well no, not really, for both faith traditions contain enough conflicting tenets--Luther didn't nail his 99 theses to the Wittenburg Church door for nothing, after all--to make them starkly incompatible for even moderately fervent believers. Both my friend and I unwisely thought, in our youthful exuberance, that love (as we knew it then) was enough, unaware of how seemingly minor questions of where we would church would become significant, thorny issues down the line, particularly as the arrival of children made seemingly trivial issues as dissimilar religions between two consenting adults suddenly intractable.

Second...and this lesson is for teh menz (sorry gals), the woman you are seeking as a wife must, must, be accountable to something more authoritative than her rationalization hamster. And yes, I'm talking God here...for if she's not accountable to God, and her hamster-gonads (e.g., "follows her heart") and/or the State is the utmost authority in her life, run, not walk the other direction. And even then, being accountable to God is not as foolproof as it sounds, for the hamster is wily, marriage has been largely reframed in Christianity to make the woman the de facto head of the marriage, and my anecdotal experience has been that even clergy will recommend a divorce if a woman claims abuse or rape.** A fervent love for God--expressed through adherence to His Commandments--needs to come first in her life. Not there? Don't consider marrying her. A good (but not foolproof) proxy for accountability to a higher Being is religious attendance...which the data suggests results in much lower divorce rates. Again, not foolproof--remember the hamster is a very flexible, adaptive, and creative foe--but the odds are much, much better.

Next, both of us married someone for whom we weren't all that passionate. Both of us married a close female friend for whom we had affection, and thought at the time that was simply how it was done...the natural progression of things. How wrong we were. Having the experience of intentionally seeking and courting Mrs. Wapiti, and being passionately in love with her, gives me a much different perspective now, a perspective I didn't have at the tender young age of 22. I met and married Mrs. Wapiti as a 33-yo divorcee with two young boys, and what a difference a decade's worth of hard experience, a reignited faith, and a Biblically informed (yet quite short) spouse shopping list makes. While I have no doubt that "sliding" into marriage, letting the momentum of friendship carry one to the altar and beyond, can succeed for some, for myself and my broken friend, we took a then-unknown risk that came back to haunt us. Lesson learned: be intentional when searching for a wife.

The fourth lesson learned is related to the third one above, and that neither my friend nor I really cherished our wives. Sure we loved them, and were committed to them, but we didn't really value them as the priceless mates set apart for us by God.*** In effect, we took our spouses for granted, assuming that our masculine expressions of love for them would translate correctly through the female perception filters of our wives and be received/perceived as "love". It was only after I was divorced, and after reading books like "The Five Love Languages" or "His Needs, Her Needs", that I began to see things differently. The light came on for me after reading those books in ways that didn't before...and the latter book (really a red-pill stealth bomber in many ways) is the one Mrs. Wapiti and I loan out to couples when we discover they are courting.

Fifth, both of us ignored warnings from disinterested third parties. Both of us had family and / or friends warn us off about the woman we were fixing to marry. For me, a woman who was effectively my adopted mother during my college years attempted to warn me about the coed I had brought with me to visit one day. Call it women's intuition, call it what you will, after five minutes with her, she concluded that the 21 yo young woman I had brought into her home was bad news, was all about herself, and was all about scoring the trophy husband. She (adopted mom) tried to tell me but I wasn't hearing it (see young, 'in love', frankly stupid, in Paragraph 1 above). Similarly, my friends' wife's own family (ouch) tried to warn him as well, with words like "watch out", "she'll be a handful, etc". Moreover, my friend's now ex wife had been previously married, had chucked her starter husband to the curb a year or so prior to their meeting, and had a reputation for being driven, goal-oriented, and emotionally turbulent and difficult. All red flags that, viewed through the goggles of experience and wisdom, should have been sufficient "don't go here" warning signs. Lesson learned: gain the counsel of others, particularly your elders, even going as far as screening your mates through your parents or parent substitutes for their assay, and, unlike financial investments, past performance really does predict future returns when it comes to people. As for me, S1 and S2 notwithstanding, oh, how I wish I had listened to that prescient warning that day in 1994...and I bet my friend is regretting the ignored warnings too.

Sixth, we both married talented and intelligent women who over-valued career and work...and who later resented both the career impact of children and a less-than-egalitarian division of childcare responsibilities subsequent to children. Unbeknownst to our youthful selves, feminism sets a trap for unwary women and men, one which (generalizing greatly here) sets the average woman's innate desire for home and family and children in opposition to the secular values of career and materialism...and then tells them they can and should have it all. Frustration and unhaaapiness usually follow in short order, testing the mores and values of women with the promise of more of that elusive happiness, underwritten of course by a soon-to-be-ex-husband about to be person-trafficked for financial gain. Lesson learned: Michael Noer was right: don't marry career women, who generally tend to be less happy in marriage than their more traditional counterparts.

Continuing this hit parade of lessons learned, neither my friend nor I at the time followed the Biblical model of marriage, which for my secular readers roughly boils down to Athol Kay's captain-first officer model, with God as the captain's (and first officer's one-degree-removed) Fleet Admiral. Instead, we both permitted our wives to wear far bigger pants than they should have, but then again, "permitted" may be too freighted a word. For I didn't really have the choice to "permit" or "refuse"; that is, after I made the poor choice of selecting my wife in the first place. For my lack of discernment and refusal to seek the wisdom of others, divine or otherwise, cast that die for me the moment I married. The permission in Marriage 2.0 was hers to give, not the other way around. For my former wife, a nominal Catholic whose mother wore the pants in the family and high-achieving young woman high on the feminist "have it all" lie, had neither the experience nor tolerance for traditional gender roles. Egalitarianism, maybe, "50/50", as she defined it, maybe. But Biblical roles of male headship and female followership, no way Jose. Mind you, this wasn't a problem early on in my first marriage, when my former spouse and I were dinks making good money and saw each other for a couple hours after work and before nightschool to share a meal. Gender roles weren't an issue; we were roommates with benefits (see Lesson #4, above). However, as time went on, S1 was born, and I felt the Call to return to the Church, I found out how receptive my former spouse would be to a more Biblical reordering of gender roles in the home. She literally recoiled at the thought. No, she was happy with her "equality plus" situation, and I was stuck in Marriage 2.0, where, as we all know, husbands follow the wife, or else. And if he fails to please or gets too uppity, he'll be stripped of his assets and children and sold into fractional servitude (see "trafficked", #6, above) if it pleases her to do so. And for both of us, it greatly pleased our former wives to do so.

Eighth, we both, secure in the commitment we thought we had with our wives, made the mistake of assuming our wives' commitment, love, and loyalty to us matched our own to them. So safe we felt that we missed the warning signs: contempt, emotional distance...and one big one we both missed was a tail-off in sex. We both endured the dearth in our sex lives, and didn't see the lack of sex--when it used to be more or less plentiful--as the canary in the coal mine that it was. I recall going for months without sex, and frequently, when it was supplied, it was grudgingly so, a wifely duty. For our parts, while my friend and I were both miserable and unhappy, "divorce" never ever crossed our minds, for we had made a commitment. For life. I know better now, of course, that the word "commitment" means different things to men and women, and the sex that has difficulty with staying committed isn't the male one. The lesson here is that assumptions kill, projecting your thoughts and feelings and values onto your wife is a mistake (she is, after all, human), and unwarranted comfort goeth before a fall.

After the sex asymptotically approached zero, and both partners in both marriages acted to fill the void left behind by the lack of physical bonding, something else happened in both my and my friend's marriages: all four parents compensated for their marital dissatisfaction by over-investing in their children. It goes back to that old saying that the best thing parents can do for their children is to love each other...and sadly, I didn't learn that lesson until it was too late. Instead, my boys became my world, and my then wife took a back seat on my priority list. This struck me as right and proper at the time, for I had been displaced by the child(ren) since before they were born, and resented greatly how my then wife had long since demoted me from husband and mate to helper / enabler, or, in Marriage 2.0 terms, from First Officer to yeoman. Instead of confronting the issue head on and make my needs and dissatisfaction known, I took the gamma route and passive-aggressively "got back" at her by attributively cutting off my emotional support. Result: a self-reinforcing death spiral of dissatisfaction, resentment, and unhaaaapiness. I would have done better to respond actively to my former wife's common (and hormonally driven) mistake of over-focusing on the children and leaving hubby in the cold, addressed the issue head-on, and restored the proper balance of my marriage. What was she going to do, divorce me? Heck, that happened anyway, so I didn't have much to lose.

The tenth and last lesson-learned was the impact of in-laws. While the in-law effect happened to me and not my friend, I write about it here as a warning to others that the support (or enemy action) of parents-in-law can reinforce your marriage or torpedo it. The latter is what my former wife's parents, specifically MIL, did. My ex wife's parents opposed the marriage (uh oh) and alienated themselves from their daughter in the process. However, when she became unhaaaaappy (uh oh again), she emotionally ran back to mom and dad...who then took a hammer and chisel to our union, one chip at a time, day over day, week over week, for months on end. It would be difficult for anyone to resist that kind of pressure, and my ex wife chose to listen to her parent's (mostly her mother's) poisonous words over recalling her vows to me. In the end, MIL and the woman I loved--and thought loved--me hatched a plot to abscond with my children across the country, with me none the wiser until the boom had already fallen.

In sum, my friend and I made several mistakes in the run-up to our marriages and in the years after we were married, mistakes that eventually proved fatal to our marriages. From being unequally yoked, to following the wrong marriage model, to marrying a woman with the wrong values, to not cherishing our wives, to over-investing in kiddos, to not cleaving from one's parents and cleaving to each other, the aggregated weight of mistakes my friend and I made helped set us up for divorce several years later. Thus for those fellows inclined toward marriage--and I posit that only religious men marry in today's legal and social climate, yet most of us will take the plunge at some point in our lives--I pray that you will heed the experience of others.

* The TRO was revoked a week and a half later at the follow-up hearing, for lack of evidence. Quelle suprise, no?

** Where in the Bible are abuse and rape listed as permissible justifications for divorce, again? I must've missed them.

*** Can't speak for my friend on this one, but choosing my first mate was all me...just out of college, naive despite (heh, or even because of) my education and special-snowflake achievements, and no one could tell me anything, really. I didn't bother with seeking His guidance, a mistake that I didn't make the second time around.