Attacked for A Differing Opinion

I was viewing a friend's FB page and clicked on a page she liked, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, because I now live in Texas and I was curious to see what was posted there since we have an election coming up next month. This group claims to represent Texas women. 

I made a comment about which candidate I support and mentioned that I am a mother of ten. A woman responded with this comment, "Rebecca Cornish Talley: you must be very wealthy and are able to support 10 children. Have you ever given thought to population control, conserving our resources? Not breeding like rats? Of coarse not!" 

Obviously, the poster does not understand the difference between "coarse' and "course," but that is beside the point.

When I went back to read the comment on the page, I found that I'd been blocked from commenting. Why? Because I expressed a different opinion. My opinion is not valuable because it is different.

Planned Parenthood, and WomenWinTexas, a public political group, claims to represent women. They claim to have the best interest of women at heart. they want women to be active in politics and to go out and vote. Yet when a woman has a different opinion, she is personally attacked and then blocked from participating in a discussion about candidates. PP and WomenWinTexas is not interested in hearing from women whose views differ from their agenda, and they are willing to attack women who disagree with them. What happened to discussing opposing views?

For the record, I am thankful every day that I have ten children. My children are not a pack of rats. They are good, decent human beings who strive to be kind and serve those around them. They are not perfect, and I am not a perfect parent, but I love my job as a wife and mom. My only regret is that I could not have ten more children. I am thankful that my children have loved growing up in a big family and want to have many children themselves. People may not agree with my lifestyle or my choice to have a large family. That is fine. 

Why is is that groups like PP are so intent on protecting a woman's "right to choose" but not my right to choose to have a large family? Why is it that PP does not want anyone to control a woman's body when it comes to abortion, but have no problem wanting to control my body and stop me from having as many children as I can care for? Why is it that if a woman dares express a differing opinion it is okay to personally attack her? I have found that usually happens when the attacker has no substance to his/her argument and must stoop to name-calling.

And another thing. I am very wealthy. I am wealthy in all the things that matter.

To Planned Parenthood Texas Votes and to #WomenWinTexas, you may have personally attacked me on a public page and successfully blocked me from that page so that I cannot make comments, but you will not silence me. I still have a voice. I still have the right to my opinion. I still have the right to vote for the candidate I choose. 

I may not agree with anything you represent, nor the disrespectful and hateful things you say about the candidates you don't support, but I will fight for your right to say what you want, because that is what freedom of speech means. I am not afraid to hear what you have to say. If only that worked both ways.

Righteous Leadership

Political parties are revving up for the upcoming elections in 2012. As I watch the various campaigns and promises I am reminded of the account of King Noah in the Book of Mormon.

Zeniff was a righteous man and king. He instilled the value of hard work within his people and they were industrious.Zeniff conferred the kingdom on his son, Noah, and then he died. Noah did not walk in the ways of his father. He was lazy and glutted himself on the labors of his people. He and his priests lived a riotous lifestyle and had many wives and concubines. They did not keep the commandments of God.

As a result, his people became wicked. He, as their leader, set the example of a corrupted lifestyle. He lead them away from God. When Abinadi came to King Noah and his people and called them to repentance they sought to kill him. Eventually, they burned Abinadi because they did not want to hear the word of the Lord. They were content in their iniquity and had no desire to live the laws of God. Because of their refusal to repent of their iniquity, Noah's people were put in bondage to the Lamanites. If Noah had been a righteous leader, or if Zeniff had conferred the kingdom on a righteous son, their outcome would've been different. The account of King Noah teaches us that our leaders do have an affect on our society and we must be careful of who leads us.

As we consider who we'll vote for, we need to consider whether that person will lead us toward the light or the dark. Will he/she affect our society in a positive or negative way? Will he/she lead us toward God or away from Him?

Many want to deny the existence of God or our dependence on Him, but whether you believe in God or not does not change the fact that He is real and He is eager to bless us when we keep His commandments.

Many good men and women in politics are tarnished by the acts of a few. We've seen examples recently of politicians who chose to have affairs, father children out of wedlock, and use the internet for evil purposes. My brother-in-law, J. Paul Brown, is one of the most decent men I know. He is currently serving the state of CO as a representative for our area in SW CO. He is honest, hard-working, and smart. He is the kind of leader we need in our states and in Washington D.C.

As I look for those for whom I will vote, I will determine whether or not they will lead us in a good direction. I hope that as we near the 2012 elections we will all take the time to learn about our candidates and make sure we vote for those we feel will best represent us and will be honest in their dealings. It didn't take long for the effects of King Noah's wicked leadership to destroy their society. For evil to prevail, good men must do nothing. 

Nasty Politics

Why is it that polictics have to be so nasty? Why can't candidates just claim their views, stand firm, and stop slinging mud? Our "local" channels actually come from New Mexico so whenever a local channels is on, we hear about all the candidates running for office in NM. Can I just say how sick and tired I am of that governor's race? I don't even watch TV much, yet I feel overwhelmed by all the negative ads running, particularly in that race. I wouldn't vote for either of them based on the negative ads.

Why is it that people can't just discuss issues? Why do they resort to name-calling when it comes to a disagreement in politics? I think debate is healthy when it's done properly. We can learn from people's different points of of view when there is mutual respect, yet that is so hard to come by. In the community where my kids go to school (not my local community) there such a gap between beliefs. Instead of having an intelligent discussion, we have bashing and name-calling.

It is totally fine to disagree on issues, but it's not okay to be rude about it. I have friends who have completely different beliefs than I do, but we don't argue about them. They have every right to believe differently than I do and I will fight for their right to express their opinions.

Why is it that political discussions tend to get nasty so fast?

Interesting Article

This is an interesting article by a well-known LDS author and Democrat. He's also a journalist. I think he makes some valid points that we might want to consider before we cast our votes in a few weeks. I found it here. It first appeared in print in The Rhinoceros Times, Greensboro, NC.

See what you think . . .

By Orson Scott Card October 5, 2008

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

Respect for our Country

While discussing the war in Iraq, my daughter commented that most of her classmates do not support the war and do not support George W. Bush. They claim he lied and has ulterior motives for involving the United States in the war. Most of her teachers do not support the war or the President. These people all feel justified in not supporting our troops and not showing respect to our country because of the war.

We discussed patriotism and she mentioned that during one class each day at her high school, they recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She said that only she and a few other students recite the Pledge. The rest of the students either mock it or ignore it. How disgraceful.

One of the things that makes our country great is the fact that we have the freedom to make our own choices. Who bought that freedom for us? Who paid the ultimate price so that each one of us is free to make choices? What does it mean to be a United States citizen?

Whether the war in Iraq is justified or not is irrelevant when it comes to showing support and respect for our country and those who've fought for our freedom or are currently fighting for others' freedom. What is relevant, and quite apparent in my daughter's class, is the total disregard for our nation. The lack of respect for our flag and what it symbolizes is appalling. The war in Iraq, the Vietnam war, or any other war does not give license for apathy or opposition to the very foundation of our country.

While we speak of the ills that plague our society, we must include the rising generation's disregard for those things we've held sacred. How would a veteran, who served in a war to secure or protect our freedom, all the while believing that those of us at home were not only supportive, but grateful for his/her service, feel if he/she walked into a classroom of teenagers who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance? He/she would realize that many of today's youth think nothing of the sacrifices made in their behalf.

Whether we support the war or not, those who are putting their lives on the line deserve our respect, our admiriation, and our gratitude. They deserve to be remembered. They deserve to come home to a grateful country. And when they do not come home, they deserve to be respected. Go here for an emotional and beautiful tribute to today's soldiers:

**Everybody should see this. Please watch. Lizzie Palmer, who put this YouTube program together, is 15 years old. There have been over 3,000,000 hits as of this morning. In case you missed it, here it is.http://www.youtube.com/v/ervaMPt4Ha0&autoplay=1**

While we may disagree when it comes to politics, we must be diligent in not only showing respect for our country ourselves, but in teaching our children to do the same. Disagreement over political issues does not discount what our flag represents and what it means to be an American.