SCOTUS Hypocrisy

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) pulled no punches while delivering a scathing speech on Thursday after Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion justifying the intention to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked. Gillibrand commanded all the attention deserving of her well-placed anger, addressing not just Alito, but all men.

“I would like to speak to America’s men for one minute. Imagine you do not have authority over your own body for 10 months. Imagine if that decision-making would be taken away even if you would die in childbirth, even if you couldn’t decide who you’re having children with, even if you couldn’t decide when you were having that child,” the New York Senator vehemently declared.

Gillibrand’s remarks echoed the sentiment of women across the nation at that moment, watching in horror as 50 years of precedent and reproductive health care choice is on the precipice of being stripped away.

The righteously indignant Gillibrand called out the GOP-appointed Justices who sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee during their own confirmation hearings and vowed to respect the constitutional law, including Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett, Gorsuch, and Alito himself. At Alito’s own hearing in 2006, the right-wing activist justice had this to say about the court’s reliance on precedents:  READ MORE...

C H O I C E

I remember someone telling me that another person told them that
whatever it was that they did was done because this other person made them do it...

My first blush reaction and comment to this statement was THAT'S BULLSHIT FRED...

Of course, Fred was not his real name....  at least, not at the time.

NO ONE MAKES US DO ANYTHING...  not even if they have a loaded firearm pointed at our heads...  We make the choice to respond/react or do nothing.  

But, if we did not do that, we would have been killed is the rebuttal, and yes that is true, but we all die eventually.  If we die, we will miss out on all sorts of things...  and, yes, that is true too.  But, we did not have the choice of whether to be born or not either...  and, had we had that choice, we may have decided not to be born...

We chose to be active

We choose to be lazy

We choose to overeat

We choose to drink alcohol

We choose to drive our cars fast

We choose to violate the law

We choose to have an extramarital affair

We choose to pay our taxes

We choose to be liberal

We choose to adversely react to our whiteness or blackness

AND...  to a certain extent, we choose when and how we want to die.

Not all choices that we make are good one and not all of them are bad ones either...  and, from each choice we should learn a lesson otherwise we remain emotionally, mentally, and physically stagnant.  

AND...  many of us make the choice to remain stagnant rather than try to convince ourselves that we should change...  No one can force us to change, they can only create the environment that allows us to change on our own.

Freedom of Choice

Philosophy of Choice  --  is a corollary of the proposition of free will or the ability voluntarily to decide to perform one of several possible acts or to avoid action entirely.   An ethical choice involves ascribing qualities such as right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse to alternatives.

In order to have a Corollary, one must form a proposition or concept from a proposition or concept that has already been proven...  therefore, ONE'S CHOICE(S) comes from ONE'S FREE WILL...  and FREE WILL means one's ability to act with one's own discretion...  therefore, making choices without influences either external or internal...  however, exercising one's free will is always contingent upon all factors that may influence the outcome of that decision.

Psychology of Choice  --  explores subconsciously why people make the choices they do as they decide making decision based upon two or more options; what motivates us to make these decisions, and what these choices are meant to satisfy within us. 

Our subconscious refers to that part of the mind which is not fully aware but which influences one's actions and feelings...  and, it may be difficult to accept having parts of our mind not being fully aware of anything...  it would seem that our mind is either aware or not aware...  BUT, that logic is INCORRECT.

When one reflects upon these definitions, one should come to the conclusion that we NEVER exercise our FREE WILL and/or CHOICES without some sort of external or internal influences which could be seen as an INTERACTION OF FORCES...

Even Jesus's choices were influenced by His Father, God...  Jesus never exercised his free will without first considering the influences and the potential outcomes of his free will, or what was motivating his free will and/or choices.

Whether we like it or not, we can never escape these influences or motivators of our behavior and our FREE WILL is NEVER exercised without influences even though we think it is just us who is making these choices.  We never makes choice on our own.  We never exercise our free will on our own, regardless of what anyone else tells you.

Therefore...

do we really have 

FREEDOM OF CHOICE?

Saturdays are Peaceful

                                          

Even though I am retired and cannot really tell one day from the next day, SATURDAYS are still special in that they remain, at least for me, peaceful...  that is to say that Saturdays reflect the end of a week's worth of labor and one can relax and simply enjoy the SLOW-PACED unfolding day...  and, while Sundays are another day off...  they are different because the next day we return to work whereas with Saturdays we still have another day off...

SATURDAYS for me are days of reflection, pondering what I cannot understand or will ever know, sitting on the porch witnessing the activities of my community neighbors (which is nothing done outside) and watching the animals, especially the rabbits and birds that enjoy safety and security on my property.

Spring, Summer, and Fall SATURDAYS are spent on the back screened-in porch contemplating the benefits and frustrations of still being alive in today's AMERICA...  an AMERICA that is divided along several lines of political ideologies and philosophies which has little to do with LIFE's PURPOSE...  at least as I see it.

Life is about LIFE which is about living and living is about appreciate and gratitude and that revolves around one's being given life (birth) and whether we wanted life or not is meaningless and irrelevant since life is what we have.

In other words, I did not REQUEST that I be given life via birth from my mother and yet, life is nonetheless what I have received; consequently, I am grateful for that life and appreciative for what that life has allowed me to SEE...  EXPERIENCE...  and DOUBT...

• We have not been designed (???) to live a long time.
• We have not been designed to live without food or oxygen.
• We have not been designed to want the same things.
• We have not been designed to think the same way.
• We have not been designed to serve each other.
• We have been designed to procreate.

WHY?

It seems inconceivable and illogical that human beings simply EVOLVED into what we are today and it seems inconceivable and illogical that we should only live 8 decades +/- and then we simply die and

it seems inconceivable and illogical that we have been given free will and choice during our lives but had no free will or choice with our births and deaths outside of suicides...  and yet, this is exactly what has taken place with our lives and with our living of those lives.

BUT, regardless of these inconsistencies, most of us do not appear to be appreciate of our own lives or the lives of our friends and neighbors and potential enemies and those we do not yet know or will never know...  and yet, WE ALL HAVE BEEN GIVEN LIFE.

• manufacturing of HATE also evolve inside of us over the years?
• Did the inability to show appreciation or gratitude evolve inside of us over the years?
• Did the desire to acquire wealth, position, and power evolve inside of us over the years?

SATURDAYS for me are days of reflection and pondering...  and, in so doing I am filled with an inner peace inside even though there is turmoil all around me.