Column: Lack of conviction what makes some people uncomfortable

Staff

Published Thursday, September 30, 2004

By Love Cruikshank, Tribune columnist

I don't have my book of Charles Lamb's essays before me (since my friends helped me move computer, bookcases, file cabinets downstairs I can't find anything) but I think the essay I'm thinking of was one titled, "Imperfect Sympathies." In it as I recall Lamb was not speaking of those he hated or disliked. He was just touching lightly on feelings about those that made him someway uncomfortable.

I know how he feels. I'm put off by people who speak as if they know what they're talking about, when they tell me that cats have no real affection for people. I've been around cats all my life and I never met one that - if treated right - didn't offer its whole catly affection to its human, What people, who don't know that, are upset about is that they have discovered that no one can own a cat. The right kind of person wouldn't want to.

I am equally dismayed by those who loudly assert their political position without offering a reasonable or logical reason for it. In this I am not partisan. A person who tells me she won't be voting for George Bush because his eyes are too close together is no more entitled to my respect than one who tells me that I should vote for Bush because "God has chosen him."

I've read editorials suggesting that religious people will vote for him because of the stand he has taken against same sex marriage and abortion. I even remember reading somewhere that if we permit same sex marriages we'll have to permit polygamy. Does that make sense to you? It doesn't to me. After all the law against polygamy applies to everyone in the country. Marriage is forbidden only to homosexuals.

As for abortion, I cannot speak for other liberals, but for those I have known and for myself, not one of us is pro-abortion. What our friends the Right-to-Lifers seem to overlook is that there were a great many abortions before abortion was made legal.

If abortion were to be made again illegal today there would still be abortions tomorrow. They would just be unsafe for women lacking means to go to some country where they are legal. Babies would continue to be killed and so would their mothers, many of whom are doing all they can to care for the children they already have.

Whatever one thinks about abortion it is something that should be kept out of government. If said government has the right to forbid abortion it may at some time have the right to demand abortion. If you doubt this take a long cold look at China.

There will be fewer abortions when the country is made a more promising world for children. It must take a great deal of courage to bring a child into the world when there is no home for him, not enough food for him, inadequate schooling for him.

I doubt if any one of us can say, "I have never made a mistake." The point is one should guard against making the same mistake twice. Our war in Vietnam was acknowledged even by those who prolonged it to have been a mistake. It takes greater optimism than I can muster to believe that we are not making the same mistake in our invasion of Iraq.

I see few if any signs of the people of that country seeking to become a democracy. If, however, I am wrong, I wish them well. Perhaps if we can establish a democracy in Iraq, we can turn our attention to establishing a democracy in this country. One in which our president is elected by the vote of the people and only congress can declare war.

In my opinion a country is not in as much danger from rulers who do evil as from those who do evil in the name of doing good.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)

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