Life's Lessons

When I was a younger man, I was a lot more idealistic than I am today. I didn't understand why everyone didn't think the way I did, and I felt like I had everything figured out. I despised abortion, I hated welfare programs and had no idea what tolerance meant. I would see people who were poor, who talked about women's rights or gay rights, and who wanted to keep abortion legal, and I'd wince.

It's funny how life hits people over the head and changes their thinking. We learn that there are back stories that not everyone gets to see, and that sometimes we're too quick to judge. We don't see the value in people because we don't have an intimate stake in their plight.

It's not until you see the direct impact of a catastrophic illness on someones financial state, or the effect that someones mental illness has on their children. When you get to know someone who was homeless, and you find out that they were hanging on by a thread in this rough economy, and then they lost their job. Or when someone you love more than life itself tells you that they're contemplating suicide because they think they might be gay or lesbian, and they can't make themselves straight no matter how hard they try.

That's where all of the romantic ideals of conservatism go out the window and reality kicks in. Because we don't live in a Utopian society where every home has a mom and a dad, 2.5 kids and a dog. We live in a world where sometimes, single moms do the best they can with what they have. Where dad's don't always step up to the plate and stay in their kids' lives, or even bother to pay child support so that their kids can have school clothes.

I don't think government programs are the end all solution to these problems. That's a given, because if they were, the problems wouldn't exist. But that doesn't mean that we as a collective shouldn't be doing something about it. And until we can find a better way, I think we need to keep the programs we have in place that help people.

I also think we should keep abortion legal until there are no more children who need to be adopted. People talk about protecting life, but what kind of life does a child have when they grow up abused, hungry, or institutionalized? And what kind of future lay ahead for them once they reach their 18th birthday?

I certainly don't have all of the answers, and perhaps someday I'll reach a point where I don't feel this way anymore. But in a day and age when there are people are sleeping in the streets and others hanging on for dear life to what they have, well, I can't come to any other conclusion.