Lon Jacobs of the WSJ writes about Sarah Palin's choice to have Trig -- her special needs child.

Lon is pro-choice:

Sarah Palin and I have little in common politically. I disagree with her on foreign policy, economic policy and Roe v. Wade ?I am a pro-choice Democrat.

But Lon has a tiny secret -- his 13 year old daughter, Molly, has Downs Syndrome:

But one thing Mrs. Palin and I share is that we're both parents of beautiful children who happen to have intellectual disabilities. And much as I disagree with Mrs. Palin on various political issues, I was struck when she talked about the cruel attacks on her son Trig in a TV interview last week.

Lon discovers the downside of his pro-abortion outlook when he's at a conference for parents of children with disabilities:

An obstetrician told me excitedly about a new blood test that will allow pregnant women to discover if the child they are carrying has Down syndrome. The good news, he told me, is that we will no longer have to worry about "unfortunate births."

This doctor intended no offense. But his comment reflects a prevailing attitude that presumes we would all be better off if these children are eliminated before they are born.

Lon quietly takes offense:

I'll admit that my views are influenced by my 13-year-old daughter Molly, a vibrant child with her own dreams and personality. To us, she is not defined by her disability but by the joy she has brought into our lives.

Lon's nuance in this article makes it clear that Molly's life was not her right, but a privilege accorded to her by her mother's whim. Lon had nothing to say in this choice -- his wife could have chosen death for Molly, and Lon might never have known. That Lon's calculus allows "choice" to occur for children like Molly says much about the illogic that afflicts even general counsels of large corporations.

Note 27 NOV 2009 at 1013: Here's the response I left attached to Ron's article at the WSJ:

Ron, pro-choice is pro-abortion is anti-Life. There's little nuance here, and what little there is will elude any attempt by you to rationalize it into something larger. Either (a) a fetus is not a human, (b) a fetus is a human but is not entitled to life unless the mother wills it, or (c) the fetus is a human and is entitled to an absolute right to life.

Those who are pro-abortion/pro-choice fall into camps (a) and (b). Those who are anti-abortion/pro-life fall into camp (c).

Your charming daughter, had she had a different mother (I say mother here, because you had no choice in the matter), or even the same mother with a different mindset on one single day, might not be alive today. You would have had no choice in the matter, for all of your pro-choice leanings, for you are not your daughter's mother -- you are her father..

This is what your pro-choice stance buys you -- the right of your child's mother to make a decision as to whether her child is to be afforded life or death. It is the same right slaveholders held over their property 150 years ago.

To understand this linkage to slavery, one can examine the contortions of wording in California's Penal Code Section 187 on murder, with its simple claim that a fetus can be murdered, countered by its artful multi-paragraph exemption dependent solely on the will of the mother with respect to the personhood of the fetus. Then one merely has to examine the Code Noir:"XXXVI. The slave who is sentenced to suffer death on the denunciation of his master, shall, when that master is not an accomplice to his crime, be appraised before his execution by two of the principal inhabitants of the locality, who shall be especially appointed by the judge, and the amount of said appraisement shall be paid to the master. To raise this sum, a proportional tax shall be laid on every slave, and shall be collected by the persons invested with that authority. "

Note 27 NOV 2009 at 1945: Thanks to "Charlotte" for pointing out that some of my "Lon"s were "Ron"s. Corrected.

Many Thanksgiving Days, celebrated on various days, including this day of the 26th of November, had come and gone before this last Thurday in November was officially set forth as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise on the 3rd of October of 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's date of the proclamation was carefully chosen -- on that same day, 88 years earlier, President George Washington had similarly proclaimed a Public Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer. From Lincoln's day forward, each President proclaimed Thanksgiving Day to fall on this last Thursday, except for one -- FDR moved the holiday one week earlier in November 1939 in order to extend the "shopping season", and the resultant public outcry caused it to be moved back to the time originally designated by Lincoln.

At the time of Lincoln's proclamation, the country was involved in a great Civil War which consumed much of its resources, but which would ultimately bear good fruit with the extinction of slavery as a national enterprise. In the midst of this adversity, Lincoln's words of thankfulness still ring true:

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

By the President:
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.

Over at the State Department, they want to know what lessons can be learned from the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Here's my response:

What we know from the fall of the Berlin Wall is that socialism is a route to failure; the Wall fell as part of the disintegration of a Government which purported to take care of the well being of every citizen, but in actuality took care of only a select few. That wall would not have fallen had we decided that our presence in Europe was too expensive, or too divisive, or too long; had we packed up and gone home, the Soviet Union would still be there today, threatening us with annihilation, and Eastern Europe would still be under their jackboot.

We stayed the course and freed the people of Europe.

That is the lesson to be learned, and the one to be applied to both Afghanistan and to Iraq, and at home as we consider a healthcare plan of which neither the Congress nor the President will be a part.

You can follow the link above to see what others think are the lessons. Some are insightful, and others are utterly vapid. All are good reading to gather insight into the modern American mind -- or lack thereof.