I am thankful to those who leave comments on this blog, it is encouraging and at times challenging. Blogging for me is putting a little of me out there on display for others to see. I write two entries for every one I post, as I tend to rant about things that hit me. Anyway, I want to reply to a comment from my last entry here in this new post. While I don't like anonymous replies, I do appreciate the reply in its challenge and as an opportunity to open discussion, it is my hope to inspire discussion through what I write here.
I do not feel my Blog entry "What a day it will be" overstated any point. It is easy for us who are not being threatened and killed to feel it is ok to understate the current climate in which we live and die. Statistics prove that as many as 92% of babies who, through prenatal testing, show that they may be born with down syndrome, will be killed. This is the very definition of genocide. Webster defines genocide as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial political, or cultural group. Coined in 1944, geno- from latin = race and -cide from greek = kill "genocide". People with mental disabilities are a culture, being threatened with extinction through mass killings. Socialized medicine has been detrimental to people with disabilities through out history. When Hitlers Germany began their attempt to crush people with disabilities into oblivion in 1939, the mass killing went unnoticed and the cries unheard by the world. The killings of thousands with disabilities continued for several years before what is called the holocaust even began. The worlds attitudes have changed little as this culture of people who have disabilities are still unvalued and threatened by this attitude. My use of the words genocide and crushed into oblivion are not thoughtless words of anger but rather well thought out words of taken from history we seem bent on repeating.
Ignorance is never a pass for bad language and hurting words. The language is constant and consistent in the world today. Just recently as I walked with my brothers at a dept store, one of them was called a retard by a teenage boy as he tried to talk to him. So know that people with disabilities are called this regularly, and this is not the only time this has happened to us.
My intent is not to see government change but rather the church. While I do see there have been changes in the last year for people with disabilities for the good, I believe the bad is out weighing the good. When there is a group of people in bondage to a government it cannot end well unless that group is freed. Therefor I believe the church is last defense of those most defenseless. The church is the only place where the culture of people with disabilities can be valued as God values and stand against those who wish to eliminate them in the ways I have mentioned here. I am not one who ever complains with out action, my life and the life of my family is centered in recognizing the value of people with disabilities and forcing the issue with anyone in our path. It is not a pet issue with us, but a life calling that has spanned generations, life and death. I will not rely on my words to try and get representatives, senators and lobbyists to create change, but on God and His church to value and love those He has created, values and loves. We are in the final days where we are not banging our heads against brick walls but rather where bricks are slammed into the heads of those most defenseless... and we must stand up for them. The change that came in Little Rock in the form of desegregation did not come fast enough for those who where lynched, tortured enslaved and killed in the preceding years of American history and change cannot come fast enough for those fighting for life now.
Game, set, match -- Little Tony. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you anonymous, yet I hoped for more discussion. I thank you for your comments and I hope you will join our blog and not be anonymous anymore! I look forward to your comments in the future.
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We want to know who you are Anonymous! Your background and your connection to disability if any!
ReplyDeleteTony, you know how to stir it up, don't you? Finally, some action, right? This subject needs to be out in the open and talked about. And when people like Rahm Emanuel says stupid (and dangerous) things, they need to be called out. We live in a culture of death and the church needs to be giving the message of life. I appreciate the challenge. Keep up the good, exhausting, and never fruitless work. Love ya.
ReplyDeleteYour post brings to mind the following passage which says it all about being a failure in the world's eyes, while at the same time being a success in the eyes of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ... 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness andsanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
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