Neanderpundit

Inspired in part by this specific postat Mrs Du Toit’s place, I’m gonna drag out ogs law again. Tis, after all, the season.

Mrs D talks about Contribution vs charity. She makes the point pretty clearly. She also talks about her atheisim here.

I don’t know Mrs D personally, but I know her as well as can anyone who reads her weblog. It is no secret to me that she is a moral and decent person. It is not brain surgery to discover that she has her head completely out of her ass. Merely homeschooling children, let alone doing so in the midst of a professional career, and various home improvement projects, is a task of sysiphan proportions. And she puts up with this guy on a daily basis.

Pity she’s an athiest, she probably meets all the requirements for sainthood.

The point is this:

Us residents of Jesusland are about morals. Decency. Contributions. Parenting. Accountability. A lot of other things that apparently scare the shit out of the residents of the Blue States.

Oh, by the way? We do this without the coercion of any religious organization. We do this because it is the way of correct living. We are the way we are because it is the basis of personal integrity. My morals and my personal spiritual life are integrated, but they also stand each by itself.

We are not self righteous religious nutjobs. Speaking only for myself, I could never run for public office, because a flotilla of ore ships could not haul away the skeletons in my closet. I have no ground to stand upon to criticise anyone.

I still DO criticise people. Because I’ve done wrong in my life doesn’t mean I can’t differentiate right from wrong. Still, I’d much rather try to help someone out of trouble than to criticise them. Oh, some people cannot be helped- I’ve seen that often enough. Never let it be said that I didn’t try.

Nobody is without their transgressions. The difference between the moral and the amoral is the ability to rise above one’s own transgressions and try to do better. Wait, scratch that- the difference between the moral and amoral is the ability to recognize transgressions.

Or, maybe it’s both. Case in point: Rush Limbaugh. Oxycontin. he developed an addiction, recognized it’s wrongness, outed himself, got fixed, moved on.

Case in point: Bill Bastard Clinton: he doesn’t even recognize that soiling the oval office with his sordid filth is a transgression.

Sorry, I’m wandering off topic again: The very best of humanity is the segment that live lives of personal accountability and treat it’s felow humans with respect and compassion. We are the meat and bones of America. We are also the brains and the heart. People like the Du Toits, sending out the word to help those who need help, people you know and see all around you, fighting the good fight, not out of fear of eternal damnation or desire for eternal reward, but because it is right.

So, I’ll shut up now, and just remind you of ogs law:

Og’s first rule:

If you don’t see someone who needs help, LOOK HARDER.

Got a note from the oglet’s teacher the other day, the student council has a “giving tree” whereby each kid who desires chooses a child, represented by a paper angel, at random, and buys him/her a christmas gift.

These “gifts” are not just random contributions, each paper angle represents a real child, and each real child has a specific Christmas wish which will not otherwise be fulfilled.

Previous to the receipt of this message, the oglet came home and asked Mama if she could choose one of the angels at school. The Ogwife (thinking this was another school fundraising gimme) had explained to her, that we’d just had a fairly major repair on the truck that left us kind of strapped for cash. That night, the oglet came to me, and tearfully asked if her money would help, handing me the birthday/holiday cash she’d been secreting in her piggybank. I was a bit taken aback, and explained to her that we (hopefully) would never need to take money from her.

When the note came home, all of the pieces came together, and we understood what was going on. I asked her if she understood what it meant.

“some kids won’t be having christmas because their parents are poor. They won’t get presents” she said. “I was afraid we were too poor to get them something”. Thankfully, we’re not. We put together a care package for the young lady who had asked for toys and girls clothes of a specific size.

Not too many things get to me, I’m not too overtly emotional. I’ve been through a lot of shit in my life, and toughed it out. When my daughter was willing to help ME out because she thought we were too broke to help another kid, I lost it. Not in front of her, of course, but when I hugged her and put her to bed, I went off.
Nobody taught her this. Her desire to help someone because they were in need was from whole cloth.

In case any of the ladies out there need some help shopping for their men, here’s a great list, which is about 99% accurate, from one of my favorite sites, BMEWS