You prompt me to articulate my position vis-à-vis Roe and the Constitution. Children do the same for boats and ice cream.

20220626

Dick Lavine, lifetime ACLU member and one of my Starbucks coffee crowd before I left Bethesda, was constantly warning about "slippery slopes." Legislation about matters of privacy – sexual practices, drug use, and medicine – presents a lot of opportunities for slippery slopes. The framers of the Constitution expressly left powers that they did not enumerate among those belonging to the federal government up to the states and the people.

An abortion involves one individual who at some point becomes two – the mother and the baby. Deciding when is a slippery slope. It should not be up to the federal government. Saying this would seem to put me on the side of the conservatives.

Rampant drug use is eroding American and European society. However, once again, it is a slippery slope. When you make drugs illegal you invite corruption, police overreach and all sorts of other problems. Which drugs, and how bad is each? Although I abhor what legalized marijuana has brought, I think making it illegal was ill advised. So am I a liberal?

The courts properly struck down laws against homosexual practices in the bedroom. That's none of their business. Does that make me a liberal? On the other hand, the schools have no business teaching children one way or the other about sexuality. Observing the rotten and highly politicized job they do teaching everything else, it is total stupidity to entrust them with sex education.

The US Embassy here flies the rainbow flag and supports gay rights parades in Ukraine. I don't see much evidence that the Ukrainians want it. USAID plasters our Metro with posters of men holding hands and advocating HIV testing and "treatment." Which, if you read RFK Jr., amounts to another Anthony Fauci self-enrichment scam. The United States government has no business telling people what to do in the bedroom one way or the other.  Or medically, for that matter.

To return to the topic of abortion, in my opinion society is probably better off without the children that get aborted. They would be a burden on their mothers, who would not do a good job of raising them and consequently make them a burden on society. I observe that even before Roe versus Wade there were lots of ways to get an abortion. There have been 50 years of progress – morning after pills and all that sort of stuff. I am confident that most women who want abortions will be able to get them.

I can add, with utmost cynicism, that any woman who wants to legally end her pregnancy can simply use some of Dr. Fauci’s wonderful booster shots. They have a strong track record with regard to inducing spontaneous abortions and stillbirths.

John Derbyshire articulates my position in his column today. If the public wants to establish a right to abortion, they should do it through a constitutional amendment and/or legislation.  The mandarins of the legal establishment should not force their point of view on an unreceptive citizenry.

Leaving baby Marianna at home with grandma, who though she gripes will not leave grandpa alone for three hours, Eddie, Zoriana, the good-looking woman and I bicycled to Victory Park today. As always there were strong opinions about what kind of boat we should rent. The compromise was half an hour on a catamaran followed by an hour on a rowboat.

Oksana and I let the kids peddle the catamaran. It is precisely the wrong size for everybody. I hate it because my legs are all doubled up, but it is awkward for the kids because they cannot reach the pedals while sitting down. Eddie would peddle frantically for 30 seconds standing up as if he were in a squirrel machine, then sit down and make slow progress as he stretched to reach the pedals.  Zoriana could only manage standing up.

They did a lot better on the rowboat, each of them paddling 20 minutes. Pulling in periodically, by the way, to buy ice cream and cocoa. I expect that next time the insistence will be on rowboats not catamarans.

Just as I write this I hear an air raid siren. There were two loud explosions this morning as we were boating. There is a war going on over here somewhere.

That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where a bit of pushback from readers makes us men stronger. We need to defend our positions.  Thankfully, the good-looking women and strong willed children give us a lot of practice doing so. I’m reminded of these stanzas of one of my favorite poems, “You are Old, Father William” by Lewis Carroll

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
    For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
    And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
    Has lasted the rest of my life."

Graham