Frosty thoughts from Frost

Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost



Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction iceIs also great
And would suffice.

Nate Notes

If not the world...how shall my own life pass? With fire or ice?

TGIF

A Time to Talk

by Robert Frost

When a friend calls to me from the road

And slows his horse to a meaning walk,

I don't stand still and look around

On all the hills I haven't hoed,

And shout from where I am, What is it?

No, not as there is a time to talk.

I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,

Blade-end up and five feet tall,

And plod: I go up to the stone wall

For a friendly visit.

Nate Notes

We will drop our labors for a friend when they visit but how often do we look over our labor undone and call out "What is it?!" to our wives and children?

Check it out!

Hey All!

If you haven't already be sure and catch up on all my past blogs. I have add four or five new ones. Start with It's a Bear World after all and move forward from there. Be sure to check out the comments, I got some great ones... and always leave some comments of your own!

Alas! A question. . .

The Question:

I really did write a LONG reply to your closed society piece. Sorry, it got lost in the mail.Here's a question for you.

If Mexican illegal immigrants should be deported or jailed (because their entry was illegal), why shouldn't polygamists be jailed for bigamy? Do you think the crime should be changed back to a misdemeanor and 6 months, or should that law be repealed altogether?

The Answer:

I hope you will send me another copy of your thoughts on my Society closes a closed society piece. I'll look for it.

Thank you for the great questions! I will address them in order. . .Why shouldn't polygamists be jailed for bigamy?

I want to turn the question around and invite you to consider - why should polygamist be jailed for bigamy?

Some would say, "it just ain't legal". . . As Thoreau put it in Civil Disobedience "Law never made man a whit more just." Frankly, anti-bigamy laws are unjust and America has had its history of unjust laws that were rightly defied by her citizens in an effort to pull society's collective head out. Where would we be if Susan B. Anthony had not endured fines and imprisonment by casting her illegal ballots. And what if Rosa Parks had obeyed the law and moved to the back of the bus? As Charles Louis de Secondat rightly stated, ""government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another" The just laws of a just government should protect the rights of the individual against abuses by the government, the majority, and other individual who would criminally infringe on them. Laws based on the bigoted and ethnocentric view of the majority, established to deny the individual right to family, conscience and freedom of religion are the epitome of unjust regulation.

The US Declaration of Independence restates the truth that "all men are created equal" before the law. Laws should be about punishing crimes, not minority groups with practices different from the majority. What is applied to the polygamist goose should be applied to the monogamist gander. Words cannot express the rank hypocrisy of ribald politicians and legislators who formulate and pass laws, prosecute citizens, seize assets, and break up families to pander to the prejudices of their majority constituents.

Through the process of judicial precedence and based on the legal concepts of penumbras and emanations, the US judicial system established the right of privacy. (Griswold v. Connecticut, Eisenstadt v. Baird, and Lawrence v. Texas) The outcome of these judicial cases held that adults are entitled to participate in private, consensual sexual conduct. State and Federal laws that regulate intimacy touch "upon the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home," and attempted to "control a personal relationship that . . . is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished." By contemporary US legal standards anti-polygamy/anti-bigamy laws, former and current, are illegitimate and arrant. Polygamy is no more a crime than any other alternative lifestyle engaged in by consenting adults. Polygamy is not inherently a crime.

But others would argue, "polygamy is abuse! What about protecting individuals from the criminal acts of other individuals? Especially children and those who are unable to protect themselves!" Polygamy is NOT abuse no matter how often politicians and pundits repeat this mantra. Abuse is abuse and heinous whether it is perpetrated by polygamists or monogamists.
Some might argue that abuse is more frequent and systemic among polygamists than monogamists. Again, this is a baseless assumption founded in bias and prejudice with no evidence to support the claim. Certainly their are polygamist cults which engage in a variety of systemic abuses. But there are plenty of monogamist cults which engage in the same abuses. Destructive cults are destructive cults; abuse is abuse; and whether you are a Warren Jeffs or a Jim Jones, the systemic abuses indicative of destructive cults are equally vile and should be suppressed by civilized society with similar fervor. What is more, the majority humanity's civilizations (historically & currently) accept and/or engage in polygamist marriage systems. To say that they all are or were abusive is a supreme example of Western, puritanical ethnocentric arrogance.

In summary, polygamists shouldn't be jailed for bigamy because it is:

• Unjust
• Illegal
• Hypocritical
• Bigoted

And it is just plain wrong.

Now for your second question: Do you think the crime should be changed back to a misdemeanor and 6 months, or should that law be repealed altogether?

Of the the two, I would choose the second - the law should be repealed along with any other laws that target a minority group, religion, or lifestyle. However, it would be more feasible and reasonable to accept decriminalization.

Having said this, let me reiterate that I believe anyone who engages in child abuse, statutory rape, forced marriages, underage marriages, and any other criminal behavior should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, the law that applies to everyone. Let's prosecute the real crimes, protect the innocent and end the politicized posturing of the self-righteous.

I hope my answer has provoked some thinking, some agreement, some disagreement. . . I look forward to more great questions.

Fun on the Fourth

Thanksgiving and Independence Day are two memorials our family observes. This year there was some fun had on the fourth. . .

Havalah won first prize in the Rodeo for Mutton Bustin'. Yep this timeless sport of the West has its foundation in the days when wild woolly sheep were found in vast herds across the plains of Desseret. When the Pioneers first arrived in this untamed wilderness they would have their children climb trees next to these great herds and then when an unsuspecting wild woolly sheep would pass under the occupied branch. . .the child would drop onto the sheep's back and hold on for all that was dear and dinner. About seven miles later the sheep would submit in exhaustion and the brave child could lead the sheep back for supper or for domestication into the family

 herd. True as I am tall. . . my daughter would have been a first rate Mutton Buster and I, a wealthy shepherd.

J-Bo won first place in the Stick Horse race, another sport rich with Pioneer heritage. The Pioneers only had the provisions they brought with them. Before they would have a plentiful harvest they would have to sow and reap for a season or two. Horses eat a lot of hay so for many the Stick Horse was the only means of transportation. Naturally, when there was the rare

 opportunity, races were set and bets made (usually for the first dance with this or that lady) on the finest and fastest Stick Horse. One of my great grandfathers (incidentally, a renowned mezzo soprano) rode a Stick Horse named Splinters in many races. True as I am tall. . . J-B has followed in fine stead -- or would that be steed?

There were lots of other fun activities then later that night. . . Family at the fireworks!

Happy 4th with Frost

The Gift Outright

by Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she will become.

Nate Note

After the applause, Kennedy welcomed to the podium one of America's great poets, fellow New Englander Robert Frost. Frost had written a poem for the occasion of Kennedy's Inauguration called "Dedication." He approached the microphone, but blinded by the sun's glare on the snow-covered Capitol grounds, he was unable to read it. Thinking quickly, he instead recited "The Gift Outright," a poem he had written in 1942.