Mama,

Rereading some of your post, I came across this and it spurred a thought. Please do not take this as criticism or anything other than a thought that your thought spurred in my fuzzy brain:

I live by the non-aggression principle as totally as I think humanly possible and have no desire to run the lives of others in any way.

That said, I also believe that I have both the "right" and duty to defend the innocent and helpless when appropriate.

I think that the bleeding heart liberals (and probably the rabid dog conservatives) each feel the same way every time they step in to interfere in some "poor helpless" person's life.

There is a word that is used in the alcholic recovery community: enabling. That is what it is called when you help a drunk avoid the results of his choices. When you lift him out of the gutter, or call in to his boss and say he's sick or lend him the money he needs to pay the rent, money he spent on his last binge.

Basically it is understood by many that enabling is not a good thing. It is not something which helps the person, but rather allows them to avoid learning a life lesson and getting on with growing up.

Naturally, there ARE times when compassion is warranted. But maybe not as many as we believe there are. I don't know. I'm just throwing these ideas up for contemplation.

- NonE