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So I rise early this morning to get back to work on my commitments here at Webster's, but before I start I make a couple of my usual rounds, and wouldn't you know it, I run into this posting over at VA's: 'Too many People'

I'm going to attempt to make this fairly short and sweet. VA does a fine job of saying most of what I should like to say anyhow, and more...

In some ways it reminds me of a debate I had some months back with a liberal gal about 'mountain climbers,' and whether or not they contribute to society. And BTW, if you're debating a thoroughly indoctrinated liberal person, you're not going to convince them, so from my view that shouldn't be your purpose anyhow. Your purpose should be, as I've learned, to refute their arguments for the sake of the wider audience.

But getting back to the point, this person was arguing that mountain climbers, and those who engage in activities she later generalized as “high risk sports” or something like that, do not contribute to society and should be forced to contribute to society through differing means like training in mountain climbing techniques which would be taxed heavily, fees paid to climb a given mountain which would go to fund rescue efforts and so forth. This particular individual had a bone to pick with most anyone who engaged in 'amateur' pursuits of any kind, insisting that anything that was deemed to be 'risky' should come with the requirement of the enthusiast to become a 'professional' before ever being allowed to pursue such a thing. And who, pray tell, did she think should determine what is 'risky,' and what not? Well of course, the government. Typical liberal.

My argument against this point, of course, was that there are any number of 'high risk' activities out there that the government needn't bother itself with - “Aren't you liberals ever satisfied; haven't you saddled the government with enough activities it's not equipped to deal with? And of course there was a lot of passion from the other side about how poor old grandma would be turned away in her moment of need due to the fact that 'high risk sports enthusiasts' had overwhelmed the rescue services financially and in the availability of manpower. Liberals always pull grandma out of their hip pockets when they need her most. But enough on that.

VA's post deals with the Duggar family in Arkansas, and some of the “ignorant of the facts” vitriol which has been leveled against them. They don't live but a stone's throw away from yours truly, in a manner of speaking. And I should like to take the family to visit them sometime. The Duggars, if you haven't heard of them, have seventeen children. That's right, 17. They have a huge home, as you might imagine, but something that some of you may not be aware of is that they built that home with their own hands. I remember watching a documentary about the family during the time that they were still building this home, and one of the older male children said something on camera that struck a chord with me, he said, and I paraphrase:

“Dad said “I think we can pour the foundation.” And I said that I thought we oughta hire a professional to do it. But Dad thought we could do it, so we did it. Later, Dad said he thought we could frame the walls. I said I thought we might should consider hiring a professional framing contractor to do the work for us. But Dad thought we could do it, so we did. Then it came to putting the roof up and drying the house in. Dad thought we could do it, I thought...well, we did that too...

Interestingly enough, the home they built had very little work done on it from outside the family. Yep; truly this family, The Duggars, built the home they now live in with their own hands. Quite an accomplishment in my books, for someone whose profession is not 'construction.'

All that one needs do is to click on the profile of yours truly to find that I have six children, which, even in this neck of the woods is considered to be a lot, too many by most standards. I know this because I listen to the gasps that always attend my first sharing of the fact that I have 'so many.' Lot's of times people want to know how many different mothers these children have, automatically assuming that there must be more than one. Usually they seem pleasantly surprised when I inform them that they all have one mother and one father.

But as I shared over at VA's in a comment to her post, I can't even begin to count the times that people have gone plumb out of their way to strike up a conversation with us in some public place, announcing that “these are the best behaved children I have ever seen.” They are shocked, shocked I tell ya, that six siblings consisting of three boys and three girls, and ranging in age from two to nineteen years (the nineteen year old is out of the house now, making his own way) can behave and get along together so very well. I suppose there's something to be said for the ideas and negative predispositions people generally have about 'large' families. Heck, I even complain myself about the fact that “I have enough mouths to feed, I don't need, and shouldn't be taxed to feed everyone else's offspring, nor their aged.” To me, government coerced taxation aimed at 'social programs,' like welfare, food stamps, WIC, State funded health and dental care, and etc., is the same as taking food out of the mouths of my children. Of course, I'm totally against the dependency that such programs create, not to mention the undue attachment to 'government' that they create as well.

But before y'all go assuming anything about large families, barking out blatantly stupid comments about how that you're going to have to feed and shelter these offspring of these 'oversexed' parents, you might want to do a little research. As I noted over at VA's, some folks need to pay more attention to that old adage which states: “To assume anything, makes an Ass outta u and me.”

Nonetheless, though, I ain't real sure about this, but I think my wife may have an eye on a couple or three of the Duggar boys, and a couple or three of the Duggar girls, for some odd reason. And y'know, there's a ratio advantage in our favor there...lol

-DW