i have done a complete re-assessment of my personal views on certain beliefs i hold in the last fews month to try to make sense out of them. maybe writing it will jolt my brain.

i believe in pro choice and the death penalty but think that murder is wrong. how can i believe in part but not in whole. where did i get the idea that some forms of murder are acceptable, and some not. how is murder truly defined, i wonder. we have "justifiable homicide", and legal abortion at certain trimesters and not others. is it a baby at 91 days, but not at 90 days? why is it okay to save the mother's life in place of the unborn if there is an equal chance of only one surviving. who decides which life is more important. why can't people legally end their own lives with assisted suicide when terminal, but they can take an overdose of sleeping pills and end it all, but without compassionate painless help.

i don't like cut flowers in a vase. i derive much more pleasure by seeing a beautiful garden rather than dying flowers in a glass jar. i feel sad when a flower's life is taken for it to die. but i don't mind plucking a tomato off of a vine or picking an apple off of a tree, or pulling a potato from the ground. how is a flower''s life more important to me than a vegetable. is it because a flower is more beautiful or that i can eat the vegetable?

i will eat a steak, but wouldn't be caught dead in a fur coat, or have a bear skin rug or a deer head above my fireplace. i won't even use products i know to be tested on animals. but i'll slather on the bbq sauce on a rib in a minute. why is a mink's or deer's life more important to me than a pig or cow? is it because they are so cute? i don't know.

i'm not sure if this is social conditioning, rationalizations, or years of tradition in my belief systems. but it makes no sense. no sense at all. how can i think one think is okay, and another similar thing unacceptable. i JUST don't know. i will have to think about it some more i guess.