No Right Answer
February 7, 2011 at 3:47 pm | Posted in Culture Wars | 2 CommentsSomeday, I might run for political office. If I ever do, one of the questions I’m dreading is: am I pro-choice or pro-life.
First, I’m a guy so I feel that I’m completely unqualified to answer the pro-choice/pro-life argument. I’ll never have to deal with either being pregnant or getting an abortion. Unfortunately, if I go into politics I won’t have the option of bowing out.
If I’m ever asked this question, maybe I’ll answer: “Do you mean am I in favor of killing babies or in favor or restricting a woman’s right to medical treatment?” It’s a sad state when your only options are “bad” and “worse.” We, as thinking rational adults should never have let the argument get framed this way. The right answer is to never get yourself in a situation where you have to choose between evil and evil-er. But it is far too late for that. Politicians can only chose one polarizing, evil option or the other.
The reason the question is framed this way is because it really isn’t about a medical procedure called “abortion.” The question is really: “when is a human being a human being.”
If a fetus is a person at conception, then the mother is legally responsible for any action she takes that affects the fetus. In our legal system she is legally responsible for the un-intended consequences of her choices. A woman could therefore be convicted of manslaughter for going drinking with her friends, even if she doesn’t know she’s pregnant. At a minimum she could be held responsible for child abuse/neglect.
If a fetus is not a person, when does the fetus become a person with human rights? At birth? At 18? At 21? No matter where the line is drawn, it’s going to be arbitrary and people are going to be unhappy.
If forced to choose, I’d have to go with a fetus is a minor person after 3 months of gestation. Many fetuses are aborted naturally prior to this point. The mother should have an idea that she might be pregnant at this point too. My understanding is that brain wave activity has started in the fetus at this point too. After 3 months gestation the child has the same rights as a minor citizen and the mother becomes responsible for the care of her child, and any criminal action taken against the mother also applies to the child. Ergo: battering a pregnant woman = two counts of battery. After birth, both parents are responsible for the care of the child.
Of course, such an opinion would never pass muster with either camp and would be perceived as waffling by both sides.
I guess that means I’ll never be elected to public office. Whew!
Florida Judge Rules Against ObamaCare
February 1, 2011 at 10:28 am | Posted in Health Care, Politics, Society | 3 CommentsMonday U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson ruled that Obama’s health care law was unconstitutional. According to this AP piece Vinson ruled that Congress overstepped its authority in requiring citizens to carry health insurance.
Okay, if that’s true, does that mean I don’t have to have liability insurance on my car? Isn’t that the same thing?
The Death Penalty & Jared Loughner
January 13, 2011 at 10:47 am | Posted in Morality, Society | Leave a commentI’ve seen some talk about marching Jared Loughner up the gallows steps. People are rightfully outraged by his horrible acts of murder, and they want that outrage quenched.
I’m against the death penalty as a form of punishment or crime prevention. There is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty prevents crime. For every study that indicates that it reduces crime, there is another that indicates it has no effect on crime. Furthermore, killing human beings is wrong. Any kid can tell you that.
I’m hardly a pacifist. I’ve been a soldier, and while I haven’t had to shoot anyone, I have held people at gunpoint with every intention of shooting them dead. But violence – and killing someone is the ultimate expression of violence – should always be regarded as a failure. War is a failure of diplomacy. Self-defense is a failure of reason over force. Animals solve their problems with force. Human beings solve problems with reason.
Sometimes there is no way to avoid failure. Sometimes you have to use force because there’s no other way out of a bad situation. So, we have to fall back on our animal side to get us out of this bad situation. There should be no pride in this. No sense of justice or vindication; only sadness and embarrassment. “Today, I failed to be a human being.” To make matters worse, when you kill another person, there’s no opportunity to fix your failure. You can’t undo it so your failure is permanent.
But, the Loughner case presents the one time when I am in favor of killing (although the word ‘favor’ implies approval which is not the case). Loughner is a sociopath and from what I understand, no amount of treatment or counseling will “fix” someone who is willing to gun down children. So, the only thing to do is to kill Loughner. Not because it’s just or right, but because we lack the tools to correct the problem. He is a threat to society and always will be, the logical conclusion is to eliminate that permanent threat in a permanent way. It pains me to say this, because killing Loughner represents a failure to be human. We failed to identify him as a risk to society before his rampage. We fail to “fix” him afterward.
Perhaps we can keep him locked up in an asylum where psychologists can study him and maybe learn how to “fix” him or others like him him someday? Maybe that’s a better solution? But I can’t honestly say which is better – to be dead or to be a lab project for the rest of your life?
Either way, there should be no pride or sense of vindication in Loughner’s death. Only a sense of failure and sadness.
Health Care Reform
January 6, 2011 at 8:55 am | Posted in Health Care, Politics | Leave a commentI was outraged when I heard that Republicans want to repeal Obama’s Healthcare reform bill. Healthcare – or more precisely Health Insurance – is truly and in-arguably broken in this country and needs to be fixed. I don’t like the hodge-podge tinker-toy construct that came out of the Democratic congress, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. At least someone is doing something.
So, when I heard that the GOP wants to scrap the whole thing I was angry. Why would they want to go backwards?
The GOP claims they want to enact their own health-care bill, but the bill that has been submitted doesn’t say anything about creating a better health-care bill. They just want to “To repeal the job-killing health care law and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.”
Why not come out with their own plan and have that be part of the bill? Repeal Obamacare and replace it with GOPCare?
Of course, the whole thing is a moot point. Even if the bill passes the house, there’s no way it will get through the Senate. So, I think the whole thing is just a dog-and-pony show. It’s not intended to do anything, it’s just supposed to look good.
sigh…
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
December 17, 2010 at 10:56 am | Posted in Culture Wars, Military, Politics | Leave a commentI’m opposed to gays serving in the military. There, I said it. To my gay friends out there, I’m sorry if that hurts you feelings. It’s nothing personal, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.
For those of you who have never served in the military, I respectfully ask that you keep your opinions to yourself. When you’ve lived like a grunt/jarhead/squid or zoomie for a couple of months (years?), feel free to speak up. (Pet peeve: “armchair soldiers”)
The living space of your typical service member is pretty cramped. Most of the time (not all the time, but most of the time) these living areas are separated by gender or to be more precise by sexuality. X’s have their space and Y’s have their separate space. If X and Y are attracted to one another, they can find a private place and get intimate. If X is attracted to Y, but Y doesn’t reciprocate, then X can go to her place and get away from Y, at least for a little while. If any of you have ever been in that kind of one-sided relationship, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Even though Y is a nice guy, polite and discreet, every time X sees him she gets a little uncomfortable. At the end of the day, she’s happy to go home and get away from the uncomfortable-ness.
You can probably see where I going with this. If Yh is attracted to Ys, but Ys doesn’t reciprocate, where does Ys go to get space? Yh and Ys live in the same cramped little space, shower together, brush their teeth together. In fact they do everything together. If you’ve ever been in a one-sided relationship, you probably have a little bit of a cold sweat starting right about now. Yes?
Now, let’s add extreme, pressure-cooker stress and live ammunition to the mix.
I’m not in any way saying that the gay person in this scenario is some kind of deviant. As I said in my XY example, the homosexual person is most likely polite, composed and “cool.” It’s a sad truth that many gays have a lot of practice at flying under the radar and hiding what they feel. The problem is in the mind of the straight person. Perceived sexual innuendo, perceived bias, perceived pressure. These perceptions aren’t necessarily real, but they have real results.
So, how do you account for this? You can’t just put the gay men in with the straight women, every Neanderthal out there would claim to be gay. You can’t have separate living quarters for men, women and gay service members, that’s just not practical. The only thing you can do is either ban gays from service completely, or ask them to be discreet about their sexual identity. In other words, don’t ask don’t tell.
So, here’s to hoping they keep don’t ask, don’t tell. Not because I have a problem with gays serving, but because I have a problem with straight people getting over themselves.
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