Consent
It had to happen. If our version of "right and wrong" is predicated on consent, this was a sure thing. A 27-year-old man from Mumbai is suing his parents for having him. For his being born. He was born, it turns out, without his consent. Lousy parents. They should have asked first.
Raphael Samuel is an antinatalist. He believes that it's wrong to bring children into the world, that human life has any value at all, and that the solution to all life's problems is the total absence of life. You may laugh and you may disagree, but, given our nearly worldwide certainty that children in the womb have no value and a growing sense in "civilized nations" that God is irrelevant and our current attitude that morality is primarily determined by consent, I would argue that Mr. Samuel is simply following the rational rabbit trail into oblivion and you who think he's loony without addressing those three issues are less than rational.
A Different Question
Harrison Ford gave a passionate speech to the World Government Summit in Dubai declaring how awful his country's government is and how important science is and how we need to save the world. You can't deny human-caused global climate change without being anti-science, driven purely by self-interest, and essentially immoral. Denying climate change is isolationalism and nationalism and a failure to address it is "the greatest moral crisis of our time."
Thank you, Harrison. My only real question is why? Why did the World Government Summit ask actor Harrison Ford for his opinion on how bad his country is and how morality is defined? I mean, I'd get asking a scientist about the science, for instance, but what qualification does an actor have to do this? I'm really only wondering.
Racists Around Every Corner
In our ultra-hyped, ultra-sensitive current environment it appears we can find racism in everything. While the Virginia governor classifies black slaves as "indentured servants" with hardly the bat of an eye, Katy Perry is in trouble because a line of shoes she offered for sale had a face on them. Of course, if the pair you were looking at were black shoes, then you were looking at "blackface" and it was racist. Esquire is in trouble for doing a cover story on a white American kid. Wrong thing for Black History Month!! Except it's their March issue. No one wants to know about a white, male, middle class American.
Now, there really is racism everywhere. It's not always clear. Like shoes or a story about someone who's not black. Elizabeth Warren apologized for a DNA test to show she had Native American blood -- pure racism. Sometimes the tide of public opinion defends racism ... like the current mode of public hate for white males, especially if they wear a MAGA hat. That kind of racism is okay. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is a Muslim who believes that those who support Israel only do so because they're paid to. That kind of racism is okay. Only unapproved racism (like shoes with blackface) won't fly.
An "Historic" Case
In Iowa a jury ruled that a prison warden had violated the rights of a transgender employee. "Rights" plural. On the surface, the warden offered Jesse Vroegh the use of two gender-neutral bathrooms, but Jesse, a female nurse who identified as male, wanted to use the men's bathrooms because they were more convenient. That's a violation of the right to be able to use the bathroom you choose. Check it -- Amendment 28: "No one may impinge on the individual freedom to choose the bathroom they prefer ... unless it's a dirty old man who wants to peep on young girls ... unless, of course, that dirty old man identifies as a girl." In black and white. Worse, the Iowa Prison system offered medical benefits that would not cover Jesse's gender reassignment surgery. That's covered under Amendment 30 where we're guaranteed the right to medical coverage for whatever elective medical procedure -- abortion, gender change, whatever -- we want. But the worst violation, according to the story, was "that his male gender identity wasn't accepted." Worst violation of rights ever -- "not thinking the way I think you should." "If you do not embrace my lunacy, you are violating my rights. Unless, of course, you think you're a race you are not or whatever other arbitrary rules we choose to put on that right."
You see, it is not about individual freedoms. It is about forcing others to comply with her own version of individual freedoms. First and foremost, "You will surrender any science or religion or reason or personal preferences to my feelings about my gender or you will pay the consequences." An historic case indeed.
Social-ism - In the Business of Social Engineering
Ivanka Trump is on the campaign trail. Oh, no, not for an office; for an idea. She wants the government to mandate paid family leave. Not just Ivanka, I guess. It's part of the president's "American Working Families" portfolio which would also include vocational education and workforce development.
Now, I think that it's a good thing if a company can provide paid family leave for its employees. And vocational education. And workforce development. And higher wages (read "a living wage") to employees. And more benefits. And ... well, lots of things. My difficulty is that when the government mandates these things, two things occur. First, there is a benefit lost in the mandating of benefits -- the benefit of being benevolent. Being compliant is one thing; being benevolent is something else. A "good company" would do good things; a compliant company complies. The other is that the government has now closed the door to the free enterprise system and opened the door to social engineering by law. Maybe today's government will socially engineer nice things. What will tomorrow's government deem mandatory? I know. We're already there. Minimum wage, mandatory safety rules, legal protections for employees ... we have all that. It just seems like every time we insert one more rule, we kick out one more freedom. It's not that I'm opposed to these things; I just wonder how much freedom we're willing to surrender to make them happen.
Another New Right
The ACLU (remember, "American Civil Liberties Union") is suing the Department of Homeland SEcurity (DHS) for the "MIgrant Protection Protocols" implemented by the Trump administration. The complaint: Immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. must wait outside the U.S. until they get their court dates. Clearly immigrants have the right to stay inside the country while they see if they can remain inside the country, right? I mean, why not? What could go wrong? I think the Constitution maintains ... oh, wait, no, not the Constitution ... well, American jurisprudence ... no, I guess not that, either ... well, at least in accord with our rights endowed by our Creator ... nope, nope, nope ... okay, so who is determining this "civil liberty" and why is the American Civil Liberties Union suing on behalf of non-Americans? I'm not asking if immigrants seeking asylum should or should not be kept in Mexico -- whether or not the Trump is administration is right. I'm asking for the grounding of this right they seem to be defending.
Without Comment
A mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to a transgender woman as a man online. "I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter." The police department verified her statement. "We take all reports of malicious communication seriously."
Also, USA Today actually published this story. That they would do so is surprising. That they did is gratifying.
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