Here continues my political rants:
Abortion is morally wrong, no doubt about it. The question is whether or not is should be outlawed under common law.
First of all, it IS murder. If you take the undisputed legal definition of death: irreversible cessation of brain waves or vital functions, and reverse it: possible start of brain waves AND vital functions, then obviously a fetus is alive, because sometime in the future, after it's been born for a while, it alive, right? Dead is when they won't be alive again, so alive is when they CAN become alive.
Now, I suppose that gets a little funky if you consider than an egg can become alive if you give it a sperm, (and visa-versa) so is an egg alive? No, most people say. Ia agree. To reflect this, we shall restrict the ability to become alive later to normal stuff, like being fed and such. Any human, including a fetus, obviously won't be alive later if he/she doesn't get food and ought to be alive later if they DO get food. In the converse to special events happening to the egg, I guess a dead guy could be brought back to life is we pay a 'special' billion dollars to transplant his brain into a bunch of donated organs or something. So, even in the instance of an egg and freshly dead guy, the correlation between fetus and human holds true.
Second, the real issue (the one I am not certain about) is whether or not the fetus is the property of the mother (or father or both). See, the parents might 'own' the child like a piece of property - this might be an argument in favor of abortion. If I 'own' a million bucks, I can burn it and no one will send me to jail. At what point does a child get promoted from property to rights given to normal people under common law?
a) At some age number: NO. We can't arbitraily pick some number or position like birth or 18 to get rights. It needs to be based on something.
b) When the parent(s) release the child. This is, whenever they want to. This leaves the unfortunate option that they can NEVER release the child and hold a death threat over his/her head whenever they want. This doesn't make any sense.
c) At conception. God is the one who gives moral rights anyway. Parents wouldn't have ANY rights over their child or over themselves if God didn't give the right to them. Heck, they would even HAVE a kid if God didn't give it. I hold to conception. If you have a child, you must recognize that you are making a decision to create another human with rights that will depend on you.
Rape and threat of death to mother:
a) In the case of rape, I view it just like all other accidents. A drunk rams into you (car accident). They can't pay and you were dumb enough not to get car insunrance. You still have to pay, right? So the unfortunate mother still has to have the child. If worried girls want to 'buy insurace', they can carry pepper spray, learn karate, run fast, be street smart, go on the pill all the time...you have imaginations.
b) The birth risks the mothers life. Honestly, with todays medical practices, I doubt this would come up. If some crazy person can have 7 (or was it 8?), they can save a mother and child. However, I don't know much of the science behind giving birth and I think I already know more than I want to at this point. If it really is trouble, I'd treat it the same as insurance. Say the woman is married. You don't want to risk your life in birth? Then find some way not to have kids.
But right there in the moment, when two lives are at stake, I really don't have much to say. I would try to save both and hope for a miracle probably, or go for the child because parents would probably give their lives for their children anyway.
26 June 2011
british common law
British common law is the law system that I suggest as a starting point for any country or region. Additional laws may be laid upon it, but these at least should be in place.
It can be summed up in two easy commands:
a) Don't hurt/steal
b) Don't lie/duck out on a contract
1) Further specification of laws: Don't hurt/steal means that you should not damage a person physically or do anything with their property of an kind. Eg: in the old times if you touched a woman in any way and she didn't approve, you could be fined three years wages. (wow!). Eg: in Switzerland if you walk onto someones land after dark they can shoot you dead, no questions. The line starts to blur with things like noise. For instance, can I call your phone 100 times a day? Can I build a reactor that emits harmful radiation across the fence from where your children are playing? I'll get to these problems later.
Oh yes, and fufill all your contracts. The line blurs again when you say to your friend "oh yeah, I can drive you to work tomorrow" and shaking hands on a deal to sell a couple thousand widgets.
2) Implications: homosexuality is ok, illegal immigration is not (unless we legalize it), driving while drunk is ok so long as you don't crash (this is true in some parts of Europe I think), abortion depends on whether or not your child is your property or has individual rights, drugs are fine, public slander and lies are ok although this might border on the issue with noise and such, etc etc.
3) Noise and slander: See, here's the problem. What's the difference between sound waves from your jackhammer passing into your neighbors airspace, and a bullet just passing across the yard into someone's skull? My mind thinks of two ways to combat this, both of which can be used at once:
a) Create a system of laws that determine the tolerance for objects and decibels passing between person, as well as laws that determine what kind of interactions/agreements are binding.
b) The media and public reputation are great motivations for people to keep to themselves. For instance, of shooting is still legal for some reason, if you shoot your neighbor, someone can publicize it, and maybe a humanitarian organization will build concrete walls around your house, or pay somebody to walk around behind you warning people that you're a murderer. Same with companies: don't follow through on a handshake deal and future deals will be much harder to make.
Ah, I love the internet!
It can be summed up in two easy commands:
a) Don't hurt/steal
b) Don't lie/duck out on a contract
1) Further specification of laws: Don't hurt/steal means that you should not damage a person physically or do anything with their property of an kind. Eg: in the old times if you touched a woman in any way and she didn't approve, you could be fined three years wages. (wow!). Eg: in Switzerland if you walk onto someones land after dark they can shoot you dead, no questions. The line starts to blur with things like noise. For instance, can I call your phone 100 times a day? Can I build a reactor that emits harmful radiation across the fence from where your children are playing? I'll get to these problems later.
Oh yes, and fufill all your contracts. The line blurs again when you say to your friend "oh yeah, I can drive you to work tomorrow" and shaking hands on a deal to sell a couple thousand widgets.
2) Implications: homosexuality is ok, illegal immigration is not (unless we legalize it), driving while drunk is ok so long as you don't crash (this is true in some parts of Europe I think), abortion depends on whether or not your child is your property or has individual rights, drugs are fine, public slander and lies are ok although this might border on the issue with noise and such, etc etc.
3) Noise and slander: See, here's the problem. What's the difference between sound waves from your jackhammer passing into your neighbors airspace, and a bullet just passing across the yard into someone's skull? My mind thinks of two ways to combat this, both of which can be used at once:
a) Create a system of laws that determine the tolerance for objects and decibels passing between person, as well as laws that determine what kind of interactions/agreements are binding.
b) The media and public reputation are great motivations for people to keep to themselves. For instance, of shooting is still legal for some reason, if you shoot your neighbor, someone can publicize it, and maybe a humanitarian organization will build concrete walls around your house, or pay somebody to walk around behind you warning people that you're a murderer. Same with companies: don't follow through on a handshake deal and future deals will be much harder to make.
Ah, I love the internet!
gay marriage
Someone just asked me what I thought of gay marriage. This is what I replied:
Politically, gay marriage would not be the first thing for me to deal with.
One the one hand, I think people should be allowed to do what they please as long as it's not hurting someone else or lying (British Common Law), even though I beleive that gay marriage, adultery, and other stuff is morally wrong, psychologically damaging, and practically stupid.
On the other hand, religion has given us even the most fundamental laws. We shouldn't kill eachother becase all people are made in Gods image, and we shouldn't destroy Gods image or his artwork. So I don't know if restricting laws to the simple 'don't hurt and don't lie' is legitimate.
This is what I would do. If deciding the laws of America, I would take away any laws that made mention of religious issues. (pro/anit gay marriage, national prayer day, changing the national anthem, giving tax benefits to churches, maybe even marriage)
However, I would strongly encourage areas that have high concentrations (say 80%)of people who beleive a certain moral thing beyond normal law to make it into law for that area. Different areas (like states and counties) will then become different. The differentiation of areas under different laws will, over time, give information as to whether or not those are laws that make an area more prosperous or not. So, in my belief, an area that allows gay marriage will get messed up faster than an area that outlaws it. Then people will see what is best and what isn't.
I call it 'free market laws' or something like that. States and counties, like companies, offer a certain product (the laws, the environment, the services) for a certain price (taxes and other inconveniences). The states compete for the best product, and through market forces find the best product, which I hope is ethical.
P.S. the same principle applies to countries.
Knowing sinful people, this might not happen, I guess. But at least this way one or two states, or even counties, can stand out as being super-religious, and these will be a haven for righteous people to flee to. Back in the days of expansion (1700s), you could just take your religious movement to the wide 'new world', now, most of it's occupied (unless you want to move the the desert/mountains/tundra), so we have to rely on other forms of migration.
Politically, gay marriage would not be the first thing for me to deal with.
One the one hand, I think people should be allowed to do what they please as long as it's not hurting someone else or lying (British Common Law), even though I beleive that gay marriage, adultery, and other stuff is morally wrong, psychologically damaging, and practically stupid.
On the other hand, religion has given us even the most fundamental laws. We shouldn't kill eachother becase all people are made in Gods image, and we shouldn't destroy Gods image or his artwork. So I don't know if restricting laws to the simple 'don't hurt and don't lie' is legitimate.
This is what I would do. If deciding the laws of America, I would take away any laws that made mention of religious issues. (pro/anit gay marriage, national prayer day, changing the national anthem, giving tax benefits to churches, maybe even marriage)
However, I would strongly encourage areas that have high concentrations (say 80%)of people who beleive a certain moral thing beyond normal law to make it into law for that area. Different areas (like states and counties) will then become different. The differentiation of areas under different laws will, over time, give information as to whether or not those are laws that make an area more prosperous or not. So, in my belief, an area that allows gay marriage will get messed up faster than an area that outlaws it. Then people will see what is best and what isn't.
I call it 'free market laws' or something like that. States and counties, like companies, offer a certain product (the laws, the environment, the services) for a certain price (taxes and other inconveniences). The states compete for the best product, and through market forces find the best product, which I hope is ethical.
P.S. the same principle applies to countries.
Knowing sinful people, this might not happen, I guess. But at least this way one or two states, or even counties, can stand out as being super-religious, and these will be a haven for righteous people to flee to. Back in the days of expansion (1700s), you could just take your religious movement to the wide 'new world', now, most of it's occupied (unless you want to move the the desert/mountains/tundra), so we have to rely on other forms of migration.
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