This Blog is an outlet for the random thoughts of an amateur opinionator.
What's an opinionator?
An opinionator is somebody who has power without responsibility, and the ability to spout off on any subject without worrying too much about the consequences of what comes out of the mouth. All you need is an opinion and the opportunity to voice it.
TV is full of professional opinionators. The internet gives the amateur his chance.
> wHich is whicH?, wHen is whEn?
Author: aLmich
As I was preparing for work earlier, I overheard my hipag [forgot the english term] commenting about the issue being tackled over the news. It was the issue of sex education and how or when it should really be introduced to the youth and how the abortion rate has been increasing every year. She was the one who had a miscarriage the last time I went home to the province so somehow I understand.
I met H again for coffee [of course my regular readers know the real score]. Just like most of our conversations, we had a “good” time debating about the said issue. His argument is quite different from mine which I really don’t understand. I know him and how he treat and view things… which flares him everytime I bring up the topic. He would usually make an excuse saying that I should be rational. That what were talking about is the majority and what should be the norm. “Ours is different okay?” And so his usual lines of excuses…
What is obscenity? When is someone a child? When does someone reach the age of consent? At what stage during pregnancy does human life begin? Is it music or noise? Or both?
Much of the debates in public life is about drawing arbitrary lines between labels. Some people think if you allow gays to marry, that’s only one step away from allowing people to marry more than one person legally or marry their pets legally. Others think it’s the logical next step after getting rid of miscegenation laws. Some people think human life begins at conception [when the sperm and egg meet]. Others think it happens some time in the middle of the pregnancy. In many places, the age of consent is 18 years of age. So a 17-year-old in a sexually explicit film is legally the victim of child pornography but an 18-year-old in the same film is a consenting adult in a legitimate industry. He thinks that because he already said sorry, I should accept him and the fact that he’s got another one in his life.
We all know that lines can get blurry and, in fact, much of life isn’t about lines but appreciating spectra and variation. One person may reach adulthood at age 13. Another may reach it at age 23. Still another may not reach it ever. One group of people may consider a certain film art, and another group of people may consider the same film obscenity.
The real problem we face is a discomfort with blurriness, spectra, and variation when it comes to law. We already have many “it depends” situations in law, and we don’t want to have an “it depends” that can’t be spelled out in advance, for some reason. If one 12-year-old is old enough to drive, how can you make the case that another 12-year-old is not old enough to drive? Why does your opinion about each kid’s maturity and skill matter in deciding? Instead, the state decides arbitrarily that 15 or 16 or 18 is the cut-off point where someone under that age doesn’t have the physical and mental maturity to handle a motor vehicle, and someone above that age supposedly does.
It is not an excuse to say that “he has been so good to me although I don’t love him anymore, I can’t just easily leave him and be with you”. The mere fact that you don’t love him and - “It’s you I love now” is enough to end what’s between you and him. It’s gonna be painful but that’s the way how life goes.
I don’t have an easy answer. I do think my 7-year-old cousin, no matter how “mature,” is too young to have sex. And I do think that almost all 50-year-olds, no matter how “immature”, are likely to know what they’re getting into if they engage in sex. I know if we draw a line in between that it’ll be arbitrary and if we don’t draw a line, we’ll basically be condoning pedophilia. Same deal with abortion. If I kill an egg and sperm that have just started dividing into two cells and four cells, I don’t really think I’ve murdered a human being [yes, some fringe conservatives on the extreme right might disagree with me, and I would concede in a British accent that “every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good”]. But I also don’t think there’s a definite line you can draw in the middle of a pregnancy that is when human life “begins.” There isn’t a moment. Nor was there a moment when I changed from child to adult. I know when I was 6, I was a child. I know now after 20 I’m an adult. But it’s not as if there was one day or even one year that I can say was the threshold I crossed that changed me from child to adult.
As I said before, there are no easy answers. Nevertheless, people should also stop looking for them. There often is no line in life, even if we must draw a line in the law.
There is no easy relationship. There is no easy discussion if both won’t be open to understand each others views. So how did the “coffee date” turn up? We separated just trying to not to yell at each other. Pathetic.
Just don’t say words you can’t “mean”.
