April 24, 2004
More low effort blogging
That last entry took a lot of effort, for what felt like a fairly poor result, in the end. So, I'm back to the low effort stuff again.
| Abortion? | I like to use the phrase "anti-life", on the grounds that it lets me call the other side "anti-choice" |
| Death Penalty? | I'm finding this a disturbingly tough call to make. I want to say "hell no, the state shouldn't kill", or "justice shouldn't be about vengeance", but, well, I can't. The state already does kill, and our justice system already is, at least in part, about vengeance. And hey, it's got to be cheaper than keeping someone in prison for the rest of their natural life. The hard part, for me, is the irrevocable nature of the sentence; if you imprison someone unfairly, you can free them, and try to compensate them, on their release. I don't think resurrection has become terribly simple, yet. So all told, I suppose I say no to the death penalty. |
| Prostitution? | Should be legalised, then carefully regulated. |
| Alcohol? | Mine's a pint, thanks. I think the current state of the UK drinking laws isn't so bad. |
| Marijuana? | If it really is as harmless as is widely claimed, then, yeah, I'm all for it being legalised. Of course, it's often taken with tobacco, which is known to be harmful, but this seems more like an argument to ban that, than to not legalise dope... |
| Other drugs? | This varies too much from drug to drug, and I don't have enough specific knowledge to make those calls. Ask the BMA, or WHO, or something. |
| Gay marriage? | I can understand that, for instance, the catholic church doesn't want to recognise gay marriages. Fine. Rinse and repeat for any other religion that opposes gay marriages. What I haven't heard any justification for, though, is the state not allowing them. I can't see how it's anything but discrimination. |
| Illegal immigrants? | It'd be nice if legal immigration was easier, and other such truisms. |
| Smoking? | It would be very hard indeed to ban smoking. For one thing, millions of people are addicted to nicotine, in the UK alone. For another, the treasury is addicted to the large sums of dosh smokers hand over, every time they buy their death-sticks: yes, the cost of running the NHS would also drop, were smoking to be banned, but not for a considerable period after the ban, due to the latent effects of long term smoke inhalation. A sane yet completely infeasible solution would be to increase the minimum age at which one can smoke by a year, every year, starting one year from today. Hence anyone who can legally smoke now can continue to do so, but anyone who can't yet legally smoke will never be able to (give or take people close to the limit, who would be able to for part of the year. Yay for edge-cases.) This keeps some incoming revenue to fund the treatment of those smokers who aren't yet dead, while over several decades practically eliminating smoking, at least in public places. I'd settle, though, right now, for people not congregating outside the front doors of non-smoking buildings to smoke — it's distinctly unpleasant to have to walk past a dense group of smokers, just to get in and out of a building. |
| Drunk driving? | Drunk drivers should be prosecuted on the basis of what harm they could have done, not what harm they did. Being lucky enough not to kill someone shouldn't get them off being strung up, or whatever the appropriate punishment is these days. |
| Cloning? | Cloning and related research offers great potential for new and improved medical treatments. Missing out on this would be a terrible shame. |
| Racism? | I can't stand intolerant people. |
| Premarital sex? | Fun! |
| Religion? | I don't have one. Other people do, that's up to them; just as long as people accept that not having one is up to me. |
| Downloading music? | Downloading music and never buying any or going to concerts is bad. Downloading music to make a more informed choice about what to buy seems fair, to me. |
| The legal drinking age? | I could live with it being lower, but I'm reasonably happy with it where it is. |
| Suicide? | Not today, thanks. I'll use this space to hang my claim that euthanasia should be allowed in appropriate cases, and should be the choice of the patient, not the family. |
| Coffee? | Should contain no milk, and no sugar. Should be strong. Decaf is just wrong. |
| Vivisection? | OK, so maybe not all of these questions were in the original, but I chopped some I didn't like out, and fancied some replacements. I am strongly in favour of the use of animals in scientific research, where useful and appropriate. Lab animals are, in general, well cared for. Also, while there are, I'm sure, calm and rational campaigners against animal testing, I tend to associate their campaign with the lunatics that firebomb laboratories, and show infinitely more compassion for animal life than human. These people are dangerous, to people around them, and to their cause. |
Posted by James at 01:10
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