Scientists have proven that research causes cancer in lab rats.
Everything you eat, drink, smoke, inhale, or swallow will shorten your lifespan. Everything you fail to eat, drink, smoke, inhale, or swallow will also shorten your lifespan.
Everything that is considered good for you now will be considered bad for you in five years. The converse is also true.
The government can outlaw as much as it likes, and people will still find a way to injure and kill each other, sometimes in mass quantities.
You will never, ever truly be safe a single day in your life, no matter what you do.
The question is not and has never been 'what will make me safe?'. Nothing will make you safe. You can live in a padded bank vault eating nothing but organic vegetables all your life, and then accidentally kill yourself with a hundred-pound bag of granola. Granted, that would take some talent, but you're a talented person!
Face it. There is not a single thing that exists that cannot be used to injure a person in some way. You can hurt yourself or someone else with a feather, with a cotton ball, a piece of scotch tape, a boiled carrot, or a refrigerator magnet.
But no. The question is either 'what will give me the illusion of safety?' or 'what can I do to reduce the danger to an amount I consider acceptable?'. The first question is, in many cases, actively dangerous. The second question is less so.
Unfortunately, the government and most people are trying to answer both questions at once. It makes very little sense to have alcohol and tobacco be legal and still criminalize marijuana (and the rest of that immensely long and complicated argument will hereby be omitted), but we're much more likely to lose tobacco and alcohol than we are to legalize marijuana.
Under the first question fall such dubious activities as censorship, overly harsh drug laws, sodomy laws, and so on. Essentially, we remove what should be personal choices so that other people may be granted the illusion of safety.
(TANGENT: Take the sodomy laws, for example. In all honesty, is there any way that you, personally, could be hurt by two strangers having sex with each other? I mean, okay, maybe they could be really loud or something and keep you awake. But I think we all know that noise pollution really had nothing to do with the sodomy laws. No. These laws are, simply, oppressing largely harmless people to salve the baseless fears of others who neither care nor understand. They don't do anything to make you safer. In fact, they might make you less safe, if the public insists on demonizing one group of people and ignoring another.
Who does more damage, after all: the homosexual man, or the basher who gives him a black eye? Which one is more likely to turn around and give you a black eye?)
(TANGENT: Why do so many people get 'morality' mixed up with 'fear and hatred'? Why do so many bitter, terrified, bigoted, angry, narrow-minded little people appoint themselves the guardians of morality? I'll stop.)
The second is, mostly, just common sense. We all have different threshholds for safety. Some of us go skydiving. Some of us double-check the lock on the front door before we go to bed every night. It's a question of drawing a line between what is reasonably safe and what is not, and realizing that that line is a personal choice.
If you smoke, drink to excess, do every drug in sight, eat nothing but fatty beef, participate in extreme sports, and never sleep, well, you are probably not going to live quite as long as other people. If you find that acceptable, that is your personal choice, and god be with you, you'll need him.
If you don't, well, start making your decisions. We're pretty sure that tobacco is bad for you, overall, so maybe that's a good place to start cutting. Maybe you could eat more vegetables, or stop doing drugs, or sleep more.
But there's a line beyond which care turns into idiocy. If you wear a mask everywhere for fear of germs, if you refuse to eat anything but organic vegetables for fear of fat, if you refuse to leave the house for fear of other people, if you refuse to have an imagination for fear of your god, then, just possibly, you have taken it too far. However, it is still your personal choice, and as such, perfectly acceptable.
Basically, you just have to decide what you consider 'acceptable risk'. Would you rather live to a ripe old age, or would you rather pack as much riotous living as you can into fifty years? That decision has nothing to do with anyone else, and god help us, it should never be legislated onto the people as a whole. Personal choice. Personal. Not universal.
(TANGENT: And for god's sake people learn to accept some fucking blame. If you ignore the warnings on cigarette packs, smoke two packs a day, and get cancer, don't sue. If terrorists shoot up the McDonald's that you're happily eating at, don't sue McDonald's. If your child pulls a pot off the stove onto his head, don't sue the people who made the pot, okay? Accept the blame. Some things have to be your fault.
I cannot get a burger done less than medium anywhere in Columbus, Ohio. I do not know whether this is a law or simply a rule that many restaurants have adopted to protect themselves from lawsuits, but for god's sake, if I want a rare burger, that's my business. I'll sign a fucking disclaimer if you want me to, but for god's sake give me a big ol' slab of red meat. If I get salmonella, it's my own fault.)
Fear sucks. Do what you can to minimize fear in your life, and learn to stop fearing things like hamburgers and refined sugar. There are people in the world who won't hurt you, you know. In fact, they outnumber the other kind fairly heftily.
Come play with the rest of us, okay? We have chocolate! And smut! And rock music! And comic books! And, you know, any of that might kill you, but it's a fair trade-off, really.
It's worth it. It's worth it. It is.
Replies: add your comment: currently 10 comments
I agree with this whole-heartedly. The whole issue of personal choice and accountability is near and dear to my heart... and you expressed the issue quite well. My congratulations.
Posted by Nathan @ 12/28/2001 03:32 AM EST
You've just expressed every single thought against censorship that I've ever had. Personal choice shouldn't be decided by the government... Good job on such a well-written entry.~PEACE~
Posted by Myrhlyn McFay @ 12/28/2001 11:21 AM EST
Thank you.
Posted by Scruffy Hippie Chick @ 12/28/2001 03:17 PM EST
*Much clapping* Woo-hoo Mooncalf! You should try to go on these tangents more often. Tell the people!
Posted by Duo Maxwell @ 12/29/2001 12:58 AM EST
The Choices One Makes.....The Excuses One Has.....
This sounds EXACTLY like a rant from Vash the Stampede!!! Or Vash's Wordly Wisdom, as I like to call it.
It is true we have to make our own choices about "acceptable risks", and we all probably know what our personal limits and boundaries are, and we have to meet them, and cross them or not as we feel we need to. Some things people do are ridiculous, yes...but indeed it is THEIR choice. As Obi-Wan once said, you must do what you feel is right.
And certainly there are things you cannot control. Heh. The burger example is a good one, Moon. What can you do?? Not much (except maybe grill your own beef. :P).
Things should be taken into consideration, but no point in worrying about all of them. One of my favorite scenes from Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams (the last part of the Godly Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series) is when Arthur and Ford are resting a bit and talking about food. Ford orders some foie gras, some kind of prepared goose, and Arthur comments,
"I always feel a bit bad about ordering foie gras. Bit cruel to the geese, isn't it?"
To which Ford has the most perfect reply:
"Fuck 'em. You can't care about every damn thing".
My point? Do like Ford says and don't worry about EVERYTHING. Sure, just about anything can be used as a deadly weapon against you, is used in the right way. Think about it. Basically ANYTHING, if used in the RIGHT way (which contradictingly, is generally the WRONG way...). Sure, a lot of things can hurt you, and some of more potentiality than others. But you have to decide for yourself how to handle these things, yes. If you decide to smoke, and know the consequences, well, okay. That's your choice (I hesitated to bring this up, because I have people I consider special to me who DO smoke, and I wish they wold not, because of said implied risks....).
And feel free to help yourself to my chocolate, smut (uh...), rock music and comic books any time, Moon. ^_' Everyone here can join in! And it is worth it indeed. ^_^
Posted by Wolf @ 12/29/2001 03:46 PM EST
Damn right, Moo! Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. Nezumi'll quite happily share some of those comic books, and if there's smut, well boy howdy let's have a second helping!
Posted by Nezumi @ 12/29/2001 04:51 PM EST
Quite commonsensical. And timely, being that the US has told its people that (gasp!) unhealthy eating habits...aren't...healthy. (As SNL said, and I'm embarrassed to remember this - "This message brought to you by the medical journal DUH.")
Posted by StB @ 12/29/2001 09:54 PM EST
Man, I so agree. I may (and probably do) have different sets of morality and its rules than yours, but mixing up morality and hatred is just messed up. A mess-up that is too abundant around us, too. -_-
Posted by Keiiii @ 12/30/2001 09:51 PM EST
Hi! Happy New Year and so forth. I very much agree with you. The people that I think are the greatest threats are the ones who think they have the right or want to have the right to dictate choices; on what we eat, drink or who we-- errr -- schtup. Anyways, you get 'em Moonie!
Posted by Chereellll @ 01/01/2002 01:18 AM EST
Chocolate, and smut, and rock music, and comic books... and Mooncalf.
Truly, it is a wonderful world.
Posted by JohnnyBoy @ 01/02/2002 05:03 PM EST
