Is World Peace Possible?

Today marks the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States. Six years ago, a group of extremists tried to destroy us as a people and as a nation and all for the stated glory of their god. It didn’t make much sense to me then and it still doesn’t now.

Thinking about that tragedy and the war our country is still waging “on terrorism” has made me wonder if we will ever evolve to point to where we will strive for world peace instead of world domination.

You see world peace requires the cooperation of all in order to make it work. At the micro level, this is the equivalent of roommates sharing an apartment. Each person must do their part (pay their portion of the bills, clean up their mess) and be willing to give up a few things (smoking outside, no pets) in order to live together in harmony.

The dynamics of the real world, however, has two of the roommates fighting each other to the death. Some roommates are taking sides while other are trying to avoid the situation altogether and still others don’t know what the hell is going on. There is another occupant who stays in their room all day and filters contact with the outside world through a firewall and yet another who is slowly dying in their room because the others are so caught up in their own battles that they can’t be bothered to help.

Will This Prevent Drunk Driving?

So this news article is talking about getting breathalyser devices installed into cars that will lock the ignition if the driver of the vehicle if the blood alcohol level is over a certain limit. I’ve noticed that I have a habit of denigrating noble causes so in the interest of keeping up the tradition, I’m going to frown a little bit at this initiative.

Drunk driving is an issue that needs to be dealt with. It is a one hundred percent preventable crime which only takes a little bit of common sense and responsibility on the part of the driver to keep from becoming a statistic. Last year about 40 percent of all traffic fatalities were alcohol related.

I think installing breathalysers in cars is a fantastic idea except for a couple of problems:

The Scarlett Letter “P”

Do you think pedophiles and child molesters should be publicly branded?

I had an interesting discussion with a co-worker the other day about this idea. It was her opinion that pedophiles should be made to wear something that tells the public what they are.

On an emotional level, I agreed with her. I don’t have children but nieces and nephews and don’t ever want anyone to victimize them like that. People who commit sex crimes against children are the lowest form of scum in existence. In fact, it is an insult to scum to even call pedophiles that. I think these animals should be blasted off to another planet where aliens will molest them all day long.

Situational Ethics: Right, Wrong, or Other

I have a hard time separating life into right or wrong. Mainly because there are too many, an infinite amount almost, of unknowns and exceptions that makes categorizing issues difficult. Let’s take for an example something as volatile as murder. In our society we have laws against killing people including our own self. Yet conversely, and perhaps ironically so, we have the death penalty as a means of punishing those who do.

The justification for this is that a person who takes the life of another has committed a crime so morally reprehensible that they lose their own right to life. Yet in America, you can legally kill someone if they are threatening your life or the life of another person; albeit the threat has to be immediate, unmistakable and unavoidable. You can’t shoot someone who says they are going to kill you but does nothing that indicates that they are going to follow through. Even if you believe they have something in store for you at a later date, the threat against your existence must be immediate or else you will find yourself on death row.