All attempts at defining the beginning of a human life are ridiculous, if you insist on an all-or-nothing boundary. What if we assign a fractional value to the attribute "legally a human being". This value would be 0.0 until conception, and not reach 1.0 until a person is legally allowed to vote and sign binding contracts (age 18). "Murder" would be killing anyone who scored over.25 (healthy third trimester fetus, say). NOTE: for all of you less-than 18ys, I am not claiming that you aren't human! It is already a fact, however, that legally you don't have all the rights of an greater-than 18ys old. I suppose you could argue for a fractional value for "murder" also, with small punishments for killing healthy 2nd trimester human fetuses, or adult chimpanzees...
What happened to the Brooklyn museum was not really censorship -- just withdrawal of government support. Censorship is when the police confiscate and destroy the "art" in question, or arrest someone for displaying it. That artist has the right to make deliberately offensive art. He does not have the right to make NY taxpayers pay for it! BUT: I agree with your basic argument that there is a dangerous trend towards making everything the government's business. I would propose better examples: the anti-tobacco, anti-drug, and anti-gun crusades.
My daughter was noticeably odd at 2 ys old, and was officially diagnosed as "high functioning autistic with hyperlexia" at 3. Clumsy, speech difficulties (reverses "I" and "you"), doesn't look at people's faces as much as normal, reading at 24 months, etc. She is definately wired differently than most of us.
When she's older, she'll probably fit the Bill Gates-style nerd stereotype pretty well. She's a wonderful child but very odd, and it's hard for me to imagine where she'll fit in to society, except as a "tech geek".
Thank hypothetical supernatural power that the hacker subculture exists and welcomes any odd duck that can do the work! This is something to be proud of.
Disclaimer: most of us "tech geeks" are reasonably socially skilled (at least at work, as adults). My guess is that fewer than 10% of us gain our "tech mind powers" from any form of autism. But isn't it nice that autistics are welcome, too?
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All attempts at defining the beginning of a human life are ridiculous, if you insist on an all-or-nothing boundary. What if we assign a fractional value to the attribute "legally a human being". .25 (healthy third trimester fetus, say).
This value would be 0.0 until conception, and not reach 1.0 until a person is legally allowed to vote and sign binding contracts (age 18). "Murder" would be killing anyone who scored over
NOTE: for all of you less-than 18ys, I am not claiming that you aren't human! It is already a fact, however, that legally you don't have all the rights of an greater-than 18ys old.
I suppose you could argue for a fractional value for "murder" also, with small punishments for killing healthy 2nd trimester human fetuses, or adult chimpanzees...
What happened to the Brooklyn museum was not really censorship -- just withdrawal of government support. Censorship is when the police confiscate and destroy the "art" in question, or arrest someone for displaying it.
That artist has the right to make deliberately offensive art. He does not have the right to make NY taxpayers pay for it!
BUT: I agree with your basic argument that there is a dangerous trend towards making everything the government's business. I would propose better examples: the anti-tobacco, anti-drug, and anti-gun crusades.
My daughter was noticeably odd at 2 ys old, and was officially diagnosed as "high functioning autistic with hyperlexia" at 3. Clumsy, speech difficulties (reverses "I" and "you"), doesn't look at people's faces as much as normal, reading at 24 months, etc. She is definately wired differently than most of us.
When she's older, she'll probably fit the Bill Gates-style nerd stereotype pretty well. She's a wonderful child but very odd, and it's hard for me to imagine where she'll fit in to society, except as a "tech geek".
Thank hypothetical supernatural power that the hacker subculture exists and welcomes any odd duck that can do the work! This is something to be proud of.
Disclaimer: most of us "tech geeks" are reasonably socially skilled (at least at work, as adults). My guess is that fewer than 10% of us gain our "tech mind powers" from any form of autism. But isn't it nice that autistics are welcome, too?