ST Letter Rejected (Thankfully?)

Well, to be fair I didn't expect the letter to be accepted and it (the spoof) probably wouldn't have made sense if one did not actually bother to go dig out the letter to which it was responding to.

Further, while I appreciate the poor journalist/editor has to plough through all of the letters that he/she receives daily and that a standard-form response is the most efficient way of doing so, nonetheless, the following brought an ironic smile to my face.

If your letter relates to a matter under the purview of a government department, you may want to visit
www.sgdi.gov.sg for a list of officials to contact.

After all my letter was meant to be extreme and over-the-top and the thought that it be submitted to a public official and possibly taken seriously sends chills down my spine. After all I really don't see the sentiments expressed being too far removed from what the original letter writer was expressing.


Anyway for anyone wanting a more exhaustive debunking of Mr Nelson Quah's letter, go check this out. It's yummy civil libertarianism without all the annoying legal technicalities and jargon that would have bogged my analysis down!

Oh and it's a good blog too.

We should consider having our own Anti-social Behaviour Act to deal with ugly S'poreans

THE Scottish Parliament passed the Anti-social Behaviour Act (ABA) in 2004 with the original intention of curbing noise nuisance.

This Act, which empowers authorised officers and the police to take summary action against an offender by imposing a fine and even confiscating the offending equipment, is effective in curtailing the noise problem.

We should have a similar Act in Singapore modified and expanded in scope to deal with the various anti-social behaviour problems here.

Here are some anti-social behaviour problems which can be corrected by this Act.

>>On MRT trains and public buses, it can be used to catch and fine those who fail to give up the designated seats for the pregnant, disabled and elderly. It can also be used to nab those who assault bus drivers when asked to produce their passes for identification.

>>On the road, it can be used to punish those who grab the oncoming taxi without consideration that another person is there earlier waiting for it. The cabby can be reminded that if he picks up the queue-jumper, he will be reported to the police for action to be taken against him under this Act.

>>In crowded car parks, it can be used to fine inconsiderate and discourteous drivers who go against the directional sign to occupy the empty lot, ignoring those who were there earlier.

>>At various places, it can discipline people who display anti-social and repugnant behaviours such as queue-jumping and spitting.

>>On the Internet, it can be used to punish and discipline irresponsible bloggers who are quick to insult a person by their libellous remarks or foul language. The police can fine the errant bloggers who usually operate under the cloak of anonymity and ask them to apologise and reveal their true identities including their photographs on their blogs.

This Act is all-embracing and can be applied in some way to eradicate any anti-social behaviour displayed by the ugly Singaporeans. Should there be any future anti-social behaviours, the ambit of the Act can be enlarged to deal with these new problems.

The ugly Singaporeans are a bane to society as they destroy our efforts in building a gracious society. They also tarnish our image as a First World country by their Third World behaviours.

National campaigns in the past have not yielded much results and we should not discontinue these ongoing programmes aimed at changing their values, attitudes and behaviours.

We should also seriously consider having our own ABA to reform those hard-core anti-social elements who cannot be changed by the persuasive approach of national campaigns.

An excellent suggestion! In fact I propose how the ambit should in fact be broader than the letter's author suggests!

1. On MRT trains and public buses, it can be used to catch and fine those who fail to control their children who run amok. It can also be used to nab those who assault our senses with their horrible taste in fashion and music.
   
2. On the road, it can be used to punish those who do not slow down at zebra-crossings without consideration that another person is there waiting. The driver can be reminded that if he does not slow down, he will be reported to the police for action to be taken against him under this Act
3. In crowded food courts, it can be used to fine inconsiderate and discourteous persons who go against the accepted etiquette to occupy the empty seats, ignoring those who were there earlier.
4. At various places, it can discipline people who display anti-social and repugnant behaviours such as speaking loudy or with improper English grammatical syntax.
5. On the Internet or print media, it can be used to punish and discipline irresponsible letter writers who are quick to use faulty logic without due consideration of constitutional liberties to advocate improper social engineering measures. The police can fine the errant letter writer who usually operate under constitutional protection of free expression and ask them to apologise and reveal their true identities including their photographs in print.

Because I have plumbed the depths of the internets (including reading fstdt.com), I realise that sarcasm and irony is dead so just to ensure you that I haven't taken leave of my sense and that this was a spoof letter.

For a while I wasn't quite sure if this letter wasn't a spoof itself ala the Sokal Hoax but a quick google search shows that the writer has made similar arguments before so it's likely he was serious.

That scares me....

Why the marital rape exemption is senseless

I was prepared to leave this letter well alone until I read that the author is a philosophy tutor at NUS and this is an attempt to emulate the system of Aquinas in Summa Theologiae.

And better still I think this was one of the rare instances where everyone on the political spectrum in YoungRepublic condemned it, which is a remarkable show of unity and demonstrates how absurd his position is. But leaving aside the argument to popularity which might have been applied in the prior statement, here's why it's still fundamentally wrong in the first place.

http://www.straitstimes.com/ST%2BForum/Online%2BStory/STIStory_166104.html

I REFER to the article, 'Rape is rape, so husbands should not have immunity" by Dr Andy Ho (ST, Oct 2).

To remove bias, 'rape' here means only 'non-consensual sex', with no overtone.

With no overtone?! Sorry, the very fact that it is non-consensual makes it wrong. Unless you want to adopt the positions that facially a person's consent is not needed for acts done to him, this statement is latent non-sense (unsinn) in a Wittgenstein fashion i.e. it does not make sense insofar as one cannot imagine it to be falsifiable.

Dr Ho rebuts arguments for 'marital rape is not a crime'.

One: A woman's consent to marriage implies her lifelong consent to sex. Rebuttal: Lifelong consent becomes a 'legal fiction' when the husband turns into a violent stranger. Comment: The law makes no such exception, and no supporting argument is offered for this assertion.

One general comment. He presumes an A/Not A situation wherein rebuttal of Dr. Ho's positions means that his positions stands when in fact he bears the burden of demonstrating why the wife is not equally situated with non-married women with whom the rapist has sexual relations with and therefore the marital rape exemption might be justified despite an ostensible violation of the principle of the equal application of the law.

Two, maybe some believe that a woman's consent to marriage implies her lifelong consent to sex but I don't see a reason why this is the case. If so, then this entire comment is irrelevant. Why does marriage imply consent to sex anymore than it implies consent to say subjugation to the husband or the husband's dominion his hand in discipline? Marriage is a civil and legal institution (so if the Catholics allow for the annulment of marriage on the basis of non-consumation according to their religious beliefs, then so be it) and therefore all the wife consents to are the legal duties that are imposed by law. The common law has come a long way from saying that the wife has no legal personality (no standing before the law) because she is simply an extension of her husband. Since she is recognize to be her own legal person, it must be established why she somehow loses the right not to be raped by her husband as opposed to when she was not married to him.

Three, even if this was the basis of the law, Dr Ho's rebuttal stands.

Four, even if it did not, the interpretation of the letter writer is erroneous. One the matter of lifelong consent to sex, it would be more akin to the idea that the wife cannot withhold sex and still have the marriage stand NOT that the wife cannot withhold consent to sex.

Two: Marriage is a private intimacy, into which the law should thus not intrude. Rebuttal: Marriage as a private intimacy wrongly presumes the interests of husband and wife are aligned. Comment: Neither 'private' nor 'intimacy' presumes interests are aligned.

Nope, good try. The penal code (first drafted for India) is a very old piece of legislation and is a codification of the common law on criminal matters (with some exceptions like the right to self-defense where apparently the drafter's belief was that the natives were so submissive that there would not fight back even if attacked to death and therefore a right of private defense had to be added. Go figure). One of the ideas in the common law was that the wife was simply the extension of her husband and one of the rationales was that their interest were aligned.

Even if this were not true, it still misses the point of similarly situated for an equality of law analysis.

Three: Making marital rape a crime will poison reconciliation. Rebuttal: Marital rape already poisons reconciliation. Comment: Many marital rape victims do 'forgive and forget', and reconcile.

Battered Wife Syndrome. Go google it. They eventually crack and murder their husbands.

Also many don't, prosecution can still be done. Except that because we can't use the rape provision (which allows for sentences of up to 20 years), we have to get them on much lesser charges under use of force, causing hurt (max of a year unless grievous hurt is caused and the definition of grievous hurt is very exactly defined only to include stuff like emasculation, breaking of a limb, causing the person to be hospitalized for more than 30 days etc. which is not what rapes are about) or the stupid 377 provisions. The point to be emphasized is that the act of rape itself is the harm not the harm caused which tends not to be physical).

Four: Making marital rape a crime makes wives more likely to falsely accuse husbands. Rebuttal: England and Ireland have made marital rape a crime, without increasing false accusations. Comment: Dr Ho has a counter-example.

Actually, Dr Ho's point would have stood anyway since it would be the onus of those who advocate the marital rape exemption to prove that false accusations would be a serious problem or even a problem at all. The problem of prosecuting rape is not that of false convictions (although it might happen) but more so that of not being able to convict the rapist because of due process requirments in criminal law that (rightly in principle) make conviction hard. Should it boil down to a he-said-she-said situation, it is not going to be easy to convict on the basis of beyond a reasonable doubt. Add that to the situation of a marriage and in fact unless one puts in presumptions of non-consent, convictions are going to be very very difficult.

Dr Ho argues for 'marital rape should be a crime'.

One: Almost all aspects of women's legal subordination to men have been rejected. Comment: A traffic sign saying 'No entry - except ambulances' will insist on the exception.

There the exception can be justified. Here it cannot be. Therefore there are not analogous and the analogy does not stand.

Two: 'Rape is rape, so the marital rape exception should be completely erased.' Comment: The marital rape exception is built into the law. Insisting the exception be removed does not entail it should be.

The onus is on those wanting the marital rape exemption to justify why the woman once married is not similar situated to a woman who is not married when it comes to the application of rape laws.

Two, it is irrelevant that the exception is built into the law. Unless one commits the fallacy that the status quo is necessarily good, there is no merit to the point. Laws can be amended and repealled and that was the whole point of this exercise in the first place.

UNLESS he wants to argue that even the limited amendment to the marital rape exemption here was wrong? Good luck

Three: Marital rape harms the victim more than does stranger rape, which is a crime. Comment: First, harm may not be a sufficient reason here. Husbands also have duties to wives that strangers do not. Second, the alleged greater harms of betrayal, entrapment and isolation likely presume marital sex must be consensual, rendering the argument circular.

I will wrote the following brilliant response from a member of the YoungRepublic here
"He [the letter writer] also claimed to have found 'circular thinking':

1. Being raped by your husband is shittier than being raped by a stranger
2. But it is only shittier because there is some kind of meta-consent
insofar as he is your husband
3. But rape is a sexual act without consent therefore this is circular

When in fact it is:

1. Being raped by your husband is shittier than being raped by a stranger
because you trusted your husband to treat you with love and respect.

2. Being raped by your husband is therefore both a betrayal of the respect
he owes you as a woman AND as wife.

3. Therefore marital rape, far from being an exception to rape laws, should
be treated as a more heinous form of rape."

So yeah...whatever he said above.

Four: 'Why does the system then deny her what she considers to be in her best interest?' That is, if a wife considers it in her best interest that marital rape is a crime, then marital rape should be a crime. Comment: First, the law must consider the general interest, not that of just one party. Second, wives do not dictate the law.

The general interest is the protection of the individual from crimes, one of which is the protection of the individual from even simply being touched without consent, see here the tort of trespass to the person or what is in the vernacular called battery. Mind you this goes even further than people think it goes, even a simple touch is grounds for liability where there is no consent or implied consent to some de minimis touching when in public. So the consideration here is not that of one party.

Second, one can all too easily replace the word wife with victim to see how utterly fallacious the above is. We have a trial system for a reason.

In summary, we have a case for 'marital rape is not a crime', and none for 'marital rape should be a crime'.

In summary, what we have here is a perfect example of GIGO i.e. Garbage In Garbage Out. If your assumptions and premises are wrong, then you logical analysis will necessarily lead to garbage conclusions.

Peace

Talking about Torture: Philosophical bridges in dialogue Part 1

I really should be reading my International Investment Law textbook but my mind is still rather fuzzy despite the time of the day and I'm hoping this will clear whatever remaining cobwebs so I can get down to actually reading the dang book.

As promised yesterday, I want to briefly highlight and discuss how axiomatic choices can make for secular positions that are nonetheless highly divergent in their conclusions. One of these positions in recent times has been that of torture. In particular, whether it is ethically permissible to ever use torture and if so, under what circumstances. From them, we try to fit it within the system of a liberal democracy (or any system that respects human rights because the lack of respect thereof simply means there is no bar to torture) and further within the rubric of the rule of law (the idea of the supremacy of law in the system and those rules as a constrain on arbitrary power).

So we can start first with the deontologist (moral absolutism) and contrast their perspective with act consequentialist. For the purposes of this discussion, it would suffice to say that the first term refers to the notion that principles are fixed and do not deviate simply by virtue of the situation and circumstance at hands. Thus if it is a moral good to tell the truth or not to kill or not to torture that those principles and prohibitions are absolute (as a grotesque simplification, Kantians would argue that since consequences simply cannot be controlled by the individual but only intentions can, then only intentions matters from an ethical perspective).

On the other hand, act consequentialism (or act utilitarianism) looks purely at the consequence of a particular act to determine if something is good or bad. Generally speaking, the position thus adopted can be loosely described as “the greatest good for the greatest numbers” and can be described as the ultimate form of situation ethics. These two ethical positions are both entirely subjectively (and to their proponents objectively) valid but their conclusion varies diametrically.

But on to building bridges: assuming now that one as a deontologist wishes to persuade someone of the consequentialist bent that the prohibition of torture ought to be absolute, how would I go about doing so? Since the ethical premises are different, trying to persuade the consequentialist through deontological means is going to be fairly useless. Nonetheless, I can adopt a form of consequentialism to make that particular argument. One of the charges laid at the feet of consequentialism and utilitarianism has been that nothing is prohibited if the circumstances were right. This might be true of act utilitarianism in that only the immediate consequences of the act matter BUT is in no way true from the viewpoint of rule utilitarianism. In rule utilitarianism, one calculates based on whether the harm of promulgating a rule outweighs the good, it seeks to take not just the immediate consequences but also the long term repercussions and it also tries to aggregate all likely scenarios so as not to let a truly aberrant situation skew the weighing. Thus for example while an act utilitarian will be hard-pressed to say that he would not shoot (or torture) an innocent person if it would save the lives of a entire town (or country etc.), a rule utilitarian can accept that such situations do exist but as a rule we ought not to do so because of reasons such as undermining the trust of the citizens in the system, the unlikelihood of such a situation outside of 24 etc., the backlash one would get from other members of society (or international community).

But personally, I think the situation is harder the other way round i.e. persuading a deontologist on ontological grounds why there should be no absolute prohibition on torture but merely a conditional one. That however will have to wait till tomorrow as I am absolute knackered by Tuesdays.

Peace

The Case for Euthanasia

Interesting article much of which I agree with although I wouldn't have written it the way he did (it opens it up to attacks which would be irrelevant but which I predict would happen i.e. mostly on the grounds on emotions and "faith"). At the same time, I want to offer up some common arguments against euthanasia and why I feel most of them fall on balance or are mitigated if not derogated by other considerations.

The case for euthanasia

When thinking about our 'rights' to death, are there double standards? CHARLES TAN

DEATH is perhaps the only truly universal trait that we all share and thus, identify with — regardless of culture, status, or faith — and yet it is still taboo (if not impolite) to talk about it, much less debate it, in modern society.

Something I'm somewhat familiar with if not personally then by association with persons (or a person) who thinks hard about the issues and stills has problems communicating across those reasons to that person's parents.

If you've ever watched the Animal Planet channel, you've probably gawked in disbelief at how fortunate some pets are. Paris Hilton's pooch chows down on foie gras, while 3 billion people (that's half the world) live on less than $3 a day.

But if life is good for these pets, death might be even better — for when perceived to be in agony, at least they are put out of their misery.

Humans on the other hand, have no such option.

Strangely enough, this was something I was thinking about the other day and it is indeed a rather curious turn of events as to why this is the case. Especially so when one considers that the choice to be put down is not that of the pets but those of the pet owners and the veterinarian.

So, what is an aspiring economist doing questioning the legality of euthanasia? Aren't such matters best left in the hands of ethical philosophers and moral legislators?

The way I see it, the criminalisation of euthanasia is tantamount to a violation of the free market and individual property rights, and thus warrants a rational (read: economic) review.

Oh sigh... Geez. Violation of the free market? I don't see how this can constitute a violation of the free market except in a fairly roundabout way i.e. by denying the basic premise that individuals ought to be able to make decisions for themselves (which in itself is premised on the notion that only we know what's best for us). And of all ways to put it, "a rational (read: economic) review"?! I hope that this was a matter of editing and not the actual phrasing he used.

Now, it is patently obviously that this approach is not necessarily wrong and in fact arguably has much to recommend for it. But I submit that the basis for this is not economics (the science of scarcity as it were) but on the broader notion of rationality and "public reason" i.e. arguments that would be applicable to every member of society.

The most common justification for the flagrant infringement of a basic human right — the freedom of choice — is that the average person often makes "bad" decisions, thus the need to relieve him of certain options.

However, if a decision bears little to no adverse effects on anyone but oneself, why should the government intervene?

To be sure, I believe most would find the mohawk a "bad" haircut; but the hair on someone's head is his, not mine, and his garish haircut doesn't waft into my eyes like second-hand smoke does. How he decides to treat his hair should be no business of ours.

By the same token, what a man chooses to do with his life should be treated with equal respect, for it is the individual's prerogative, and not the communal right, to decide.

Well, that's the premise for paternalism to be sure and yes paternalism by definition infringes on certain of your basic liberties. But at the same time, there might be other reasons for the derogation of a right, up to and including, because it infringes on another's right or simply another right. It is this second part of the second aspect (another right) which I feel that this article does not quite deal with, although I say this for completeness sake rather than because I feel it is fundamentally detrimental to his case.

Choice presupposes ownership. Therefore, central to the euthanasia debate is religion, for your belief in the nature of cosmic truth will ultimately determine who owns, and therefore controls, your life.

Euthanasia finds its strongest opposition in the annals of religion — and this is perhaps the reason why supposedly secular legislation is skewed so — because modern law remains primarily based upon Biblical canon.

To deny one the right of choice over his own life, is to presume that he had no ownership over it to begin with.

Followers of monotheistic faiths believe that life was bestowed by some supreme Creator, and thus, can only be rightfully taken away by Him.

I think this is about right. Strip it to its core and I get the sense that this is what most of the opposition is about. While there are secular arguments against euthanasia as evidenced below, much of it is arguably excuses rather than real reasons why suicide should not be permitted as a principle (the arguments for euthanasia are arguably stronger).

Some might argue that our emasculation with regard to birth should follow into death, but such a fatalistic view is about as bright as saying that those born into poverty should not endeavour to enrich themselves.

Instead, Life, like an inheritance, is but an endowment, and has no bearing over what you may decide to do with it.

Let me concede that we have no say in our creation — our parents did.

Life is as much a given as Death is; but while (or perhaps, because) we have no control over the former, we strive to control the latter like we attempt of everything else around us.

Oh gosh, wouldn't it be much better to say it's a non-sequitur? Here's a reformulation of the argument based on secular human rights: the basis of human rights is that of life because one has those human rights as a result of one's life (and thereby accordingly the inherent dignity of life of which human rights are suppose to protect). Secondly, life and human rights presumes the capacity for choice whereas death is the ultimate negation of that choice. That ultimate negation is therefore the premise upon which the state may derogate your choice in order to prevent the ultimate derogation through death.

But while this argument may hold water in the case of say mental ailments e.g. anorexia that is causing the person to literary starve himself or herself to death, and that this is not a choice that is in any sense of the word rational or informed, therefore the state may legitimately abrogate that "choice" and perhaps institute a regiment of forced feeding and medication.

Where the analogy holds and falls apart in euthanasia is that we are talking really about end-of-life treatment. Euthanasia occurs with terminally ill patients and we're generally talking about patients with massively diminished quality of life due to pain or incapacitation from the illness. Thus while it is is a form of suicide BUT the premise of it is that this is simply hastening the process and avoiding the associated pain and/or the mental diminshment from the heavy palliative care that is needed (query: in the absence of our capacity to think and make choices, are we still human in any sense of the word? NB: we aren't talking about infants or even the severely mentally handicapped as that would be to use exceptions to make general policy).

Everything modern medicine has achieved might seem to be in contravention of a divine order.

Consider how — and this can be empirically proven — two identical people, with identical illnesses can experience vastly different life expectancies, when given, or deprived of, access to medical amenities.

To me, this is positive proof that we are either defying some heavenly instruction by our prolonged existence, or that perhaps such an order never existed to begin with.

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that such an order exists, it must then logically follow that if He does not find the extension of our mortal existence offensive, then why should the converse be so controversial?

If we try reasoning along an atheistic slant, then the argument becomes even more potent.

No arguments from me here. I could think of a couple of apologetics and even of theodicy but hey I didn't find them persuasive them, I doubt I find them persuasive now.

Many biologists argue that what differentiates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is the capacity for emotion; and perhaps, what unites us, is the sensation of pain.

If pain truly is universal, then our double standard between animals and humans in this regard is not only hypocritical — it is downright perverse.

No it's actually worse. Every living organism feels "pain" insofar as we react to external stimuli. But when we talk about pain, what we're actually contemplating is the capacity to understand and to suffer. That's the huge difference between lobsters and "higher" organisms.

Consider this: An animal, with no means of communicating its true intent in a language intelligible by humans, except its display of perceived agony, is by default, put down if thought to be suffering; while a human, perfectly capable of communicating intent and/or visibly in pain, is by default refused any assistance for voluntary euthanasia.

Here here!

Lastly, a country that has the death penalty has no right opposing euthanasia, for one of the most popular arguments against euthanasia is that its legalisation constitutes a government sanction for suicide and therefore cheapens the inherent worth of human life.

Hmmmm, this requires quite a bit of elaboration but I think it basically fits. One counter argument is that the state is simply derogating your life in accordance with law and morality and rights when you abridge the life of another i.e. that the state is thus acting in a rightful manner and does not thus cheapen life. But by a similar token, this reasoning can be applied to a properly crafted euthanasia policy, see e.g. the Netherlands's policy or Oregon's Death with Dignity Act i.e. it ensures an informed decision and consent and that the state is simply giving effect to the intention of its citizens (or at least not interfering with them).

To digress a bit, there are other parallels to be drawn.

Some argue that the death penalty is justified in that it has a deterrent effect and that imprisoning a felon for "25 to life" is ridiculously expensive for the taxpayer to upkeep so heinous a criminal.

Actually it's 24 times more expensive to execute a person than to keep him in jail in the US. Much of that cost is due to the many levels and layers of appeals to ensure no wrongful conviction (which still doesn't keep innocent people off death row per the Innocence Project). But unless someone wants to make the argument that we wish to reduce the procedural safeguards to make it cheaper to kill someone, I can't see how this point is if nothing even more damning.

It should be obvious that the criminalisation of euthanasia has no deterrent effect on any individual, simply because it is not an act of frivolity, but one of desperation.

The able will still resort to messy alternatives or seek assistance in Holland, where euthanasia is legal. The unable must continue wallowing in pain. Even if the ban does preserve life, it most certainly robs it of dignity.

This to me is the heart of the entire issue. I think it helps to explain why euthanasia is and why it is (somewhat) different from plain suicide and I think it really helps to give some facts and figures as to existing problems to demonstrate that much of the concerns are not empirically derived.

Additionally, recall the point I made earlier. Human rights are "granted" simply by virtue of human life and the inherent dignity of human life. Thus once stripped of dignity (as is the idea behind cruel and ununsual punishments, inhumane and degrading punishment as well as torture and crimes against humanity and genocide), one is represented to be less than human, which is why we fight so hard against these violations of human rights and why even Singapore acknowledges them to be at the very core of human rights and non-derogable to boot.

Also, keeping an unwilling patient on life support ties up precious medical resources and attention, which could otherwise be used to save patients with a will to live. An outright ban is not only just cruel, it also runs in direct contradiction to the logic behind many of our existing laws and beliefs.

Cough cough...not really. As the author has already pointed out, quite a bit of our laws are indeed based on biblical notions by virtue of the fact we inherited them from the British (at least until we cut off our legal teat back in 1994 through the Applicability of English Law Act. Mind you though, we still cite English cases because that's how we were and still are trained).

But the more forceful point to be made is that we have quite a few laws that run powerfully counter to them. Abortion (public health grounds), HOTA (public health), Stem-cell (Science and public health), gambling (sad to say tourism although I like to believe that choice has a role to play in it), prostitution (public health and a sop to human fallibility of sorts. Yeah, it never ceases to amaze my foreign friends that prostitution has been legal here since the time of Raffles.)

The inconsistencies in our justification should compel us to question if our reasoning in support of the ban is valid, or if they are predicated upon traditional dogmas which are in serious need of intellectual review.

Snort. If only. Too much of religion is premised on faith and not reason (otherwise Hume's presumption of Atheism would stand).

As an atheist, I find that the absence of an afterlife in my ideology reinforces my love for life.

For only when we concede just how short life really is, do we begin to cherish what little time we have left.

Depriving us of our right to death does nothing to that effect.

Hey...atheist outing himself in the public press no less. Well given that we, the non-religious (by which I mean in Singapore as people who do not identify with any religion) make up a substantial minority in Singapore (possibly even more than the Abrahamic religions), I think it's a good idea for us to make our views heard.

The problem of course is that I don't think there is a consensus of non-religious views on almost any issue given the preponderance of axiomatic choices that one could make with regards to philosophy, epistemology (how we know things) and ethics (what is right and good and wrong and bad) that need not be premised on a divine being. So I know this other atheist (well a good number of others, including free-thinkers and agnostics and deists etc.) and we disagree on issues of the limits of freedom of speech and whether the death penalty ought to be abolished.

Nonetheless, I believe that it's generally still a good thing because given a debate between the non-religious, we simply cannot fall back on the position that God(s) said X and therefore X. Mind you, the religious don't always do so (see the point about public reason), but that's a fall back position that we don't have the luxury of. And further, in conjunction with the above proposition, without invoking God(s) said so, I can't imagine there to be a rational or moral viewpoint that cannot be adopted by one of us "godless". Instead there might be a more robust question of the sort of philosophical foundations as to what your views are founded on.

Tomorrow, I will go back on the issue of torture and explore how one can, without any religious justification (and I personally find that religion can justify almost any position that one can think of and history bears me out on this) come to differing viewpoints on the permissibility of torture and how one can still build bridges i.e. how a consequentialist can talk to an ontocologist.


Peace

Accepting cultural dichotomies - The Daily of the University of Washington Online

*face-palm; head-desk*

I had been "forced" to plow through the natural law section of a particular analytical jurisprudence textbook wherein I was of the opinion that the editor of the book was engaging in some rather dubious reasoning in certain of his essays that he had inserted into his book.

One of the more annoying parts was where he conflated moral relativism with moral nihilism where got me rather annoyed because it smacks of shoddy reasoning and more often than more was a serious case of moral imperialism at work.

And then I read this article which did precisely that, the author writing from the viewpoint of moral relativism down the merry path to moral nihilism.

While Afghan women can now legally vote, attend school and walk in public without a burqa, little has changed for women living in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan since the Taliban’s fall.

The Pashtuns — also called Pushtuns, Pakhtuns and Pathans — live along the “border zone” of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nearly 50 percent of Afghanistan’s, and 15 percent of Pakistan’s, population is Pashtun, meaning they speak Pashtu and follow Pushtunwali, a tribal code with an Islamic influence, particularly in times of war.

Relatively unchanged for centuries and hardly touched by even the British during their colonial rule, the Pashtun society follows a system emphasizing honor, respect and revenge, primarily to uphold one’s honor.

Pashtun women lack almost all rights. They can be beaten for talking back to their husbands, killed by their fathers or uncles for eloping with a man or traded to end a blood feud between clans.

According to Pashtuns interviewed by The Economist, the best way to resolve inter-clan disputes is through jirgas, or tribal courts. Often the court orders a clan to trade a 15-year-old, 10-year-old and 5-year-old girl with the enemy clan, which is called lund pur, or “wet debt.”

Pashtuns believe this exchange creates peace between clans because three generations will be connected through marriage. As one Pashtun proverb states, “Blood cannot wash away blood, but blood can be turned into love.”

Although many reviled the system under the Taliban, many Pashtuns opposed the Taliban’s Shariah — Islamic law — as being too soft. Within Shariah, women are allowed to own land, widows are not required to marry their deceased husband’s brothers or cousins and the trade of girls to settle disputes is not allowed, unlike the Pashtun system. In this society, women are property, forever tied to their fathers, uncles or husbands.

As a woman who believes in equal rights across the genders, I am internally conflicted when I learn about societies like the Pashtun’s, or other societies that have practices such as clitoral circumcision, which prevents a female from achieving orgasm.

Do I have a right, however, to impose my Western standards on another culture? I think not. Although I am strongly opposed to these practices, I don’t believe any Western influence would change the situation.

The Pashtuns have waged bloody wars against governments and groups that attempt to oversee or control their lives. Their cultural emphasis on honor and upholding honor at all costs supports their battles against foreign powers — even the United States.

To change their practices would require oppressing their entire culture.

Taking a step back and looking at our own society, one can find structured patterns of behavior, albeit at a completely different level. The average American child goes to school, then to college, gets married, buys a house and has kids. Until our parents’ generation, most women stayed at home, cleaned and cared for children.

Although we have the freedom to follow a different path, many follow this systematic process without question. In cultures as strict and stringent as the Pashtun’s, no one questions his or her role in life, and actions and decisions follow a scripted tribal code.

Undoubtedly, our culture is diametrically opposed to the Pashtun’s, but there exists a structure in every culture, and to force it to change is to threaten the society itself.

For example, clitoral circumcision is common throughout Northern Africa, and many human rights groups have tried to spread awareness to women about their bodily rights. The great majority of women believe these Western groups are crazy. To them, clitoral circumcision transforms a young girl into a woman, and they choose to partake in the ceremony.

Culture structures our daily lives, and by acknowledging this, we can begin to understand why people participate in activities that we consider inhumane or unethical.

Although my cultural preconditions register certain activities as wrong, others from another culture may see our daily activities as obscene.

I don’t believe I have any right to judge.

Man....talk about giving fuel to the fire. Here was my reply:

It is hard enough to get people to accept moral relativism and multi-culturalism without having to repeatedly defend against charges that it leads to moral nihilism, which (rightly or wrongly), the article gives as its overarching impression.

Assuming that we take at face value her asserted conclusion that she does not believe she has a right to judge, the question remains whether this is a necessary outcome of her moral relativism argument. After all, one could easily argue and accept that a liberal democracy is the most satisfying contingent framework on the very basis of moral relativity itself. For if all norms are subjectively valid, this does not presuppose that one necessarily has to take a hands-off approach because actions accrue as a result of those norms. Those norms in turn affect material tangible beings we like to call humans. Therefore, the appropriate question should what system best allows for all these norms to coexist to their fullest extent because we still have to adjudicate between these various norms if for no other reason than the fact that we co-exist. Therefore a liberal democracy almost by definition allows for a framework of such coexistence by protecting minority viewpoints and culture from the majority while also protecting individuals from oppressive minority cultures e.g. honour killings.

Even if we accept that culture exists outside of individuals and that it remains separate and immutable, it does not answer the question of whether that culture deserves to exist in the first place or that the culture ought to remain immutable and unchanging. Patrick Glenn argues that culture and traditions are composed essentially of information and that unless one if a fundamentalist, that information will change over time and with exposure to other cultures. It’s also worth noting that he denounces both the moral absolutist approach as well as the moral nihilistic approach.

But what is most disturbing in this "I have no right to judge approach" is that it ultimately denies the capacity and capability of every individual to determine at least for herself or himself the validity of norms and the closest approximation of Truth through reason. It denies self-actualization and it denies capacity to act in the face of true evil and oppression. If Ms. McKean does not mean to go so far, she might well like to issue a clarification or a correction.

Thus a moral relativist approach can be compatible with "imposing" a worldview or a framework wherein every individual can achieve freedom of thought and conscience. These things cannot occur where a society is coercive, repressive, thought controlling and totalitarian in those regards.

Respect for a culture does not mean remaining blind to its flaws.

Addendum: Here's a well written response over at The Broken Watch taking issue with certain unclear points of Ms. McKean's article (conflation of ontological arguments with ones based on utility) as well as an examination of the genetic fallacy i.e. just because something is from a particular place does not i) reflect that is is only contextually valid and ii) reflect its inherent validity or lack thereof.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day and this is his famous Speech on the Mall a.k.a. I Have A Dream speech. I have chosen not to use the audio recording simply because I believe here the words are so powerful that it does not require an orator of Dr. King's calibre to make it resound.

This is the remarkable power of good rhetoric, not just polemics and sound bites.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Philip Bowring: Malaysia's racial politics - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

It's a good article and I do generally agree with what it says. I think it says alot about the politics when there is a racial government party and a racial opposition party e.g. a Chinese-aligned party in UMNO and a Chinese aligned party in opposition.

But what (to me anyway) is interesting about the article is the legal stuff and the legal part is what is truely fascinatiing. Here's the paragraph in question:

Currently attention in Malaysia is focused on a high-profile case, now before the Appeals Court, as to whether a person has the right to cease to be a Muslim and (in this case) become a Christian and hence no longer subject to the Shariah courts. At the most obvious level it is a clash between a secular Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion and the notion of apostasy - that a Muslim must remain Muslim - in a country where Islam has a privileged position.

If anyone actually cares about it, I will point you to the constitutional article in question. Recall that our Constitution is effectively taken lock, stock and barrel from Malaysian Constitution EXCEPT for the parts we changed and this is one of them.

But anyway, since Islam has a privileged position (very privileged actually, another thing that we changed in our Constitution), calling it a secular Constitution is kinda pushing it but I suppose if one considers the alternative to be a theocretic one then secular is fine for the purpose of the article.

Back to the freedom of religion clause in the Malaysian Constitution, this issue is not new and in fact such a case has come up before the Malaysian Supreme Court before. The decision then was that freedom of religion, or more accurately, the freedom to propergate and practice a religion DID NOT include the right to leave that religion.

The reason I mention this is because of the recent fiasco that occured in Malaysia recently when a inter-faith organisation tried to bring up dialogue on this issue. Of course, some called them rabble-rousers and claimed that the manner in which they went about doing it was inciting violence. Tensions apparently got so bad that the PM Abdullah Badawi effectively just shut the entire thing down.

This, in fact, was one of the reasons why I am ever so concerned when speech is silence because it incites violence as opposed to merely provoking violence. The distinguishing feature is that one calls of violence, the other because the other side is unable to deal with it without violence.

Another sad thingw as how people actually considered what that group was proposing as "an attack on Islam" which commits what is called the fallacy of false equivocation. It's the exact same way as a creationist who uses the argument against me that "I have faith in Science" in the same way that I deny their "faith in Religion". The difference is that my "faith" is borned out of the system of open inquiry, checks and balances and the peer-review system and a desire for truth. In that regard, I "accept" Science is more accurate.

Similarly, this is an "attack" on Islam only insofar as it restricts their right and privilege as a religion (yeah, it's kinda vague but acceptable for the purpose of this argument), it is not an attack by preventing adherents from preaching or practicing the core tenents of their faith. Thus the fallacy equivalancy.

If one wants to consider this an "attack" just because adherents should be allowed to get out of the religion, then one must similarly accept that it is an attack on all the other religions that preach evangelism because you are restricting their ability to gain new adherents.

But that's how the world works and the dismaying about about the Fundie Word Redefinition Project. But anyway, now that I know of this case, I'll try to follow up on it closely and see what comes out of it.

Peace

TODAYonline: Talking Sex with Mom and Dad
by Frances Ong Hock Lin

This should be fun....heh heh. But evil malicious thoughts aside, I'm going to use this as a launching pad to discuss one of the oddities of some discussions I've had with social and religious conservatives and the somewhat contradictory stance taken with regards to the Naturalist argument a.k.a. the Naturalist fallacy i.e. if it is natural it must be right.

An example would be a discussion on homosexual rights where I exercised my right to free speach and basically ripped into a truly horrid post arguing against homosexuals having rights (on the basis that their act was unnatural and therefore their act should not be condoned etc.). But in another post on the same thread, I (amongst) some others) was challenged to provide a defence to rape on the argument that since it is natural i.e. baboons amongst other primates and some other species use rape as a form of assertion of dominance, keeping control of the pack and ensuring their genes can passed on.

Well the obvious answer is that some animals mate for life. A better argument is that it causes harm to 3rd parties and hence flouts the Harm Principle or some varient of the Golden Rule can be used here.

But more intrinsically, the argument is quite a bit of bunk because just as something happens that way, does not necessarily mean it ought to happen that way. Dawkin, author of the Selfish Gene, called by others a militant atheist and a believer in determinism and reductionism, nevertheless argues that as humans and bestowed (or at least having the appearance) of rationality and logic can and should transcend such naturalist tendancies. And I think that is right.

Anyway, I make no apologies for ripping into such posts. I simply get annoyed when our Sedition Act protects the supposed vulnerability of our fragile social, cultural and religious peace while denying equivalent protection to a much more vulnerable class i.e. sexual minorities. But that's a post for another time.

And now, back to the post....

The other day, my seven-year-old son told me he can only have "baby sex" when he is married, while it is perfectly okay to have "talking sex" all the time. I was caught off-guard and wondered what he meant.

But I soon recalled that in one of our many talks with our children, we had made a distinction between social intercourse (talking sex) and sexual intercourse (baby sex). We just hope that when our son announces to the whole world that he is having "sex" with his parents, we will not be arrested!

I don't see anything particularly wrong with pre-marital sex, not considering the day and age in which we live in, mostly the ready availability of multiple forms of contraception. The other stuff can be handled by education.

We have this long-standing tradition that when our children reach the age of eight, we would answer any question they have about sex — a mere three-letter word, yet much misunderstood

In Singapore, there is an interesting dichotomy. Teenagers and young unmarried adults are actively having sex and going for abortions, while married Singaporeans are too tired to even reproduce enough to replace themselves.

Um...why is this even a dichotomy? It's basically a false one for a number of reasons.
1. Pareto's Law. For most issues, it tends to be a disproportionately small number that account of a disproportionately large number of that incidences. Which is why, the old stat that one in three marriages in America end is divorce is very misleading. Similarly, five programmes make up 80% of the US Budget, which has led Paul Krugman to describe it as a huge pension fund (Social Security is the second largest programme) with an army.

2. Who has and get abortions? Her argument only works if it is indeed true that "teenagers and young unmarried adults are actively having sex and going for abortions" WHEREAS "married Singaporeans are too tired to even reproduce enough to replace themselves". And in fact, for this comment to be even not misleading, the first category has got to be more or even substantially more than the second.

Why are we parents so afraid to admit that we enjoy the art of making babies? Like many, at first I felt shy letting my children know we have an active sex life. It was also difficult to see my children as potentially active sexual beings; like my parents before me, it is more comforting to think of one's children as asexual.

Sex is not merely for procreation. And the sooner we can around to admitting that, the sooner we can have proper comprehensive sexual education, one in particular that does not simply involve the sort that believes that sex equals tab A inserting into slot b.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering whether she really "talks sex" with her kids or whether her notion of sex equals simply vaginal intercourse. That's a very dangerous stance to take. We pretty much know of the dangers of the transmission of STDs through unprotected vaginal intercourse, but the risk is still there with unprotected oral sex.

Studying in a convent in the 1970s, our only sources of information about sex were our friends, magazines and, for some of us, our boyfriends.

Fortunately, the convent had a good sex education programme. The irony of it was that it was the nun and priest — having taken vows of celibacy — who were the most open adults we knew on this issue.

I'll take her word on this but yes, that's truly truly ironic. I've also always wondered about RC priest giving marriage advice given that they are not allowed to marry either.

From them, we learnt to understand our own sexuality, that being masculine or feminine was not a crime, and being interested in the opposite sex was part of growing up. When my husband and I were courting, we were sorely tempted like any hot-blooded teenagers. However, we choose not to engage in pre-marital sex because we were not sure that we would be marrying each other.

The first sentence must be understood in a very particular context. Google her name and look at some of her previous articles. When she says feminine, she means the subservient sort (submissive wife anyone?). I'm not sure what she means by masculinity but I fear for the worst.

And I think it's rather cute that pre-marital sex is alright if you know you're going to marry your partner. Kinda sweet actually. But still, fully misguided. In fact, I'm still waiting for a moral argument against pre-marital sex that does not involve either an appeal to some religious authority or text or based upon some truly fallacious logic like the "meaning" of marriage.

Now we are married, we are glad we had waited. We need not live with the fact that we had a shotgun marriage or that we were pressured to get married because we'd had sex.

Hmmmm...ho hum. See above.

Sex education is more than the process of acquiring information. The education system is doing its part in systematically providing our students with relevant information.

Oh really now. *Snort* If sending in a Catholic group to give a lecture on sexual education is actually providing people with relevant information, I'll eat my socks. Unless one considers lying to students a good thing to scare them away from a misconception of sex. Click here for my take on what happened at AJC.

But, sex education should also be about developing attitudes and beliefs about sex, sexual identity, relationships and intimacy. It is equipping our children with a set of skills so that they can make educated choices about their sexual behaviour. Moreover, they have to feel confident about acting on these choices, and not be tricked or pressed into doing something they might regret later.

I absolutely agree. But see the next paragraph on how we diverge.

That's why sex education must begin at home. Sex between two happily married people is so seldom portrayed on TV shows or other mass media; instead, teenage or pre-marital sex is glorified.

And the problem with that is? The problem is that the premise on which she makes this assertion is never substantiated. I would love to see a post on why pre-marital sex is necessarily bad. Heck even Asst Prof Tan Seow Hon couldn't do that in her last article in the ST.

As parents, the best gift we can give our children is to help them understand that sex is best enjoyed within a marriage. Hopefully, this will plant in them a value system that does not include sex as a tool to gain approval or acceptance.

Bah humbug, more unsubstantiated assertions.

At the age of five or six, we teach our children to respect their bodies and that no one should be allowed to touch them. We introduce the subject so that they do not find it difficult, shameful or mysterious. When they reach their eighth birthday, they are allowed to ask us any questions about sex, and we answer them as best we can — factually, truthfully and sincerely.

This information is better coming from us than from friends or strangers.

With our three teenagers, we acknowledge that if they want to engage in pre-marital sex, we won't be there to stop them. This in no way implies that we encourage them to have sex. But if they choose not to heed our advice against it, we want them to protect themselves against Aids and sexually transmitted diseases.

We hope that having cultivated the value that sex is the deepest form of communication between two people in love, our children will not be seduced by the heat of the moment and regret for the rest of their life the choice they make.

Okay, getting repetitive now. So let me end here.

Peace

Online Story: Not enough babies? Change the liberal abortion law to solve problem
by Mark Chen Chih-chuan

*Wince*...not again. Alright, time to bring on some logic enforcement.

I listened to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally speech and understood the needs of our nation.

Among the repeated calls to have sufficient and competent talent and a self-replacing labour force, I find the call to have more babies most reasonable.

Um....yeah...okay. Babies good! More babies better! Especially for the economy in terms of labour?

I believe that the notion of nationality and statehood have weaved such a stranglehold that when it comes to various factors of production, while we accept the free movement of trade, goods and service, we refuse to similarly do so for people.

I don't see any necessary reason for why of all the factors listed, having more babies is necessarily the most "reasonable". I mean, how about explaining and providing a definition of reasonable.

In debate (or for that matter in law), we would by now be either screaming for a yardstick or criteria by which we could measure this "soft term". Well that, or gleefully rubbing our palms at the thought of our ability to impose our own definition on it. And then to bill our clients good money for it.

The need is very real and it can be met by all Singaporeans. There is a need to review the Termination of Pregnancy Act. There are three reasons: Demographics, eugenics, and ethics.

Brief answer: No, ewww no and no.

The 1974 Termination of Pregnancy Act states that a registered doctor can perform an abortion on receiving written consent from a pregnant woman.

Those above 14 and below 21 years can have an abortion without the consent of a parent/guardian. In fact, it is the only procedure in Singapore that does not require such a consent.

And I say thank goodness for that. Teenage pregnancies are already horrible enough without having to drag the parents in. Especially if they are not understanding and supportive. It stands to reason as, if they were indeed as such, requirement of consent would be superfluous as they would be notified and consulted. It is in those cases where they are not that the lack of parental consent is important.

Of course there's also the argument based upon the distasteful notion that the parents had something to do with the teen being pregnant in the first place.

On 23 May 2005, Channel NewsAsia (CNA) quoted a study conducted by Singapore National University Hospital which showed that about 14,000 pregnancies are terminated every year, accounting for one-fourth of the total.

According to Mr Lee, there were 36,000 births last year - 14,000 shy of the needed 50,000. This is simple demographics and economics - no supply = no product = no self-replacing labour force.

That's what a) immigration, b) a shift to a knowledge based economy so that c) people can work to an older age are for.

The CNA report quoted the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Society as saying that over 1,000 tertiary-educated married women went for abortions in 2004, tripling the number of 300 in 1988, while those who were not as educated tended to use contraceptives.

If we have more than trippled the number of tertiary educated married women since 1988, then the rate has actually fallen.

In fact, thanks to the internet here's something all too relevant and destructive of his entire chain of argument. From Today we learn that they checked with the Department of Statistics and discovered that the number of university-educated women has increased from 17,300 in 1990 to 68,900 in 2000.

So this was close to a 4 (3.98 to 2 s.f.) fold increase (and by now would be much higher) and thus we can conclude that the rate of tertiary educated married women using birth control as a form of abortion has fallen.

But furthermore, our letter writter conceeds the existance of something that's prevents more births than abortion at any rate - contraception. I note that he doesn't advocate their ban.

A 2001 MCDS survey on social attitudes of Singaporeans entitled 'Attitudes on Family' found that the "pattern of educational differences in attitudes towards having children [was] similar to the national population statistics (Census 2000) that showed a strong negative correlation between family size and the educational level of females, with university graduates having the fewest children on average."

Well, we could prevent women from getting too smart and wanting fewer children (which presumes causation even though that's not a necessity). But let's give Mark the benefit of the doubt and elevate this argument to that of abortion being the least worse policy alternative.

The problem with the argument is that it would in fact conceed that it is probably the least efficacious of all possible policies, given that the low birth rate is multi-causal.

This may be one of the reasons why policies of longer maternity leave and infant care subsidies are not sufficient incentives, in particular, on abortion.

This seriously doesn't make any sense whatsoever. He's effectively trying to tie two correlations (note, the above numbers are not necessarily causal i.e. women who do not want children may be more likely to get a teritiary degree for example) and then pull a massive non-sequitor.

Unless you can establish that tertiary educated women are in fact more likely now than ever (and presumably getting worse) to resort to abortion as a form of birth control (which we learn is plain wrong) AND that they would not simply switch to using contraception when abortions are banned (or simply pop across the causeway for an abortion) makes this an exercise in fruitity anyway.

The implication of this, no matter how distasteful, is clear and it echoes a similar fear in the past that led to eugenic policies.

Argh!!!! HOW HOW HOW?!!!! Show the effing link!

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said in his memoirs "Our brightest women were not marrying and would not be represented in the next generation. The implications were grave."

Definately not one of his best statements ever. I take quite a bit of offence at this because my parents were blue collared workers (who became white collar ones by dint of effort and constant learning) and who nevertheless managed to bring whatever intellectual genetic potential to fruit.

Assuming the truth of and accepting the eugenics argument, there would be a lack of sufficient and competent talent with a liberal abortion policy. In a Straits Times report on 12 November 2005, Ministry of Health figures showed that in five years, an average of over 1,500 teenagers had abortions annually, about 10% of the national figure.

*Sigh* no there won't be.

According to a 31 July 2006 Straits Times report, Minister Yaacob Ibrahim cited 2004 figures showing that 434 Malay girls had abortions, forming about one-third of all teen abortions.

This caused the Muslim community to act to curb teenage sex. There was an ethical consideration.

Or perhaps we could adopt a comprehensive sex education policy instead (demonstrated to be more effective anyway) of pussy footing around on the basis of religion and "morality".

In his third National Day Rally speech, Mr Lee called on Singaporeans to "hold firm to our cultural and moral values." None of the ethnic groups, based on their traditional, cultural and ethical values, nor religious groups, have ever permitted an abortion policy as liberal as that of the 1974 Termination of Pregnancy Act.

I sense bull here. The Jews for example don't hold that the fetus is a person until it's born and Islam believes that ensoulment occurs in the 3rd trimester.

It would be incongruent to hold firmly to ethical mores without the moral courage to stand upon the cultural and moral foundations of the people.

Handwaving here. Piety is not substitute for reality and sound policy.

Although the Act may not be done away with, it is not inconceivable that it be reviewed seriously. There has been a lot of hype about the future economy, foreign ability, basic courtesy, overseas family, new-fangled technology, and political civility. But a solution staring the nation in its face is to preserve local fertility.

Note: all of the reasons above actually makes local fertility a moot issue.

Review the Termination of Pregnancy Act.

Review your entire argument please!

Peace.

SSRN-Porn Up, Rape Down by Anthony D'Amato

Disclaimer: I haven't read it yet.

Oh this is simply delicious! If nothing else, it at least destroys the assumption that pornography leads to (causatively or correlatively) an increase in rape.

The abstract reads:

The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.

Anyway, offhand I can think of a few ways to poke theoretical holes in it e.g. whether the measurements include other lesser forms of sex crimes and whether various forms of pornography have a mutually cancelling effect. So I'm going to read it before any further comments.

Online Story: Education works better than moralising to prevent spread of Aids

Well, my letter was published albeit online but it's been edited to such an extent that the bite and sting of my original letter is dimished quite drastically.

Take a look for yourself to decide. The letter is blockquotes is the one published. The one after that in plain text was what I sent.

I read the letter "Don't fan flames of lust. There's a link between Aids and 'Crazy Horse' show" by Ho Ting Fei with dismay at his assertions (ST Online Forum, Aug 22).

Despite acknowledging that it is nothing more than a "bad coincidence", how does it follow that lowering the age limit to allow adults to watch a cabaret show leads to an increase in Aids? The lack of substantiation in the "link" between Aids and the 'Crazy Horse' show is telling.

There are many reasons for the rise in the number of Aids infection and its detection: an increase in the population, globalisation, travel, access to doctors and healthcare, better diagnostic equipment.

Can we really attribute the increase in Aids cases to the "decline in moral standards"?

I am glad I live in a country which takes a pragmatic stance and does not deny the HIV-Aids link. I hope that science will be the basis of our approach to public policy.

Educate our youths on this basis without restricting the right of adults to entertain themselves. Education is always better than moralising.

In short, be less prudish with less moralising, and more education. That's the key to keeping HIV Aids in check.

And this was what I originally sent in...

I read the letter, "Don't fan flames of lust. There's a link between AIDS and 'Crazy Horse' show" by Ho Ting Fei (Dr) with quite some dismay at the assertions made to demonstrate a non-sequitor, all this despite acknowledging that it is nothing more than a "bad coincidence". For how does it necessarily follow that lowering the age limit to allow legal adults to watch a cabaret show lead to an increase in AIDS?

The lack of substantiation is particularly telling when all we have seen to demonstrate a "link" between AIDS and "Crazy Horse" is the sentence, "If we are honest and truthful to ourselves, we cannot fail to see why AIDS and the "Crazy Horse" show are not so distant and unconnected" i.e. an assertion and a fallacious appeal to emotions couched as a rhetorical question.

The rise in the number of infections is due to a lot of reasons. Strip away things like an increase in the population, globalisation and easy travel making sure the virus spreads, more ready access to doctors and healthcare, better diagnostic equipment and thus more and earlier diagnosis. And can we really be certain that there is any statistically signicant increase left to deal with, much less attribute to this nebulous "decline in moral standards"?

I am glad I live in a country which takes a pragmatic stance and does not deny the HIV-AIDS link much less the efficacy of Antiretroviral drugs. And I hope that science will be the basis of our approach to public policy.

And hopefully, on that basis educate our youth and at the same time extend the scope of permissible action that legally recognised adults can carry out. Education is invariably always better than moralising and piety.

In short, less prudishness, less moralising, more reality and more education. That's the key to keeping HIV in check.

So what can we conclude? Well just possibly, they hate latin terms and logic enforcement. Heh.

Peace.

Online Story: Don't fan flames of lust. There's a link between AIDS and 'Crazy Horse' show
by Ho Ting Fei (Dr)

And I thought medical doctors were supposed to be better educated and trained than this? I mean, even granting the constrains of an ST letter, surely this could have been better argued?

In The Straits Times' reports on August 17, there were simultaneous reports of "sex infections on the rise among teenagers" and "R18 rating for cabarets".

This is a bad coincidence but a good opportunity for us to examine the reasons behind why HIV AIDS is on the increase in Singapore.

*Snort* first he acknowledges it is a bad coincidence and then he uses that purported link to demonstrate a non-sequitor. See below.

More disturbingly, it is on the rise in young people. There are various reasons for this phenomenon and some are obvious. The public has, at various times, expressed its opinion and cautioned about the decline of moral standards in society.

There are indeed various reasons for this, but what is this nebulous "decline of moral standards" that he claims and more importantly, how is it necessarily true that it (whatever it is) can be shown to be the major causal link for a rise in AIDS. Especially when there are much better arguments and fingers to point at.

The rise in the number of infections is due to a lot of reasons. Strip away things like an increase in the population, globalisation and easy travel making sure the virus spreads, more ready access to doctors and healthcare, better diagnostic equipment and thus more and earlier diagnosis. And can we really be certain that there is any statistically signicant increase left to deal with, much less attribute to a "decline in moral standards"?

Minister Dr Balaji Sadasivan has revealed the statistics and voiced his concerns about HIV infection in Singapore.

I am sure he and other healthcare personnel realise that if HIV infection is allowed to break through the barriers to affect the people, it will be out of control one day.

Which is why I'm so glad I don't live in a country like South Africa where the the President denies the HIV-AIDS link and the Minister for Health thinks prefers traditional and natural cures (that do nothing by the way) to the "poisons" of Antiretroviral drugs (that by the way really do work wonders i.e. from bedridden to climbing mountains).

The race to develop medical treatment may not catch up with the wild spread of HIV. Even if there is a cure for AIDS, prevention will generally remain a more efficient and cost-effective means of controlling the disease.

HIV AIDS is a social problem as much as it is a medical problem. If we are honest and truthful to ourselves, we cannot fail to see why AIDS and the "Crazy Horse" show are not so distant and unconnected, and why by giving more Singaporeans, especially youths, the chance to see the "Crazy Horse" revue is not as innocuous as it seems to be.

This is a terribly disappointing line of argumentation. It's full of insinuation and massively light on substantiation. An appeal to common sense tends to fail because common sense often isn't. Sometimes a counter-intuitive approach is necessary. And besides, it's been demonstrated that abstinence and pro-abstinence education policies don't work even if and especially if one looks at cross-State data in the USA with regards to STD and unwanted pregnancy rates.

Anyway. Hello?! Age of consent is 16 and prostitution is legal in Singapore! And you've picked Crazy Horse?! Only if you have a preexisting mindset that tries to deny reality and believes that the way to prevention is abstinence (much easier to believe in peace in the Middle East)

To me the introduction of the new R18 (Cabaret) rating is not just an act of bad taste but more a case of irresponsibility towards the youths and our population in general.

Let us not fan the flames of lust and temptation, particularly in our youths, and yet watch in desperation and despair at the raging fires of HIV infection.

Then teach them to handle it?! Education is always better than moralising and piety. Mind you, you're an adult at 18 and can be sentenced to death as an adult for a capital crime. You serve NS and can kill on orders, get killed on orders. You can smoke, drink, drive and skydive and do a lot of other things that could get you horribly killed or injured.

This last two paragraphs show exactly where the prudish, moralising doctor stands. I simply say this. Less prudishness, less moralising, more reality and more education. That's the key to keeping HIV in check.

Peace

The Electric New Paper, Singapore - The Electric New Paper News: We must make kids realise the value of life

I now blame CL for telling me about the post, it's worst than I thought. Full of emotion rhetoric and general BS. Here's why I think her arguments are bad.

I'm taking my information from Religious Tolerance

DO you know how babies are killed inside their mothers' wombs? Well, let me tell you.

No you don't, you simply give an emotional and grotesque description that vastly oversimplifies the issues and ignores something I like to call...oh, reality and facts?

The fact you call them "babies" show very clearly what you do not know. I challenge you to hold up a blastocyst and call it the equivalent of a real baby. In fact I challenge you to say that you will save a petri-dish of 15 blastocysts over a one-day old baby from a burning building.

Once a baby is three months old, he can feel a pin prick. He likes to dance. He swims and kicks in the tiny pool his mother made for him.

I call bullshit. There simply isn't enough synapse connections to do all these things you ascribe to the fetus. It's a fetus and not a child for that very simple reason and thus there isn't the sort of higher level thinking that enables all these stupid emotive and charge verbs you ascribe to it. Dance? Bollocks. Feel a pin prick? Only in the same way a touch-me-not closes up when you touch it. Swim? Bull. Sorry, science doesn't help you here lady, only your personal attribution based on your religious belief.

Human life, as we should recall, it defined as anything with human dna with it, that includes your hair and your nails and your epidermis. So you kill "human life" every single time you wash your hands.

What we're taking about is a human person and that's where the mess comes in. When does personhood occur? And you know she's on shaky grounds when you refuses to answer the question. No go jose, then your entire piece becomes yet another just so story.

Because if a fetus is not a person, then you simply cannot put a false equivallency of abortion with murder. And it becomes like any othe action that ends human life.

His death is by dismemberment - his warm cave is prised open, his head scrapped off. Then everything - the tiny torso, hands too small for nails, and legs which will never tread on anything other than water - is sucked out.

Yet more emotional rhetoric. A clear sign of argumentative weakness if I ever saw one.

Here's something to keep in mind. Half of pregnancies don't even come to term because of spontaneous abortions. Even where abortions are volitional, the vast majority come prior to week 9 where abortions are often induced chemically through pills. So yes, go on and push your reality of how things work in lieu of actual arguments.

His mother never felt him kick. She can almost believe her son never existed.

Another foetus makes it to 24 weeks - or six months old. She pats her tummy, scratches her cheek and rubs her nose. She can almost open her eyes.

Surely she is too old to be killed. Or is she? In Singapore, she could still be aborted. Did you know this?

Many of you would have averted your eyes, shuddered at the graphic details.

But don't. Don't look away because you need to know.

Now I'm mad, this is smug sanctinomy at its best and it's a damning indictment of her character. This ain't about love or what not, this ain't about trying to prevent abortion, this is about a holier-than-thou attitude.

And yeah, I say that abortions up till 6 months are perfectly legitimate because the fetus isn't viable yet (granted that science is pushing the limits), but unless you want to surgically remove the very pre-mature "baby" and artificially incubate it and risk its health and future, I say the choice is ultimately the mother's.

The state could come in but beware the slippery slope there. Once the coersive power of the state comes in, there is no guarantee where it's going to stop. Perhaps it starts with a ban on smoking and drinking, then maybe it creeps into a total prohibition on mothers' travelling by car, and hey while we're at it, let's just keep them in birthing centres so they can't eat fast food or risk the fetus' life.

Abortion is not about sucking out a mass of cells and then flushing it down the loo. It is not about regaining your freedom to pursue your own life.

It is about ending the life of a baby. I have known this since I was a teenager.

More than 20 years ago, I remember a group of us CHIJ Toa Payoh girls huddled in a dark room, looking in horror at the tubs of little bloody babies - dead, eyes shut and arms twisted. The tubs stood as high as a man, and there was no dignity, no grief from the multiple tiny deaths.

We were watching a video on how abortions were carried out. Then and there, we were confronted with the consequences of wrong choices.

Yet more handwaving.....

Today, teenage sex is real. A survey last year showed that 8 per cent of local women had unplanned pregnancies before they were 16.

So what?

I'm currently writing an article and one of its core premises is that an examination of principles is vital if you want to derive an "ought" from an "is" or in other words, a normative statement froma positive one.

She doesn't have one beyond a "pious" "life is precious" assertion.

Aborting their baby is one way of escaping their responsibilities. Abandoning their newborn is another.

And your sanctimonious article makes things worse.

The latter, of course, is a far more horrific course of action. Death is slow but certain - and completely unnecessary, since there are groups willing to take in unwanted newborns.

How many babies abandoned died in that fashion? Or is another one of your just-so stories?

How do we address the problem?

And here we go into the depths of non-logic.

First, most immediately, we have to make mothers aware that someone will care for their unwanted babies. Just give birth safely, make a phone call, and someone will come and get the baby.

*Roll eyes*, let's engage in reality here. And in the process they have to destroy their lives by a) gettting kicked out of the family or b) forced to marry a man she does not want, c) suffers complications from pregnancy (because something the anti-choice side doesn't like to take about is the 5% severe complication risk that threaten fatal repecussion for both baby and mother), d) forced to give up school etc. etc.

Or hey, there's always the back alley abortion clinic which could kill her.

"Destroying" one "life" apparently is very bad. In which case I say two is worse.

Second, a more long-term issue, parents must teach their children the value of life.

I do, which is why I support a mother's right to choice.

Conception is one possible consequence of sex, even protected sex. If you insist on having sex before you are married, then you have to be prepared to be a parent.

Getting into an accident is one of the possible consequences of driving a car or riding a bike, and yes people died or suffer various injuries. Now, I doubt anyone would legitimately argue that we should let those people suffer and refuse treatment to them for whatever reason, even if it were pure stupid negligence.

Getting an abortion is too easy now. Teenagers do not have to tell their parents. They walk into a hospital or a clinic, get counselled and then two days later, go in for the procedure.

Ease of access does not equate to ease of abortion. Note how easily she glides over the fact that a) there's a counselling session and b) a waiting period.

Many people support abortion because they think it is about the rights of the mother versus the rights of the baby. Or esoteric arguments about when an egg and a sperm, surely lifeless things, become a life.

But abortion is not about whether a woman - a girl sometimes - has the right to choose what she wants to do. It is about whether she takes responsibility for what she has already done.

Translation: I don't have a principle to stand on.

Shall we also force the guy to marry her? Or maybe let's take a leave from the old testament and get the rapist to marry her if necessary (and oh yes, making payment to the father at the same time).

There are many ways to take responsibility, one of which is to learn from the mistake rather than committing it again. Or worse, to force the person to live with the mistake and destroy her life.

PARENTS MUST KNOW

There are three things that should be changed to help her do that.

First, anyone who wants an abortion must be made to watch a video about the procedure. Second, parental consent should be compulsory. This is already the case in 28 states in America.

Why? Another assertion and worse still, one that would hurt the most vulnerable section of women seeking abortions i.e. the young.

Also, the percentage of abortion seekers under the age of 18 is less than 10%, so can we say unfair discrimination?

Now, I could make an argument on why it is constitutionally not prohibited or one based on in loco parentis (although given that the parent is not obliged to maintain the child and the child's child, I'm not certain why this necessarily applies) but that's to confuse the status quo for the necessarily good.

In Singapore, which has a more conservative stance on so many things, a pregnant teenager who wants an abortion doesn't even need to alert her parents.

For good reason. It's a vulnerable class of persons that the law should help protect. Stop destroying more young lives already!

Third, we ought to encourage religious groups to share their stance on abortions and family life. In temples, mosques and churches, religious leaders should teach what their holy books say about sex and babies.

*Bwah ha ha ha* Bloody fundies and their code words. But seriously go ahead, but I don't think you'll like the answer. Muslims believe that ensoulment occurs just before the 3rd trimester, so it sure as hell ain't murder. Jews believe personhood occurs at childbirth.

I personally think if I were an omnibenevolent deity who cares, I wouldn't make the rate of spontaneous abortions as high as 50%.

In all schools, students - boys as well as girls - should be shown tapes of what abortion is like. What it does to a baby, as well as to the girl's body.

Sure, but that's only one half of the solution.

If you expect a pro-abstinence policy to work (which seems to be the implication from the first statement), then you naivity is just plain stupid. Put in a comprehensive sex-education policy, make contraceptives even more widely available and promote their usage and then we'll come and talk.

At home, parents should show their children pictures of themselves fresh out of the womb.

'This is you as a baby. We love you, because you were made from our flesh and blood,' parents should say.

The most important lesson of all?

If you love babies, you will not kill them, no matter how 'inconvenient' they appear to be at the time.

*Roll eyes*....I'm so going to puke. Yeah, abortions are taken very very lightly, and yes here I go to get pregnant so I can get an abortion and plan a post-abortion party.

Fuck it.