Posts tagged children

Why “Anti” is the ignorant approach to Abortion and the proper approach.

  Now I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of killing anyone. I find it highly unfortunate that we at times place ourselves in situations where people are killed or where it becomes difficult to support the sustained life of a certain person. It’s a shame and indeed is a global problem.

  However on that note of killing there is another major problem with (at the very least) the US’s general take on problems. Militant cures to social problems has been an issue that has unfortunately reared its ugly head many times in the short History of the US. We often have situations that require a small amount of regulation and instead assault them with a violent fervor that is unnecessary and in the end entirely destructive and unhelpful.

  While this might look like its obviously leading to any of our various failed “wars on X” I’m actually looking more so at Abortion. Abortion is an issue that we are told is very much on the forefront of people’s minds, I disagree, I do think though that it is largely blown out of proportion and discussion on it are wrought with misinformation and deception.

  When looking at a problem that you see the first response should not be to outlaw it. Outlawing something does nothing to lessen the issue. The people who would have done it will still do it, the people who were unlikely to do it will not do it, and the people who would have never done it are still never going to have done it. What you do do however is create criminals for no better reason than to justify a crusade against differing life views or styles.

  Abortion really should just be a last response to medical problems with mothers and the birth of their children. I recognize that it isn’t and that is what we’ll look at. First the answer to nearly all problems is education. Believe it or not if you educate people honestly and openly about a situation they will inevitably come to an educated conclusion about it. I’ll admit that doesn’t happen 100% of the time but nothing ever does that humans can verify.

  So first you educate people fully about what? Well sexual education, abstinence education is an entirely unscientific system presented to kids for no better reason than to push religious beliefs on them. This is a terrible idea and it has been proven that it doesn’t work, how is it proven? Well unwanted pregnancies are a good example. I can educate people not to breath because it makes me feel better but it is their biological need to breath that will override my personal views.

  Once you have educated people and they know of all the highly effective methods (as opposed to ones that only work in theory) to prevent pregnancy until they are prepared. After this we move onto the next issue. What if people take all the proper precautions and are still finding themselves in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy? Well we take after various wonderful places (such as Sweden) and we make it feasible for them to still be able to raise the child or at the very least we make the time between conception and birth as non traumatizing as it can be. Strong support for the expected mother and all the information necessary to be a strong parent. Or even explaining the possibility of Adoption (albeit that is for many just as tough a question as abortion, its not easy for the mother at all).

  So we’ve accomplished two fold a fix. First we educate people openly and honestly treating them as they should be treated. Then for the people who may still get pregnant (a very small percentage assuming the first step) we treat them with respect and help give them all the available options. You will find that the amount of abortions in the country would indeed drop dramatically.

  The stories about fun time weekend abortions are likely as strongly based in factual events as reefer madness. Don’t allow people to take extreme militant approaches to problems because it will never do anything but make it worse. Historically this has and likely will always be the case. I just hope that with my generation growing, more intelligent and grounded people will take control of governing bodies. Who knows.

 

A Game by Any Other Name

Recently someone brought up the question of why the US tends to be very slow to get certain games that have been released before the ESRB compared to other nations. It has to do with laws in selling the product and the rating system. I have very strong feelings about just how unnecessary the ESRB, but that would boil down into a rant that I can summarize quite quickly and succinctly “Be a better parent and stop expecting everyone else to do your job.” My parents never once looked at the ratings on the games, they weren’t fools and I’ll explain now the art of gaming names.

There is never a goal of hiding destructive content behind a friendly name, this isn’t the Tobacco industry, indeed it’s almost always (if not always) painfully simple to know whether a game can be safely given to a child that you’d rather not spend time with. I say this because anyone who is attentive with their children will not even need to go this far because they’ll be there while their child is playing “Onslaught Brigade Killer Nazi 7” or whatever else that becomes popular this year.

Lets look at a dozen children friendly games and a dozen non-children friendly games. Try and figure out the pattern for each before you go on to the reveal. When I say child friendly I simply mean that even the staunchest ignorant observer would be hard-pressed to equate playing the game to becoming a murderer (which statistically is unlikely if you were curious).

Children Friendly Games

  1. Sonic The Hedgehog
  2. Super Mario Bros
  3. DeBlob
  4. Pokemon
  5. Sim City
  6. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
  7. Dance Dance Revolution
  8. Donkey Kong
  9. Cooking Mama
  10. Lego (Anything)
  11. Club Penguin
  12. Animal Crossing

Non-Children Friendly Games

  1. God of War
  2. Grand Theft Auto
  3. Killzone 2
  4. Resident Evil
  5. Gears of War
  6. Left 4 Dead
  7. Call of Duty: World at War
  8. Resistance: Fall of Man
  9. World of Warcraft
  10. Fallout
  11. Street Fighter
  12. Assassin’s Creed

So have you figured it out? What noticeable difference there is between games your kids can play and what they can’t (well they could play any of them, but for people who actually think it’ll effect the kid). The games that are kid friendly almost always sound kid friendly, sure you could misconstrue club penguin as a verb and a noun instead of one big noun…which I’ll admit is a HUGE difference.

If you go to club penguin for a fun night of dancing is quite different than going to club penguins. But I digress, even the ambiguous titles up there are pretty obvious upon gazing for about a quarter of a second at the covers. Have you ever looked at a cover for a game and thought “Hmm I wonder if there will be death and destruction.” No. While you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover you will always get a pretty accurate view of the ‘danger’ involved with a game by a look at the cover. Lets have a few visual examples.

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Alright this guy has a gun. Probably involves shooting.

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Now if the title wasn’t a give away you might notice the pissed off alien with a weapon.

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Again if the title isn’t a giveaway (Ultimate Fighting Championship) the picture is.

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Now I’ll admit he eats ‘pills’ and ugh…”kills” ghosts…if you can do that. But obviously friendly.

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Sure there are lightsabers and ‘violence’ but anyone who knows what Lego’s are knows that they are ALWAYS kid friendly (choking aside).

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It’s golf. While I realize this could lead your kid to making millions and incidentally losing their ability to feel compassion (joking joking) it is family friendly.

Now I realize I chose all 360 games (a system notorious for adult games) but that was mostly the point. There is really little to no gray area in gaming. If there is going to be death, murder, drug selling, it’s all painfully obvious on the cover if not by the name but by the visual content. Then again on second thought.

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I can see the ambiguity.

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