My thoughts on some wrongs in the world
17 years ago
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The following words are my attempt to lessen the burden that these subjects place upon me. This comes straight from my heart and mind, and I have attempted to tell things exactly as they are, with no lies or half-truths. The following pages are my thoughts and feelings on three different subjects. Subjects which have plagued me continually for the last few years. They concern things both great and small, abuses and demands for protective rights by law. Life and death. Many of you know one part of me, the part that hides these thoughts from my mind and lets me get by without breaking my mind. It's difficult for me to get by from day to day and focus on my immediate needs because my thoughts always return to the same things over and over. This is the side of me none of you have ever seen, the side which is not interested in revealing itself to others. The side that is my calling in life.
I think I've managed to mentally scar myself again, but the pain it brings me this time is far worse than the previous two times. There is such truth to the saying that ignorance is bliss. I could have been such a happy person if only I had never treaded this path... Oftentimes my quest for worldly knowledge teaches me things I wish that I never knew. Hidden truths, terrible revelations of reality... But once you know something...isn't it your responsibility to do something about it? What kind of a person does it make you if you don't try to do anything about it? Sometimes the things I see have more of an impact on me than others, strike deeply into me and leave me a changed person forever. And usually, when that happens, I suffer immense mental anguish because there is nothing that I can do despite the fact my entire being demands it.
I have never thought like a normal human being. Normal human beings are often very selfish, self centered creatures, immersed in their own bubble of reality where inconvenient things are ignored as if they do not exist. This much became evident to me early into my life, even at four years old. I have always studied the world around me with an intensity most normal people don't experience, and wanted to find the true meanings behind things. The fact that I've never trusted the words of others when there is the possibility of deception has let me glean many things about the world today as well. My curse, or blessing, as some who do not understand would call it, is the fact that I always want to help others, sometimes with a zeal that is unbearable. And this wish does not extend just to humanity, but to all other animals, the plants...the environment. I want the best for everyone and everything.
But more often than not, I have no power or ability to do anything about whatever it is that calls me to do something. The world is a hard, mostly uncaring place, where the rich and powerful play their game of politics with the masses, and the ones with the money do their talking for them. There are many people who care nothing about the world around them, focusing only on themselves. They will not heistate to trample and destroy anything underfoot between them and their goals, nor do they care. These people are responsible for so much pain, destruction, and anguish. To people, to animals and plants, to the environment. And to me when I become aware of their activities and yet am powerless to stop them. The anxiety is unbearable.
Everyone has their inner demons, but normally they are limited to a smaller scope of personal things and people. My real demons are much larger than that, and even if all the things came to pass necessary to vanquish them, little to no personal gain would ever even present itself to me, excluding the peace of mind I would finally gain. If they all came to pass, I could die happy right now with no regrets. If I could, I would give my very life to see them all come to pass, even though I am still so young. It would be a beautiful thing if I could make such a sacrifice. I would do it gladly, knowing all I was giving up, knowing I only get to live once. That is how selfless I am. I don't care what happens to me, but I do care about everything around me and want life on this world to be the best it possibly can be, and for everyone and everything, not just humanity. No one person should have to bear so great a burden upon their shoulders, but my conscience requires that I do so, or be a pitiful disgrace for trying to ignore that which I have realized.
For this reason I will probably spend my entire life in despair save for those times that I can bury it in something else for at least a while. I have decided to open myself to those around me who might understand, or be able to gain understanding, of what some of the truly important things in life are. While not everyone realizes everything around them, they can still have things shown to them by those that have become aware of those things. Perhaps you are already thinking of what things could possibly have elicited such a reaction from me. But I ask you now: Are you sure you really want to know? If you have been fortunate enough in life not to have had the seeds of realization take root and begin to spread, are you willing to risk losing that? To have your minor worries and fears swept aside by greater things that go beyond self, beyond the power of one individual to control? With what I am plagued by every moment my mind is free to wander, I couldn't blame you for that. Read on only if you are willing to lose that innocence forever. And if you are unmoved by my words after reading them, consider your life very carefully, for you may be one of those with the potential to cause pain and misery to others. It's a hard thing for one lowly man to change the world by himself, but even alone one man can, if he only has the bravery to try and inspire others to his cause.
The first demon is the biggest one. It doesn't cut me so deeply as the other two, but this one will be the end of all of us someday. The golden age of humanity is ever moving towards its twilight. Our way of life is finite, and no matter what we do, cannot be sustained forever. I don't think the fall will happen in my lifetime; it could be several generations into the future before it happens. You may be surprised to hear that I look forward to that day. It will be the first crumbling of our crushing grip of domination over this planet. Humanity is such a strange race. How hypocritical we are to claim we are better than animals when we do the same thing any overpopulated animal would do to its environment. We have intelligence, but we choose to use it to suit our own ends, even though we are capable of higher thought, ignoring those things which are convenient to look past. I know the end of our reign will come, but I cannot know how. I only know it will not come quickly, and that we will claw and tear at everything around us trying to keep a hold of that which is forever slipping out of our grasp.
I have thought about many scenarios before, never sure which might happen, or what order several might happen in. The first one is the total consumption of the world's oil. Imagine if that happened. Electric power would be needed for most everything. It's said the coal should outlast the oil, but the increased demand for electricity would deplete coal supplies even faster. There is always nuclear power, but the reprocussions of using that are quite horrid. Anything else is dubious at best. I'm sure solar power will become king during that time. That is, if any progress has even been made by then. The individuals directing their companies may not have bothered investing in oil and coal free technologies in their own greed. The results then would be catastrophic. People would die by the billions as food and water ran out, and governments would collapse. Humanity has domesticated itself as much as any of its livestock or pets; most of us cannot survive on our own. Without our tools, we cannot survive. I doubt that most governments will ever do anything limiting the population or reducing it, or actually make their country prepare for the loss of oil. The government cowers to the will of the people when they are all angry, and the people do not like having any of their rights taken away. Our supposedly best system will be the end of us as the blind masses keep those in power who would take advantage of it for their own gain.
I don't care about the oil and coal running out in the slightest. I care about the billions of people who are going to die, possibly because of their own ignorance about what is truly important. The problem with a government of the people is that the people cannot be trusted to know what is best for them. I know some terrible people in history have said the exact same thing, but did those same people think about things like I did? No. They were the type I said causes so many problems. Such a government has only ever been controlled by people who put their own interests before those of others. This is a recurring theme of humanity, and why humanity disgusts me. Is it possible to be ashamed to be human? I think I have been for a long time. Why must so many be so blind to the important things? Why do they choose not to see such things? I will never understand.
Another scenario is that what if all the space runs out? One thing I have learned is that ultimately, no land is sacred. Nothing is sacred to humanity, in truth not even itself. A government can and will find a way to make it accessable by contractors. If the oil doesn't run out fast enough, nearly every tree in the world will have been cut down. Nearly every species of animal that is not one of our food sources will die, whether by starvation, a car hood, or when shot or euthanized because its natural instincts mean it might pose a threat to humans. Greed is the driving force and nothing can stop it. How a person can cut a plot of trees down and feel nothing at all...I don't understand...how can one feel no remorse over doing such a thing? It's gone...forever...when you do that. If I were alive during such a time, I think I would probably waste away in a corner until I died, no longer caring about anything because what I had wanted to stop from happening had occurred. The anguish and shame over letting humanity wipe so many unique plants and animals off of the face of the earth forever would consume me, I think. We are able to percieve things to be beautiful, and every one of the plants and animals of this planet is a beautiful thing. And we are destroying that beauty. No one ever thinks about the stress and suffering of the animals as we ever push them back and kill them. But someone must mourn for them, the victims no one cares about that do not understand what is happening to them and continue their futile effort to survive as we take more and more space from them.
Humanity is in fact currently above nature for the most part. We have broken from the system, comprehended the system...and as is human, exploited it as much as we can far beyond any normal animal. Our intelligence was the tool necessary to do this. We are the most dangerous animal on the planet, even though we have no claws, no fangs, no venom, no camouflage, no strength. Nothing can stand before us, nothing can stop us. No balance can be maintained around us. Eventually, the population will have filled up the empty space everywhere in the world. A world with nothing but humans and our food plants and animals. It's sickening to even think about. All of nature's balances, all of its genetic evolutions since when the first life somehow formed on this planet, and it will come to that end, cheated and defeated by its own creation. But there are balances even humanity cannot be expected to defeat in our ignorance. Perhaps the food will run out, since we are no better than animals and are just as driven by sex as they are. The resulting catastrophe will surely decimate the world population, as well as spread numerous diseases as governments collapse. You see, that's another reason we're no better than animals. The animal in us takes over in extreme conditions, and makes us do things we think we would never do. How else can you explain people killing for food, rape, and murder?
Another possibility is that if enough green things are destroyed, what is left on land and in ocean may eventually no longer be able to replace carbon dioxide with oxygen fast enough to keep it balanced. In other words, the air would become less and less breathable as the world's very oxygen supply began to dwindle down. Something happened like this very long ago when only the simplest single celled forms of life existed. The gasses they used for air eventually ran out in the oceans and sky, and nearly every organism died, save those very few that had adapted to using different gasses to breath. Imagine those same proportions' effect on humanity. Nearly everyone, on every part of the planet, would die. And not just humans, but any unfortunate animals still managing to survive despite our attempts to drive them to extinction as 'pests'.
Humanity needs to prepare for its downfall now, not delay until it is too late to do anything. The population of the world must be curbed to sustainable levels. Preparation for the loss of oil must be made. Abandoning and restoration of vacated land to its natural state must occur. Will any of this ever happen? I think not. Our fall would preferably be engineered by our own hands before we destroy everything else around us, but those who are only interested in their own advancement and have no care about the value of life for any creature will see to it that this does not occur. The masses will refuse to change their ways, and ensure those in power share their views, and in turn those in power will make efforts to keep the masses from becoming aware of anything else but their own self centered view of reality. This will be the tragedy of humanity in its final days, and the downfall of the species diversity of the planet as everything is crushed in the name of progress.
I do not for a moment think that our race will ever become extinct. So long as we retain our intelligence, we will always understand nature's system, and always place ourselves above it as best we can. Even if things returned to the ways ancient civilizations lived, I still think that there would be the possibility of the destruction of all plants and animals unimportant to our survival in the areas that we succeeded in repopulating. This lesser humanity will surely populate most of the globe until the end of days, when the sun begins to expand and its heat kills everything on the planet off gradually, unless the planet has cooled enough before then that tectonic activity halts and all of the landmasses erode back under the oceans for good.
I became truly aware of these concepts at some point into high school, when at some crucial point my personal studies of the physical world around me expanded to include the moral rights and wrongs of things as I judged them to be. Everyone must open their mind beyond living in the moment, and lower their bubble of reality to see things as they really are. Time is running out.
My second demon is nowhere near so vast and all-encompassing as the first one to torment my thoughts. This one happened only last year, when I was twenty. But it cut deeply, having a much more immediate and personal effect on my emotional state. It was also once again true that I would have been a happier person if I had not delved into it, for once again it was something that I became aware of on my own research. It concerns a medical practice that no one is willing to broach the subject on, a curious practice with a number of religious and medical excuses given to support its continued application. In many English speaking countries, and numerous others as well, when a male is born, he is subjected to a procedure known as circumcision.
In this procedure, the newborn is restrained to prevent movement, the connective tissue on the end of the foreskin severed, and the foreskin is then removed entirely. This procedure is usually done without any anesthetic whatsoever, and I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to have a knife cutting parts of so sensitive a place off with full awareness. Not only does this permanently prevent the correct development and function of the penis, but it is possible that the pain caused by the procedure causes permanent psychological changes as well. The loss of the protective covering forces the exposed skin to thicken significantly to protect the surface, and the nerves removed with the foreskin cannot redevelop, greatly reducing the sensitivity of the organ for the rest of the infant's life.
The medical origins of this procedure date to a time when masturbation was thought to be detrimental to one's health, and even a cause of mental instability and insanity. It was enacted to destroy the sensitivity of both males and females(using a diferent procedure) in order to try to prevent masturbation and frequent sex. The practice later narrowed to only being performed on males. One of the men at the forefront of this way of thinking was Dr. Kellogg(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg). If it weren't for this man, the procedure might not even exist today beyond cases where the person's health is actually at risk. I would truly and honestly like to spit on this man's grave. The reasoning for it has changed as well, proponents now claiming it is meant to prevent cancer in the male, and also to prevent infection since they are convinced that the lining of the foreskin will clearly become infected despite the fact that just like the eyes, nose, and ears it is self-cleaning.
The logic that it should be removed to prevent cancer is preposterous. The foreskin is no more susceptible to cancer than any other part of the body. Their reasoning is that if the foreskin is removed they can prevent one hundred percent of cancer cases arising from it being left intact. Following this questionable logic, we should all but be lining up in order to have our skin removed, breasts removed, one testicle removed, one lung removed, and a portion of our colons since our chances of getting a cancer in one of those places will drop by significant percentages if we just cut it off! This is a case of causing harm to many to prevent harm to only a few, and is destructive. Furthermore, since it is an irreversible procedure and the infant's life is not in any significant way threatened by the presence of the foreskin, but will most certainly be negatively impacted by the procedure, it violates the infant's rights, rights that should be inviolable to even parents and doctors.
Learning all of this struck deeply into me in multiple ways. Before then, I had gone through life happy with my self image. I thought I had come into the world free of any defects or problems, perfect in every way. But I had always wondered about one thing, had one lingering doubt that began to grow. And thus did I learn I was not perfect, no, I was maimed for life. I was denied ever even having a chance to be perfect, because my parents allowed someone to hold me down and circumcise me, ruining a part of me for the rest of my life. I felt so much hurt and betrayal at first, wondering how my parents, whom I had trusted my entire life with keeping me safe and protected from harm, could have failed in that task as my life was only beginning, and letting someone mutilate me. I was not perfect, and I never had been. That newly realized wound is one that will never heal completely. I feel betrayed, hurt, angry- ever aware that I am missing something.
My feelings then moved to anger. The first real anger I had ever experienced before. The kind of anger that makes you want to kill someone. I hated Dr. Kellogg. For the first time in my life, I hated someone. How dare the legacy of those long-dead men continue to exist to this day? How many infant males were going through what I did when I was born at this very moment? Every day? How many pregnant mothers didn't think twice about the procedure, and would allow it to be done when their child was born? This was a permanent removal of a body part! Would a parent let a doctor remove their child's arm for similarly thin reasons? This horrible procedure must stop. Most doctors take an oath when they graduate from a medical college. The oath has evolved greatly since its first creation, but to this day it stresses what is important for a doctor to uphold.
The Hippocratic Oath has been broken. That circumcision continues is a disgrace to the doctors who do it and to the medical profession in its entirety. Below are two excerpts from the modern day Hippocratic Oath, written by Louis Lasagna in 1964.
"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."
Here it is stated that the doctor will only do what is needed, never doing more than is to the patient's benefit or less than will be of help to them. The removal of the foreskin for the supposed prevention of cancer goes far, far beyond the limits of overtreatment, and the idea that it will become infected is proven false. Additionally, the lack of use of anesthetic goes directly against this passage as well, indicating a lack of treatment for the procedure itself.
"I will not be ashamed to say "I know not,"
The persons performing circumcision have clearly not researched about it, or they would not perform the procedure. And yet they are not willing to admit they do not know much. This could be because admitting the wrongness of the procedure means admitting they have directly mutilated countless newborns by circumcising them. They also may be in denial that the procedure has only negative impact if they are a male themself that was circumcised. Additionally, the procedure could then be considered assault, meaning the medical staff involved and parents as well would be liable, regardless of permission or lack of knowledge.
That society allows such a thing to be done to newborn males before they are even old enough to make choices of their own is a horrible thing, and this damaging procedure must be stopped from ever being performed as a preventative measure again anywhere in the world. I am a victim, many of you are victims too, of Dr. Kellogg's legacy. Future generations should not have to suffer being maimed for their entire life as we are. Dr. Kellogg's legacy must end.
The third demon happened only last week, and has drawn my thoughts away from those important everyday things which they should be on continually. It was a present concern very long before then, but by coincidence I came across materials which directly described the methods and procedures involved, and for the first time I really looked at this uncomfortable subject and determined its morality. I was digging around for more information on my favorite species of animal, the Spotted Hyena. One can often find interesting documentation of all kinds of things about them. But this time, I found documentation that horrified me, and still is a full week later. The document detailed the urogenital systems of spotted hyenas. In general, this is a subject that is difficult to find information on at best, but in this case the researchers were willing to use fatal methods to obtain their information.
Human curiosity. I often do not know what to make of it. The scientific field often angers me, because oftentimes there is no concern over the feelings or life of the creatures being studied. Researchers often do not seem to care about extinguishing the life of an organism to satisfy their own curiosities about it, or in the name of medical science. It's sickening, horrible, and is it really even neccessary? The worst part is, they can get the permission to sentence their test subjects to laboratory death perfectly legally. I have twice in my life refused to participate in dissections, and will do so again in my college courses, even if doing so meant failure of the course. Where is the respect? The dignity? Have they no shame?
Life is a precious thing. Every organism will die eventually, and then it will be gone forever. There are times when death is an unavoidable thing. Creatures become old or sick and die, some die to provide sustenance to others for their continued survival. Some die because the pain of living has become too much, or because they have completed their role in nature, or because of a fight. This is the way of nature, and there is no debating whether that is right or wrong; it simply is. But those deaths all are natural, fair for all involved, and even neccessary. No one has been cheated of their right to enjoy that one life. But humanity has created more reasons for creatures to die. Some die for entertainment. Some die for being bothersome or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some die in the name of medicine or because we want to see how they are put together. Not all of these reasons are always wrong, but usually this is not the case.
The only reasons a human should ever end the life of another creature are for food, needed materials, defense, or because it is suffering. There is no shame in eating meat, making a fur coat if it is actually needed for survival, killing mosquitos, or euthanizing a pet or permissive human that is dying. But for this particular writing, it is questionable if killing for science is acceptable to do.
What is the value of a life? Humanity has always held a lofty opinion of itself as being better, more worthy, above other animals. No other creature has the rights or protections that a human does. And we often take advantage of that. But that does not mean that others creatures do not have a value too, that their lives are not worth anything. I cannot hope to ever be able to value one creatures life higher than another with any accuracy, but I think some factors do mean something in that calculation. The first and greatest is that every creature has a right to exist, and it should have the right to be allowed to live its existance out to its fullest, until a natural occurrance ends its life. Every creature only has one opportunity to enjoy life, and it is a tragedy that we would violate so sacred a right to sate our curiosity or to make new medicines.
I think that how long an organism tends to live is a factor as well. Something that can live a long time is crueler to cause to die than something that lives a shorter amount of time. The amount of time already lived is another factor. If one of two of the same organism were to be valued, the one that has lived less of its lifespan has more value, for it still has more of its life left to enjoy. I think that the ability to comprehend pain or discomfort is part of it as well. A creature that can feel pain or distress has a more stressful time dying than one that is unable to percieve such things. The factor that arguably put humans above other animals is that we are aware of our own mortality. But it has been observed in some pets that they know when they are going to die, and try to meet with their owners one last time to say goodbye, and thus one must wonder how aware other animals are able to be of the fact that their life must end eventually. A final factor that could be considered is the general size of the organism and the role it plays in the environment. A large predator is more valuable than a small one, and many predators could be considered to have more value than herbivores.
The article fully documented the process of taking multiple spotted hyenas from where they lived, every detail of the processes used to make them die, and how their bodies were prepared and taken apart for examination. I will withold my personal comments for now, and instead guide you through the most traumatic part of the article to me. If you are squeamish you may wish to skip this part, for I will not use soft words or indirectly refer to things. You will hear exactly how a person takes a healthy, living animal and forces it to die. I will now translate the tale of how six hyenas were murdered and three horribly violated just to sate our lust for knowledge.
The first two used in the study were female, both ten years of age. The two females were documented as being darted with the chemicals Ketamine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine) and Xylazine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylazine). It then stated that they were Intubated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intubation), to keep them under general anesthesia. The first two chemicals play a role in blocking perception of pain, and also in inducing unconsciousness. Intubation is the inserting of a tube into the throat, in this case used to keep them unconscious while they were moved. They were transported to The University of California, Department of Anatomy, for the actual killing. The document states that the external jugular vein was incised for Exsanguination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsanguination) and infusion of 10% Formalin(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde). What this means is that the unconscious animals had their necks cut open at the jugular vein and were allowed to bleed to death, and a preservative chemical was pumped into their circulatory system to preserve soft tissues and also stiffen the entire animal due to several reactions it undergoes inside the animal. I do not know if the formalin was administered at the same time they were bleeding them to death or afterwards.
Next a thirteen year old female was put under general anesthesia, and transported in the same way. They removed her entire uterus and ovaries for study. There is no further mention of her, so she is presumed to still be alive, albeit without her reproductive system.
After that two male hyenas of ages sixteen and seventeen were taken and examined. As there is no mention of darting they are presumed to have been conscious at the time. They were immobilized and transferred to a different campus to a Necropsy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopsy) suite. At this point, the animals are still apparently conscious and aware of their surrounding, but unable to move due to restraints. Once there they were lethally injected with Sodium Pentobarbital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentobarbital). This chemical is commonly used to euthanize pets and also humans in some countries. The document goes on to mention that one male had Disseminated Lymphoma, and was put down for that reason for the study. But he did not really have any reason to be put down. This form of Lymphoma is easily treated in humans, with more than half fully recovering, and often going five to ten years or more with no recurrance of the disease.
The final killings took the form of bringing in two pregnant female hyenas and putting them under general anesthesia. Both had cessarian sections performed on them to remove a male and female fetus, which was estimated at ninety-six days of one-hundred and ten in the gestational period. It states that the fetuses were euthanized by decapitation.
The rest of the document details all of the details gleaned from the dissections, slide mountings, and other observations, and their conclusions, and is irrelevant to my concerns.
I feel so sorry for these poor animals. I cannot possibly begin to describe the pain and despair I feel that they had this done to them, and that it was perfectly legal. I've never felt much when a friend or family member dies, because the deaths were always natural, and I simply accepted that death was an inevitable thing, and saw no reason to extensively mourn. It was a part of life. But this feeling I have now, this horrible pain in my chest, this draining of all happiness from my being, this I have never experienced before. It's been a week and still it fills me, my mind repeating their actions over and over. Where is the justice for these animals? Why did they have to die like this? We learned nearly everything about the human body through dissection of corpses and careful examination of living subjects. This is just as possible with these animals, but the scientific community seems to view their lives as expendible, and does not favor patience waiting for an animal to die, or taking the time to examine a living animal.
These animals did not die a natural, fair death. Their lives were wasted, and they were cheated of their right to exist. They're dead forever now and will never enjoy life again. Hyenas can live to forty years old. At least the males were a bit older, but those females were so young at ten years. And even the males could have lived twenty more years. I'm only twenty-one now, that's a long time...so many years stolen from them...
Furthermore, the treatment of the animals was deplorable, criminal even. The first two females were darted, which was fine as a method of safely immobilizing an animal, but they died of fatal blood loss after having their jugular veins cut open. This is beyond acceptable grounds. What kind of heartless monster could cut a creature's neck open and bleed it to death just to take a look at its anatomy? How could anyone raise their hand to use a knife to kill those two animals like that? And the thirteen year old female who had her entire reproductive system removed- she went through all that pain just so they could pick it apart and look at it, and she will spend her life unable to reproduce at all, if she wasn't later used for another study.
The two males had to endure being restrained on their entire trip to where they were going to be made to die. I am sure the amount of stress and fear they experienced was terrible, especially in their final moments when they were euthanized for dissection. The two pregnant females had their unborn young cut right out of them, young that were so close to being born by then that I have no doubts that they were able to move and try to look around. And the reasearchers killed them by cutting their heads off. I have no doubt that they could feel the knife as it rended flesh and bone.
Every creature should be protected from these horrendous practices. It's shameful, and there's something very wrong when a human can make another animal die to make a new medicine, or find out a new fact about it. Every creature lives once, only gets to enjoy life once, and someone who would take that from them for a wasteful reason is lower than dirt, and I can honestly say I want to make those people suffer horribly for their actions. I'm hurting so badly inside because of this...
I feel like there is so much more to say about this tragedy, but words escape me as I cannot think straight right now I'm so mad.
The document is viewable in its entirety here: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/labs/pla.....%20al.2003.pdf
I have hopes to someday enter the scientific community, hopes to someday change many things in this world. And right now, these three things are what I most want to change somehow. Do you want to change the world too?
I think I've managed to mentally scar myself again, but the pain it brings me this time is far worse than the previous two times. There is such truth to the saying that ignorance is bliss. I could have been such a happy person if only I had never treaded this path... Oftentimes my quest for worldly knowledge teaches me things I wish that I never knew. Hidden truths, terrible revelations of reality... But once you know something...isn't it your responsibility to do something about it? What kind of a person does it make you if you don't try to do anything about it? Sometimes the things I see have more of an impact on me than others, strike deeply into me and leave me a changed person forever. And usually, when that happens, I suffer immense mental anguish because there is nothing that I can do despite the fact my entire being demands it.
I have never thought like a normal human being. Normal human beings are often very selfish, self centered creatures, immersed in their own bubble of reality where inconvenient things are ignored as if they do not exist. This much became evident to me early into my life, even at four years old. I have always studied the world around me with an intensity most normal people don't experience, and wanted to find the true meanings behind things. The fact that I've never trusted the words of others when there is the possibility of deception has let me glean many things about the world today as well. My curse, or blessing, as some who do not understand would call it, is the fact that I always want to help others, sometimes with a zeal that is unbearable. And this wish does not extend just to humanity, but to all other animals, the plants...the environment. I want the best for everyone and everything.
But more often than not, I have no power or ability to do anything about whatever it is that calls me to do something. The world is a hard, mostly uncaring place, where the rich and powerful play their game of politics with the masses, and the ones with the money do their talking for them. There are many people who care nothing about the world around them, focusing only on themselves. They will not heistate to trample and destroy anything underfoot between them and their goals, nor do they care. These people are responsible for so much pain, destruction, and anguish. To people, to animals and plants, to the environment. And to me when I become aware of their activities and yet am powerless to stop them. The anxiety is unbearable.
Everyone has their inner demons, but normally they are limited to a smaller scope of personal things and people. My real demons are much larger than that, and even if all the things came to pass necessary to vanquish them, little to no personal gain would ever even present itself to me, excluding the peace of mind I would finally gain. If they all came to pass, I could die happy right now with no regrets. If I could, I would give my very life to see them all come to pass, even though I am still so young. It would be a beautiful thing if I could make such a sacrifice. I would do it gladly, knowing all I was giving up, knowing I only get to live once. That is how selfless I am. I don't care what happens to me, but I do care about everything around me and want life on this world to be the best it possibly can be, and for everyone and everything, not just humanity. No one person should have to bear so great a burden upon their shoulders, but my conscience requires that I do so, or be a pitiful disgrace for trying to ignore that which I have realized.
For this reason I will probably spend my entire life in despair save for those times that I can bury it in something else for at least a while. I have decided to open myself to those around me who might understand, or be able to gain understanding, of what some of the truly important things in life are. While not everyone realizes everything around them, they can still have things shown to them by those that have become aware of those things. Perhaps you are already thinking of what things could possibly have elicited such a reaction from me. But I ask you now: Are you sure you really want to know? If you have been fortunate enough in life not to have had the seeds of realization take root and begin to spread, are you willing to risk losing that? To have your minor worries and fears swept aside by greater things that go beyond self, beyond the power of one individual to control? With what I am plagued by every moment my mind is free to wander, I couldn't blame you for that. Read on only if you are willing to lose that innocence forever. And if you are unmoved by my words after reading them, consider your life very carefully, for you may be one of those with the potential to cause pain and misery to others. It's a hard thing for one lowly man to change the world by himself, but even alone one man can, if he only has the bravery to try and inspire others to his cause.
The first demon is the biggest one. It doesn't cut me so deeply as the other two, but this one will be the end of all of us someday. The golden age of humanity is ever moving towards its twilight. Our way of life is finite, and no matter what we do, cannot be sustained forever. I don't think the fall will happen in my lifetime; it could be several generations into the future before it happens. You may be surprised to hear that I look forward to that day. It will be the first crumbling of our crushing grip of domination over this planet. Humanity is such a strange race. How hypocritical we are to claim we are better than animals when we do the same thing any overpopulated animal would do to its environment. We have intelligence, but we choose to use it to suit our own ends, even though we are capable of higher thought, ignoring those things which are convenient to look past. I know the end of our reign will come, but I cannot know how. I only know it will not come quickly, and that we will claw and tear at everything around us trying to keep a hold of that which is forever slipping out of our grasp.
I have thought about many scenarios before, never sure which might happen, or what order several might happen in. The first one is the total consumption of the world's oil. Imagine if that happened. Electric power would be needed for most everything. It's said the coal should outlast the oil, but the increased demand for electricity would deplete coal supplies even faster. There is always nuclear power, but the reprocussions of using that are quite horrid. Anything else is dubious at best. I'm sure solar power will become king during that time. That is, if any progress has even been made by then. The individuals directing their companies may not have bothered investing in oil and coal free technologies in their own greed. The results then would be catastrophic. People would die by the billions as food and water ran out, and governments would collapse. Humanity has domesticated itself as much as any of its livestock or pets; most of us cannot survive on our own. Without our tools, we cannot survive. I doubt that most governments will ever do anything limiting the population or reducing it, or actually make their country prepare for the loss of oil. The government cowers to the will of the people when they are all angry, and the people do not like having any of their rights taken away. Our supposedly best system will be the end of us as the blind masses keep those in power who would take advantage of it for their own gain.
I don't care about the oil and coal running out in the slightest. I care about the billions of people who are going to die, possibly because of their own ignorance about what is truly important. The problem with a government of the people is that the people cannot be trusted to know what is best for them. I know some terrible people in history have said the exact same thing, but did those same people think about things like I did? No. They were the type I said causes so many problems. Such a government has only ever been controlled by people who put their own interests before those of others. This is a recurring theme of humanity, and why humanity disgusts me. Is it possible to be ashamed to be human? I think I have been for a long time. Why must so many be so blind to the important things? Why do they choose not to see such things? I will never understand.
Another scenario is that what if all the space runs out? One thing I have learned is that ultimately, no land is sacred. Nothing is sacred to humanity, in truth not even itself. A government can and will find a way to make it accessable by contractors. If the oil doesn't run out fast enough, nearly every tree in the world will have been cut down. Nearly every species of animal that is not one of our food sources will die, whether by starvation, a car hood, or when shot or euthanized because its natural instincts mean it might pose a threat to humans. Greed is the driving force and nothing can stop it. How a person can cut a plot of trees down and feel nothing at all...I don't understand...how can one feel no remorse over doing such a thing? It's gone...forever...when you do that. If I were alive during such a time, I think I would probably waste away in a corner until I died, no longer caring about anything because what I had wanted to stop from happening had occurred. The anguish and shame over letting humanity wipe so many unique plants and animals off of the face of the earth forever would consume me, I think. We are able to percieve things to be beautiful, and every one of the plants and animals of this planet is a beautiful thing. And we are destroying that beauty. No one ever thinks about the stress and suffering of the animals as we ever push them back and kill them. But someone must mourn for them, the victims no one cares about that do not understand what is happening to them and continue their futile effort to survive as we take more and more space from them.
Humanity is in fact currently above nature for the most part. We have broken from the system, comprehended the system...and as is human, exploited it as much as we can far beyond any normal animal. Our intelligence was the tool necessary to do this. We are the most dangerous animal on the planet, even though we have no claws, no fangs, no venom, no camouflage, no strength. Nothing can stand before us, nothing can stop us. No balance can be maintained around us. Eventually, the population will have filled up the empty space everywhere in the world. A world with nothing but humans and our food plants and animals. It's sickening to even think about. All of nature's balances, all of its genetic evolutions since when the first life somehow formed on this planet, and it will come to that end, cheated and defeated by its own creation. But there are balances even humanity cannot be expected to defeat in our ignorance. Perhaps the food will run out, since we are no better than animals and are just as driven by sex as they are. The resulting catastrophe will surely decimate the world population, as well as spread numerous diseases as governments collapse. You see, that's another reason we're no better than animals. The animal in us takes over in extreme conditions, and makes us do things we think we would never do. How else can you explain people killing for food, rape, and murder?
Another possibility is that if enough green things are destroyed, what is left on land and in ocean may eventually no longer be able to replace carbon dioxide with oxygen fast enough to keep it balanced. In other words, the air would become less and less breathable as the world's very oxygen supply began to dwindle down. Something happened like this very long ago when only the simplest single celled forms of life existed. The gasses they used for air eventually ran out in the oceans and sky, and nearly every organism died, save those very few that had adapted to using different gasses to breath. Imagine those same proportions' effect on humanity. Nearly everyone, on every part of the planet, would die. And not just humans, but any unfortunate animals still managing to survive despite our attempts to drive them to extinction as 'pests'.
Humanity needs to prepare for its downfall now, not delay until it is too late to do anything. The population of the world must be curbed to sustainable levels. Preparation for the loss of oil must be made. Abandoning and restoration of vacated land to its natural state must occur. Will any of this ever happen? I think not. Our fall would preferably be engineered by our own hands before we destroy everything else around us, but those who are only interested in their own advancement and have no care about the value of life for any creature will see to it that this does not occur. The masses will refuse to change their ways, and ensure those in power share their views, and in turn those in power will make efforts to keep the masses from becoming aware of anything else but their own self centered view of reality. This will be the tragedy of humanity in its final days, and the downfall of the species diversity of the planet as everything is crushed in the name of progress.
I do not for a moment think that our race will ever become extinct. So long as we retain our intelligence, we will always understand nature's system, and always place ourselves above it as best we can. Even if things returned to the ways ancient civilizations lived, I still think that there would be the possibility of the destruction of all plants and animals unimportant to our survival in the areas that we succeeded in repopulating. This lesser humanity will surely populate most of the globe until the end of days, when the sun begins to expand and its heat kills everything on the planet off gradually, unless the planet has cooled enough before then that tectonic activity halts and all of the landmasses erode back under the oceans for good.
I became truly aware of these concepts at some point into high school, when at some crucial point my personal studies of the physical world around me expanded to include the moral rights and wrongs of things as I judged them to be. Everyone must open their mind beyond living in the moment, and lower their bubble of reality to see things as they really are. Time is running out.
My second demon is nowhere near so vast and all-encompassing as the first one to torment my thoughts. This one happened only last year, when I was twenty. But it cut deeply, having a much more immediate and personal effect on my emotional state. It was also once again true that I would have been a happier person if I had not delved into it, for once again it was something that I became aware of on my own research. It concerns a medical practice that no one is willing to broach the subject on, a curious practice with a number of religious and medical excuses given to support its continued application. In many English speaking countries, and numerous others as well, when a male is born, he is subjected to a procedure known as circumcision.
In this procedure, the newborn is restrained to prevent movement, the connective tissue on the end of the foreskin severed, and the foreskin is then removed entirely. This procedure is usually done without any anesthetic whatsoever, and I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to have a knife cutting parts of so sensitive a place off with full awareness. Not only does this permanently prevent the correct development and function of the penis, but it is possible that the pain caused by the procedure causes permanent psychological changes as well. The loss of the protective covering forces the exposed skin to thicken significantly to protect the surface, and the nerves removed with the foreskin cannot redevelop, greatly reducing the sensitivity of the organ for the rest of the infant's life.
The medical origins of this procedure date to a time when masturbation was thought to be detrimental to one's health, and even a cause of mental instability and insanity. It was enacted to destroy the sensitivity of both males and females(using a diferent procedure) in order to try to prevent masturbation and frequent sex. The practice later narrowed to only being performed on males. One of the men at the forefront of this way of thinking was Dr. Kellogg(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg). If it weren't for this man, the procedure might not even exist today beyond cases where the person's health is actually at risk. I would truly and honestly like to spit on this man's grave. The reasoning for it has changed as well, proponents now claiming it is meant to prevent cancer in the male, and also to prevent infection since they are convinced that the lining of the foreskin will clearly become infected despite the fact that just like the eyes, nose, and ears it is self-cleaning.
The logic that it should be removed to prevent cancer is preposterous. The foreskin is no more susceptible to cancer than any other part of the body. Their reasoning is that if the foreskin is removed they can prevent one hundred percent of cancer cases arising from it being left intact. Following this questionable logic, we should all but be lining up in order to have our skin removed, breasts removed, one testicle removed, one lung removed, and a portion of our colons since our chances of getting a cancer in one of those places will drop by significant percentages if we just cut it off! This is a case of causing harm to many to prevent harm to only a few, and is destructive. Furthermore, since it is an irreversible procedure and the infant's life is not in any significant way threatened by the presence of the foreskin, but will most certainly be negatively impacted by the procedure, it violates the infant's rights, rights that should be inviolable to even parents and doctors.
Learning all of this struck deeply into me in multiple ways. Before then, I had gone through life happy with my self image. I thought I had come into the world free of any defects or problems, perfect in every way. But I had always wondered about one thing, had one lingering doubt that began to grow. And thus did I learn I was not perfect, no, I was maimed for life. I was denied ever even having a chance to be perfect, because my parents allowed someone to hold me down and circumcise me, ruining a part of me for the rest of my life. I felt so much hurt and betrayal at first, wondering how my parents, whom I had trusted my entire life with keeping me safe and protected from harm, could have failed in that task as my life was only beginning, and letting someone mutilate me. I was not perfect, and I never had been. That newly realized wound is one that will never heal completely. I feel betrayed, hurt, angry- ever aware that I am missing something.
My feelings then moved to anger. The first real anger I had ever experienced before. The kind of anger that makes you want to kill someone. I hated Dr. Kellogg. For the first time in my life, I hated someone. How dare the legacy of those long-dead men continue to exist to this day? How many infant males were going through what I did when I was born at this very moment? Every day? How many pregnant mothers didn't think twice about the procedure, and would allow it to be done when their child was born? This was a permanent removal of a body part! Would a parent let a doctor remove their child's arm for similarly thin reasons? This horrible procedure must stop. Most doctors take an oath when they graduate from a medical college. The oath has evolved greatly since its first creation, but to this day it stresses what is important for a doctor to uphold.
The Hippocratic Oath has been broken. That circumcision continues is a disgrace to the doctors who do it and to the medical profession in its entirety. Below are two excerpts from the modern day Hippocratic Oath, written by Louis Lasagna in 1964.
"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism."
Here it is stated that the doctor will only do what is needed, never doing more than is to the patient's benefit or less than will be of help to them. The removal of the foreskin for the supposed prevention of cancer goes far, far beyond the limits of overtreatment, and the idea that it will become infected is proven false. Additionally, the lack of use of anesthetic goes directly against this passage as well, indicating a lack of treatment for the procedure itself.
"I will not be ashamed to say "I know not,"
The persons performing circumcision have clearly not researched about it, or they would not perform the procedure. And yet they are not willing to admit they do not know much. This could be because admitting the wrongness of the procedure means admitting they have directly mutilated countless newborns by circumcising them. They also may be in denial that the procedure has only negative impact if they are a male themself that was circumcised. Additionally, the procedure could then be considered assault, meaning the medical staff involved and parents as well would be liable, regardless of permission or lack of knowledge.
That society allows such a thing to be done to newborn males before they are even old enough to make choices of their own is a horrible thing, and this damaging procedure must be stopped from ever being performed as a preventative measure again anywhere in the world. I am a victim, many of you are victims too, of Dr. Kellogg's legacy. Future generations should not have to suffer being maimed for their entire life as we are. Dr. Kellogg's legacy must end.
The third demon happened only last week, and has drawn my thoughts away from those important everyday things which they should be on continually. It was a present concern very long before then, but by coincidence I came across materials which directly described the methods and procedures involved, and for the first time I really looked at this uncomfortable subject and determined its morality. I was digging around for more information on my favorite species of animal, the Spotted Hyena. One can often find interesting documentation of all kinds of things about them. But this time, I found documentation that horrified me, and still is a full week later. The document detailed the urogenital systems of spotted hyenas. In general, this is a subject that is difficult to find information on at best, but in this case the researchers were willing to use fatal methods to obtain their information.
Human curiosity. I often do not know what to make of it. The scientific field often angers me, because oftentimes there is no concern over the feelings or life of the creatures being studied. Researchers often do not seem to care about extinguishing the life of an organism to satisfy their own curiosities about it, or in the name of medical science. It's sickening, horrible, and is it really even neccessary? The worst part is, they can get the permission to sentence their test subjects to laboratory death perfectly legally. I have twice in my life refused to participate in dissections, and will do so again in my college courses, even if doing so meant failure of the course. Where is the respect? The dignity? Have they no shame?
Life is a precious thing. Every organism will die eventually, and then it will be gone forever. There are times when death is an unavoidable thing. Creatures become old or sick and die, some die to provide sustenance to others for their continued survival. Some die because the pain of living has become too much, or because they have completed their role in nature, or because of a fight. This is the way of nature, and there is no debating whether that is right or wrong; it simply is. But those deaths all are natural, fair for all involved, and even neccessary. No one has been cheated of their right to enjoy that one life. But humanity has created more reasons for creatures to die. Some die for entertainment. Some die for being bothersome or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some die in the name of medicine or because we want to see how they are put together. Not all of these reasons are always wrong, but usually this is not the case.
The only reasons a human should ever end the life of another creature are for food, needed materials, defense, or because it is suffering. There is no shame in eating meat, making a fur coat if it is actually needed for survival, killing mosquitos, or euthanizing a pet or permissive human that is dying. But for this particular writing, it is questionable if killing for science is acceptable to do.
What is the value of a life? Humanity has always held a lofty opinion of itself as being better, more worthy, above other animals. No other creature has the rights or protections that a human does. And we often take advantage of that. But that does not mean that others creatures do not have a value too, that their lives are not worth anything. I cannot hope to ever be able to value one creatures life higher than another with any accuracy, but I think some factors do mean something in that calculation. The first and greatest is that every creature has a right to exist, and it should have the right to be allowed to live its existance out to its fullest, until a natural occurrance ends its life. Every creature only has one opportunity to enjoy life, and it is a tragedy that we would violate so sacred a right to sate our curiosity or to make new medicines.
I think that how long an organism tends to live is a factor as well. Something that can live a long time is crueler to cause to die than something that lives a shorter amount of time. The amount of time already lived is another factor. If one of two of the same organism were to be valued, the one that has lived less of its lifespan has more value, for it still has more of its life left to enjoy. I think that the ability to comprehend pain or discomfort is part of it as well. A creature that can feel pain or distress has a more stressful time dying than one that is unable to percieve such things. The factor that arguably put humans above other animals is that we are aware of our own mortality. But it has been observed in some pets that they know when they are going to die, and try to meet with their owners one last time to say goodbye, and thus one must wonder how aware other animals are able to be of the fact that their life must end eventually. A final factor that could be considered is the general size of the organism and the role it plays in the environment. A large predator is more valuable than a small one, and many predators could be considered to have more value than herbivores.
The article fully documented the process of taking multiple spotted hyenas from where they lived, every detail of the processes used to make them die, and how their bodies were prepared and taken apart for examination. I will withold my personal comments for now, and instead guide you through the most traumatic part of the article to me. If you are squeamish you may wish to skip this part, for I will not use soft words or indirectly refer to things. You will hear exactly how a person takes a healthy, living animal and forces it to die. I will now translate the tale of how six hyenas were murdered and three horribly violated just to sate our lust for knowledge.
The first two used in the study were female, both ten years of age. The two females were documented as being darted with the chemicals Ketamine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine) and Xylazine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylazine). It then stated that they were Intubated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intubation), to keep them under general anesthesia. The first two chemicals play a role in blocking perception of pain, and also in inducing unconsciousness. Intubation is the inserting of a tube into the throat, in this case used to keep them unconscious while they were moved. They were transported to The University of California, Department of Anatomy, for the actual killing. The document states that the external jugular vein was incised for Exsanguination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsanguination) and infusion of 10% Formalin(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formaldehyde). What this means is that the unconscious animals had their necks cut open at the jugular vein and were allowed to bleed to death, and a preservative chemical was pumped into their circulatory system to preserve soft tissues and also stiffen the entire animal due to several reactions it undergoes inside the animal. I do not know if the formalin was administered at the same time they were bleeding them to death or afterwards.
Next a thirteen year old female was put under general anesthesia, and transported in the same way. They removed her entire uterus and ovaries for study. There is no further mention of her, so she is presumed to still be alive, albeit without her reproductive system.
After that two male hyenas of ages sixteen and seventeen were taken and examined. As there is no mention of darting they are presumed to have been conscious at the time. They were immobilized and transferred to a different campus to a Necropsy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopsy) suite. At this point, the animals are still apparently conscious and aware of their surrounding, but unable to move due to restraints. Once there they were lethally injected with Sodium Pentobarbital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentobarbital). This chemical is commonly used to euthanize pets and also humans in some countries. The document goes on to mention that one male had Disseminated Lymphoma, and was put down for that reason for the study. But he did not really have any reason to be put down. This form of Lymphoma is easily treated in humans, with more than half fully recovering, and often going five to ten years or more with no recurrance of the disease.
The final killings took the form of bringing in two pregnant female hyenas and putting them under general anesthesia. Both had cessarian sections performed on them to remove a male and female fetus, which was estimated at ninety-six days of one-hundred and ten in the gestational period. It states that the fetuses were euthanized by decapitation.
The rest of the document details all of the details gleaned from the dissections, slide mountings, and other observations, and their conclusions, and is irrelevant to my concerns.
I feel so sorry for these poor animals. I cannot possibly begin to describe the pain and despair I feel that they had this done to them, and that it was perfectly legal. I've never felt much when a friend or family member dies, because the deaths were always natural, and I simply accepted that death was an inevitable thing, and saw no reason to extensively mourn. It was a part of life. But this feeling I have now, this horrible pain in my chest, this draining of all happiness from my being, this I have never experienced before. It's been a week and still it fills me, my mind repeating their actions over and over. Where is the justice for these animals? Why did they have to die like this? We learned nearly everything about the human body through dissection of corpses and careful examination of living subjects. This is just as possible with these animals, but the scientific community seems to view their lives as expendible, and does not favor patience waiting for an animal to die, or taking the time to examine a living animal.
These animals did not die a natural, fair death. Their lives were wasted, and they were cheated of their right to exist. They're dead forever now and will never enjoy life again. Hyenas can live to forty years old. At least the males were a bit older, but those females were so young at ten years. And even the males could have lived twenty more years. I'm only twenty-one now, that's a long time...so many years stolen from them...
Furthermore, the treatment of the animals was deplorable, criminal even. The first two females were darted, which was fine as a method of safely immobilizing an animal, but they died of fatal blood loss after having their jugular veins cut open. This is beyond acceptable grounds. What kind of heartless monster could cut a creature's neck open and bleed it to death just to take a look at its anatomy? How could anyone raise their hand to use a knife to kill those two animals like that? And the thirteen year old female who had her entire reproductive system removed- she went through all that pain just so they could pick it apart and look at it, and she will spend her life unable to reproduce at all, if she wasn't later used for another study.
The two males had to endure being restrained on their entire trip to where they were going to be made to die. I am sure the amount of stress and fear they experienced was terrible, especially in their final moments when they were euthanized for dissection. The two pregnant females had their unborn young cut right out of them, young that were so close to being born by then that I have no doubts that they were able to move and try to look around. And the reasearchers killed them by cutting their heads off. I have no doubt that they could feel the knife as it rended flesh and bone.
Every creature should be protected from these horrendous practices. It's shameful, and there's something very wrong when a human can make another animal die to make a new medicine, or find out a new fact about it. Every creature lives once, only gets to enjoy life once, and someone who would take that from them for a wasteful reason is lower than dirt, and I can honestly say I want to make those people suffer horribly for their actions. I'm hurting so badly inside because of this...
I feel like there is so much more to say about this tragedy, but words escape me as I cannot think straight right now I'm so mad.
The document is viewable in its entirety here: http://www.vet.cornell.edu/labs/pla.....%20al.2003.pdf
I have hopes to someday enter the scientific community, hopes to someday change many things in this world. And right now, these three things are what I most want to change somehow. Do you want to change the world too?
FA+


well...i'd like to console ya some, but i'd say its best that you find your way of getting these things to not bug ya^^'
but i can help as best as allowed shuold ya need it ;)
oh....and personal request; try to not misuse the term 'demon' :p its a bit bothersome to hear it used in a manner not fitting of what it truly is :p
And how can you tell me you aren't concerned about what they do to infants with no attempt to block the pain, especially when there are no benefits to it and you get half functionality for the rest of your life as a result? Can you tell me you actually think it's a good procedure and that you're glad it was done to you? It's not just you who reacts like that about it either, males in general seem to be in denial about it. I assure you that circumcision only negatively affects you.
This is something no one can help me get through, this is not something I will likely ever get through, either.
It is acceptable to use the word 'demon' in my passage as I have done because it is a commonly known metaphor for the problems so big they torment you from within-like a demon. People attach many different meanings to the word, and this use of the word stems from one particular view of the word.
i look at them as the spiritual beings i've known them to be :p not really metaphor stuffs^^'
and actually! there is foreskin restoration, both surgical and non :p...so its not technically irreversible :p
besides...i'm totally for having foreskin lol...its more fun than none XD
oh...and as far as that goes...i don't care abuot what happens to children, as i am a very morbid persno who is actually happy when i hear of baby deaths...(yes i am THAT fucked up at times...93% f the time :p...)
an example: i was partially hoping ym sister had a stillborn this last april :p...
so yeah...my stand points are sadly that i really dont care much of the world to show sympathy beyond a friend suffering...(hence my not being of much help sadly^^')
i still say the fact that you have an opinion is a good part of two of the areas thogh...
fall of humanity...beyond our time more than likely...hence why i think you shuoldn't worry of it...i look at it as something we've earned in the end, am i wrong? ;)
Blah, I did forget you enjoy dead babies. Fuuuuck X3
I know the first point is probably far beyond the scope of ever being accomplished. How could one change the entirety of humanity so? That does not mean it should not have been said, however. I could agree we've earned our fall, but what I care about is everything we drag down with us, not humanity itself. I have very little love for humanity, and only have concern about billions dying because I value all lives.
hehehe, how could you forget my story of me and the dead baby incidents at work? *spanks*
and finally someone realizes something abuot that! :D, you're right the nerves that make uncircumcized (i hate having to spell that lol) penises have that extra pleasure while playing is what all people would lack if they dont have their natural foreskin...hence why i am envious of those who still have theirs :p
technically i'm sure in years the head of the penis could regain some of its sensitive skin that it would have had before, but also things that have been proven...those with foreskin, due to smegma buildup, are also at risk of rather painful diseases...correction, higher risk than those without foreskin are....examples: urinary tract infections, .....shit i forgot the other two we just had come into the ER this last week lol...but yeah, that was the initial reasoning before they lifted the rule about all babies needing to be circumcized at birth....(well it was rule in cali at least)
luckily by now its no longer mandatory in all states i'm sure...but we cannot reverse what's been done...
I realized another reason I might be more pissed about circumcision than you. Being asexual, I won't ever have the emotional satisfaction of a relationship with someone else. All I will ever have is masturbation, and that's been permanently fucked up. X3
We can't reverse what's been done, but if I can prove it is a violation of human rights it will stop pretty quick.
again dear, to be correct on term usage (as all 'asexuals' shuold be>_> its non-sexual, as asexual means the ability to reproduce with one's own self...aka like frogs :D)
and you cant say having a companion and/or mate is impossible juts because you lack a sex drive like that dear ;)
circumcision has nothing to do with your being nonsexual really, you are just overthinking it and making it have to XD....*smirks*
and you know i'm correct on the term, suhc as idiots calling a beastial form creatuer a 'feral form' just because its not an anthro-form?...i prefer using proper terms, rather than misused ones dear...as i alays make it known lol (besides, saying you're asexual while human is kinda.....misleading :p lol)
Note that you refer to asexual as only referring to a form of reproduction. This reasoning is sound as long as there is only one meaning that asexual can be linked to, but by itself asexual would literally mean 'without sex'. By itself that does not particularly mean anything unless you know the association of the word with the full term of 'asexual reproduction'. When used without that association, however, it becomes a perfectly applicable word to be used to describe sexual orientation. An asexual individual does not have sex, and does not have any sexual interests. It's not celibacy, which is by choice. Someone who is celibate likely still has sexual urges and preferences, unlike an asexual. Also remember that language is not a set thing, and that it changes over time. New words are created or old ones expanded in meaning to evolve the language to always have a word for everything.
By the way, I'm one of those idiots who refers to feral forms. :P
The reasoning in my stories is that the generic wild animals tend to be 4 legged, and could be referred to as being feral. When a character assumes such a shape an retains their intellect it is called a feral form. It implies that they have the shape of a feral creature, but not the mind. Alternatively, if they assume the form and their mind alters to that form as well, they are simply referred to as being feral. It's all in the context-remember there is more than one way to look at the use of a word.
Oh wait...we did that already.
*bites yer buttcheek to be a bad batty*
*removes your face* Now you know that is a no-no spot. X3
and this is true...only my foxy has insight on that shocker, but of course, he has no clue beyond it being dubbed as 'my evil batty madness' :p lol
'Evil batty madness'? XD
Well, at least he won't have to worry I'm trying to steal you as I will never be in the single's market. :P
...You're not planning on stealing me to make me RP more are you? XD
okay..i lied...only evil bats like me can foresee the future...and i foresee.....batty porn spammage >:)
Or are you already my RP slave and would beg me for more.
Good use of that economic stimulus payment! Keep the porn industry from asking for a bailout a 2nd time! XD
and i think we're eachother's RP slaves...we just dont realize is yet lol
Okay, I'm going to have to bookmark this and sit down for a good read. This could take a while.
~Otaku-Man
~Otaku-Man
I do not claim to know enough to see a clear path before me however. The way to making things right is vague and it will take allies and more worldly knowledge to understand how to cross those paths. I will be ridiculed, hated, and ignored by many, but my conviction that these things must be addressed will never falter, even if I am always alone in my beliefs.
Here's Part 2 of it:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/607507/
And you can find Part 1 in my journals.
It may not solve all the problems you mentioned, but this is just a start of some things I'm doing.
~Otaku-Man
There's a couple of us out there pooling notes together to try and understand the underlying reasoning behind what draws us to the fandom.
The psychology, sociology, and the history.
There's quite a bit to it. Just needs to get more centralized.
~Otaku-Man
I bet there might be a way to do it too.
This needs to be organized and formed!
~Otaku-Man