A new year and old resolutions

New year's day has come and gone, resolutions have been made and broken, and I am yet to give my start of year statement. I've seen many statements vilifying the year, or even the way it ended. I've heard horror stories of the way people were finally glad the year ended and hoped for better things in the year to come. I cannot claim the same. This year, for me, was an interesting year. I have gone through the gamut of rationality and emotion. I have failed a few things, and succeeded in others. I have lost and I have found. But most of all I have lived.

First let me write about someone I rarely talk about. My girlfriend. Like every other man I think she's the most beautiful person I have ever met, online and offline, and I hope that she thinks I am the partner she has always wanted to be with. She's miles away from me and I'm not even sure she knows this is about her. Yet she is one person who inspires me. She has her achievements, and failures, she has opportunities I have lost and has lost opportunities I've found, and she is one of the few people I can honestly say I'd like even if she was not my girlfriend. I cannot say she really knows what I feel about her, nor can I say that she looks at me as the infamous knight in shining amour. On third thoughts I cannot even really say that she thinks I am the person she wants to spend her life, or even those few minutes, with. There is quite a lot I do not know about her, and there is a lot she does not know about me, and yet even in that ignorance there is a lot I do know, and what I know I want to be with. You see, it's not about her, her looks, her character, her habits or even what she has done, it's about me. Even she she had not noticed me, or even talked to me I would still think she is beautiful. Even if she had stuck to the parameters which we had first met I'd still think her somebody worth knowing. My life is enriched by having her in my life whichever way she gets into it.

Then we have my friends. Those I met through FIKA. Those we decided to THINK! together. Those we decided that the change begins with us. We have met, talked, discussed, drank and done stuff together. We have a long year ahead of us and a lot of our work is cut out for us. We have to change our villages, our towns, our countries and our world. We have to try, even when it appears hopeles. We have to reach out and clear the world of ignorance inasmuch as it is the desired state, and we have to stand up and say THINK! It is a journey we have started, and it would be sad if we do not continue. It's a journey without end, for even while we clear the mists of ignorance we raise the spectre of prejudice, elitism and intolerance. We have to constantly watch against ourselves even as we watch out against others. We have to remember that we may lead people to the promise land but like the Moses, of fable, we may not reach it ourselves, but that should not stop us from showing the way.

 A new year usually comes with the undeserved expectation of new things. We forget that the old us keeps on going even when the year changes. If we do not change over a new day we should not expect to change over a new year. We are the same people, we have the same prejudices, we have the same wants, needs, desires and dislikes. Changing the date does not change us, the only way that we will change is if we change ourselves. However even while I reach out the conciliatory hand towards others of unlike belief, I will not coddle injustice, or lie in a bed of intolerance. I will not stand irrationality or countenance bigotry. I will not stand by and see ignorance rule and neither will I give respect to ideas that oppress us and keep us in bondage. Our public conduct, or public rules and our public behaviour should be based on rationality and logic. While I'll respect your right to believe I expect you to know that your right ends where it infringes on the liberty of others, and respecting
your right does not prevent me from ridiculing, laughing at or even condemning your ideas. If your ideas, or mine, appear in public space they will be subject to criticism, ridicule and analysis in the measure that they deserve. You, and I, have no automatic right to a hearing. To my girlfriend I do hope we spend a large part of my life together.

To my FIKA compatriots we need to THINK! To my friends lets take ourselves out of the quagmire we found ourselves in and to my enemies, it did not really need to be this way.

Lets take a deep breath and look at what we are doing to the world, to our countries and to our fellow humans. Let's ask ourselves if that is what they'd want to be done to them, and let's consider that even while we may think we are right we are not the ultimate, or the only, source of goodness in this world. As the earth rotates and we appear to see a new sun let's dedicate this period to making the world a better place than we found it.

 As for my new year's resolution, it will be 1680 by 1050. It will have to suffice.

Holy Lot

There was this great man in ancient times. Lot his name was. Lot was the nephew of Abram, he who later took on the name Abraham. Abram was one rather crafty man. At one time, when Abram was faced with a famine, he saw a way he could get rich in Egypt. He went down to Egypt and since his wife was rather beautiful, he decided to pimp her to the Pharaoh and the Pharaoh's officials. The Pharaoh saw this rather beautiful available woman and decided to appropriate her for himself. In a fit of generosity the Pharaoh gave Abram sheep, cattle, donkeys, male and female servants and even camels. Abram even got silver and gold. Sarai, Abrams wife, had certainly pleased the Pharaoh rather much.

Now the Pharaoh did not know that Sarai was Abrams wife, and Abram had also neglected to tell the Pharaoh that Sarai had a venereal disease. After a period of Sarai gallivanting about the palace she had spread this disease about the household. Pharaoh's doctors soon identified the source and advised him to get rid of her. Being a rather superstitious fellow, the Pharaoh sent Sarai back to Abram, and made sure that everything Abram had touched was sent away with them so that no vestiges of that disease may remain in his household. Abram thus left with quite a lot of stuff that he did not come with. What is not so clear from the story is whether Sarai got cured or Abram was immune to her disease.

Now Abram left Egypt and when along with his nephew Lot. Since Abram had quite a lot of stuff and Lot, too, had his own animals and tents, their servants began quarrelling over water and grazing rights. So Abram suggested that they part ways. Abram went to Canaan while Lot, who had acquired a taste for city life, camped near Sodom.

About that time war broke out and Lot and his goods were carried off as war booty when Sodom and Gomorra were defeated. Abram could not see how all that stuff could be taken so he got 318 men together and waited until night to attack. He managed to completely rout the enemy gaining back Lot, Lot's goods as well as women and a few other people. The kings were happy and Abram to keep Melchizedek (one of those kings) happy gave him a whole tenth of his stuff. However he refuses to give the king of Sodom anything.

Lot went back to Sodom as he still loved city life. He loved sitting by the gateway watching the city life flow by him. One of those days he sees two strangers approach. Knowing that the city can be rather dangerous especially for rural fellow he insisted that they come and spend the night in his house. He gave them unleavened bread and prepared for them a place to sleep. Rumours soon run around the city that there were two strangers in Lot's house and the men of the city decided it would be a nice time to have an orgy. They came and surrounded Lot's house and demanded that these new men come over for a bit of hanky panky with the city crowd.

Lot thinks "Oh! Abomination".

Lot looks around his household and sees that he only has his wife and two daughters therein and no men he can offer to the mob. He thinks "These my daughter oh. They are about to be married anyway. Perhaps if I give them to the mob they'll gain enough experience to please their future husbands. After all they are virgins and not very useful to anyone"

So Lot goes out to the crowd and offers them his daughters. The crowd, however, does not want the women. They left theirs in the houses to have fresh meat and they've been seeing these ones around ever. The crowd wants fresh ass. They even promise Lot that if they get his ass, his lot will be a lot worse. The strangers seeing this happen pull Lot back inside and throw some sort of tear gas that manages to disperse the crowd.

So now these strangers tell Lot that their boss has sent them to organize a tactical strike against that city. They urge him to get his people and run. Lot immediately goes to his future sons in law who had already paid dowry for his daughters and tries to get them to flee with him. The boys thought Lot was some sort of joker and laughed him off. Early in the morning the strangers tell him to get out. Lot still hesitates so they take his hand and that of his wife and daughters and lead him to the gate. They tell Lot to flee to the mountains and not to look back.

Lot being a city man begs to be let to flee to a small town nearby as he cannot fathom how he'll survive in the mountains. The two Angels (yes that's what they were) tell him they will spare this small city, Zoar (meaning small), from the strike but he'd better hurry. By the time Lot got to Zoar, the sun had risen and the tactical strike had started. Lot's wife finds it hard to believe all that property is lost and turns to look back. The Angels' boss, however, does not want anybody to report on the weapons used so he turns one of the weapons towards her and turns her into a block of sodium chloride.

After seeing all this destruction Lot got mighty afraid to live in towns so he got his daughters and settled in a cave upon the mountains. Now Lot had lost all his men and female servants as well as most of his goods when he fled from Sodom, however his daughters did not see the point of them not getting some even though they were alone in the mountain cave. The daughters hatched a plot and decided that they'll be getting their father drunk then they will take turns. As these things happen they eventually got pregnant and they both had sons. Through all this hanky panky Lot apparently did not know who he'd been spending exhaustive nights with.

And that is the authenticated story of a holy and righteous man called Lot.

To the Women of my life

I've had quite a lot of women in my life. Mothers, sisters, teachers, aunts, cousins, friends and even lovers. Each of these women have left a mark on me. Some have died, some are still alive. I have made them happy, disappointed them, annoyed them, amused them, flattered them, ashamed them and I still suffer the consequences of all my actions good and bad. One thing however all of them had in common was a personal network of female friends and relatives who they could rely on to support them in times of crisis and joy.

You can never have a relationship with a woman on her own. You'll have a relationship with her and her network, albeit at a distance. This network will monitor you, criticize you, suggest changes to be made in you and generally see to the wellbeing and downfall of your relationship. They will directly and indirectly influence the way you are perceived and will also provide diverse views on the suitability of this relationship. Whatever kind of relationship you will have with the women in your life you will share with the network in hers. This network also serves a very important purpose to women. When relationships get grim they serve a support network to grieve with, laugh with, vilify and rebuild the self esteem of the woman. When the relationships are going well they will serve as a mirror to show how well you have it. Sometimes this network will destroy a relationship indadvertedly or deliberately. They still will, however, lend their support when this happens.

We men, on the other hand, tend not to have this personal relationship with our networks. Most of our networks only touch on the surface of what we are. We have business networks, social networks and family networks. While elements in these networks may overlap, we do not have personal networks. We do not have the emotional crutch we can rely on when we need it. We maintain a distance around us, with our male friends, and limit interaction to those areas that a network is meant for. A man's emotional crutch is the women in his life. These are the only people we ever seem to touch with on a deep emotional level and rely on as our emotional crutches, and very erratic crutches these are. Mothers die, sisters get married, friends move into other relationships and even lovers sometimes give up on you. This is probably why it is a devastating experience for a man to love and lose. When we lose our lovers we do not just lose a relationship, we lose our only emotional crutch. We lose the only outlet we have for release. The loss, for us men, is greater then the face we put on it.

I am proud of the women in my life, past and present. I know there are probably a few things that I'd wish had not happened but in sharing their lives with mine they have made me what I am today. I wouldn't be me without them. To the women in my life I thank you for having been there. Happy belated Women's Day.

Kenya and the Bashir Fiasco

There has been a lot of hullabaloo about Kenya inviting Bashir to our promulgation ceremonies. My bone of contention here is whether indeed Kenya invited Bashir to the ceremonies. I can hear choruses of "Yes". However I still disagree. Lets look at the circumstances surrounding the invite and, indeed, the country Kenya.

Kenya has just undergone a major transformation in the way it is governed. Naturally we had to celebrate, and in the celebration we had to invite our neigbours and friends to celebrate with us. Kenya is bordered by Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. In addition we do have a common market agreement with Rwanda and Burundi, as well as a different agreement with the Comesa countries. To cap that we have historical ties with the United Kingdom. The United States of America, the European Union and China have been generous donors and the US of A in particular has been a rather severe critic and taskmaster. All these countries are considered our friends and neighbours, and as such in the event of a major celebration they certainly should be invited to attend.

Kenya, unlike some superpowers I will not mention, has ratified the ICC and as such is is required to arrest Bashir if he does set foot on Kenya jurisdiction. Given American behaviour in Afghanistan and Iraq I suspect that the Americans will probably see justification in Kenya raiding sudan to capture Bashir. This latter behaviour is illegal, unless the US of A does it, in which case the international media consider it a justified regime change.

Kenya invited representatives of the countries it considers our friends and neighbours. Sudan sent the president to represent it. Kenya did not invite Bashir for the ceremonies, it invited the President of the Republic of the Sudan. Bashir, as such, was not here as Bashir. He was here as the president of the Republic of the Sudan. Last time I checked the ICC had not issued an arrest warrant for the President of Sudan and Kenya, thus, is not obliged to arrest the president. Arresting Bashir would have been arresting the President of Sudan and would be not only bad manners but a major breach of protocol.

If, say, between the time the invite was issued and the promulgation date the person occupying the office of the President of Sudan had changed, that person would have come instead. If we insist that Bashir and the President of Sudan are one and the same then the ICC would have exceeded it mandate by insisting that a country be arrested. Bashir can, and should, be arrested if he travels in his capacity as Bashir, however the President of Sudan should not be arrested. During his time here Bashir was the country, and Kenya would be in breach of multiple agreements as well as protocol to arrest the President of Sudan. As a matter of fact it probably would be considered a declaration of war against the Sudan.

Crime and Punishment

I know I'll get in trouble for this but here goes.

Let's start by defining some of our terms.

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority (via mechanisms such as legal systems) can ultimately prescribe a conviction.

Legally

A crime is a wrongdoing classified by the state as a felony or misdemeanor. A crime is an offence against a public law. This word, in its most general sense, includes all offences, but in its more limited sense is confined to felony.

Crimes are 'mala in se,' or bad in themselves, and these include all offences against the moral law; or they are 'mala prohibita,' bad because prohibited, as being against sound policy which, unless prohibited, would be innocent or indifferent.

There are significant differences between a misdemeanor and a felony offense. A felony is defined as a crime punishable by more than one year in prison or by death
Felonies are typically the most serious crimes in any system of criminal law. However, any crime that has a sentence of only a fine or confinement in the local jail does not necessarily qualify for a felony.

In comparison to felonies, misdemeanors are less-serious crimes. They are generally punishable by a fine or captivity in jail for less than one year. Often, misdemeanors are handled by special courts with abbreviated procedures.

Prostitution: The giving or receiving of the body for sexual activity for hire but excludes sexual activity between spouses.
Performing for hire, or offering or agreeing to perform for hire where there is an exchange of value, any of the following acts: Sexual intercourse; sodomy, or; manual or other bodily contact stimulation of the genitals of any person with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desires of the offender or another.
The common lewdness of a woman for gain.

Now lets look at some of our crimes. In the Penal code Cap. 63 Chapter 1
153: (1) Every male person who
(a)    knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution; or
(b)   in any public place persistently solicits or importunes for immoral purposes,
is guilty of a misdemeanour; and in the case of a second or subsequent conviction under this section the court may, in addition to any term of imprisonment awarded, sentence the offender to corporal punishment.

154: Every woman who knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution, or who is proved to have, for the purpose of gain, exercised control, direction or influence over the movements of a prostitute in such a manner as to show that she is aiding, abetting or compelling her prostitution with any person, or generally, is guilty of a felony.

Firstly, what is the crime here? Getting payed for sexual favours. And exactly why is it a crime? Notice also that while a male person who "knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution" commits a misdemeanor, it is considered a felony for a female person who "knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution". Case of double standards, or is it gender discrimination?

The crime is a person willingly offering sexual services to another willing person (who is not a spouse) for some gain (usually monetary). If we removed the word sexual this would define almost any service that is offered. In cases where gratification is given, for example, cleaning a house, massage, running errands, driving one around, giving somebody a bath, offering butler services, secretarial services or even ushering, a person offers services to another wiling person (who is not a spouse) for some gain (usually monetary). Why then is the former treated different from the latter?

The Sexual Offences Act 2006 states in the preamble "An Act of Parliament to make provision about sexual offences, their definition, prevention and the protection of all persons from harm from unlawful sexual acts, and for connected purposes"

In the case of prostitution, willing that is, who is the person hurt? The client gets a service, the supplier gets due recompense and they both go away happy. The only entity that suffers here seems to be the government since it does not tax this illegal act that harms no one. And in this case the suffering is self inflicted.

Some objectors will point out that a number of these prostitutes are doing this job because of poverty, or lack of education, or even because they cannot get other jobs. However that argument is invalid because quite a lot of us are in other, legitimate, professions because of poverty, lack of education or simply because we cannot get other jobs. Any person claiming that all secretaries wanted to be secretaries, or that all drivers aspired to be drivers, all accountants wanted to be accountants, or even that all police-persons aspired to be so would be economical with the truth. Are we going to abandon these professions too just because a some people failed to have them as their dream careers? Why are we wasting security, legal and judicial resources prosecuting crimes that have no victim, or even a complainant that can justifiably say their rights, freedoms or property have been abrogated? Do we not have actual crimes to prosecute? Serious ones like serial murderers, grenade throwers and resource stealing MPs fail to be prosecuted because we have inadequate or indifferent resources and yet we regularly get sweeps in town to get rid of prostitutes while one street down some hapless Kenyan is getting "ngetaed" on the way home.

What if...

I was brought up catholic. When I was growing up English and Swahili Mass was considered an heretical departure from Catholicism, the idea of Catholics marrying other persons was anathema, and all other religions were considered cults. My parents read quite a lot and all of them had quite varied libraries. My mothers tended to have books based upon their professions while my father's library had a broad spectrum of books from philosophy, agriculture, fiction, religion and even psychology. Unknown to my parents I started rather early to read almost everything that I could lay my hands upon. I was an equal opportunity reader and, at that time, everything that was written, to me, was sacred. I remember reading Meja Mwangi when I was too young to differentiate between a bar and a restaurant, I do remember reading James Hardly Chase inasmuch as my father thought I should wait until I was 18 to read those. I graduated from Ladybirds to Nancy Drew, The Famous Five, to Sherlock Holmes, to Grimms Fairy Tales, to St. Augustine's City of God, to The Bible, to The Book of Mormon, to The Quaran. My young mind was quite willing to take in all that without even a grain of salt. I had already began to believe in almost everything I could read, inasmuch as I could see lots of contradictions and inconsistencies in the stuff. Any attempt not to believe was always encountered in my mind by "What if..." For some very strange reason my default position was that everything written is true until proven false.

Sometime in my school years my teachers noticed my love of reading and made me an assistant librarian. The librarian at that time was my best friend who, much as he loved reading, had many other pursuits and left to me much of the work. Here was I with the keys to a room full of books. I was in heaven, literally. My scope got wider and I'd sometimes even read three to four books at a time. I began to think there were not enough hours in the day to finish all the books I was wont to read. Classes looked to me like a waste of time, and I could not wait to get out of preps so I could hide myself in the library and read. I despaired of ever reading all of those and yet I believed I must read all. I believed in faeries, gods, ghosts, aliens, perpetual machines, cyborgs, evil geniuses, genesis, re-genesis, evolution, re-incarnation, young earth creation theory, big-bang theory, America, Europe, Father Christmas and the Elves, The Easter Bunny, Kunta Kinte, Shaka Zulu, Wangu wa Makere, Kintu and Nakku, Zeus, Hermes, even Hercules and Cupid. I even thought Mukibi's Institute for the Sons of African Gentlemen existed somewhere in Western Kenya and, boy, did I want to join that school.

Eventually I began to understand that people do write lies. Except when lies are written they are called fiction. I also learnt that the old, old lies were no longer called fiction and had to be called myth or, depending on the authority, sacred truth. I was told with all due seriousness that the Bhagavad-Gita was sacred truth and holy and yet I still was told, with equivalent due seriousness, that it is a myth and unholy. And I believed. As always any nagging doubts were dismissed with a what if...

It took until my late teens before this "what if..." finally got me into trouble.

On one of those pagan festival periods we have at the end of the year I was walking the streets of Nairobi, idle and purposeless. While walking I met these self proclaimed prophets who somehow managed to convince me they can pray for my prosperity so I never need to suffer later in life. They took me to some "holy" lodging down on River Road where I found quite a number of other adherents waiting their turn to get prayed for. I was asked to sit down and wait my turn. while I was waiting a woman came out of the room with a smile on her face just as if she'd won the proverbial million and one man got up next to me and went in. The woman smiled at us, said a few hallelujahs and went out of the room. After about ten minutes the man comes out with a bewildered look. He looks like he cannot believe his fortune and walks out without even looking at any of us. Then I'm beckoned in.

The 'prophet' tells me I've entered a holy place and I must remove my shoes. He also tells me I must not profane the place by entering with any money so I'm required to put my all my money on the side in a bowl where it will be prayed for. The fella prays for about one minute (he must have been tired) then asks me to bring the bowl with my money for him to pray over. I bring it and he prays for slightly longer. He hen tries to convince me that the money has entered my stomach and will come out again when I reach home. Then he tells me to go home and not to talk to anybody on the way until the money has come back. I tell him "that's very fine, now can I have my money back?" He looks askance at me at proceeds to pray a bit longer while making it a point in his prayers to ask God to show me how my money is now in the stomach and to make sure it gets out when I arrive at home doubled. He also asks God to remove the doubt in my mind since the money cannot double unless I do not doubt. At this point all my 'what if.." comes back to me. Here is a man of God promising me miracles if I believe. I am still adamant that I want my money back! The man of God prays harder and even longer for my salvation and quotes many bible verses on believing without seeing. The fellow even has the audacity to lay his hands upon my head and pray for the evil spirits that are blocking my belief to leave me. I begin to think 'what if I believed and the miracle happened?' I finally and reluctantly agree to go home, but with a lot of doubt.

It took me about half an hour later to realise I asked the wrong what if. I should have asked what if I refused to believe. At least I'd have my money even if it is not doubled. Going back there I discover that the fellows have already left, leaving a few faithful there waiting for their return. Needless to say none of us saw this fellow again.

Now that I am older (and hopefully wiser) I find that a lot of us stay in illogical and unsustainable beliefs because of that what if. We are frightened to live our lives just in case our particular 'what if' turns out to be true. We are willing to trade in the present, nay, even ignore it, for a future what if. We ignore the here and now, ignore the lessons of the past, suppress our reason for that pie in the sky. Mayhaps it is time to look at the world and instead of asking 'what if it is true and I lose the pie in the sky?' we should ask 'what if it isn't true and I lose what I do have now?'

Secular Morality

In one of our various discussions over what I prefer to regard as Kenya's favourite drink we touched on the issue of morals. The majority consensus was that morality cannot exist without religion. To quote one of the debaters “Secular morality is an oxymoron”. This got me thinking, can we really have morality without religion? Would secular morality in itself simply be a form of anarchy? Perhaps we should begin by trying to find out what “Morality” is.

According to Wikipedia:
Morality (from the Latin moralities "manner, character, proper behavior") is a system of conduct and ethics that is virtuous.
In its "descriptive" sense, morality refers to personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society.
In its "normative" sense, morality refers directly to what is right and wrong, regardless of what people think. It could be defined as the conduct of the ideal "moral" person in a certain situation.
Morality may also be defined as synonymous with ethics, the field that encompasses the above two meanings and others within a systematic philosophical study of the moral domain.

According to Dictionary
Moral: Adjective, of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical:
In my opinion none of these precludes having a secular morality. Morality, in itself, cannot be said to be religious, neither can secular morality be defined to be anarchy.

I would imagine that secular morality would define a system of conduct that enables a human being to live in society in a manner that enhances rather than destroys the fabric of human interaction, and the development of human potential. Granted that many of the principles that we consider moral are also in almost every religious book, it does make it hard to distinguish between religious morality and secular morality, that in itself, however, should not invalidate the concept.

Morality should be based on a few fundamental precepts. The right to life and the right to freedom. This implies not only that the individual has these rights, but also that the society he interacts in as well as humanity at large is guaranteed these freedoms. Not only should the individual have these rights but should acknowledge that other entities, too, have those rights. The only limitations should be when these selfsame rights abrogate the rights of others in this respect.

Most (not all) of the religious precepts ignore the second and limit the first except where it is expedient for it's purposes. All religions have some form of moral precepts. Not all agree, but in many cases those precepts do have a lot of similarity. But this is about secular morality, nor religious morality.

Given the fundamentals, there a a few questions that would arise from that. What moral precepts would guarantee these basic rights? In my honest opinion some of the so called “controversial issues” like homosexuality, abortion or even the right to kill in special circumstances can be answered by ensuring that the basic principles are taken care of while ensuring no person or group of people are capable of removing these rights, and if they attempt to they would have, at the very least, have abrogated their rights to freedom.

Most people take the golden rule as the ultimate morality. The golden rule says “do unto others as you would want to be done unto you.” I tend to disagree with this. Consider a person who loves pain and is into pain inducing activities as a turn on. Would somebody else, who is not into pain and such, really want to be done unto as that one would want to be done unto? The golden rule really should be “do unto others as they would like to be done unto them.” What you do unto others should be as per their preferences, not as per yours. What you do unto yourself, however, is as per your preferences.

Capital punishment cannot be a morally desirable issue. Capital punishment is an unrecoverable form of punishment which (if proven unjustified) can neither be reversed or adequately compensated. As such it should not be an option society should have at it disposal.

Imprisonment, while it does abrogate the right to freedom, should be used in cases where people abrogate the rights of others. Banishment from society and it's products would be a better option though it can only become practical when we find areas we can banish people to. Mayhaps when we discover other life supporting planets, or even if the population ever falls to a level where we can afford to have vast tracts set off and sealed for these persons.

Abortion should be limited to the persons who actually carry these babies. Persons who have nothing at stake, other than a hypothetical interest in genetic continuity or voter expansion. What is in my body is mine until it leaves my body, and as such it is my responsibility to either nurture it or terminate it. It should not be the responsibility of other third parties, whatever stake they may imagine they have unless I am no longer capable of making these decisions for myself.

Some “sins” like fornication, adultery, homosexuality et al should not really be an issue at all. After all whatever is done between consenting adults in their own privacy is really a matter between those adults. In the case of adultery (defined as a sexual act between at least two persons, one or more of whom are a married to a person outside this liaison) is really a matter between the parties concerned and should not be an issue for society at large.

Certain “commandments” like Do Not Steal, Do Not Kill fall under the right to freedom and the right to life. Persons should have freedom to accumulate, or not accumulate, articles they consider valuable and it would be morally improper to either curtail this activity or profit unfairly by removing them from that person without their free consent or otherwise. And persons should be left to live the life they want to live.

Incidentally, it should also be within that person's rights to terminate their own life in any manner they feel like, inasmuch as it does not directly infringe on the lives, or rights of others. This means that jumping out of my fifth floor window and bashing yourself to death on my new Toyota Premio is a no no. So would shooting yourself in the premises you are renting from me in such a manner as to create damage to my premises. However if you want to hang yourself from the nearest tree the only good thing the “good Samaritan” can really do is give you a stout rope as an aid.

The biggest advantage secular morality would have is that since it is not set in stone by some being it can evolve as society evolves, and it can adjust itself to situation that are new and strange without in themselves being broken. A new rule is simply set up against the fundamentals, and if it fails the fundamentals then it is immoral, if it doesn't then it is moral. Isn't that so much simpler?