Online Vs Offline

Two days on, and things are looking (very) slightly better. Some sort of start has been made on Milosevic, although everything else I was depressed about on Friday is pretty much still going on.

An addendum to one thing I wrote on Friday, about anti-abortionists: I am anti-abortion, except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, or both the mother’s and child’s lives are in danger, where I believe it becomes a moral grey area where any decision either way is incredibly difficult. I believe abortion is the taking of an innocent life, and in my ideal world, it would be illegal. Then again, in my ideal world, there wouldn’t be rapists, and contraception wouldn’t fail, and people who didn’t want to get pregnant would act responsibly in their sex lives. But there isn’t much that’s more hypocritical than anti-abortionists murdering, and it disgusts me that in their moral universe and mine, some points overlap.

This is actually a subject I can go on and on for hours about, but it’s something I generally prefer to deal with through real-time conversation rather than in a blog, because misunderstandings are so much easier to deal with face to face. I’d also state that almost everything I said above is, at best, a simplistic summary of my thoughts on the subject, and I don’t think any valid opinions can be formed in response to my views (either for or against) until you’ve actually talked to me.

It just struck me that many of the things I think about a great deal are hardly represented in this site. I think a great deal about politics, and religion, and morality – basically, all the stuff that people disagree most violently and irrationally about – but I seldom write about any of that here. I think it’s because in real life, I spend a great deal of time in the company of debaters and at debating competitions, where all the above subjects are, surprise surprise, violently and irrationally disagreed about. And as I said earlier, I actually prefer talking about things like that face to face with people, rather than chucking inflammatory words into the ether where they can be easily misunderstood and people can think of me as a bad, bad person.

Which does trouble me. I’m perfectly happy with people having less than positive opinions about me (because sometimes, no one agrees more with them than me), but I like having the chance to defend myself if they’ve got me wrong, which they frequently do, either through a fault of theirs, or mine, or both. And although people frequently get me wrong in conversations as well, at least I’ve got more of a chance if they communicate their displeasure there and then, and we can try sorting it all out.

So that was yet another simple comment turned into a personality rant. They tend to slip out from time to time.