Disabled? I Am Legend!

I have never considered being an Aspie and having chronic migraine disabling any more than the need to wear corrective lenses. While I would love to loose the migraines, 55 years of wearing spectacles is no more an inconvenience than wearing clothes. On the other hand, my differences due to Asperger’s Syndrome are intrinsically part of who I am.

I am not disabled, but society often disables me. Unstrange Mind explains it so well:

Morality and contraception

Sometimes I happen across a blog post that expresses my thoughts far more succinctly than I ever could. This is one such post. Comment are disabled here. Please comment on original post.

Clare Flourish

Things happen. Human beings have purposes and intention. Things don’t.

Here’s the Catholic Church on contraception, taken as before from Rejection of Pascal’s Wager. John Chrysostom found it appalling: Indeed, it is something worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. Weird. Pius XI wrote, No reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything which is intrinsically against nature may become comformable with nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is designed primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purposely sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. So a condom to prevent spreading AIDS was forbidden by John Paul II.

The current position: Wikipedia’s source claims condoms were permitted

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Will Trump ban Jews and Catholics too?

So the Trump wants to ban all Muslims (even US citizens) from entering America due to the “risk” they pose. Exactly how high is that risk?

Since 2001, a total of 45 Americans have been killed on American soil by Islamic extremists. While that’s 45 too many, it works out at 3.2 persons per year. Let’s put this in perspective. Over the same period 254 Americans were killed by home-grown right wing extremists.

While Islamic extremists have been responsible for 6% of terrorist related attacks, Jewish extremists have been responsible for 7% of the attacks. Just to be clear,  this is not based on the religion of the terrorist, but on the motive for the attack. On that basis it makes as much sense to prohibit the entry of all Jews into the USA.

According to FBI statistics, Latinos are responsible for 42% of all terrorist attacks. Perhaps Trump would like to ban them too? The predominant religion of Latinos is Roman Catholicism. While he’s at it, he might like to ban all Catholics as well.

How else could Trump make America a safer place? The communists and other left wingers are responsible for 21% of terrorist attacks, so a ban on all socialists and anyone favouring a public health system would be prudent. To be absolutely sure that no left wingers get by the ban, he might consider banning everyone who isn’t a registered republican.

Let’s not forget that the anti-abortion, animal rights and other single cause extremists are responsible for 16% of the terrorist attacks, so supporters of those movements should also be subject to the ban.

Now that the borders are closed to everyone who is not a card carrying republican with absolutely no axe to grind, America should be a much safer place.

Except we’ve forgotten:

More American women are killed by their husband or boyfriend each day than are Americans killed by Islamic extremists in a year.

For each American killed by an Islamic extremist, more than 100 American Children are killed by a parent.

For each American killed by an Islamic extremist, 2870 are murdered by someone they know, and a further 950 are murdered by a stranger.

Did you know that you are twice as likely to be killed by a Fourth of July firework as you are to be killed by an Islamic terrorist?

The chances of being killed in an elevator accident verses being killed by an Islamic terrorist is greater than 8:1.

You are fifteen times more likely to be killed by a lightning strike – an act of God – than being killed by an act of an Islamic extremist.

Did you know that American police officers kill more than 300 times as many Americans each year as do Islamic extremists.

For each American that dies at the hands of an Islamic terrorist, almost 12,000 Americans die in motor vehicle crashes.

While the threat of terrorism can’t be dismissed, the fear of terrorism is way out of proportion to the danger it presents. The greatest danger lies in the political reaction to that irrational fear. We are likely to allow our politicians to impose curbs on our freedom that cannot be justified by the risks terrorism presents.