of right versus wrong

In my *humble* opinion, the case of Right versus Wrong can best be debated with the following questions in mind:

1) Is my decision disrespectful or dangerous to myself or to my reputation/character?

2) Is my decision disrespectful or dangerous to any other living being?

3) Is my decision legal and/or does it fall within set guidelines?

4) Is my decision purely convenient and selfish, or is there another alternative?

For example:

*I want to have sex.

1) and 2) Sex between two like-minded individuals of the same maturity level can hardly be disrespectful, unless the motivations are off. If one person is doing it for pleasure and the other is doing it out of obligation or out of fear, then it's not right. The only danger in having sex is if you are not prepared for anything that may result from the action: broken body parts, broken hearts, STDs, pregnancies, etc. Immature people who have sex and cannot deal with the repercussions place a burden on others, whether it's family or society, to take care of their mistakes.

3) Keep it legal, folks. Laws regarding age and appropriate behavior were established and agreed upon by the majority to protect those who may not be mature enough to make decisions for themselves. Laws against sex in public places protect the general public from having to witness your ass in action and keeps us from losing our lunches.

4) If you want sex, go get sex. Just make sure your partner is on the same wave-length as you are. Alternatives? BOBs, self-love or abstinence, I guess. Sex between a man and a woman comes down to a primal urge - procreation - much like eating or sleeping. To many, it's just damn fun and a great way to relieve stress. Just wait until you're ready and be prepared for the what-ifs. If you're never ready or perhaps, die a virgin, trust me - there are more joys to life than two-minute sex. *wink*

*I want to sleep with my best friend's wife.

1) Even if your friend is a loser who doesn't treat his wife very well, and you sleep with his wife, you may be in for a serious ass-beating and if word gets out, your reputation may be ruined. In some arenas, your reputation for taking a serious ass-beating and/or taking something from another person that is not yours may actually be exalted. My friend's wife is a freakin' hot personal trainer, but that would just be awkward, not to mention that I'm heterosexual.

2) Assuming you believe that there is something sacred about marriage - founded on a person-to-person commitment - you would be disrespecting your friend, his wife, and the sanctity of marriage. Even if he asked you to sleep with his wife, there is still a disrespect for one of the aforementioned parties. Even if I didn't believe in marriage, I wouldn't want someone disrespecting any of my personal commitments.

3) Whether or not you will suffer legal consequences, it depends where you live, but there are guidelines with marriage, even if you are not the married person involved. They have made a way around the legalities involved with marriage, to keep it relevant with the times, but I'm still a believer in not taking risks with other people's lives.

4) There are at least 150 million people with whom a person could choose to have sex! So many fish in the sea - there's enough sex to go 'round on this planet! Why establish that I am threatened in some way by my friend (family at that!) that I have to take what's his and disrespect it and my family? Besides, decisions based on convenience that aren't fully thought-out are often the biggest regrets.

*I want to eat a Big Mac, fries, and a large coke for lunch today.

1) If you don't eat this meal often, thereby clogging your arteries with trans fats, preservatives, chemicals, hormones, and other added ingredients while increasing your chance of obesity and heart disease (which increases your chance of disability/early death while increasing your healthcare expense AND the national healthcare crisis), then go ahead. As for your reputation/character, people will only think you are hurting yourself if you do anything dangerous over and over again. They say we eat a pound of dirt a year, each, anyway. Moderation is key. Fast food knocks me out - I can literally sleep for a few hours after eating it. If I can't take a 2-hour nap after eating fast food, I get grumpy and unproductive. And it starts a chain reaction where I crave more of it, eat more of it, gain weight and retain water, feel disgusting and undesirable, and lack the energy required to get my fat ass to the gym (or even outdoors for a walk) to burn it off. I then become the obese dude whose flesh melds to the arm of her easy-chair at home, who loses half-eaten ham sandwiches into the folds of her flesh, who never sees the light of day and whose dead body they have to remove by taking out an outer-wall of her home. Okay, I just threw up a little in my mouth.

2) If you are only responsible for yourself, and don't have children, family, employers, teammates, pets, a partner, or society in general who depend on you to remain healthy for their sake and for whom you would not want to be a burden in the future; and you don't mind the inhumane treatment of animals that are inhumanely mass-produced and killed for protein (protein that you could get via other means), then go ahead. I, personally, have too many responsibilities depending on me to let myself go too far. I also think that I can supplement my diet with other things that don't require diseased/antibiotic'd/hormoned animals to drink the piss of other animals stacked 8-cages high, one on top of the other. I don't need meat every day. I am of the belief that meat is a luxury. I can wait for the farm-raised, humanely-butchered steak I get at the butcher-shop. Most humans don't work 16-hour days, digging pipeline or performing manual labor to require so many calories a day, and protein is found in many things other than meat. Your body needs longer to digest that stuff, too. They say P. Ramlee died with over 60 lbs of red-meat byproduct still in his bowels from years of "manly" eating. Yuck!

3) Eating a Big Mac meal is currently "legal", except when you are on a diet. If you are otherwise healthy, you wouldn't be on a diet in the first place. Eating a Big Mac meal probably goes against healthy eating guidelines, anyway. It's kind of like candy. It should be a treat for those who enjoy such treats, the same as alcohol. I believe that if you put yourself on a diet, you'll investigate safety before jumping into just anything, and you'll do it for yourself - not for someone cracking a whip on your fat ass, and you'll stick to the guidelines. Otherwise, your motivations are off and you will fail miserably.

4) You know there are alternatives, but damn it, you're hungry! You won't think about it now, because you're in the drive-thru and the dude's barking at you for your order. You'll eat healthier and stop a cow's misery tomorrow, after you've put an extra $5 into the McDonald's empire and have sat on the toilet for an hour, groaning because you're fat and blaming your parents for introducing you to the stuff that sets you that much apart from the gorgeous people at the gym who don't eat that shit. You'll resent your partner when they don't want to have sex with your fat ass and you'll think it's them, not you. (By the way, early-stage heart disease cuts off blood-flow to your pee-pee and other extremities, thereby decreasing your uh...bedroom abilities.) You'll promise them you'll go on a diet, soon, and you'll still take your kids to McDonald's, stealing bites of their Happy Meals and inflicting the same habits onto them. They'll grow up to be just like you.

Ah. The repetition, that is life.