The Anti-Pamphlet Society

At my university there was an area in front of the bookstore that was almost always populated by multiple people handing out pamphlets/leaflets/handbills/flyers of one sort or another.

On any given day you could join a dozen clubs, donate to multiple worthy causes, attend a handful of free concerts, and possibly have your vote swayed. Some friends and I printed up dozens of pamphlets detailing the evils of handing out pamphlets, and then made everyone's day a little more surreal by standing outside the bookstore and handing them out.

Most people would walk the gauntlet of pamphleteers and collect their leaflets, then read them as they walked away. This meant that people had gotten a good distance away before the hypocrisy of our message finally dawned on them. Sometimes they came back.

Sometimes it was hard to stay in character.

Satire.

I managed to make it almost all the way through the university without taking the required writing course. My high school Advanced Placement work really should have gotten me out of such a basic skills class, but eventually I just gave in and did it so I could graduate. This is how I ended up in Freshman Writing 101 the first semester of my senior year.

It was 8am on the first day of the semester and, with the exception of summer school, the first college class ever for most of the students. The essay was on childhood obesity. I finished my essay first and was the first to volunteer when the professor asked someone to stand up and read for the class.

I got an A for my well-written, logical argument for eliminating childhood obesity. As a bonus, I also traumatized an entire class full of fresh-out-of-high-school students who had never read A Modest Proposal with my cold and emotionless delivery. The next person to volunteer was the other senior in the class.

We had written our essays at the same time with zero discussion beforehand, and had obviously come to the same conclusion at the same time: You can propose whatever you like, no matter how preposterous, and get an A as long as your paper was well-thought-out and well-written. I like to think the freshman learned a valuable lesson that day, but I never got to find out because none of them would talk to me the rest of the semester.

Some People are Afraid of Dogs.

It's true, and there are a lot of different reasons for it. Some people have an irrational phobia, they're afraid of dogs like tons of people are afraid of spiders. You know, you're way bigger than it, you're a safe distance from it, but it still gives you the creeps or maybe makes you want to flee screaming. Dogs make some people feel that way, and there's no good reason for it, but they don't want dogs touching them the same way you don't want a tarantula or an orb weaver touching you.

You can understand how this person feels by picturing the dog as a giant spider. This is one reason why it is polite to not let your dog approach strangers uninvited.

Some people have movement disorders like cerebral palsy and Huntington's disease. The way these people move often creeps dogs out, even really friendly dogs that never act aggressive. Many people with movement disorders are afraid of dogs because they have been by normally nice dogs.

Some dogs are fine with everybody, and some have been specifically and deliberately trained that people that move in unusual ways aren't scary, but most dogs don't have a whole lot of experience in this area and find it kind of horrifying. The problem is that scared dogs do scary things like bite, lunge, and bark. Sometimes you can tell that someone has a movement disorder because they are equipped with a cane, crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair. Sometimes you can't tell until they take a step and your dog suddenly freaks out because it's seeing this:

It's polite to keep your dog on a leash because just seeing an unleashed dog can ruin this person's whole day without you ever knowing it.

For someone with a movement disorder, a leash means the difference between a safe dog and a dangerous dog.

Likewise, plenty of people are afraid of dogs simply because they've been attacked before.

There's a good chance the dog that bit them was supposedly friendly, and that dog's owner probably said it had never done anything like that before.

People who are afraid of dogs are everywhere. We dog owners can avoid scaring them by keeping our dogs on leashes and not letting them get into anyone's personal space in public. It's a good idea, because people who are afraid of dogs might be landlords, politicians, city council members, and other people who can actively make life easier or more difficult for dog owners. Think of it like scooping poop: when a few people don't do it, it makes all of us look bad and it makes non-dog owners want to make rules and ordinances banning dogs from places. Likewise, seeing a dog owner break a leash law can make a person who is afraid of dogs feel that way. Let's stick together and make dog owners as a group look good by keeping all of them on leashes, even small, friendly, harmless, elderly, and young ones. I can promise that the people who are afraid of dogs don't visit off-leash areas.

Mandatory Organ Donation

I come from a family of devout evangelical Christians who really, really don't understand why I use the Constitution instead of the Bible when considering what laws our country should and should not have. I grew up in a very Pro-life culture, surrounded by people who truly believe that laws restricting abortion are about saving lives.

I believe I may be espousing an unpopular opinion here...

But it's a pretty valid point when you really think about it.

There's really no way around it. If the government has a right to your body in order to save a life, than abortion should be illegal and kidney transplants should be compulsory. If you have a right to your own body even at the cost of another life, than abortion should be legal and bone marrow donation should be a personal choice.

I have yet to hear a good answer to this one that doesn't involve somehow legislating the morality of one religion on the entire population of a country founded on freedom of religion. Seriously, we could drastically reduce the rate of abortion through improved access to birth control, comprehensive sex education, and better welfare programs for single mothers. We could reduce the amount of shame and trauma an unplanned pregnancy can cause by eliminating the stigma against premarital sex and single mothers. We have all the studies we need to know what kind of education and social programs actually reduce unplanned pregnancy, yet most anti-abortion people would rather focus on a moral ideal where nobody has sex unless they're ready for a kid. Instead of facing reality and trying to reduce unplanned pregnancy, they attempt to overturn supreme court rulings while unborn babies die. I'm beginning to think that pro-life supporters are stupid, delusional, or just haven't given it that much thought...