Moral Fibre

In every person there is a sense of right and wrong. Every single person will have different beliefs on what goes with or against their conscience. For some, the height of their personal immorality will be when they are selfish or greedy and that will be all they see as wrong. Others can go as far as committing murder and not feeling a shred of remorse such is the vast difference in their moral beliefs.

For me, I believe that as long as you aren't knowingly hurting someone or affecting their lives in a negative fashion whether it's directly or indirectly then you're grand. It goes against what I believe to be right and wrong to hurt someone intentionally, physically or otherwise, even if I don't like them. The exception is self-defence or if they are having a go at me verbally. Even then I regret some of it later.

Some people don't share my views. Maybe their moral fibre is better at keeping them regular or something, I don't know, but they think their beliefs are more accurate. For instance, today I met a friend of a friend. This person and a few of us were chatting and we were discussing the mad stoners a few floors up from us in this circle of hell they call AKD alternatively life styled members of our esteemed hall and this person said that people who smoked, whether it was cigarettes or drugs, were bad people.

Now everyone from every walk of life is allowed their own opinion and I will always respect that right. I've met opinions I don't agree with but wouldn't argue with people about them because it is their basic human right to have these thoughts.

But that is complete bullshit.

My parents have been on and off smokers for my entire life. They taught me right from wrong and I think they did a rather good job of it. So it stands to reason that they are either good people or exceptional liars and honestly I would be happy with either. I mean being able to convincingly sustain this lie for nearly 20 years, that's something to be admired.

My grandmother has smoked long before I was alive and while this woman is disturbingly racist occasionally reveals herself to have different beliefs to myself she is still a good person.

I have known many smokers in my life and I have never once thought it detracted from them as people, more that I worried occasionally for their health. But they aren't hurting anyone so who am I to judge. I know people will go on about second hand smoke, but it's not like they chain smoke and force me to bathe in their exhalation.

Another thing some people see as immoral is Piracy.
I believe that it is an old and noble art form that should go about Poseidon's garden unabated.

And also digital piracy. People argue that theft is theft. This is irrefutable. Theft is in fact theft. It's a good thing I'm not stealing then when a completely nondescript human, who is most certainly not connected to your devoted writer in any way shape or form and thus this writer is not legally responsible, downloads copies of films or music or e-books or whatever.

This of it this way. Say you had a mug in your hand and someone else saw this mug and thought to themselves "hey that's a pretty cool mug, I want one too". They then proceed to instantaneously duplicate an exact replica of this mug. Both parties still have the mug though only one person paid for it. Is that stealing?

I'm not going to go into arguments involving piracy or smoking. It's just one of the facets of life that interests me, that people can have such different ideas of what is right or wrong. And none are more right or wrong. There are the accepted morals of society and there are personal ideas of right and wrong.

The exceptions are The Westboro Baptist Church, Dictators and children. They are just plain evil.