How old are you? – IOTW Report

How old are you?

American Thinker: In a cartoon I saw once, Bugs Bunny asks someone when he was born. Scratching his head, the fellow answers, “I dunno, I was pretty young then.” Bugs didn’t go on to ask for a driver’s license, a birth certificate or a passport. Cartoon characters don’t usually have such documents.

You and I do have them, however. So, do they settle the question of age?

Yes and no.

Driver’s licenses, birth certificates and passports settle the question of legal age, which is based on date of birth. How else? Legal systems can recognize as valid only evidence based on objectively verifiable, observable, attestable (etc.) events such birth, at which time a certificate is issued (by a legally empowered authority) that other documents can use later as a basis for certifying legal age.

I’ve written “legal age” twice to ask whether another age concept can be meaningfully and usefully defined. It can indeed and has been.

If you suspect I’m about to enter the abortion controversy, you’re right. When I was teaching moral issues in a philosophy class years ago, abortion was one of the topics we discussed along with euthanasia and capital punishment, so I know the literature and the arguments “pro choice” and “pro life” advocates present. No, I’m not going to review them here. There is only space to state the bottom line in a book published some forty years ago that is still in print and leave it to the reader to study the arguments.

The bottom line is this. Legal age (birth age) is not the same as the age at which full moral rights are acquired — full moral rights meaning rights you and I have.  read more

23 Comments on How old are you?

  1. VERY NICE!….Now I get to celebrate a birthday and a brain function day also a cell splitting day. So, I will be expecting cards and cake around early September and sometime in November….

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  2. Although I believe life begins at conception I’m going to add a legal wrinkle into this discussion:

    – Miscarriages
    Are they to be reported as deaths?
    Will a legal name have to be assigned?
    Will the deceased have to be identified?
    Will a doctor have to assign cause of death?
    Will a proper burial be required? If so, will people have to get life insurance for those not yet conceived?

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  3. At the moment I feel like ninety six. Spent six hours doing yard work and probably two or three more tomorrow at the daughter’s place. I’m kinda like the duck on the water looking serene floating about, but my legs are going 240 underneath. So most people don’t think I’m in my seventies, but I got lots of titanium and ceramics to help me keep moving. When they cremate my ass there’s gonna be quite the pile of metal left over.

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  4. So, I’m 9 months older than I thought I was. That would have been more important in my teens, but now it’s just a number. I am who I am. Young enough to enjoy life and old enough to have lots of good memories.

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  5. Whatever they want to count. let’s just be consistent. I’m good with adding 9 months.

    Frankly amazed I am still alive. No other male in the family has lived as long as I in the last 100 years. We tend to check out early. Maybe them all smoking and me not made a difference. I’m a `57 model.

    Given it looks like I’ll still be around awhile, maybe I should have considered a different plan than buying motorcycles and eating badly.

    My best friend corrected me when I told him that was my new retirement plan once I lived longer than expected. “Nope. That’s an exit plan”.

    Meh. Small diff. So now that I’m way past the standard due date for us guys in the family, I have a new way I’ll probably die; I’ll live to 95 and be shot by a jealous husband.

    Hey! It could happen! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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  6. Women are born with all of their eggs. That means my existence as an egg goes back to 1920. The odds of a human egg being ovulated are about 300 out of 7 million. Life truly is a miracle and the womb should always be sacred. You’ve beaten incredible odds just to become a fetus – you don’t deserve death.

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  7. Hey, Ladies, listen up. True Story.

    When I turned 35 I tacked 7 years on my age and ever since then I tell people that I am seven years older than my actual age. I don’t volunteer my age to anyone, but when asked, that’s what I tell them. The responses are gratifying, to say the least.

    Why did I do that? Because it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than cosmetic surgery and it’s a lot of fun! So, try it out sometime. You’ll feel incredibly flattered and that feels very nice.

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  8. So this guy is diagnosed with cancer and told he has 6 months to live.

    He says: “Geez, doc, what can I do?”

    Doctor thinks about it awhile and then says: “Marry a Jewish girl and move to a Montana ranch.”

    Guy asks: “How’s that gonna make me live longer?”

    Doctor answers: “It won’t. It’ll just SEEM longer.”

    izlamo delenda est … (oh, for anyone who’s offended, write to me via iOTWReport and I’ll send you a kleenex)

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