I forget, is simulated child porn (the kind where no actual children were involved) illegal in America or not? If it is, that's stupid. And tantamount to thoughtcrime. As is that Australian thing. And that Law and Order episode with the woman who had some congenital defect that made her look 12 even though she was in her 20s where the whole point of the episode was that anyone who would want to sleep with that woman is evil and should be locked up. What all of it says is "There are people who are just born evil, and even when they do perfectly legal things, it's for evil reasons and we should lock them up because of the thoughts they have that they can never stop." Whether that's true or not from a personal moral perspective, it's certainly not the government's job to put people in jail because they may or may not have weird icky thoughts.
Arguably a side effect of over-reliance on the "it's not a choice, you're born that way" defense against religious claims that homosexuality is immoral: The ultimate conclusion then is that some people are born destined to sleep with people of their own gender, some people are born destined to sleep with people of the opposite gender, and some people are born destined to sleep with kids, and nothing any of us do can change our natures. Yes, genetics and mental states and other stuff plays a big factor, and I would never claim that sexuality is a pure unaffected choice in the sense that you just wake up one day and say "You know what, I really wanna **** off God and my parents and society and everyone; I'm going to start sleeping with dudes/chicks/little kids/whatever"; however, if we completely remove agency and personal responsibility from the equation and just resign ourselves to genetic determinism, we could be headed for Minority Report territory, not to mention living much less fulfilling lives.
I'm not saying ignore the way you were born and raised and act like you're completely impartial on every decision you make and have equal chances of making any possible choice at any junction. In fact, I don't think free will can meaningfully exist without some determinism -- if I can't point to a reason I chose one thing over another, did I really make the choice, or was it just completely arbitrary? But make your choices and then stand by them. Don't write them off as the inevitable result of factors out of your control. Take charge of your life, make choices you can be proud of, and then be proud of them. And remember that you can always change something.
...Okay, is it just me, or was that a little too soaringly inspirational and melodramatic for a post triggered by a mention of Australian porn on a Mario fan forum? I'm gonna go back to making those award certificates now. Don't mind me.
