issue 12// vol 45 We should all feel obligated to expose cheaters » Turning a blind eye to cheating is immoral Janis McMath Senior Columnist any people seem to think turning a blind eye to cheating is the moral or proper thing to do. Lately I have noticed many memes and other forms of social media expressing this opinion. It’s “not our business,” as we say. Well, I’m here to say that it is 100 percent our business to expose cheaters. Cheating is a nasty act that is extremely harmful, intentionally or not. There is no reason to do this ina relationship one chooses to enter (and can easily leave) aside from being selfish or vindictive—so by not exposing cheaters, one is enabling these types of behaviours. The reasons people argue why they shouldn't intervene or expose cheaters include mantras like “You don’t want to break the heart of the person being cheated on.’ Or, “It’s not your business to intervene in someone's private life; they are entitled to their privacy.” And finally, “It’s not our place to decide what is the best for that relationship.” To refute the first point about breaking someone’s heart—it is a necessary heartbreak. I understand why people don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it in this case it is unavoidable. If the roles were reversed in this situation, wouldn’t someone want to know that they were being cheated on? Doesn't everyone want the opportunity to move on from their shitty partner or mend a relationship that obviously isn’t healthy? Are there really people who would not want to know that their partner was betraying their trust? Are there people who want to be lied to? Everyone's relationship goal should be to have a healthy partnership—not one that is full of lies. A person who is dating a cheater is someone who is in an unhealthy relationship, and long, drawn-out, unhealthy relationships are much more damaging than a nasty breakup. Ifyou don't tell someone they are being cheated on, then you are potentially contributing to much more lasting damage to their mental health than you'd cause by simply exposing a cheating partner. The second argument made is that it’s their private life and they're entitled to their privacy. Cheaters are not entitled to their privacy. Would you say that murderers are entitled to their freedom as well? When someone is doing something that is putting other people at risk of being harmed, we are justified in our attempts to stop their actions (as long as we are Rants 1n your pants » Taxidermy is immoral and whole lot of creepy Jesica Berget Opinions Editor veryone has different ways of dealing with their grief over a dead pet. Stuffing their loved animal to forever commemorate and to mount as a decoration in their house is not, in my opinion, one of the healthier options. Taxidermy is a surprisingly fashionable trend these days. Depending on who you ask, taxidermy is seen as an art form or as an action that aids in the grieving of a lost pet. If you ask me, dead animals are not art Why DARE doesn't work » ‘Just saying no’ does not educate kids or prevent drug use Jesica Berget Opinions Editor rug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) is a program that you might have had the unfortunate privilege of being a part of. I’m sure many people remember in fifth or sixth grade when they pledged to stay drug- and alcohol-free and got a free T-shirt out of it. But how many people have actually kept that pledge? Unsurprisingly, not a lot. Sometimes it even backfires. Not only was DARE ineffective in keeping kids off of drugs, studies have found that those who went through the program were just as likely, if not more so, to drink or use drugs than those who did not participate. Turns out telling kids to “just say no” to drugs is or decorations, especially not when they’re deceased pets—and keeping their bodies is not going to help you grieve the loss of a loved one. Stuffing your pet to immortalize them just doesn’t seem like a good way to cope with their death. I feel like many people use this method because it makes them feel like their pet is still alive. This does not allow one to come to terms with death and in fact may might make the process of accepting it a lot more difficult. It’s undignified and disrespectful to the animal. You wouldnt stuff and mount not an effective way to keep them from partaking and actually makes them more curious about it. However, I don’t think that’s the only reason the drug education program is ineffective. The fact is, many people are going to drink or do drugs anyway, so you might as well honestly educate them on the topic. Kids will naturally be curious about drugs because it’s a new and seemingly scary thing to them. Telling kids to always refuse them without actually educating them on what they do is only going to make them more curious about it. I think instead of instilling more fear of drugs into children, the program should teach them about the different kinds of drugs and how each one affects you. That way, kids aren’t kept in the dark about something that they may respectful about it). They lose their right to the courtesy of privacy because of the harmful way they are acting—the same way violent murderers lose their right to roam freely because of the hazard they are toa peaceful society. Why are so many people so quick to defend the “privacy” of a guilty person? Addressing the last argument about it not being our place, | think that it is definitely our place to decide what is best. If someone in a relationship (that they willingly entered) betrays the trust of a person they promised to honour, then yes, it is entirely justified to intervene in this situation. You are contributing to the humiliation of the person being cheated on if you choose to be a bystander instead of stepping in. You are enabling the cheater by turning a blind eye. It may be an unfortunate situation, but you know this a dead person in your house, so why is an animal any different? How would you like it if someone stuffed you and kept you in the TV room as a macabre decorative piece? Speaking about taxidermy more generally, many people claim it’s an art form more than anything else. There’s even a Huffington Post article where a taxidermist claims that she enjoys it so much because it’s an artistic challenge with different “biological matter” I'll admit, some taxidermy “art” that I have seen is quite beautiful (but a lot of it is just creepy). However, I hold onto the take part in one day. Once they get older, they may want to experiment with recreational substances, so it’s important that they have the knowledge to do so safely and responsibly. There also needs to be more honest dialogue about what constitutes a drug. Think about it: Drinking, medications, medicine, and even caffeine and sugar are technically drugs. These aren’t always things that you smoke, inhale, or inject. They might be substances that you drink to wake up in the morning or help with your brain function, and even substances that you take to cure you from an illness. This separation of “good” and “bad” drugs can be confusing to kids who are trying to understand the concept. Teaching about all the different types of drugs can make opinions // no. 15 information now and you cannot act in any “neutral” way. There is no way to exit this situation morally ambiguous—either you support the guilty cheater or you support the hopelessly unaware person being cheated on. Your kindergarten teacher said it once and Ill say it again: Treat others the way you would want to be treated. Would you want to be cheated on? You might not want to be involved but, thanks to your knowledge, you are. Thus, you should act the way you would want someone to act if you were the unfortunate person being cheated on. Imagine living in a world where everyone exposed cheaters! Relationships would bea lot easier and it would be much harder for unhealthy, deception- filled relationships to waste people's time. Doesn't everyone want that? belief that when we all eventually die, we should be given back to the earth as nature intended. I think stuffing animal bodies and pumping embalming fluid into them to put on your mantel as a quirky art piece is cruel and unnatural. I hope as our society evolves, taxidermizing animals is left in the past. There is nothing more depressing to me than seeing a once beautiful and lively animal being used as a bookend. They’re not objects. They were once living, breathing things and they should be respected. Image via Priceonomics.com them seem a lot less intimidating and will better, more accurately educate children. The only thing DARE was good for was making a bunch of kids scared to go to parties out of fear of being offered drugs. In future drug prevention programs, I hope people have enough foresight to realize that fearmongering and miseducation is not the way to enlighten our youth. Kids are smarter than that.