“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” said Leroy “Satchel” Paige, the greatest Negro Leagues pitcher of them all, and —who knows?—maybe the greatest pitcher of all time, in any league. Imagine: Paige wasn’t allowed to play against white players in the Major Leagues until 1948 when he was over 40, and he still was hard to hit. Satch is a great symbol for the ageless and those of us in denial: he pitched in his last Major League game in his 60’s, throwing three scoreless innings against the Boston Red Sox. Paige’s whimsical idea that age is just a state of mind has now been carried to its illogical conclusion by Dutch citizen Emile Ratelband, a “positivity trainer” who calls himself a “young god,” and who has asked a local court to legally change his birthday from March 11, 1949 to March 11,1969, the BBC reports.
Heck, why not? If someone with a Y chromosome and all of their original external organs can say they “identify” as a female and use the ladies room, join the Girl Scouts, and have the protection and support of the law and the woke, why not declare age simply a matter of attitude and mind over matter? It’s just the next frontier in the politically correct realm of reality denial, and I would say, and I know Satchel Paige would say, if how someone feels is sufficient to legitimize that defiance of concrete reality, treating age as similarly flexible is more than reasonable. Just a stroke of a pen by a judge, and poof! You’re as young as you feel.
It is unethical to lie about reality, however. It is as unethical to deceive society, the world and yourself as it is to lie to anyone else. The delusion that we can make something so by just saying, wishing and insisting so has somehow infested all aspects of society. We see it in public policy, where laws of economics are ignored because it would be so nice, if, to take an especially obvious example, if a $15 minimum wage actually worked. It doesn’t work, but never mind: the important thing is that it feels right. Open borders, to recall a recent post, is in that category. So is Communism. So is socialism. It’s a long, long, tragic list.
People have been gulled, or deceived, or otherwise misled into believing that certitude and sincerity is enough. (Charlie Brown’s lament: “How can we lose when we’re so sincere?”) If you want to act like you are a woman, I’ll be happy to respect your wishes within reason/ If you want to pretend you are black, like Rachel Dolezal, that’s fine too, as long as you don’t insist that you are black, because you are not. And sorry, Emile, but no matter how young you feel, and you can talk and dress like a 10 year-old for all I care, but Satchel Paige notwithstanding, age is a solid, immutable reality.
Ethics Alarms 
Well, I predict the Dutch court will probably go along with it as compassionate and liberal as they are. However, I really don’t think that many Dutch women will be fooled on their version of Tinder.
Neither will the Grim Reaper.
I’m holding out for the day I can apply for a change of species.
I want to be a dual citizen, of another planet.
Could you imagine what something like this would do to age of consent laws?
Drinking laws! Driving laws! Retirement requirements! Ruth Bader Ginsberg could be 35 again, though I don’t think it would help her ribs any.
Get ready for the “A president facing impeachment shouldn’t be allowed to pick a SCOTUS justice” arguments.
Also, get ready for a whole lot of schadenfreude.
I think that two years of Democrat excess will break their hold on power, if not their hold on sanity.
I see a flaw in your prediction. The Democrats have to currently have a hold on sanity in order to break it…
Oh, I think most of the leaders are sane… just disingenuous.
They are using the indoctrinated in a cynical ploy for permanent power, just like every progressive socialist movement in history.
Once socialism is firmly established, those leaders think they will be the wealthy elites, and the indoctrinated can be stood up against a wall and shot, if necessary. Just like the journalists, academia, and the entertainment industry.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3356084/I-ve-gone-child-Husband-father-seven-52-leaves-wife-kids-live-transgender-SIX-YEAR-OLD-girl-named-Stefonknee.html
In light of this, just changing age to be a younger adult seems positively restrained.
THAT looks like a Monty Python skit.
I can just see a bunch of 35-year-olds change their birthdates so they can get on Medicare and join AARP and all those discounts.
A picture used to be worth a thousand words: now with photoshopping they mean nothing. When will all this end?
There is no fact any more: only opinion.
There are facts. There is truth. To paraphrase Lincoln, calling a sheep’s tail a leg doesn’t give a sheep 5 legs.
This scares me, mostly for children’s safety. The trans-age movement has been happening for a few years now. At least Obama didn’t add them to the list of identities. If someone can run off and live as a six-year-old as a grown man, what’s to stop them from messing with a six-year-old?
Regardless of what age he wants to be, the fact is he was born when he was and is the physical age he is. I find it ridiculous and a little sickening. It’s beyond a fetish (maybe?). (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3356084/I-ve-gone-child-Husband-father-seven-52-leaves-wife-kids-live-transgender-SIX-YEAR-OLD-girl-named-Stefonknee.html)
But this is exactly what allowing this trans-age movement to go on is going to end up allowing to happen: https://www.dailywire.com/news/26380/trans-age-pedophile-charged-abusing-3-girls-says-amanda-prestigiacomo
At some point, this coddling to not “offend” anyone who says they are anything they want to be needs to stop. Where do we put safety for others and especially children ahead of a very (hopefully) slim portion of people who seem to believe they are children in adults bodies?
Opps, I didn’t see that Steve-O-in-NJ had posted the same first story that I did. It’s the second one I posted that worries me more as I think this will become a standard defense if this is allowed to go on.
I can’t believe even a Dutch judge could be this stupid…did I just say that?
The guy looks pretty darned good for 69. Can’t he be content with that?
On the other hand, what woman would want to date a guy who considers himself a god?