It's funny you would ask this.

There is an element of choice. I wanted to make sure he had the Dutch Nationality and Passport next to his Israeli one. The reason for this is that the Israelis see him as having the Nationality "Yehudia" and the Religion "Yehudia". So it says in his birth certificate.

His Dutch passport, or so I'm hoping, should serve him as a reminder that he has a whole continent he can choose to live in, because it also makes him an EU citizen.

The difference between the Yehudia- and Dutch nationalities is that he can renounce the Dutch one without further problems or ado. He can choose not to be Dutch anymore at some point. Since he is an EU citizen this could indeed mean moving to France and becoming a French citizen rather effortlessly. Or Swedish, Austrian or Greek, for that matter. The choice will be his.

However the Israeli stance is that you can never not become Jewish and therefore you are an eternal citizen of Israel by proxy of that notion.

So while I didn't ask him if he wanted to be a Dutchman, I did introduce further elements of personal freedom of choice into his life from the get-go.

This was well thought through.

Having said all that, I find your reaction to be a piece of in absurdum reasoning. He got violated physically at birth, and furnishing him with some means of ID isn't the violation we're talking about.

I am not against circumcision for sound medical reasons. Not at all. After all, I had this procedure of my own free choice and have enjoyed the consequences ever since. Greatly, I might add.

I am however zealous about not taking others' right to choices away from them, regardless of who or what they are born into. If you call that meaningless zealotry, I fear I think you're a strange and macabre person.

You don't get the point.

The circumcision is done as a matter of course for particular religious groups. As such it stands for the broader problems of not respecting individual self-determination, integrity and the right to one's own Faculty.

In Holland, since the Unie van Utrecht in 1579, we've had some kind of "Freedom of Faculty/Religion" clause in some kind of Constitutional document.

This means we have a 430+ year history of personal liberty that's enshrined in law. Furthermore, I live a stone's throw away from a Frisian monument from 700 CE on which it says "Better to die free than to live as a slave".

Having said all that, personal freedom and respect for the rights of the individual are what I stand for. If you think that my world revolves around circumcision, you seem to have a serious lack of understanding of context.

Could you explain to me how an eight day infant feels about a stranger slicing off a piece of their body, thus scarring them for life?

Because it's nice that I need to be sensitive towards the religious fucknuttery of the parents, but this doesn't quite take care of the screaming that rings in my ear from the day they sliced a piece of my son's dick.

The boy was crying. From pain and fear.

So tell me, how am I supposed to be "sensitive toward how others feel"?

Quite honestly, since I had a circumcision in adult life, I never put my foreskin anywhere.

All that aside, I had a relationship with a Jewish woman of middle eastern descent. We had already decided to end said relationship, because of cultural differences. As we were preparing to stop living together amicably (tee hee), she discovered she was pregnant.

Because said individual had a congenital heart problem and therefore had a limited window of opportunity to have children, I didn't raise the question of abortion. Instead I stayed for 1.5 years more until I found Israel unbearable.

At the time, she was of Jewish descent, but not particularly religious. Doesn't believe in a god, is an engineer, doesn't keep kosher, drives on shabat, etc etc etc.

It really was the peer pressure from her family that caused her to oppose me on this. So don't come to me and tell me to think before I do, because none of this was practically accidental.

Oh, by the way, how do you define "Man"? Is it when the testes descend? Or is it the neurological wiring of the brain prior to that?

Or is your idea of a man someone who, like a bit of an idiot, shouts at other people to man up, whatever that may mean?

Quite frankly, the best and most long-standing study on the merits of having a foreskin was conducted by Nature itself.

We've evolved for hundreds of millions of years, and apparently it is an evolutionary stable strategy to be born human with a foreskin. We all have one at birth. Now you can claim all you like, but I for one don't argue with evolution over a geological time-span.

Apart from that the Dutch Association of Medical Practitioners advises people not to do it based on medical and statistical data. As such, the German Constitutional court agrees with them.

Now on procreation I can say that there are 450 million Europeans versus 320 million US citizens. I think we're doing just fine in the sex department with our foreskins intact, thank you very much. Hell, you might even argue the Europeans populated the US largely too. After a spot of genocide, but that's another discussion.

And lastly, I don't like men with beards that try to cut bits off me. Period. I don't care who or why, I just don't like that notion. And that should be argument enough.

Being Jewish is in no way important where I come from. First and foremost, you are a citizen as defined by the Constitution. The religion/opinion/superstition/belief of the day is hardly a factor of relevance in your rights and duties.

Apart from that I truly wish I had mod points to give to the guy with the mountain-bush-god comment.

I am plenty preoccupied with my own penis, thank you very much. And I really do wish people would let the penises (or other bits) of children be until the age of consent (which is 16 in this country, by the way, a healthy age to start thinking about your bits).

You're clearly not seeing the bigger picture here. According to the Constitutional Court of Germany, the parents don't have the right to choose this, and I for one find it sad that the Netherlands doesn't have a Constitutional court. I would have to get a law banning circumcision through Parliament to get a similar situation here. Although it would be a sweet reason to go into politics. ;)

You call yourself Airish (Irish?) Tiger, I assume, but since you were circumcised at birth, you must be either American or Jewish or both. If you are an American, I think it is sad that I as a European need remind you of the freedoms and rights that are enshrined in your Constitution. It is not the parents business to screw with the physical integrity of the children, and it is not up to the parents to deny their children the freedom to their own opinion, faculty or religion for that matter.

This is a matter of principle. Do you respect the freedom of the individual, yes or no? Now the State of Israel is a Theocratic Apartheidsregime that cares about neither freedom nor equality. It does not have a Constitution, and hence it doesn't guarantee anyone's rights as long as they are not Jewish Israeli.

I do hold a grudge. To the State of Israel for not respecting my son's freedom to choose his own walk of life, to my ex and her family for not respecting my judgment as a father, and to every Tom, Dick and Harry that tells me what happened to my son and myself is "not a big deal".

To cut a long story short, I can honestly not find anything more intelligent to say to you than "Go fuck yourself". I'm sorry if I'm being rude, but you are being annoyingly callous and presumptuous.

Thanks for that comment. I really appreciated this, and yes, the other dude kinda missed the point. I have a sense of humour about many things in life, but this one is not one of those, regrettably.

By saying it's not a big deal, you insult everything I stand for, you insult the Dutch Constitution, and you insult the German Constitution and their Constitutional courts. Learned men have concluded that the circumcision of children is a violation of their basic rights and their integrity.

I was circumcised at 20. It was a medical decision: The foreskin was too tight to allow me to have sex properly, so I made the only choice I could. I *know* what it felt like, I know the "before and after" differences, and I know some good and bad consequences of the procedure.

My son was born 4.5 years ago in Israel. He is, according to that side of the family, Jewish. According to me, he's just an Israeli and Dutch citizen, and he can make up his mind about philosophies later in life. According to the Dutch constitution, the freedom to believe whatever he wants is self-evident. The Israelis being the racist and religious fucknuts they are, however, caused them to use 6 months of debating with me to get me to yield to his circumcision. I refused. The first Mohel left the circumcision because I told him I didn't want it done because it is nobody's right to decide over his body but himself. The same applies to his mind. I don't understand the "religious by birth" argument. He is simply Daniel the Dutchman, and he is getting mind-raped as we speak.

The second time around they did manage to circumcise him against my explicit will. He was a month and a half old. Mazal tov. They hurt him physically, which I could see at the time, but which I also can attest to as a later-in-life circumcised man. Then they took away his choice. He is getting Judaism shoved down his peeing tube. He cannot undo the modification / mutilation of his body ever again.

Culture should stop at the knife and outside the school grounds. If that is not a big deal to you, you're an insensitive clod.

Whatever I replied earlier to the gentleman who claims you're the cause of the problem doesn't change the fact that you sound like a bit of an asshole, because in a country without dedicated infrastructure for bicycles, it is a daunting and precarious mode of transportation. I know it's irritating to deal with somewhat unpredictable people in traffic, but I do understand the plight of what seems to be the US bicyclist. I assume your'e in the US because you mention an amendment in your sig.

Our 17th Amendment, by the way, is "Niemand kan tegen zijn wil worden afgehouden van de rechter die de wet hem toekent.". This means that nobody can be denied access from the judge he or she deserves by law.", which kinda boils down to the fair trial thing, as far as I interpret it. I don't wish to repeal it.

Actually, if I were a US citizen, I would get rid of the second amendment before any other. The right to bear arms doesn't seem to work too well for your murder statistics, and heaven knows US citizens are quite paranoid about safety in spite of the "added security" owning a gun brings you. Not mention the fact that condoning violence of any kind is simply uncivilized.

But then I have you pegged for a Republican since you obviously have an issue with "Federal power" rather than State Legislature.

Judging by your name, you could be Dutch, but by your mentioning of "No turn on Red" you could be a US citizen. As a Dutchman you would enjoy the excellent infrastructure that was created for bicycles, and as such you could safely and with minimal interaction with other traffic go about your daily business. Having said that, I've seen bicyclists in Sweden and Israel do things that would make you raise the eyebrow, and the worst of it is they would be doing that on roads on which cars drive 90 km/hr, rather than safely tucked away in a separate bike lane.

In those situations, I can understand the frustration of the motorist. In other situations, where bicycles are hapless plonkers, I also understand the frustration of said motorists. Now when people are assholes to me on the road, I can understand the frustrations of the motorist that is trying to be civilized. Furthermore, as a motorcycle-rider I also fully understand the frustration of that group with hapless fuckers in cars that don't seem to know or care about their surroundings.

Lastly, I fully understand the pedestrian's frustration with all of the above, and the cyclist's frustrations. My point is that there is no one single group of people in traffic that "Create the problem". The roads are simply a piece of vital infrastructure that way too many people with way too different capabilities (physically, technologically and psychologically) make use of. This causes natural clashes of interests and accidents.

The fact that in The Netherlands, only 790 people get killed every year, in one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, is amazing. The chance of dying in traffic is 4,8:100.000. Somehow 16.500.000 people get along quite well in traffic jams, trains, planes, automobiles, on mopeds, scoot-mobiles (old people thing), bicycles and motorcycles as well as on foot. For the US, it's still 13,9:100.000, and only 2.2% of all deaths on the planet were traffic related in 2009. Statistically it hovers between low birth weight and something as anachronistic (in the Western world) as Tuberculosis.

Having said all that, most people on the road are quite civilized, and the amount of "entitled little children" is actually quite small. The statistic belies the attitude problem you claim is rampant.

Read Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".

"Quality" is usually not easily captured in a single definition, and is a bit esoteric, overall. And indeed, the "nice" factor, the price the materials, handling, feel, OS/interface, name, brand and even the audience that uses a device play into people's notion of "Quality". I'm not saying all arguments are fair game, but I've indeed "felt" that Apple, right now, makes the most "Quality" devices out there. For the consumer market, that is.

Not religious, it just "feels" that way right now. In 20 years, mileage may vary. In Dutch we have "De Wet van de Remmende Voorsprong". This means so much as the Law of the Impairing Advantage. He who is ahead in the market will be overtaken, to cut a long story short. We'll see if it holds true, I guess.