OK now it's time to take Halloween seriously. No more playing around.

I attended Laurel Hill Cemetery's special Halloween tour, and I did my best to soak up the spirits, which did not disappoint.

Lest anyone think I am kidding, the languid and maudlin angel shown in the next picture is literally prying open the lid of the crypt behind her to let the spirit out.

Shortly after that, I positioned my camera very carefully so I could take a picture in the dark. It was only later that I realized that I had photographed what looks very much like an actual ghost:

Coincidence?

Many might think so, but then, they need their denial, and I will not interfere. (But in fairness, if they haven't seen an actual ghost, how can they know for sure that this isn't one?)

Trying to beat the Halloween nighttime deadline, I managed to carve a pumpkin just before darkness had fully set in, and then right in this blog -- before my very eyes! -- another, even spookier cemetery scene managed to insinuate itself into the pumpkin image.

I can't speak for the pumpkin but don't I look frightened out of my gourd?

As if we needed more proof....

And the victims?

Why, the children, of course!

Larry Bernard is hosting this week's special Halloween edition of the RINO Sightings Carnival.

The posts take the form of trick or treaters, and Larry's an excellent creative writer, so it's very entertaining. Don't miss it!

But I'm wondering. How many parents would actually let their kids go trick or treating as a Republican at all, much less a Republican In Name Only?

Halloween is one thing, but certain things are too awful and scary to contemplate.

NOTE: I was going to have something in the title about RINOs smashing pumpkins, but I see the group has already beaten me to it.

Most of us are in the closet, or we get treated like the people in the article.

Judith outlines a pattern very familiar to me:

"People just assume you're a Democrat." Boy do they.

Another thing they do which Kornblat doesn't give an example of, but which we all have experienced: They always start political conversations. None of us do. We have learned that no one wants to argue issues on their merits, that the room gets very quiet and unfriendly, that people start screaming at you, or rant the most loopy beliefs and conspiracy theories. We just assume that is not a topic anyone can treat in a dispassionate manner.

But they always provoke political conversations. Well, not conversations, which would be enjoyable and enlightening. They make pronouncements. And look around the room to see if anyone not only doesn't agree, but doesn't agree enthusiastically. As a friend deep in the closet in the theater world put it, you can't just sit quietly and wait for the topic to change. No, you are suspect if you do not vocally endorse the official opinion of the group. You thought you were in a project meeting or a coffee klatch or a dinner party, and all of a sudden it has turned into the Communist Youth League Self-Criticism Session.

And then, after they have assumed, because no one in the room has fangs or horns, that a political support group is what everyone wants (and they do, except for you) - if you express your difference of opinion, they are offended that you spoiled the intimate feeling in the room by being other than they assumed, based on their superficial reading of you. In other words, they brought up politics, but they are the only ones who get to play.

Like many people, Judith notices that Republicans don't behave this way towards Democrat friends. I think the reason is that Republicans are very accustomed to keeping their mouths shut, to not telling friends and coworkers how they voted. In some cases, their very livelihood depends on being "in the closet."

While I can't prove my suspicions, I'd even go so far as to speculate that one of the reasons the outing of gay Republicans struck a raw nerve is because so many non-gay Republicans are so used to life in the closet that they were quick to react to the real reason for the outing: what makes gay Republicans so disgraceful is not their homosexuality, but their Republicanism! While Democrats might have missed it, few Republicans missed the fact that they weren't outed merely for being gay.

They were also outed for being Republican.

Thus, the outing generated sympathy in normally unsympathetic quarters.

If you are a Republican surrounded by Democrats, being in the closet is all too familiar, and seeing any Republican -- even a gay one -- being outed is excruciatingly painful.

Why, it's almost as if you could be next!

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post.

Welcome all, and Happy Halloween!

It wasn't that long ago that things like creating a new human liver from scratch were entirely theoretical. I didn't expect to see actual hands-on results as quickly as this, but it seems to be happening (which is good news for Hepatitis C sufferers.) While they can't yet grow full-sized livers, this is quite a breakthrough, and growing usable sections of livers or whole, transpantable ones seems inevitable.

Interestingly, the scientists didn't use embryonic stem cells, but umbilical cord blood:

While other researchers have created liver cells from stem cells from embryos, the Newcastle team are the first to create sizeable sections of tissue from stem cells from the umbilical cord.

They believe their technique is better suited to growing larger sections of tissue.

Use of cord stem cells is also more ethically acceptable than the use of embryonic stem cells - a process that leads to the death of the embryo.

The Newcastle researchers foresee a time when cord blood from millions of babies born each year is banked, creating a worldwide donor register for liver dialysis and transplant.

Computerised registers could then be created to match the cord blood with tissue type or immune system of patients with liver problems.

Does "more ethically acceptable" mean that there are any ethical objections to utilizing umbilical cord blood? Or is it just surplusage of language, like saying that good is more ethically acceptable than evil?

I'm not going to spend all day on this, but I was unable to find a single objection to umbilical cord blood research. This statement is typical :

There are no legal, ethical, moral or religious objections to using these cells.

Dr Peter Hollands, UK

(Maybe they'll be along the lines of "why create new technology to extend life when people are starving/shouldn't they simply die with dignity?")

Today's Inquirer has a fun op ed by James Lileks, "The first 100 days if Democrats win":

Day 1: Party like it's 1992; citizenship for all Gitmo detainees; a blanket amnesty; and a "Circle of Healing" ceremony held on the Capitol steps.

Plus, I don't want to do anything that might upset the plan of angry Republicans to sit the election out.

Otherwise, we might have angry Democrats taking it to the streets, and we can't have that. Instead, the Republicans should just lose, so they can declare martial law.

Braving the inevitable midnight knock on the door, Lyn Davis Lear, the wife of activist/TV genius Norman Lear, proposed on the Huffington Post blog that angry citizens "take it to the streets" if the sweet anticipated victory is snatched away by the Cheneyburton overlords. Lear quoted Gore Vidal's dark view: If the election went against them, "the Bush-Cheney henchmen could simply call on martial law." No doubt. One last election, a few cleansing rounds from the Brownshirt burp guns, and it's the Reich Stuff for us and our descendants.

The Republicans have to lose!

Otherwise, if they keep winning elections, how will they ever be able to seize control, cancel the Constitution, and declare martial law?

This explains why Bush and Rove are counting on the Republican brownshirts to do their duty to the Bushfuhrer and sit the election out.

(Obviously, if you have been voting Republican but you prefer a one party superstate with complete dictatorial powers, now's your chance to stay at home and make it happen. Wink wink!)

With any luck, by sitting this one out, you'll never have to vote again!

But hey, let's not breathe a word of this to the Democrats, because if they get hip to the Republican brownshirt plan to lose power in order to seize it, they might just try to counter the Republican strategy, by staying at home themselves.

You know, saving the Constitution and all that stuff.

It's all simple logic, but alas, I don't think the Democrats will stay at home to save American democracy. That's because if by staying home they prevent a Republican power seizure, who would ever know that the strategy worked?

They'd just continue to be thought of as a whining minority in a democracy dominated by Republican fascist wannabes (who'd be reduced to Fascist In Name Only status).

Who'd ever thank the Democrats for saving the country?

I realize that no good deed goes unpunished, but it's a crying shame to see the Democrats squander what may be their last chance to defeat Bush fascism.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds is circulating a report that Karl Rove actually wants the Republicans to win. (Yeah, right.) Without revealing his real thoughts about the Rove plan he claims to have "revealed," Glenn poses a cryptic question:

Will it work? We'll know in just over a week.

When I was still a kid, controversy raged in the Philadelphia area over whether an all-male prep school known as Girard College should be racially integrated. No ordinary boarding school, Girard College had been founded in 1848 according to the provisions in the much litigated will of philanthropist Stephen Girard. (A French born American patriot, Girard was the wealthiest man in America when he died.) While a bigot by today's standards, Girard's views reflected his times, and he believed his money would best be spent educating destitute white orphan boys in a strictly non-sectarian manner. It was the latter provision which first caused trouble. The United States Supreme Court summarizes:

The persons who are to receive the benefits of the institution he declared to be, "poor white male orphans between the ages of six and ten years; and no orphan should be admitted until the guardians or directors of the poor, or other proper guardian, or other competent authority, have given by indenture, relinquishment or otherwise, adequate power to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, or to directors or others by them appointed, to enforce in relation to each orphan every proper restraint, and to prevent relatives or others from interfering with, or withdrawing such orphan from the institution." The testator then provided for a preference, "first, to orphans born in the city of Philadelphia; secondly, to those born in any other part of Pennsylvania; thirdly, to those born in the city of New York; and lastly, to those born in the city of New Orleans." The testator further provided that the orphan "scholars who shall merit is, shall remain in the college until they shall respectively arrive at between fourteen and eighteen years of age."

The testator then, after suggesting that in [**157] relation to the organization of the college and its appendages, he leaves necessarily many details to the mayor, aldermen, and citizens of Philadelphia, and their successors, proceeded to say: "there are, however, some restrictions which I consider it may duty to prescribe, and to be, amongst others, conditions on which my bequest for said college is made and to be enjoyed, namely: First, I enjoin and require," &c. [See statement of the reporter.] This second injunction and requirement is that which has been so elaborately commented on at the bar, as derogatory to the Christian religion, and upon which something will be hereafter suggested in the course of this opinion.

All that we can gather from his language is, that he desired to exclude sectarians and sectarianism from the college, leaving the instructors and officers free to teach the purest morality, the love of truth, sobriety, and industry, by all apropriate means; and of course including the best, the surest, and the most impressive. The objection, then, in this view, goes to this, -- either that the testator has totally omitted to provide for religious instruction in his [*201] scheme of education, (which, from what has been already said, is an inadmissible interpretation,) or that it includes but partial and imperfect instruction in those [**194] truths. In either view can it be truly said that it contravenes the known law of Pennsylvania upon the subject of charities, or is not allowable under the article of the bill of rights already cited? Is an omission to provide for instruction in Christinanity in any scheme of school or college education a fatal defect, which avoids it assording to the law of Pennsylvania? If the instruction provided for is incomplete and imperfect, is it equally fatal? These questions are propounded, because we are not aware that any thing exists in the constitution or laws of Pennsylvania, or the judicial decisions of its tribunals, which would justify us in pronouncing that such defects would be so fatal. Let us take the case of a charitable donation to teach poor orphans reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and navigation, and excluding all other studies and instruction; would the donation be void, as a charity in Pennsylvania, as being deemed derogatory to Christianity? Hitherto it has been supposed, that a charity for the instruction of the poor might be good and valid in England even if it did not go beyond the establishment of a grammar-school. And in America, it has been thought, in [**195] the absence of any express legal prohibitions, that the donor might select the studies, as well as the classes of persons, who were to receive his bounty without being compellable to make religious instruction a necessary part of those studies. It has hitherto been thought sufficient, if he does not require any thing to be taught inconsistent with Christianity.

Looking to the objection therefore in a mere juridical view, which is the only one in which we are at liberty to consider it, we are satisfied that there is nothing in the devise establishing the college, or in the regulations and restrictions contained therein, which are inconsistent with the Christian religion, or are opposed to any known policy of the state of Pennsylvania.

Because the Will was so often successfully defended, it was considered sound and defensible. So it was until the 1950s, when courts began to consider social changes, and political expediency, when interpreting the constitutionality of a man's last wishes.

In this century, the most controversial aspect of the Will involved its "white only" restriction. Racial barriers were rightfully and finally coming down throughout the country. Minorities were beginning to unite and to gain political clout. Spurred by the Supreme Court decision ruling segregation in the nation's public schools to be unconstitutional, Philadelphia councilman Raymond Pace Alexander, a Negro, sponsored the resolution which asked the City Solicitor to seek a court ruling on Girard's "white only" restriction. He claimed that since the City of Philadelphia administered the College through the Board of City Trusts and, since the school is supported by public funds through tax exemptions, the Board could not abide by the racial restriction. The resolution asked the Board to admit all orphans regardless of race. On May 28, 1954, the Philadelphia Council approved the resolution. Thus began legal maneuvering and controversy that lasted from 1954 until the Will was set aside in 1968 and Girard College accepted the first non-White students.

Eventually, the school was forced to admit "functional" orphans. And girls. Can't have tax-exempt sexism, can we?

To broaden the base of potential students, in 1977, the Court authorized the admission of "functional" orphans. These are children who receive inadequate care from their natural parents because of separation, divorce, desertion, disability, or "any other reason."

On September 3, 1982, the Orphan's Court approved the Board's petition to permit the College to accept girls, another significant deviation from the Will. Since the court had set aside several "all male" school provisions, the Board wisely chose not to waste money for further litigation. Instead, they chose to provide this free education to as many children as the facility could accommodate, without regard to race, sex, religion, nationality, orphan status, or family economics. The qualifications for admittance today are: be from a single-parent home of limited income, have an IQ of at least 100, be on grade level in basic subjects as determined by testing administered by the College, be in good physical health, have no serious behavioral or adjustment problems, have a good reference from a previous school, and be between 6 and 11 years of age.

The word "orphan" once meant something. But now, it means nothing. Why is there no preservation of orphans movement?

And get this! Now, priests are allowed!

Ironically, with all the changes to the Will, the Philadelphia Inquirer, on May 5, 1973 reported that "Girard College bars a priest." The priest came to the College to attend an organ recital. The recital was advertised as being open to the public. Based on the religious restriction in the Will, he was denied admittance. Finally, within the last year, the Board turned its head and permitted a Black ordained minister to enter the grounds and since then other clergy have been admitted to the campus.

My dad died 16 years ago, and my mom died 7 years ago. I've only thought of myself as an orphan (well, an "adult orphan") since 1999, but now I know I was an orphan long before that.

I don't see why the definition of orphan has to be so exclusive.

Actually, in another case, the chocolate magnate's will which had created The Hershey School (with similar exclusions based on race, sex, and orphan status) was similar rewritten by the courts, and the word "orphan" was changed to include "social orphans":

In 1976, the Deed of Trust was modified again to permit the enrollment of students without regard to gender. It was at this time that the deed was also modified to expand the definition of "orphan" to include any child not receiving adequate parental care at home, thus allowing for the enrollment of "social orphans."

"Of quite great significance is the definition of an orphan where you don't have to have either parent dead if you are what we call a `societal orphan.' That means a broken home or parents who are very ill and who need this sort of help."

More than anything, the definition of "orphan" seems to depend on who wants to be one.

Definitions seem to change not according to rules of logic, but according to the nature of the benefits the definitions convey.

When words define rights, expect them to change.

...is a Northern Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi dekayi).

When I was a kid this was called the Dekay's Snake. Now it's usually called the Brown Snake, and sometimes "Dekay's Brown Snake." Believe it or not, this tiny thing is full-grown at 13 inches.

The poor snake was in the middle of a well-traveled road looking very dead, as it wasn't moving at all. I thought it had already been run over, but when I looked closely I couldn't see any damage other than an old injury to the tail. I picked it up and it was very cold and made no attempt to get away, but I could tell it was alive. I didn't want to leave it there or in that condition, so I removed one of my socks, put the snake inside, knotted the upper end of my sock, and put it in my pocket. After an hour or so inside, I removed the snake and it was quite lively, even putting on a show for the camera by puffing itself up and appearing ready to strike. That's consistent with the description of the (completely harmless) snake's behavior:

...when these snakes do feel threatened they will flatten their bodies out to appear larger and place their bodies in an aggressive posture, and they will even release a musky smelling fluid from the cloaca (Harding 1997).

Another nearby Brown Snake had been squashed flat by a car, and what I think happened is that wherever they were hibernating was flooded in the recent rains and the snakes went out on the road to warm up, in a state of soaked half hibernation.

I saved its life for now; I'll see whether I can get it to eat some earthworms.

It's all too easy to forget that some of the arguments for same sex marriage which drive the rank-and-file supporters involve -- surprise -- money (especially government "entitlement" money). From today's Inquirer:

Since her heart attack and stroke in March 2005, Heggs has been in and out of the hospital and unable to work. A nurse for 35 years, Heggs now receives $1,400 a month in disability payments from Social Security.

"When I die, who is going to get my benefits, my Social Security?" Heggs said. "I'm with Paula. She is entitled to my benefits. She was there for me when I was sick. She was there for me when I got depressed. When I lost everything, she didn't leave."

It strikes me that there's nothing fair about that. The problem is, once something is an entitlement, it becomes like tangible property. Fair or not, an entitlement to something tends to create a sense of unfairness for others who aren't entitled, and so on.

So, while I haven't given much thought to it before, I have to admit that same sex marriage would at least compound unfairness more fairly. Perhaps there's somewhat of a nexus between here libertarian and conservative thinking.

But the nexus ends where it comes to the confusion between allowing something and the illogical belief that if a thing is allowed it must be good. I advocate allowing sexual freedom, so in the eyes of conservatives this makes me a "hedonist" even though I'm personally monogamous, and the type of person who refuses to take off his clothes at a nude beach. It's about as logical as saying that supporting heroin decriminalization means advocating heroin or saying it's good. Likewise, I don't think abortion is a "right," although I'd have problems with imprisoning women for doing that to themselves; in the eyes of moral conservatives this makes me complicit in murder. If I hear that "we" "slaughter" "millions" one more time I'll scream, because I am only responsible for my moral crimes. Am I to blame for my friends who died of AIDS because I believed in the right not to be arrested for screwing? People would say that I am. These are the sorts of things that make me tend to distrust social conservatives. It's annoying to be blamed for the acts of others, and reminds me of the endless scolding by gun control people for shootings. How am I to blame in any way for someone else's shooting spree?

So, at the heart of my libertarianism is a sense of annoyance. It's the idea of reducing everyone to the level of the worst offender, and treating all people as suspects that I can't abide. Being personally conservative means nothing; to be an officially licensed conservative these days, you have to believe in moral seat belt laws for everyone else. My problem is, I hate the people who would reduce us to the level of the worst, and do not agree with anticipating their behavior by reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator. There are alcoholics. Therefore, no one should be allowed alcohol, and people who think it should be allowed are moral degenerates allied with the distillery lobby? If I heard that enough times, I'd reach for my checkbook and proudly send my money to the distillery lobby.

As to the people who screw up, I know this will sound selfish, but there is no way to prevent people from harming themselves or being evil. All I can do is be prepared to kill them if they try to harm me. I don't think I have any illusions about humanity; I just don't think government solves problems. I go along with libertarianism to that extent, but I'm generally skeptical about anything that smacks of utopian thinking. Just restore the Constitution and leave me the hell alone. If I cared about the morality of other people (at least, to the point of intervening in their lives beyond arresting them for committing crimes) I'd go nuts. People who claim to care about my morality (which collective morality by definition includes) worry me, because they don't know me, and people who don't know me and want to tell me what I should think make me very suspicious.

I know it sounds frivolous, but it's getting harder and harder to be left alone, and it worries me. Little stupid things, like not wearing the funny gun diversity t-shirt to an airport, not offending anyone lest they take it the wrong way. I mean, what if I had a kid? Might some insane bureaucrat want to take my kid away because I have a pit bull (yes, it happened in San Francisco) or a house full of guns?

Are such concerns mere paranoia? Suppose someone with kids and guns decided to ridicule the local child protective bureaucrats relentlessly in blog post after blog post. While there's a First Amendment right to do that, aren't these "faceless bureaucrats" actually human beings with a huge amount of discretionary power to conduct home inspections on the slightest pretext? I mean, it's not as if the "Nanny State" is some wholly artificial externality. There are real people with real human failings, who have power, and who believe that they have the right to use it. (Not that I'd ever ridicule bureaucrats, but I do have a right to do that, don't I?)

I think that as information becomes centralized, and moralists converge from both sides, perhaps these will not remain idle or theoretical worries. That's my main worry about broadening marriage; I think the goal is to broaden society's control net, safety net, whatever you want to call it. I used to think homosexuals wanted to be left alone; now it's communitarian lesbians with children supported by a network of government bureaucratic activists -- many of whom would probably love to inspect the homes of all neighbor children who expressed disapproval of communitarian lesbians.

People are increasingly unable to keep their lives and lifestyles to themselves. I'll never forget a San Francisco Bay Area lesbian who hated and feared Newt Gingrich because she felt he was "threatening" her lifestyle. What, I wondered, could he possibly do to her? The answer was not much actually; it was a feeling thing. He made her feel uncomfortable, disrespected, disapproved.

While no one likes being disapproved of or disrespected, I think it's better to tolerate disapproval than demand approval. But it's still a free country. People are allowed to demand approval. It's when they demand approval enforced by the power of the state that a certain line is crossed for many people. Not that same sex marriage does this by itself. But when there's an army of activists backed up by an army of bureaucrats, "hate crime" laws can lead directly from a kid teasing another kid to visits from the child police. I could see that eventually leading to SWAT teams enforcing laws against intolerance.

Culture wars are bad enough, and I deplore them. But if the government gets into being the culture police, things could deteriorate further. In England a student was recently questioned by police for making a racist remark:

"She asked to be taken out of her group because the other five students were Asians and four didn't speak English so there was no point in her being with them. When she pointed this out to the teacher she was accused of being racist.

"The matter was referred to the community police officer based at the school and she was taken to the police station and kept in custody for over six hours while they questioned her."

I remain very distrustful of state involvement in the lifestyle business, and I'm wondering whether there might be more common ground between libertarians and conservatives than is commonly supposed.

I do wish differences in philosophy didn't take the form of accusations of hedonism and murder (and of course bigot), but I guess if I can get used to being called a "RINO," I can tolerate being a hedonistic murdering bigot.

Besides, if all things are relative, and there's no such thing as right or wrong, who's to say there's anything wrong about hedonism, murder, or bigotry?

ADDITIONAL NOTE: My thanks to an unnamed muse who helped me generate these thoughts during an email exchange.

Have to say, I've been getting a kick out of some of the mailings I've been receiving lately.

This one's such a classic that I partially scanned it, and made a couple of minor changes to protect the innocent.

Far be it from me to complain that the "Values" meme is overwrought....

I feel like taking a vote right now between two choices:

I'm happy about the fact that the clocks are being rolled back so it will soon be dark too early in the afternoon.

I'm very unhappy about the fact that the clocks are being rolled back so it will soon be dark too early in the afternoon.

Accept it. Fight it. Deny it.

It's still there, isn't it?

Hat tip to Dr. Helen, who's honest enough to admit she has problems this time of year when they roll the clocks back, and asks a few questions about Seasonal Affective Disorder:

Could SAD be culturally induced, caused by the media or companies who want to sell light therapy devices? Or is it real?

I think SAD is bad, but rolling back the clocks is SADism.

To me it's like, isn't it bad enough the summer's over without the government rubbing salt in wounds?

The train to Philadelphia:

I'm still in love with the Cira Center building.

But the Rouse Towers aren't bad either (even though they snub the tradition of William Penn's hat).

Via Glenn Reynolds, Mickey Kaus argues that "the breathtaking speed with which this sort of radical cultural change [same sex marriage] has gone from being unmentioned to being a litmus test for all rational people is one of the things that worries ordinary voters and turns them into cultural conservatives" and he objects to the way the issue is being framed ("as 'law' and 'logic' against prejudice").

For the record, let me say that I don't like turning ordinary voters into cultural conservatives, OK? (Just thought I should make that clear.)

You'd almost think there was a deliberate effort to prevent a public debate on same sex marriage. Seriously, it's one thing to do an end-run around the legislature by means of the courts, but when such efforts are accompanied by creating a climate in which people are afraid to even debate the issue, ordinary American voters are likely to feel rushed, even intimidated.

Recently I made what I thought was a very uncontroversial statement (that I didn't it didn't think it was logical to equate opposition to same sex marriage with bigotry). For that I was criticized, then after I explained I found myself scolded by a commenter who demanded detailed answers to his essay length comment asserting quite vociferously that opposition to same sex marriage is bigotry:

someone is a bigot if he

(i) Opposes state recognition of relationships of same-sex couples (so-called "gay marriage") on the same basis that he favors state recognition of relationships of opposite-sex couples (so-called "marriage") without having at least a rational basis for the opposition. Those who are familiar with the US constitution's 14th amendment "equal protection" jurisprudence and jurisprudence under some states' "equality" provisions will recognize the "rational basis" as the minimum standard that will allow for a discriminatory practice. I have posed the question asking for a "rational basis" on more than a few blogs and web sites over the past ten or so years, and have never received responses that are anything close to a "rational basis."

Naturally, this caused me to wonder whether things have reached the point where it is bigotry to disagree over the definition of bigotry.

On the other hand, might there be political consequences to calling people bigots? Obviously, there are no political consequences to a debate in a blog post, but what about that 70% of the voters (plus the leadership of the Democratic Party) who oppose a major change the marriage laws? How is it that all of a sudden they've become "bigots."

Can anyone tell me how calling them bigots is going to change the way they vote? This is a democracy, and no one should be surprised to see evidence at the polls that people do not like being rushed, intimidated, pushed around. Mickey Kaus opines that even liberal voters, people otherwise willing to engage in social experiments like gay marriage, might very well balk. Looking at the overall situation as it has unfolded in the past few years, I think there is clear evidence of a condescending attempt to herd ordinary people, not only by telling them what to think, but by telling them how to think, and scolding them if they are wrong.

I don't know what Karl Rove has been doing lately. But if he were still sitting at the controls of his blowback leverage machine, he'd probably be delighted with the call-em-all-bigots meme.

But putting Rove nostalgia aside, I'm still curious about the apparent hurry to curtail serious debate on same sex marriage by such tactics. Assuming gay couples want to join the ranks of middle American respectability so they can proudly move in as the new married couple next door, isn't it a good idea to be polite about it?

(I'm assuming, of course, that marriage is a serious and mature enough issue to warrant a serious and mature debate. Maybe I'm making the wrong assumptions...)

UPDATE: University of Minnesota law professor Jim Chen (via Glenn Reynolds) thinks same sex marriage is analogous to interracial marriage, and maintains that Loving v. Virginia is controlling on the issue:

Among life's challenges, none is more difficult to undertake, and none is more rewarding when achieved, than the mission of finding one person to love above all others, and persuading that person to love you in return. The law has no legitimate basis for regulating this quest on the basis of the race or sex of one's beloved.

The most obvious analogy supporting legal recognition is Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967). It's such an obvious analogy that it is futile to cite any of the hundreds, thousands of sources that make the connection.

In Loving, the state of Virginia made it a crime for interracial couples to marry, and adjuged cohabitation by such couples to be evidence of their crime:

The two statutes under which appellants were convicted and sentenced are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages. The Lovings were convicted of violating 20-58 of the Virginia Code:

"Leaving State to evade law. Ÿ If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage."

Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides:

"Punishment for marriage. Ÿ If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years."

Yes.

If marriage is defined as requiring a partner of the opposite sex, it does discriminate on the basis of sex, and many people believe that such discrimination goes to the very basis of marriage.

So more than anything, it's really a definitional issue. I don't think most reasonable Americans would deny same sex couples the right to love each other, cohabit, or enjoy hospital visitation, inheritance, or the rest of that bundle of "rights" typically associated with marriage. I think the resistance to same sex marriage is based not so much upon whether marriage discriminates on the basis of sex (because it does, definitionally) but whether eliminating that form of discrimination would obliterate marriage.

In stressing the importance of marriage, the Loving court called it "one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival" and cited Maynard v. Hill, which is silent about sex, but which is laced with rhetoric suprisingly similar to what we read today:

Marriage, as creating the most important relation in life, as having more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution, has always been subject to the control of the legislature. That body prescribes the age at which parties may contract to marry, the procedure or form essential to constitute marriage, the duties and obligations it creates, its effects upon the property rights of both, present and prospective, and the acts which may constitute grounds for its dissolution.

[...]

....Other contracts may be modified, restricted, or enlarged, or entirely released upon the consent of the parties. Not so with marriage. The relation once formed, the law steps in and holds the parties to various obligations and liabilities. It is an institution, in the maintenance of which in its purity the public is deeply interested, for it is the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.

UPDATE (10/29/06): Tom Maguire has more on Loving (the case, that is!), and explains that the Supreme Court "followed, rather than led."

But what do you do when you're the victim of anonymous machines talking to each other? I recently received an automatically generated notice from an agency which asserts that I engaged in a financial transaction I never heard of but may well have been conducted automatically on my behalf and which may have generated some electronic form. Various computers were involved, and I have no idea which computer either got it wrong or missed the number.

So, I'd like to hate someone, but there's no one there.

It's tough for me to hate myself when I didn't do anything wrong. But computers have a way of making trouble for humans by not talking to each other properly, then later imputing their misconduct to humans who had nothing to do with them, so that all you need to do is have a social security number, and VIOLA! You can be in a lot of trouble for the crime of not knowing what it was not possible to know.

Which means you can be in trouble for doing absolutely nothing.

One of the dumbest mistakes I ever made was "moving" (only temporarily and because I had to, not because I wanted to) from California to the East Coast. This caused taxing authorities there to impute income to me that I never had, but because I wasn't there to open the mail, the imputed income morphed into real income because of the simple passage of time. (Nor did calling myself "bicoastal" help.)

Not knowing what computers are doing can get you in big trouble.

But when you can't even figure out which computer to hate, how can you figure out which human (or group of humans) deserve the imputed hatred?

I know the Christian approach is love, but isn't that also an emotion?

When we get into trouble, our natural instinct is to either blame ourselves (which results in an emotion of guilt), or blame others (anger or hate). These natural instincts and emotions are useless when contending with electronically generated trouble.

So, even if I put aside my feelings, I know that I am not the only person who has been treated this way by machines.

My theory is that there's a lot of hate with no place to go.

AFTERTHOUGT: It occurs to me that I forgot to mention the issue of fairness.

Silly me.

Can there be such a thing as "undifferentiated hatred"? I can think of few things more irrational, but then, nothing about is rational about being blamed for the mistakes of machines.

The other day I wrote a moral equivalency post which touched on sex with pumpkins in what some might consider an unseemly manner. I really should be more ashamed of myself, but it could have been worse. (If I'd been really stirred up I might have said "Peter Peter pumpkin eat her" or something.)

In the interest of proper atonement, I thought I should let readers know that thanks to Charles G. Hill (who also posted a computer snake I couldn't identity), I stumbled across a less lascivious, more practical use for pumpkins.

Make them into computers.

All the steps are outlined, and the finished product looks like this:

See?

Nothing sexual about it at all.

(Besides, we all know that robots don't get laid....)

Here's a Scandanavian study with results which strike me as counterintuitive, as well as stereotype-defying. Apparently, lesbian couples there have a divorce rate more than triple that of gay men.

While the study has been cited by organizations opposing same sex marriage as ammunition for the argument that compared to heterosexual couples, gay couples have a higher incidence of breaking up, what surprised me was the large disparity between lesbians and gay men.

The traditional stereotype is that it's the man who runs off, so I would expect the gay men to be less loyal to their partners.

Anyone know what might explain this? I know that Norway and Sweden aren't the United States, but we're talking about Western countries, with cultures similar enough that unless there's something I'm missing, I think the same pattern would probably hold here.

What I can't figure out is why.

Whipping as "therapy" for depression?

Glenn Reynolds is right about the Siberian scientists being serious about this new treatment. They not only claim that being whipped works for depression, but the head doc has used the method to cure himself:

Doctor of Biological Sciences, Sergei Speransky, is a very well known figure in Novosibirsk. The doctor became one of the authors of the shocking whipping therapy. The professor used the self-flagellation method to cure his own depression; he also recovered from two heart attacks with the help of physical tortures too.

"The whipping therapy becomes much more efficient when a patients receives the punishment from a person of the opposite sex.

I don't mean to quibble, but you'd think the Siberians could show a little more sensitivity. Why presume that everyone would want to be beaten by a member of the opposite sex? Have any control studies been done? Surely these doctors aren't arguing that only straight people get depressed, are they? I mean, it's not as if the word "gay" has to mean literally happy, all the time. Don't gay people get just as depressed as straight people? And aren't they just as entitled to treatment?

Depression does not discriminate! Haven't they learned?

This brings to mind another issue, which might be related. If torture is therapy for depression, what are the implications for the apparent "tortures" allegedly being inflicted on prisoners at Gitmo and abu Ghraib? I'm referring in particular to that stupid looking woman dragging the man on a leash.

Was her victim gay?

Because, unless he was, I'm thinking that in light of the new research, this might not have been torture at all, but therapy for his depression.

Yes, depression. According to the Siberian scientists, "suicidal thoughts and psychosomatic diseases occur when an individual loses his or her interest in life." What could be a clearer example of a loss of interest in life than wanting to blow yourself up? If there's a treatment that works, why not send in the right personnel?

Hey, don't look at me; I'm only presenting this information for purposes of scientific discussion.

(Please Mr. Siberian doctor, don't make me take the cure! I'm feeling so happy to be alive that you wouldn't believe it! I'm like, totally joyful! Honest! Please don't hit me!)

"Take this country back by force!"

While the phrase brings only 13 Google hits, earlier I heard a man say that, and while he might have merely been venting because of a bad hair day, he sounded awfully serious. (There are so many assumptions within the demand that if I wanted to analyze it I wouldn't know where to begin.)

I know it sounds nutty to be worred about civil war, but sometimes I think it's the nature of man. Not just in the nature of Iraqis, Chileans, Bosnians, Salvadorans, etc.

Chester's "Autumn of the Patriarch" post (about Frederick Turner's piece on Iraqi death squads), made me think again about Dali's "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans" painting. Here's Chester:

Turner believes that death squads are a sort of primeval slime from which governments emerge. But might they not also be the maggots that feast on their corpses? Perhaps the true victim of such squads and other proxies is the state itself, so long the leviathan that its demise is now both impossible to imagine and futile to escape.

However, and much as I hate to be a relativist, considering the number of people killed by governments (156,000,000 in the 20th Century), perhaps even civil war needs to be seen in perspective.

Or is that a distinction without a difference? Whether it's civil war or a government killing its citizens, such slaughters are usually perpetrated by one group of people killing another group of their fellow countrymen. Whether it's the government that's doing the killing or a faction that wants to become the government, when citizens of a country massacre each other, it's metaphorically cannibalism.

And speaking of both autumn and cannibalism, here's Dali's "Cannibalism in Autumn":

Painted shortly after the Soft Construction/Premonition painting, it's a continuation of Dali's treatment of the civil war theme.

While the topic at hand was obviously the Spanish Civil War, Dali was thinking about the bigger picture, including natural history.

Dali offered a much criticized explanation of the painting:

"These Iberian beings devouring each other in the autumn express the pathos of civil war considered as a phenomenon of natural history, as distinct from Picasso, who considered it a political [phenomenon.]"

Is politics an excuse for cannibalism?

I guess it depends on who's eating whom.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours seeing the Franklin Institute's Darwin exhibition, and I can't stop thinking about one of his observations:

"Man tends to increase at a greater rate than his means of subsistence; consequently he is occasionally subjected to a severe struggle for existence, and natural selection will have effected whatever lies within its scope."

That might lead to people to hate natural law, man's nature, Darwin, or even God. But it wouldn't stop the process.

As Trotsky is reported to have said, "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

Despite the fact that I don't get a large number of actual comments, I am forced to go to a lot of trouble to keep the comments feature turned on. I get more spam than many readers might imagine. It pours in, day in and day out, and it consumes many hours of my time. I have almost reached the point where I will have to require commenters to be signed in and all that garbage -- not because I want to do that, but because the spammers are making my life too complicated, and I just don't have time to deal with them.

But this post is about another problem. Maybe it's more a misunderstanding about the nature of comments, but I'll try to address it.

A commenter named "Raj" seems to think that I have some sort of a duty to answer essay length comments -- one of which stated numerous views with which I disagree. I have no duty to allow, read, or respond to any comment at all or in part. That I made a couple of observations in no way obligates me to explain anything, as this is not a debating forum. I wrote my post and "Raj" (whoever he may be) left a comment. I can say whatever I want, or nothing at all. I don't know where anyone would get the idea that I have to respond at all -- much less matching detail for detail. Raj or anyone else can post whatever they want in their own blogs, and just as I would not be obligated to leave comments or respond to their posts, neither would they be obligated to allow me to comment or respond to any comment I left.

I might as well take this opportunity to say again that I think much of what passes for debate over same sex marriage is silly name calling, and that I do not think it is bigotry to disagree over what represents a drastic change in the law.

I would defend to the death the principle that adults have a right to engage in consensual sex of whatever sort they desire. However, I have a major argument with the idea that sexual interests define people as members of any group entitled to rights beyond the right to sexual freedom and privacy. I don't believe homosexuals are a separate or distinct class of citizens entitled to recognition, because I do not believe that sexual tastes constitute a form of human identity. (Any more than food preference, or styles in clothing, hair color, or ways of taking a leak.) Once sexuality is defined as an "identity," in my view it limits freedom by defining people according to what they do with their genitalia, and it leads to invasion of people's privacy and dignity. Already, we are seeing a division over "outing" -- which itself is a wholesale violation of privacy based on identity politics, which has grown like a cancer in this country. (I think all hate crime laws are wrong, and I would never support more of them.)

But, for the sake of this discussion, even if we consider homosexuals to be a recognizable identity group, it cannot be denied that they are already allowed to marry members of the opposite sex, because the marriage laws allow that, and do not question people's sexual tastes. Some gay activists seek broadening these laws to allow same sex marriage, but as a gay rights issue, such a change is overbroad, because it would allow heterosexuals and homosexuals alike to marry people of the same sex, without regard to sexual orientation. This cannot be seen solely as a "gay rights" issue, because it is an expansion of marriage for everyone. Because of this overbroadness, it is entirely possible to disagree with the idea of same sex marriage without being "bigoted against gays."

(For that matter, society has also made a determination only adults may marry. Is this "bigotry" against children?)

I think all people have a say in this, I respect the opinions on both sides, and I don't think it is helpful for either side to to call the other "bigoted."

Actually, considering the likelihood of political backlash, maybe it is helpful -- helpful to the cause of those being called "bigots."

There are a number of definitions of bigotry (the modern trend often involves identity politics issues), and while I more lean towards a definition that includes hatred, it also means intolerance. That, of course, begs the question of what is intolerance? If I turn off comments because I cannot tolerate them, am I a bigot? Not that I am planning to do that, but a lot of bloggers don't allow comments, and I don't think that constitutes bigotry. Certainly, simple disagreement is not bigotry, but at what point might it become bigotry? I think a line is crossed when someone is called names. ("Evil," "stupid," "ignorant" and so on.)

But the problem with that definition is that it might mean that calling someone a "bigot" is itself bigotry, which would render any further argument circular and pointless.

That's why I suspect the word "bigot" is overused as a result of frustration.

As a practical tactic, it's a good way to end a discussion while reassuring yourself that you've "won."

(While I'm not sure that ideas are debates to be won, I guess that's another topic. Might it be possible to exchange ideas without debating?)

I don't normally review the DVDs I rent, but I'm making an exception with Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential (IMDB link here). Anyone who wants to have a good laugh at Postmodernism (or modern art) should see it.

Seriously, it's the art school equivalent of William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale.

Jerome (Max Minghella), the only student at Strathmore Art School unfortunate enough to possess genuine talent, naively imagines that attending art school might help him become the Picasso of his generation. Naturally, everyone at the school (with the possible exception of Anjelica Huston, who dared to opine furtively that DWM artists were actually alive when they painted) conspires to beat this out of him, because if there's anything abhorred more than the pretense of talent, it's real talent. His teacher (Professor Sandiford -- played to cliched perfection by John Malkovich) has no talent, originality, or teaching ability, but he conceals all of that beneath a smug facade of hip indifference to everything except genuine art. The latter he seems to hate, so he encourages the class to malign Jerome's drawings -- something the talentless, jealous peers are more than delighted to do.

However, despite the abuse (maybe in furtherance of it; who knows...) Professor Sandiford invites Jerome to his home, where he reveals that he has finally learned how to paint triangles -- an achievement made possible only after decades of self discovery! And yes, there is still a ray of hope for Jerome -- provided he is really willing to learn. Though wholly incapable of teaching art, Mr. Sandiford nonetheless makes it abundantly clear that he is quite competent (and available) to teach Jerome how to open all sides of himself!

But alas! There's no real advantage to playing sexual favorites, because all students receive As anyway -- regardless of whether they open all sides of themselves to Mr. Sandiford. (I guess the postmodernist idea of eliminating grades does have at least one unintended side effect.)

The snubbing continues unabated, until finally our hero realizes that there's only one way to play the game -- conceal real talent by deliberately substituting bullshit for art. But he outfoxes them at their game. Eventually, the kid befriends a psychotic, drunken middle aged artist with an ugly secret -- he's a wanted mass murderer who's been strangling people near the school so that he can render childish paintings of their corpses.... and what happens is a poignant indictment of the fraud that so often passes for art.

Without spoiling the film, I strongly disagree with Roger Ebert that the mass murder aspect is "completely unnecessary, and imposes a generic story structure on a film that might better have just grown from scene to scene like an experience."

Wrong!

The mass murder subplot is absolutely necessary, and reminded me of Divine's memorable performance art line in "Female Trouble":

Who wants to DIE for art?!

UPDATE (10/26/06): IMDB link fixed. My thanks to all who never complained!

According to a number of angry people who've posted complaints here, an organization called the Share Group is completely ignoring the Do Not Call registry. Says one irate commenter:

These criminals use several similar numbers (877-499-2758, 2753, 2759) to illegally harrass people on the no-call list.

Here's another commenter, Sheryl:

This number calls us at least FIVE times a day, starting in the early morning hours, right through until 10 PM. They don't leave a message either, after listening to the answering machine. We are on the NO CALL list too!

From the description at their web site, it seems to be engaged in activist telemarketing:

Our core business is comprised of outbound telemarketing services: fundraising, membership mobilization and affinity sales calls. We are however a full-service provider, with offerings that include inbound calling programs, activist recruitment, online giving options, e-mail address collection and e-mail pledge fulfillment.

Share Group, you'll never get a dime out of me!

But look at how much money the Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pay them!

In 2003 the Share Group was purchased by a large Democratic political consulting firm:

The Dewey Square Group (DSG), a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic political consulting firm with offices in several other cities, acquired The Share Group, a direct response telemarketing firm serving "progressive nonprofits." The new Share Group ownership consists of DSG, Trautman Wasserman & Company, a private equity firm, and Meadowbrook Lane Capital. The Share Group's senior management team remains intact, and company officials said the move would give it more resources to raise awareness and dollars for what is called "socially responsible" causes campaigns and candidates.

The Share Group seems to be hiring right now, so if you haven't been called by them yet, be prepared.

I was curious to know how they got around the do-not-call list. They filed a request for an exemption from FTC rules and they also claim that their outfit's work is devoted to charity.

Huh?

While according to the FTC, political organizations are not charities, the telemarketing sales rule (TSR) does not apply to political solicitations:

Political solicitations are not covered by the TSR at all, since they are not included in its definition of "telemarketing." Charities are not covered by the requirements of the national registry. However, if a third-party telemarketer is calling on behalf of a charity, a consumer may ask not to receive any more calls from, or on behalf of, that specific charity. If a third-party telemarketer calls again on behalf of that charity, the telemarketer may be subject to a fine of up to $11,000.

I think unwanted calls are like spam. The Constitution does not give anyone a right to stuff my mailbox with trash, flood my email with spam, or disturb my peace and invade my privacy by causing my telephone to ring incessantly against my will.

In principle, the Supreme Court would seem to agree

...no one has a right to press even "good" ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often "captives" outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere.

As if this wasn't bad enough, another outfit sent me repeated junk text messages on my cell phone -- for which I have to pay!

At least this blog gives me a place to complain. Calling the number back does not work, as humans do not answer; instead a recorded message recites that they're working "for a better world," are exempt from the Do Not Call registry, and requests that you leave your number. (Right.)

AFTERTHOUGHT: This is not to disparage anyone's First Amendment rights, but when we're talking about unwanted (and invasive) speech, does it really matter whether it is commercial or political in nature? I mean, why should there be any more of a right to ask me to give money to a political cause than buy a company's product? It's easy to say that commercial speech is inherently more offensive, but is it? How could being asked to buy a product be more offensive than being asked to contribute to a political cause with which you disagree?

This distinction is addressed here, but the legal issues are far from settled. One thing is clear though: phone calls are inherently invasive. And FWIW, I consider a call from a political activist seeking to "save the world" to be more invasive than a call asking me if I want cheaper auto insurance.

And slippery slopes slide both ways.... (And that is not a pun, but a political observation.)

Bill Quick was gracious enough to leave a comment to my defensive post in which I probably misunderinterpreted a mutual misinterpretation or something, and in his comment he raised another topic which seems to be making a few waves -- libertarians and bestiality:

....I can advance some mildly libertarian arguments against [bestiality]....

So can I, and while I don't know whether Bill will agree with me this time, I thought I should credit him for making me finish what I might have been inclined to neglect.

I mean, who really wants to write about bestiality? Normally, it wouldn't occur to me, but reading this argument against sex with animals, it strikes me that what is missing from the debate is a libertarian argument against bestiality.

For the record, let me state unequivocally that not only am I against bestiality (and have no problem with laws against it), but I consider myself a libertarian. This does not mean that I speak for all libertarians (much less the Libertarian Party, which for all I care can advocate for bestiality until the cows come home for more.)

If being against bestiality makes me less than a full libertarian, I don't really care, as I am not in charge of their official doctrine, and I don't know whether even they are. Is there a "they" there?

At the outset, I should address a recurrent annoyance. I do not like it when people disagree with me by putting words in my mouth, and imputing to me whatever it is that they claim "libertarianism" means, because often I do not agree with whatever it is they're claiming libertarianism to be, and the disagreement becomes complicated by my not only having to defend my own position, but by the additional annoyance of having to either defend "libertarianism" or else argue that whatever they are saying does not constitute libertarianism. I'd rather not do that -- which is why I describe myself as a small "l" libertarian. If that isn't good enough for you, then maybe I should call myself "libertarianish." On borders and national defense, for example, I tend to part company with many (but not all) libertarians. Perhaps it's the same way with bestiality; perhaps not.

Anyway, yesterday I saw that Glenn Reynolds is being taken to task by another blogger I really respect, Sean Gleeson (inventor of the famed "Autorantic Virtual Moonbat"). Sean argues that because Glenn is a libertarian and "for" bestiality, that this is evidence that libertarianism is wrong:

Within the narrow blinders of libertarianism, laws can only be justified by appeal to an unconsenting victim. Human dignity has no place in the libertarian worldview, and the libertarian is left with no basis to outlaw what he calls "victimless crimes." Prostitution, polygamy, pornography, incest, drug abuse, bestiality, and a host of other crimes, being consensual, must be legal, and that's that.

And this is libertarianism's greatest failing. The libertarians happen to come to the right conclusions on a great many issues of policy, and I am happy to ally with them on those issues. But libertarianism is not an adequate theory of governance.

Similarly, while I think grown men should be allowed to engage in public fighting exhibitions (because they consent to it), I have no problem with laws forbidding the pitting of dogs against each other even though they might appear to consent.

While I think man is inherently morally superior to animals, that does not mean animals have no moral worth. For once I find something with which I can disagree (albeit slightly) with Glenn Reynolds. Back to Sean:

These pro-bestial arguments are disarming to any honest and consistent libertarian. Even Instapundit Glenn Reynolds allows that he's "got nothing against" bestiality, explaining "since I'm happy to eat animals it's hard for me to consider people having sex with them to be, you know, more exploitative."

That's because libertarianism is fundamentally wrong.

If Glenn is wrong, can't he just be given credit for being wrong on his own? Why does "libertarianism" have to be wrong because Glenn Reynolds said what he said? It's almost as if libertarianism is wrong because Glenn is wrong, but Glenn is wrong because libertarianism is wrong.

Of course, according to another school of popular reasoning, if someone like Glenn is wrong about something, that must mean he is wrong because he is not a libertarian. So, either he's bad for being a libertarian or else he's bad at being a libertarian! Far be it from me to explain others, but I think simply disagreeing with someone for specified reasons is preferable to sidetracking the debate into questions of ideological purity.

(Easy for me to say; I'm ideologically impure!)

Once again, I don't see the contradiction between my libertarian leanings and law prohibiting sex with animals, because I think sex with animals is cruelty to animals. And unnecessary cruelty at that. I think that because animals are alive and feel pain, and we humans are entrusted with their care, our enlightened self interest directs that we not be unnecessarily cruel in our treatment of them.

What seems to not be receiving the attention it should here is the fact that the poor dog which was sexually violated was whimpering in agony:

McPhail's wife told investigators that she found her husband on their back porch Wednesday night having intercourse with their 4-year-old female pit bull terrier, the Pierce County sheriff's office report said. The dog was squealing and crying, according to charging papers.

The woman took photos with her cell phone and called the sheriff's office.

This is the third time I've read about a pit bull (or a close relative thereof) being violated like this, and if "libertarianism" really means letting that son of a bitch do that to the poor dog, then I guess it means I'm not a "real" libertarian. (So what? Will the world weep over my "treason"?) Libertarianism can be criticized for a lot of things, but I just don't see "libertarianism" in allowing this to be done to some poor dog.

It's a little easier to analyze this case because the animal let the humans know it was in pain. In general, though, there's no way to know, as animals cannot complain. Nor can they consent. There is no such thing as a consenting animal, and unless the animal cries, there is no such thing as a complaining animal. While I disagree with the animal rights philosophy that animals are like people, I nonetheless consider them more than inanimate chattel. Thus, while I would support the right of a person to neglect his car until it conked out (say, to buy an old clunker and run it into the ground), treating a horse that way would be unconscionable, and I support making it illegal. Indeed, the first laws against animal cruelty were passed to prevent the routine working to death of harnessed horses in factories once they had outlived their usefulness. Laws prohibiting cruelty to animals may quite properly define cruelty as including having sex with them for the animals cannot consent to sex. This is no more inconsistent with libertarianism than supporting laws prohibiting sex with minors.

Likewise, just as one cannot enforce a contract entered into by a child, there'd be no way to enter into a contract with an animal. Consent would be meaningless; suppose a valuable racehorse was "told" that it might sign a contract by imprinting a piece of paper with its hoof. If it did so, no court would consider that a valid contract because a horse cannot enter into a contract.

I see the question of whether it is within "man's nature" to have sex with an animal as basically moot. No one can define with precision what man's nature is anyway. Is masturbation part of man's nature? What about having sex with a dead animal? Is that necrophiliac bestiality? What about sex with a butchered carcass? Is that more "wrong" than screwing a rump roast?

How about a watermelon? Yeah, I know, it's considered by some to be an inflammatory symbol, and screwing fruit sounds pretty demented, but does it rise to that level of immorality requiring we punish the offender with criminal sanctions? And for those who are into smaller fruits or veggies and very different activities, how about bananas and cucumbers?

OK, let's really follow this out.... How about sex with a pumpkin? Halloween is approaching, and I remember reading about a man who did just that:

A Warren, Michigan, man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for indecent exposure after neighbors spotted him having sex with a pumpkin. The man was already jailed at the time of his sentencing on a charge of domestic violence.

Morally, there is no difference between a pumpkin, a banana, and a jar of lubricant. What makes sex with animals different is that there is a victim. Maybe not the same victim as a human, but a victim nonetheless.

I barely touched on necrophilia, and while I know that corpses cannot consent, if a person may consent in life to having his body burned to ashes or dissected by medical students, might he give permission to sex after death? Is that a libertarian cause too?

Some of these arguments are at least as ridiculous as arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or whether handguns should be sold in vending machines to elementary school students.

I don't know.

And much as I try to be serious, some of those pumpkins can be distractingly sexy.....

Sorry about the next one, but I'm just trying to be inclusive:

Now that I think about it, that last one's sick enough to make most normal pumpkins feel like this:

(Cinderella made me stop right there, lest the pumpkin of repugnance be transformed into a carriage of wisdom.)

UPDATE: Sean Gleeson has left a very thoughtful comment below, and I don't think this is as serious of an ideological dispute as it might appear to some.

Nor