When I saw this video, I was a bit taken aback.

It's easy to forget that (just as there are parents who's strap a bomb on their baby) there are parents in the world who think it's cute to watch their baby play with a deadly snake.

As the YouTube caption explains, there is a reason for it:

It is beleived to be luck for a baby if he/she is touched by the snake on the head.

Philosophically, is it politically "liberal" to stop them? Or is it "conservative"? Not that I'd let that influence my thinking; any more than I would be influenced by what doctrinaire libertarians might say; I think it's child abuse to let children play with deadly snakes, just as it would be to let them play Russian Roulette.

Adults, OTOH, should be allowed to do what they want.

Funny thing about this is that if you remove religion from the equation, the parents' behavior becomes somehow less forgiveable. It's as if they're given a "break" (at least considered less morally culpable by most people) if they watch their kid play with cobra because they think some deity approves. By that standard, parents who strap bombs on children for "Allah" are less guilty than parents who might blow up their children for purely political reasons. And the latter, while more guilty than religious criminals, are nonetheless less culpable than parents who would blow up their children to collect on an insurance policy. Similarly, a mob hit man who has "nothing personal" against the guy he blows away is more guilty of the requisite malice than a guy who is consumed by hatred or jealousy. (No actual malice in the personal sense thus equals more malice in the legal sense.)

Which is a convoluted way of saying that the video of the baby handling the cobra reminded me of today's news story about the guy who apparently thought he was killing the abortion doctor for religious reasons.

Do his religious views make him more guilty or less guilty? Or are they irrelevant?