What Arrogance! Part 2

Back at the height of the "comprehensive reform"/amnesty debate, I blogged about an Op-Ed by former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Casteneda about American immigration policy. It was an incredibly arrogant editorial, the thesis of which was that the then-proposed "comprehensive" reform -- the one voted down because American stood up and rejected amnesty in on very loud voice -- was too harsh on illegal immigrants in general and Mexicans in particular. The gall was just amazing -- a former Foreign Minister dictating immigration policy to the United States. As if he gets a vote on that issue.

Now, via Rightwing Nuthouse, I find that that former Foreign Minister Castenada has been one-upped in his arrogance -- by none other than the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderon. This Houston Chronicle article reports a recent speech made by none other than the President of Mexico -- a speech that blasted American illegal immigration policies while at the same time challenging American sovereignty:

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying "Mexico does not end at its borders."

The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address.

"We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers," he said. "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle ... for their rights."

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: "Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

"Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico."

So let me get this straight. The United States of America isn't free to protect its own physical borders. But Mexico's sovereignty extends to wherever there are Mexicans. What an incredible double standard. I think that the United States ought to have tougher enforcement against illegal aliens, but I don't seek to dictate Mexico's policy toward American illegal aliens in Mexico (if there are any). Cut off their feet and send 'em back in a shipping container, for all I care. If people are in Mexico illegally, do what you want with 'em. But don't seek to dictate American treatment of illegals within our own territory.

Just to be clear, I don't think that a bunch of Mexicans are sitting around in a room cleverly plotting the Reconquista. But here we have the President of Mexico asserting Mexican sovereignty over those portions of the United States which contain Mexicans. I'm flabbergasted -- why does the President of Mexico think he can dictate American immigration policy to America? And why has the President of the United States, George W. Bush, not (to my knowledge) protested this insult to America's sovereignty?

Purely as a Matter of national security, this claim by Mexico makes it imperative for the United States to expell as many ilegal aliens of Mexiican ancestry as possible, and to keep new Mexican illegals from entering. And, further, the US should require any naturalized Americans of Mexican descent to renounce and abjure their Mexican citizenship. To make it abundantly clear that they do not claim the protection of Mexico.

[Editing glitch now fixed.]

Small Mammals Can Be Quite Good When Baked, Dept.

Ann Althouse links to this article about Australians eating feral cats, which apparently represent a serious environmental problem in Australia. Some people are grossed out by it, but if you believe in eating meat generally, I'm not sure why cats ought to be off-limits.

"Receipt, Please" at Circuit City

Radley Balko links to this first-person account of a fellow named Michael Amor Righi, who was arrested at Circuit City. By all means read his account for yourself, but the short version is that he went to Circuit City, picked up a few items, paid for them, and left the store. The fellow at the door asked to see his receipt. Instead of complying, he said "no, thank you" and left the store. He was pursued outside the store, had a verbal confrontation with the manager, who blocked him from exiting. Righi ended up calling the cops (because the manager was blocking his exit) and the cop arrested him after he refused to a) show the receipt, and b) show his identification. He was charged with the nebulous charge of "Obstructing Official Business," which really doesn't seem to fit the facts. At least if you believe his account, he didn't do anything to, well, obstruct the police officer, other than refuse to submit to search or hand over his identification.

His account is detailed, and I have to say I vacillated between thinking he was a jerk and admiring his spunk. But he leaves out one key fact: did the Circuit City have a sign, prominently displayed in the front, which indicated that bags were subject to search? If so, then he agreed to enter private property under certain terms, and he should be bound by those terms. I think that Balko gets it exactly right:

If stores like Circuit City make clear that when you step onto their property, you agree to have your bags searched when you leave, then those are the conditions you agree to when you enter. Don't like it? Then shop elsewhere.

Precisely.

Now, I do happen to agree with Righi when he suggests that meek compliance with such demands is not exactly a good sign:

I am interested in living my life on strong principles and standing up for my rights as a consumer, a U.S. citizen and a human being. Allowing stores to inspect our bags at will might seem like a trivial matter, but it creates an atmosphere of obedience which is a dangerous thing.

Absolutely. Likewise the degrading and largely pointless rituals at aiport security and other places. But instead of welching on the deal he made with Circuit City when he entered this store, Righi has an alternative way to protest their policy: he can refuse to shop there. And with this internet thing, he can even organize he fellow search-objectors to refrain from shopping at stores like Circuit City and Best Buy en masse.

Nor is it likely that these stores implement such policies because they want to condition us to life ground beneath the heel of our corporate overlords. Rather, I'm guessing they pay somebody to sit outside the door and ask for receipts because such stores are prime targets for shoplifters. And I am guessing that they have a policy of asking everybody because their lawyers have told them that a more focused approach, where they ask some people but not others, will leave them open to discrimination claims by those who do get asked to their receipts.

I do think it was reasonable for the cop to ask to see his receipt, but once it became clear that the goods were not stolen, I don't see why it was necssary to take him into custody.

US Airways -- I Suspect the Customer Service Still Sucks

This is very funny. Earlier today, somebody accessed this post of mine on my lousy customer service experience with US Airways. They got it through a google search for "US Airways Sucks."

The IP address is from the Philadelphia Airport.

Whatever you are going through, buddy, I feel for you. Best of luck. You will need it.

Have I mentioned that US Airways sucks? Particularly the customer service?

Big Brother Is Running For President

Marc Ambinder reports that the Fred Thompson campaign has settled on a catch-phrase: "Security, Unity, and Prosperity," which will apparently be emblazoned on the side of his tourbus.

Perhaps after nearly eight dismal years of President George W. Bush I am succumbing to paranoia, but isn't that a bit 1984-ish?

SECURITY
UNITY
PROSPERITY

Enemies of Reason, Part 2

Part 2 of Richard Dawkins' The Enemies of Reason can be found here on Google Video. I am watching it now; it looks good so far. Part 2 is mostly about quackery and weird health claims.

UPDATE: I think it's pretty good. My only wish is that Dawkins would turn his skeptical eye toward big government. For the life of me, I just don't understand big-government-atheists. The same mindset that led me to reject the idea of faith in god led me to an understanding of the limits of government.

Mechanical or Intuitive Medicine?

Megan McArdle links to this Charles Lambdin review of the book, How Doctors Think, by Jerome Groopman. Now, I have not read Groopman's book, and it is intellectually irresponsible to comment on books you haven't read, but what the heck -- I'm just a D-List blogger, after all.

Lambdin's main criticism of Groopman's book is focused on Groopman's hostility toward "evidence-based medicine." Silly me, I thought all medical science was supposed to be evidence-based -- I thought that was what distinguished Western Medicine from accupuncture and homeopathy and the rest of the woo-woo stuff. But apparently not, and, at least if you believe Lamdbin, Groopman is on the side of the woo-woos. Groopman apparently admits that doctors, like all of us, have a whole array of cognitive biases, that they are inconsistent over time, and that such inconsistency affects their diagnostic accuracy. Yet, despite that, Groopman objects to attempts to make medical diagnoses more accurate through the use of statistical aids:

Groopman tells us he is troubled that new doctors seem to be trained to “think like computers,” that they rely on diagnostic decision aids and some seductive “boiler-plate scheme” called evidence-based medicine. Groopman’s position, when his various arguments are gathered and assembled, becomes untenable. He admits doctors suffer from innumerable biases that diminish the accuracy of diagnosis, reducing many diagnoses to idiosyncratic responses fueled by mood, whether the patient is liked or disliked, advertisements recently seen, etc. Thus Groopman agrees with decision scientists’ diagnosis of doctor decision making; but then he goes on to wantonly dismiss what many of the very same researchers claim is the best (and perhaps only) remedy, the way to “debias” diagnosis: evidence-based medicine and the use of decision aids. In place of statistics what does Groopman suggest doctors rely on? Clinical intuition of course, the very source of the cognitive biases he pays lip service to throughout his book.

Groopman, though, is not alone. Many doctors don't like "mechanical" evidence-based approaches:

Most doctors do not like decision aids. They rob them of much of their power and prestige. Why go through medical school and accrue a six-figure debt if you’re simply going to use a computer to make diagnoses? One study famously showed that a successful predictive instrument for acute ischemic heart disease (which reduced the false positive rate from 71% to 0) was, after its use in randomized trials, all but discarded by doctors (only 2.8% of the sample continued to use it). It is no secret many doctors despise evidence-based medicine. It is impersonal “cookbook medicine.” It is “dehumanizing,” treating people like statistics.

The reason why "treating people like statistics" is better is that it works.

I've been to Vegas a time or two, and somehow I end up seated at a blackjack table. When I find myself in such a situation, I play something called "basic strategy" -- a set of mechanical rules for how to play based upon my cards and the dealer's cards. Now, I wish I could say that basic strategy results in my beating the house, but the truth is that all it does is reduce the house edge to about 1% and means I lose my money at a relatively slow rate.

Sometimes I've been seated next to somebody utterly convinced his or her intuitions or hunches are better than playing the odds. Sometimes they really do get a five when the they hit sixteen and the dealer has a six up. You can be sure they notice every instance in which a deviation from basic strategy pays off. But they don't notice all the times their "hunches" cause them to get hammered. Apply the same woo-woo approach in medicine, and you get crap like this, bleating on about the wonders of intuition. Playing the odds still works better. That's why they are the odds.

As Megan observes, it's natural to resist the idea of using a formula, even when the formula works:

Every profession resists being told that there is a standard way to do things, that a cookie cutter can cut better than their skilled hand. Journalists famously hate the "inverted U" style of writing a news story, even though it really does seem to work better than anything else; it's boring to write, and leaves no room for individual style. Teachers don't like "teaching to the test" or rigidly programmed phonics curricula, even though the latter produces measurably better results than all but the very best teachers. Unfortunately, for many of us, it may be time to welcome our new robot overlords.

All Hail the Robot Overlords!

The point that neither Megan nor Lambdin makes, however, is that this ties in with health care regulations. It's quite possible that a system of mechanically-trained nurse practitioners armed with expert systems and a few doctors in the loop to handle genuinely difficult problems would work better than the current system of state-licensed High Priests. But the current system of compulsory licensure laws prevents any such competing model from emerging.

I do grant that there is some consumer-protective component, that quacks and weirdos and undoubtedly-sincere homeopaths and natural-food junkies are, to some degree, deterred by current compulsory licensure laws. But it also creates barriers to entry for anybody proposing a radically new model, even if such a model might work better.

Bad Dissertation! Film At Eleven!

Brian Beutler and Mathew Yglesias have been reading David Petreaus's Ph.D. dissertation, and they don't much like it. Beutler calls it a "fantastic exercise in saying nothing," and Yglesias seems to agree.

I must say I am inclined to agree with James Fallows, who characterizes their complaints as "silly." This whole exercise is pointless. So what if his dissertation was bad? Next they'll be telling us that we need to reassess Patton's tenure as commander of Third Army because he was a lousy poet.

(H/T, Insty.)

Susie Bright Interviews the D.C. Madam

Thanks to Radley Balko for linking to this fascinating interview with the alleged D.C. Madam, Deborah Palfrey. She talks a bit about the scope of the investigation which brought her down, and she seems a bit paranoid. But I have to say I wonder why the feds spent so much money on this particular investigation. Even if you think that prostitution ought to be illegal, this sort of use of law-enforcement resources is questionable at best. Opportunistic arrest is one thing, but a whole long-running investigation. Why?

The interview is well worth reading, but I found a few tidbits particularly worthy of note. One, even though she doesn't use these words, Susie Bright echoes my own Secret Fear Theory:

I mean, when I think about... It's almost like everything these people rail against becomes the very thing that they're into. It's almost as if they're revealing themselves by their preaching. Whatever they're screaming about...

Precisely. People's politics reflect what they fear in themselves.

Second, Palfrey promises EVEN MORE REVELATIONS. And she doesn't feel bad about it.

I don't wish to ruin anyone's life. However, I do share the same mindset as Larry Flynt: expose the hypocrites. And for those few dozen to a hundred or so that ultimately will be revealed — like David Vitter — I go to sleep very easily at night without any guilty feelings whatsoever about the David Vitters of the world.

Oh, yum. If she follows through, former Bushista Randall Tobias and Senator Vitter won't be the only ones. I can't wait!

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, something I had missed when I previously posted about Senator David Vitter, Palfrey's alleged client. According to Bright, Vitter's nickname among New Orleans Prostitutes was "Vitter the Shitter," because he had a diaper fetish.

Ewwww. I guy who frequents prostitutes can be a charming rouge, and a taste for kinky sex can even add a certain exotic appeal. But diapers! Aaargh, that's just grosss. I don't know how I missed this before -- after all, it was in Wonkette.

Wonkette linked to these advertisements, saying the diaper stuff made them even more "hilarious and disgusting." Well, yes. But I have to say that I feel sorry for Vitter's poor kids, who will undoubtedly find out that Daddy got off being diapered.

Who Counts?

Megan McArdle responds to one of her commenters, "Spencer," who suggests if we limit unskilled and illegal immigration, it will raise wages of those at the bottom and encourage innovation. Which, he argues, will make Americans better off. Megan seems to accept this premise (at least for the sake of argument), but she seems to think that's not enough:

That would seem to make closing the borders a win: Americans get higher wages and more automation. But it assumes that the immigrants themselves have absolutely no moral standing. Their lives aren't made better by the fact that America has automatic fruit picking machines.

This is linguistically misleading in a couple of ways. First of all, if we keep them out, they're not immigrants; they're foreigners who might become immigrants. Second, nobody is arguing that foreigners have no moral standing at all. Immigration restrictionists don't favor hunting them for sport, or bombing their countries at random for our own amusement. Everybody agrees that foreigners have some moral standing.

I think that Steve Sailer has it just about right when he argues for "citizenism" -- that is, American elected officials should tailor our domestic policies, including immigration policy, to benefit current American citizens. After all, we don't expect Mexico, or El Salvador, or Guatemala or even Canada to arrange their policies to benefit us, do we? Their elected officials are elected by their citizens to benefit that political community. Like it or not, until we put in place a world government, the nation-state is the fundamental political unit.

So the short answer to her question is no, the welfare of foreigners who might become immigrants doesn't count. I would arrange immigration policy to benefit current American citizens.

So what would that entail? I am perfectly willing to be convinced that the raw amount of immigration should go down, should stay the same, or even be increased. I'm not wedded to any particular one of these suggestions, but here's a rough cut.

To begin with, most illegal immigrants are unskilled, and, on average, are going to end up being tax-eaters rather than tax-payers. Dramatically reducing illegal immigration has to be top priority. Obvious first step: use physical barriers to seal the border with Mexico. Authorize Border Patrol Agents to use force, including deadly force, against illegal immigrants. It's clear we cannot deport ten or twelve million illegals in one go, but we can streamline the hearing process and hire more immigration judges.

After that, there's a lot we can do to make self-deportation a more desirable choice. Make it a felony to knowingly provide any material assistance to any illegal immigrant -- and by "any material assistance" I mean so much as a glass of water. Certainly setting up a place for day laborers to hang out counts, if you know that lots of them are illegals. Require states and municipalities which receive federal money to cooperate fully with federal immigration authorities. Bar illegal immigrants from receiving any government assistance of any sort.

Once that's done, it's fairly easy to reform the system of legal immigration. To begin with, get rid of chain migration by scaling back family reunification. Limit it to minor children and spouses, not parents, adult children, cousins, nephews, aunts, or uncles. Then select immigrants based on whether they are likely to be tax-payers rather than tax-eaters. As a first approximation, we should look for English fluency, and either scientific or technical skills or demonstrated business acumen. Smart students we let in, even if they are likely to remain in the United States after graduation. Particularly if they are likely to remain in the United States after graduation.

Finally, the United States should actively encourage "brain drain." Not only should we allow the smartest, the most innovative, the most productive people in the world in, but the United States should target, say, ten thousand people a year for active recruitment. We are not competing for land or resources these days, but we are competing for the ultimate resource: brains and talent. So the United States should design its immigration policy with that goal in mind.

More on "Senator Widestance"

Clayton Cramer -- who was kind enough to leave a comment -- links to this Idaho Statesman article regarding Senator Craig's past sexual activities. I think that Clayton may overstate quite how damning it really is, but it does undermine my own tentative theory that innocence was at least a possibility. It seems fairly clear that rumors have swirled around him for some time. If you buy the if-there-is-smoke-there-is-fire theory, it is at least suggestive. And there is at least one plausible, though anonymous report of somebody who claim to have had a sexual liason with him in the bathroom at Union Station, near the Capital. Ick! Cramer also linked to (see update four) this report claiming that this particular bathroom is a well known place of assignation for people seeking anonymous gay sex.

Fine, he's probably guilty. But that wasn't the main point of my prior post. Just to be succinct: my main point was that, if you assume the Roll Call summary of the police report was reasonably complete and accurate, I have a problem with basing an arrest for a sex crime on what's in there, standing alone. I am not going to argue that he's innocent, and I don't actually care that much. I just think there's a larger and more important issue that people are missing, because it's so much fun to stomp on a Senator.

Remind Me To Sit Very Still In Public Bathrooms

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More Libertarian "Edge" Cases

In response to my post on animal rights, commenter Jeff asks a good question:

I do have a question regarding marginal cases. Do all 'innocent' humans have a right to life? For instance, why would a severely mentally retarded person (with mental capabilities similar to a dog), have a right to life, and the dog not?

Good question, Jeff. Any other questions?

Note that we are talking about somebody who is super-retarded. Not somebody who will learn to talk and read a little bit and maybe get a job cleaning up at McDonald's or bagging groceries. But somebody who doesn't have the cognitive capacity to speak, to understand more than a few words, to tell time, or probably even dress himself.

In principle, I think that Society Girl has a valid point when she says that "The libertarian principles that I have read on this blog and elsewhere, taken to there ultimate conclusion, should lead Cheerful to say the answer is 'a severely mentally retarded person has less rights.'"

Well, of course such a person has "less rights." An individual so limited is never going to learn to drive or live independently. Left to his own devices, like a normal adult, he will die in the streets. The question is whether he has more rights than a dog or other animal of equivalent mental capacity. As a first approximation, I think that Society Girl has a point. My conception of rights is based on mental capacity, and a severely retarded person with the mental capacity of a dog should, you could argue, have the same rights as the animal.

But libertarianism -- my version, at least -- is also a political theory, a theory about the rules necessary to govern the state. I would argue that all members of the species homo sapiens should have the right not to be killed, even if, in individual cases, they fall below the threshold of sapience. The reason I argue that is that I don't trust government officials to accurately make a determination that somebody really only has the mental capacity of a dog. In general I think we should err on giving more rights to the mentally retarded, because I don't trust the government to make accurate determinations in individual cases.

I will add that I think that if we ever manage to genetically engineer more intelligent chimps or gorillas, as in David Brin's "Uplift" novels, I do think they should have the same rights as humans. Likewise aliens of equivalent intelligence, or sapient artificial life forms.

Let me also respond to anonymous commenter who seems shocked by the whole discussion:

Yipes! If Libertarians have not worked out for themselves why (or whether) we ought not to torture animals for pleasure or profit it seems that some remedial homework is in order.

Well, I have worked it out for myself -- personally I refrain from torturing animals for pleasure or profit. Largely because it doesn't bring me any pleasure, and I have yet to come up with a way to make it pay. I suspect that very few libertarians actually favor animal torture. The question is whether the power of the state ought to be used to prevent it, and I honestly think that is a hard question.

Mother Teresa's Sadomasochistic Theology

I read this Time Magazine article about a collection of Mother Teresa's letters just now released, and I seriously considered projectile vomiting -- but I refrained, because I didn't want to mess up my Apple Cinema Display. It is often claimed that one "proof" of the existence of God is that believers have subjective spiritual experiences which confirm -- to them -- that God exists. Of course, such experiences prove nothing, other than the fact that the person having them is prone to delusion or wishful thinking.

Yet, it would seem that Mother Teresa had no such experiences for most of her life. As Time delicately puts it "for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever." She lived, we are told, "in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain." One of the alleged advantages of religion, we are told, is that it provides solace and comfort -- yet for Mother Teresa, it apparently provided none of that.

Meanwhile, even as she felt this spiritual desolation, she kept of this cheery, peaceful demeanor, pretending she had all the answers, when in fact she had none. She was lying for nearly her whole life:

In more than 40 communications, many of which have never before been published, she bemoans the "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness" and "torture" she is undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it has driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God. She is acutely aware of the discrepancy between her inner state and her public demeanor. "The smile," she writes, is "a mask" or "a cloak that covers everything." Similarly, she wonders whether she is engaged in verbal deception. "I spoke as if my very heart was in love with God — tender, personal love," she remarks to an adviser. "If you were [there], you would have said, 'What hypocrisy.'"

No shit. I always assumed she was sincere, but it now turns out she didn't even believe the crap she was spewing. And of course Time dances around that fact.

There has always been a healthy dose of sadomasochism in the whole Catholic thing, particularly the fixation on Christ's torture and torment -- the whole Passion thing. Which is why Mel Gibson's The Passion has been referred to as a "gay S&M snuff flick." And don't get me started on self-flagellation or the torture devices developed for the Inquisition.

So it's not surprising that her spiritual suffering is twisted around in some weird sadomasochistic tangle and used as a theological selling point:

For all that she had expected and even craved to share in Christ's Passion, she had not anticipated that she might recapitulate the particular moment on the Cross when he asks, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" The idea that rather than a nihilistic vacuum, his felt absence might be the ordeal she had prayed for, that her perseverance in its face might echo his faith unto death on the Cross, that it might indeed be a grace, enhancing the efficacy of her calling, made sense of her pain. Neuner would later write, "It was the redeeming experience of her life when she realized that the night of her heart was the special share she had in Jesus' passion." And she thanked Neuner profusely: "I can't express in words — the gratitude I owe you for your kindness to me — for the first time in ... years — I have come to love the darkness. "

Words fail. She didn't feel the presences of God or Jesus, and this made her miserable. But it turns out this is God's blessing after all! What a twisted bit of logic, that.

If she was into the whole suffering thing, great. Whip it. Whip it good. But what makes her sadomasochistic theology so pernicious -- as Christopher Hitchens has noted -- is that she embraced suffering in other people. She thought that the suffering of the poor was very beautiful, and that the world is somehow aided by that misery. And. even worse, she didn't use pain medications in her hospice -- to do so would be to deprive the dying of a chance to suffer, and get closer to God! You know, her own spiritual torment was her own business. But she didn't stop at that -- she had to inflict pain on other people. And her hypocrisy knew no bounds, because when she got sick, Mother Teresa checked into first-rate hospitals. None of this dying-on-a-cot-with-no-painkiller stuff for Mother Teresa.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse has an interesting post on this story, with some links. Quite a few people seem to have picked up on the fact that she refrained from giving painkillers to people at her hospice. I wonder if this inconvenient fact will seep out into the general world?

Libertarianism and Animal Rights

Perhaps inspired by current events, Jim Henley has issued a challenge to libertarians: come up with a theory regarding of animal-cruelty laws. A distinctively libertarian theory, I might add.

"Bob," commenting over at Megan McArdle's new home, lays down a libertarian marker:

No matter how awful the things he did to his dogs might have been, the fact remains that they were HIS DOGS. Why should Vick lose 18 to 36 months of freedom because he mistreated that specific class of property, when the law would not punish him at all for mistreatment (or destruction) of other items of his property?

In other words, Bob (and his fellow libertarian purists) would argue that, while killing dogs might be disgusting and cruel and barbaric and even immoral, well, if they're your dogs, the state can't use its coercive power to prevent you from so doing. Julian Sanchez initially takes such a line as well, at least tentatively, but then takes it back, saying he needs to think about it some more.

Now, I can think of arguments in favor of laws against torturing puppies. Certainly if I came upon somebody torturing a puppy, I would be prepared to use force to stop such torture, at least if I could do so without exposing myself to undue danger. So if I feel justified in using coercive force on my own, well, the state can do it? Right?

One could argue, for example, that knowing that animals are being tortured by somebody else creates a sort of moral externality. That is, the knowledge creates disutility in those of us who have to watch such cruelty, or even know of its existence. Or you could argue that engaging in cruelty to animals cultivates certain cruel instincts and behaviors, and makes people more likely to engage in violence toward persons. (All those serial killer TV shows claim that torturing animals leads to being a serial killer, after all.)

The problems is that libertarians decisively reject such arguments in other contexts. For example, somebody might feel great distress in knowing that others are viewing pornography, or engaging in homosexual behavior, or even eating ice cream cones. But libertarians are pretty insistent that A's distress at B's private conduct doesn't count as grounds for state intervention, so long as B doesn't interfere with anybody else's rights. (And "anybody else's rights" are defined as the right not to be assaulted or have one's property taken or damaged, not the right not to be offended by gay sex.) Likewise, libertarians tend to be skeptical of the claim that something might lead you to do bad or illegal things justifies government intervention. Even if pornography (involving consenting adults, etc.) does increase the risk that one will engage rape, most libertarians would say it ought not be illegal.

To many libertarians, political theory is like geometry: there are certain first principles -- "the non-initiation-of-force" principle, for example -- and from those first principles all else follows. You can see that sort of structure in Bob's argument: animals are property. Property-owners can do what they want with their property. Q.E.D

I have to admit that, in my younger days, I found this sort of knife-edged categorical reasoning quite attractive. (Don't tell anybody, but I even went through an objectivist phase, although I am now fully recovered, and anybody who says differently is a mooching mystic.) In general, libertarianism doesn't tend to do well with intermediate cases: animals, children, the mentally retarded or insane. For example, suppose a mentally retarded or insane person won't refrain from wandering out into busy streets. Should the state coerce him in some way, or should it just let him be run over? Or what about children? Should twelve-year-olds be allowed to leave home? Enter into binding contracts? Consent to sex? And if they can't, well, are they their parents' property?

Megan argues for a non-binary conception of rights:

As with abortion, there's no inherently libertarian answer to that question. But Julian and some of Jim's commenters seem to be taking a fairly hard line: rights are binary (you have them or you don't); and animals, which don't have agency, cannot have rights.

I'd say that there are different classes of rights-holders; babies are persons, but they can't vote, and they do have the right to be supported by the state. (Of course, some libertarians would disagree with that latter, but I'm pretty firm that they do.) So it seems plausible to me that animals could have limited rights--a right not to suffer for our pleasure, say--even though none of them will ever master the lute.

I find myself being drawn to this sort of intermediate position for all the cases that I have mentioned: children, insane people, retarded people, animals, etc. The problem, from a libertarian perspective, is that it seems to lead to a lot of ad hoc judgments. and part of the whole fun of libertarianism is that you avoid judgments and instead have a clear rule for every case. Once you say "there are different classes of rights," you invite people to come along and say "well, what about this?"

And with animals you have the whole "give 'em an inch they will take a mile" problem with animal rightsers. They want meat-eating to be banned, and any concession will just fuel the demand for more concession. Consider commenter "Gordon Lightfoot, who sanctimoniously tells Megan that: "Until you stop eating animals and pretending to yourself that it's okay because they lived happy productive animal lives all the way up to the moment they were slaughtered to fill your belly, any argument you make on behalf of the animals that you feast upon will ring hollow." Michael Vick is an unappealing character, but I rather prefer him to Gordon.

I won't claim to have a libertarian "theory" to justify my somewhat-conflicted intuitions I suppose if I were feeling clever I could gin one up, but most "theories" like this are just elaborate rationalizations for one's intuitions anyway.

I think Megan has it mostly right, and maybe it's just a semantic difference, but I would put it somewhat differently than she does: instead of thinking of different classes of rights, I would argue for a sliding scale. The closer a being is to a fully-sapient human with all its faculties, the more rights it should have. A lobster, for example, is clearly alive but has almost no nervous system -- it's basically a big sea-living insect. So I don't have a problem with steaming it alive or plunging it into a pot of boiling water. Comparatively more intelligent creatures, like pigs and dogs, deserve more consideration, and I think that banning certain types of animal husbandry practices or dogfighting could be justified under this framework.

In the case of animals closer to us -- chimps and gorillas, for example, I think there might be an even stronger claim for rights, including perhaps a right not to be eaten, or even kept in zoos. Retarded and insane people are people too, and so have the right (for example) not to be beaten or raped or killed, but maybe some limited coercion is justified. Likewise children -- I would argue that children can be coerced in some moderate ways, but not abused or neglected. And I'm fine with having an arbitrary cutoff age at which children become adults --18 is fine. But I also think that a procedure for "emancipation" is a pretty good idea.

I don't know if that will satsify the terms of Jim's challenge, but at least it's first whack at it.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the comment by Grumpy Realist, who suggests a rather interesting argument in favor of treating the animals well: "If we ever do run into aliens, our fittness to join the greater galaxy out there may be judged by what we have done to those weaker than us and in our power."

I know I mark myself as a geek, but this rather reminded me of the (new) Twilight Zone episode "A Small Talent For War." In it, an emissary from an alien race (which planted life on Earth) shows up at the UN and announces that we are set for destruction because of humanity's "small talent for war." He gives the Earthlings one day to fix the problem. Well, the diplomats scramble, and, highly-motivated, every single geopolitical issue on Earth is resolved. When the Alien returns, he's told that, for the first time, all the Earth is at peace. The Alien Emissary gets a good laugh at that -- it seems when he said we had a "small talent for war," he meant we weren't warlike enough, and deep down we really want peace. The aliens were breeding us to be warriors to fight for them, you see, and we just didn't make the grade. So Grumpy Realist, maybe the aliens will refuse to let us in to the Galactic Federation because we don't have enough dogfights, and we are too nice to our food animals.