Sars,

Just read the most recent Vine, and Confetti’s Mom might want to check out Dr. Pitcairn’s Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats if drugs continue to give unsatisfactory results.I have a friend who swears by the book, and while I haven’t read it cover to cover, the advice seems to be sound (especially if combined with a local vet’s advice).Here’s the Amazon link.

AJ

Dear AJ,

Thanks for the tip.Several of my friends have had better luck with holistic vets than with traditional ones; taking the cat to a naturopathic vet might get better results.

After reading the first letter in the most recent Vine, it struck me that she (he?)
touched on something that I had been thinking about for a long time and
that perhaps could use some clarification.

There’s a sort of phenomenon that I’m sure has a name somewhere, I just
don’t know what that might be.For the moment I’ll call it the Fear of
Snowball phenomenon.Whenever any significant social change is in the
works, opposition factions break out the Snowball Argument, that being
“Well, if we allow this, where does it all end?”Meaning — and this is
actually an argument that is in the end far more coherent and easily
comprehended even by those who do not agree with it — that people, by which I
mean “the right” in this instance, make the mental leap from “if we make
gay okay, what’s next? Furries? Pedophiles? Incest? Snuff?”

The problem with that stance is that it is not (technically) logically
faulty, it is historically faulty.It is feasible, and for a crowd of
people that leaps to any suggestion of doomsday, plausible and even
expected, that once the door is opened to a segment of the population
considered “wrong” by some people, a huge flood of other, possibly more
“wrong” people will come barging through as well.Similar arguments have
been heard at all major cultural turning points, the most notable among
them being slavery and the subsequent desegregation of society (“If we let
the blacks vote, what’s next? Monkeys?”).

I note “technically” above because the logical faultlessness depends on a
pre-existing belief of wrongness, and therein lies the trouble with both
defending and fighting this argument, because the arguments both for and
against necessitate a line, and there is no way to place that line in a
good way.For example, most people — by a long shot — would consider
pedophilia wrong (very, very wrong), and yet, as we all know, there is a
small group of people, largely men, who believe otherwise.From the
statistical perspective the only difference between gay people and
pedophiles is the size of the group in question, and the number of
supporters and opposers.While I personally would like to see pedophiles
taken out and shot, and I say that as a very lefty left, I can see the
attraction of the “logical conclusion” argument, and its associated
difficulties.

In my opinion, the obstacle is that there actually is no argument: it’s an
intellectual and philosophical contrivance that is almost instinctive to go
to upon examining change, and I’m sure it has its place in cultural change,
just not in the way it is usually presented.The thing is that upon any
major cultural change in the direction of more openness and tolerance has
never — not once — resulted in the kind of nightmare bacchanalia apparently
imagined by the religious right (while I’m not a Freud fan, repression
would certainly seem a good guess there, given how much time the religious
right appears to spend imagining such orgiastic evil).Opening the door to
a segment of the population previously considered “wrong” or inferior has
not subsequently resulted in cottage fringes getting their collective foot
into that same door.

Yet, even as I write this, it is a struggle not to fall victim to the
Snowball Syndrome.I can’t help but think in terms of “but if we say we
cannot legislate X personal activity, how can I believe we must legislate Y
personal activity?”I think the only reason I am able to overcome that
struggle is that I believe more in evolutionary factors than in
philosophical ones; that is, I believe that if something is truly — in a
far deeper sense than any legislation could declare — wrong, as a whole
society, and in completeness, we will not tolerate it.I believe that
child molestation is wrong — truly, deeply wrong — and that as a society
and as a culture we will never stop believing that, not withstanding a few
always-present insane people such as those who make up
NAMBLA.Interestingly, the evolutionary factor concept is one often used
by the right (except couched in religious language — to them it is god, to
me it is evolution and related concepts) to serve the exact opposite
premise: that which cannot result in propagation of the species must be
wrong.That is not purpose I am considering here, rather, I believe that
if a behavior is not an acceptable deviation it will not be allowed, in the
physiological sense more even than the cultural one, to develop.As such,
I have no problem considering homosexuality as well as differently-colored
skin and differently-shaped facial structures to be even more than
acceptable deviation; I believe that they as traits have been successful
enough to be considered normal (in both the statistical and philosophical
aspects) human attributes at this point.

I’m hoping that is coherent enough to make sense.It’s a tough concept for
me to wrangle out into words, and it’s not one that I’ve seen extensively
examined except for the side note of “the doomsayers said this and it
didn’t happen” in historical contexts.

K

Dear K,

The central problem with the “if we let gays marry, what next” argument as it’s applied to pedophilia and interspecies marriage is that children and animals cannot give informed consent.NAMBLA gets shot down on that basis all the time; try as they might to argue that a ten-year-old can be a sexualized person, nobody buys it.A ten-year-old cannot give informed consent; a pony cannot give informed consent.A gay voting adult can.The Snowball Argument doesn’t hold up when it comes to pedophilia, and its practitioners probably know that; they just position potential sexual abuse of children as a bogeyman to leverage the fears of the ignorant about gay men preying on kids.And snuff, forget it.That isn’t “a behavior”; that’s murder.No way that gets legalized, and everyone knows it.

Polygamy is a different story, because then you can argue that, if a man and his wives all consent, it’s not problematic legally or morally — but for many people, it is problematic morally.Well, they say it is; what’s really going on is that it gives them the icks.It gives me the icks too.

But, as I’ve said a number of times about the issue, nobody’s making me toe the Wife #4 line, so if someone else wants to do it, what’s it to me?I think it’s patriarchal and gross, and I feel like the women who do do it don’t know everything they could about alternatives, but…if I don’t have to do it myself, who cares?”But…it sets a bad precedent!”So does adultery.So does marrying for money.So does spousal abuse.But because all these things exist within traditional het marriage, nobody’s putting them on a ballot or talking about how they sully the good name of the marital institution.Which they totally do.Since when does a shitbag who hits his wife cover straight marriage with glory?Since when is gold-digging the standard?

Gay people can be abusive mercenaries too.We don’t live in a PSA; they’re not all saints.They’re people.Some of them want to get married, put up a picket fence, and drive carpool.Some of them want a sugar mama and champagne breakfast in bed.Some of them cheat on each other.Same as straight people.Marriage is an institution, but like all institutions, it’s made of people, human beings with flaws who sometimes make mistakes.The institution is made sacred by what people do with it.If gays want to honor it the way straights have, what’s the problem?They can’t fuck it up any worse than straights do sometimes, God knows.

Hi Sars,

Reading your response to H.C. in The Vine, I wondered
where you stood on the issue of regulation of things
like prostitution and public drunkenness (obviously not
things like drinking and driving because you made that
clear). While these things are issues of personal
morality they do form the basis of a culture of public
crime. And then of course you have things like drugs.
A kid who comes to school high every day isn’t really
hurting anybody but themselves and yet it seems a
waste of money to have them sit there while high and
not get anything out of school. How can we make these
distinctions and where do we stop?

Only Four More Years

Dear Four,

The “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins” standard is a good one.It’s not that simple, of course, but…take prostitution.(Please.)What problems does unregulated prostitution cause?Violence against women; drug use; spread of disease; promotion of adultery.Now you have to look at how, in theory anyway, regulating the industry could solve these problems.Decriminalizing prostitution along the lines of Nevada’s Bunny Ranch and places like it takes the pimps out of the equation, mandates in-house security, and reduces the chances that a serial killer is going to prey on sex workers, so there’s that.The law would require regular drug and STD testing and psychological screens, so there’s another two problems solved.As for promoting adultery, well, I think a lot of people would like to believe that the stigma of the illegality prevents people from indulging in paid services, but…it doesn’t, or they’d all have gone out of business long ago.You’ll always have people who want to pay for it; decriminalizing it isn’t going to cause a huge uptick in the number of “new users”…especially not if you unionize and everyone agrees to a price floor that eliminates ten-dollar wristies.If it’s $200 minimum, you’ll see less activity, not more.

I’m not well enough read on sex work to say if this is feasible, but the primary points to my mind are the safety and health of the prostitutes, public health issues, and of course the broken-window theory of policing, but if the sex workers are off the streets, protected from disease and danger, and you build in a “condom-processing tax” or something, you can regulate it for the better of society.

Public drunkenness is, I think, regulated just fine at the moment.It’s mostly self-policed; the drunk-and-disorderly charge is a straightforward one; open-container laws are dumb, but that’s why God invented brown bags, right?

Drugs…decriminalizing possession of marijuana in recreational amounts makes the most sense to me.See how that goes for a few years, do a pilot program in a big city, and if it’s working, keep doing it.But if people sell to, or near, kids, lock ’em up and throw away the key.Once everyone’s eighteen, well, if people are going to make bad choices you can’t stand over them waiting for that to happen.It will or it won’t.

Or make it a ticket offense.Don’t process an arrest for that shit; it’s a waste of time.Too much paperwork and aggro is spent on pot busts.Narcotics is a different thing, and getting caught at the border with a pound of reefer is not something you should just get out of, but for holding a joint?I can tell you firsthand that the cops hate those pinches because it takes them hours to deal with and then you leave ROR and get slapped with a little fine.The only people who like pot busts are the lawyers hired by freaking-out parents.Enough already.

So-called victimless crimes do usually have victims, but everyone is sort of content to call “society” the victim and then not really think about how decriminalizing certain behaviors could work to change that, because it’s a lot more comforting to just be able to sniff, “It’s illegal,” or “It’s wrong.”But what exactly is “wrong” about taking a toke?If you aren’t operating a motor vehicle, you aren’t doing it around kids, it didn’t inspire an interstate crime spree, and you don’t steal to support your habit, why does it have a moral value judgment attached to it?Prostitution, same question.If the transaction is not taking place between married people, the sex worker is board-certified safe and sane, and everyone’s a consenting adult, what’s wrong with it?”It’s skeevy!”Fair enough.But a lot of skeevy things are not currently illegal, Mrs. Federline.

I don’t know where exactly we put these lines; it has to do with comfort levels and people not liking change or things that are different.But as I said in this week’s essay, it’s important to differentiate between “ew, I don’t like that, it makes me uncomfortable” and “that is dangerous and wrong.”The line between disapproving and outlawing is not that fine and shouldn’t be trampled on.

Hi Sars,

First, I’d like to say that I completely agree with
you about Saving Private Ryan.(And, for the record,
John McCain came on before it started and told me to
turn off the TV if I thought I could be offended.
This was followed by discretion messages at every
commercial break.)

Also, after reading the beginning of your latest
article, I looked up the American Family Association’s
website and…oh my God. I’ve already sent them an
angry email telling them that I think they’re breeding
discrimination and hatred (toward homosexuals,
liberals, pro-choicers, et cetera) in our society under the
veil of “family values.”

Anyway, I did have an actual question, though it’s
completely unrelated to anything above.I heard that
there is someone wearing a Tomato Nation shirt briefly
in the background of an episode of The West Wing.I
believe it’s the third-season episode, “Manchester,
Part II.”Is this true?

Thanks,
Liberal in a Conservative State

Dear Lib,

Yeah, the AFA is foul.You’ll notice that they provide a text version of all the language that violated the decency codes so that AFAites wouldn’t have to actually watch the movie.Sigh.

About the shirt: Yes, it’s true.You can find the reference here.It’s an old-school TN shirt, not the Saucy, which is a brighter red.

Dear Sars,

You gave “Little Sister” what I thought was
some pretty good advice: stay away from your manipulative sister for a
while.I find myself in a somewhat similar situation, except that in
this case I’m the older sister and my younger sister has spent years
manipulating me under the guise of serious depression.To clarify,
she’s in therapy and she’s on antidepressants, but, at the risk of
seeming insensitive, I will say I’ve had two friends with more serious
mental health issues who were held to a higher level of personal
accountability and, I must say, each of them rose to the occasion in a
way my sister has not.

Anyway, my sister’s “issues” have been going on since I left my parents’
home for college seven years ago.Whether my sister is seriously
depressed or not I’m beginning to seriously doubt that her behavior is
justifiable outside a nursery.Honestly, I think they are contributing
to her problem by tolerating all extremes of behavior without comment.
Our family culture, so to speak, revolves around my younger sister’s
depression.I do not want to take part in this culture any longer.I
get very tired of phone calls from my dad detailing how mean my sister
has been to him.When I say something along the lines of, “Why didn’t
you tell her that she hurt your feelings?” I get reprimanded for failing
to remember that my sister must not be held to rational notions of good
behavior.Really.

So, in short, Sars, I don’t wanna play anymore.Do you think I’m
right?What would you do?

Not a Nanny

Dear Nanny,

It’s perfectly reasonable for you to set boundaries with the rest of your family as far as having to hear about your sister all the time.Why not tell your dad, “Look, I’m sorry you’re having a hard time, but that’s between you and her and I’d really rather not be in the middle of it anymore”?

You should find a way to make it clear to other family members that, while you’re sympathetic, you feel like your sister dominates even the interactions she’s not participating in, and you’re tired of it — they need to find other things to talk to you about, because unless it’s an emergency (and no, “she was mean to me” doesn’t qualify), you really won’t be hearing it anymore.

[11/16/04]

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