Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Like conservatives’ “yuck” reaction to homosexuality - they don’t have any real reason why it’s immoral other than “yuck.”

I’d be hesitant to invoke Kass here on this, since it’s likely to seem like a reductio of the point, given that, among other things, he finds eating ice cream in public just too yucky to be allowed.

"One of the chief differences between libertarians and conservatives is that the latter accept the notion that there are moral truths that are often difficult to justify by human reason.”

And the former accept that freedom requires not codifying all moral “truths” into law, and enforcing them at the point of a gun. That said, “yuck!” IS a good enough reason for some kinds of regulation in a public venue, though it’s scarcely reason enough to kick down somebody’s door.

The problem here is the mismatch between so-called rational analysis and moral values. Reason can deconstruct any system of values. That is why the opponents of western civilization insist on using it to challenge the values that are the civilization.

Reason is a method, and a powerful one at that, but it is only a method. It does not come equipped with a source of values which are the facts of social life. They must be found in tradition and religion.

Our civilization has accepted the values that there things that are appropriate in public and things that are not appropriate in public, i.e. that are private. These distinctions are deeply ingrained. But they are not rules of logic or reason.

Incidentally, I wonder if anyone has premised their argument for copulating in public on the so-called “right of privacy” upon which SCOTUS has perched its demented sexual jurisprudence.

Look the problem isn’t that YUCK is so bad, it is that “Yuck” is so different. As a kid growing up on Long Island in the 70’s things were very bland. I for one was fine with that.

I can remember going into The City (that is NY for those unacquainted with the term as used by Lawng Islanders)one night with two female friends. As our cab meandered through Washington Square, (in Greenwich Village) we began to see same sex (males mostly) couples holding hands and ultimately some of them kissing passionately. The girls were really grossed out, I believe they even said “EWWWW”. I was startled and appalled as well, but I noticed that down there, we were the only people who noticed. I was of the opinion then that “they” could do what they wanted but not on a public street. But I was the minority. I wanted it my way. They may have been grossed out if I had kissed a girl on the street. Yucks are different in different places. As a result it is pretty unenforcable.

Today two guys kissing means nothing around here (still on Long Island) but I am not sure how it plays in Mobile Alabama.

Custom and tradition? Go back to Man’s beginnings and tradition says we were naked and knew not shame. Then there was the whole serpent and apple thing. 

Maybe Libertarians are of the belief that they will teach and learn their own beliefs. Offer them to others to bite on if they wish, but not force it on them. If the market place of ideas likes the concepts they will become the behavior of a large majority and need not the force of law to be defacto behavior. I do not think I am going to see a whole bunch of Soccer Moms and Dads copulating on the field this week because we say there can be public sex. I can find Public nudity in some parking lots on Long Island if I look for it. But I doubt legalization is going to make it the norm. I may however see it if I go to some places in the City. Just like I try to avoid High crime areas of the city, I will probably avoid the places where I will see a lot of public sex. People will gravitate to where they are comfortable. Which by the way is, if you think about it, how it really is now, for most of us in most places, most of the time.

The defense of ban-it-’cause-it-is-icky is the first example I use when someone asks for a defense of libertarianism, and why I recommend that people be very, very leery of conservatives. If nothing else, the definition of ‘yuck’ varies widely from generation to generation and culture to culture. A few centuries back, it was ‘yucky’ to bathe.

If one cannot cannot articulate a reason for a limitation of freedom, I really don’t see why I should listen. But then, the libertarian worms got me, so you’d expect me to say that.

This is why buttsex is yuck and animal sex is yuck.  Except when it’s another non-human animal, then it’s OK, but only sort of.  And a few decades back, inter-racial marriage was yuck.  But luckily we are past that.

Aha!  Another supposed libertarian takes a step down the slippery slope towards conservatism.

I’ve always wondered if most if not all libertarians aren’t secretly conservatives who just need to justify their interest in drugs, porn, etc.  It has been my experience that every libertarian has his or her “yuck” factor (usually it is gay marriage)— resulting in an issue in which they side with the Religious Right rather than their stated “ideology”.

I’m still waiting to see if John Tierney has a “yuck” point.  Anyone?