Glenn Reynolds writes:
- I want to add that I don’t think there’s anything immoral about flushing a Koran (or a Bible) down the toilet, assuming you’ve got a toilet that’s up to that rather daunting task, and I think it’s amusing to hear people who usually worry about excessive concern for religious beliefs suddenly taking a different position. Nor do I think that doing so counts as torture, and I think that it debases the meaning of “torture” to claim otherwise. If this had happened, it might have been — indeed, would have been — impolitic or unwise. But not evil.And anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be willing to apply the same kind of criticism to things like Piss Christ, or to explain why offending the sensibilities of one kind of religious believer is “art” while doing the same in another context is “torture.” If, that is, they want to be taken at all seriously.
We’ve been hearing a lot of this, often from self-described “libertarians” who pander to the Limbaugh crowd (e.g., Reynolds and Neal Boortz), ever since Abu Ghraib came to light: Why, that’s no worse than what a lot of these liberal perverts do in their own bedrooms! What’s the big deal?
They apparently missed that part in Libertarianism 101 about the critical distinction between activities one finds distasteful and activities one is forced to participate in. Since I always like to help lost sheep, I offer the following handy pocket-sized guide to consent and coercion.
Taking a photograph of one’s own justly acquired religious item in bodily fluids: Highly offensive to many, but no coercion involved. OK from a purely libertarian standpoint.
Holding, say, a born-again Baptist against her will and forcing her to watch you excrete bodily fluids on the Bible: Offensiveness to anyone but the non-consenting party is morally irrelevant – after all, rapists don’t find anything icky about rape. Not OK by any decent standard.
Eating pork: OK.
Dousing an Orthodox Jew or Muslim with pig blood: Not OK.
Humiliating oneself as part of a fraternity initiation: OK.
Building nude pyramids at gunpoint: Not OK.
Smoking cigarettes: OK.
Tying a suspect to a chair and putting out cigarettes on his flesh: Not OK.
Physical intimacy with a willing adult of the same sex: OK.
Sodomizing a 17-year-old, then shooting him 11 times: Not OK.
All clear, Glenn?