🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <53mdoc$e6j@news2.cais.com>, b@bb.net says:
>
>jam81@columbia.edu (Jake Minas) Said this:
>
>>In article <53ksmd$1ff@news2.cais.com>, b@bb.net wrote:
>
>>> My God!  anyone with these ideas would be an outcast in European
>>> countries.... they'd view you as a pedophile or a pervert if you
>>> proposed regulating breastfeeding. They would (properly) assume that
>>> you have some guilt or pre-concieved misconceptions about sex that
>>> would make you a danger to society.
>
>>So I take it if I were opposed to public defecation, these enlightened
>>Europeans would think I'm a coprophile (someone with a sexual fetish for
>>feces).  I imagine the vast majority of Americans oppose public
>>defecation.  Do we all just get really horny around shit, then?
>
>That's picking straws out of thin air.  I mean, you have to use logic
>and reason when coming up with an argument.  There are certain views
>that MOST societies see  the same way.... like shitting in public,
>this is a "no-no" in just about every society, as it is a public
>health hazard.  You can look at SCIENTIFIC, black and white facts that
>give substantive reason to this view.  People's views on sex/nudity
>are a completely different thing.  Most people who take offense to any
>form of nudity are suffering from some form of longstanding
>dysfunction.  The whole concept of wearing clothes (although I am
>modest as well) is not "natural", it's something humans invented.

Oh.

Your diatribe might have some basis if the *only* reason that society bans
public defecation is concerns over public health.  It is true that public
health is a valid and sufficient justification for the ban, considering
the awful experiences medieval European cities had with disease
transmission through feces.  But its hardly the only reason.  Because
society also punishes relatively sanitary public defecation.  Here's a
test.  Walk out on a crowded streetcorner, drop your drawers and defecate
into a jar, seal the jar, and throw the jar away.  1) did passersby look
nonchalant while you did it and 2) did the cop on the corner not give you
a good dressing down and a heavy fine?  For extra points, you could offer
to show it and/or sell the jar to people (now, don't forget our favorite
peace officer) and gauge their reactions.

Now, I suppose you can say that when defecation is banned for "public
decency" as opposed to "public health" reasons, then its banning is
illegitimate.  But it is just plain disingenuous for you to argue that
prevailing social standards agree with you.

-- 
Jake Minas
Columbia Law School
jam81@columbia.edu