San Francisco & the Madness of Liberals

Yes, conservatives have long criticized San Francisco as a bastion of liberalism and, of course, sexual license. This was the home of the Beatniks, the Hippies and Gay politics. At least this was based on truth and differing social viewpoints. They used these movement as objects of ridicule, while my fellow liberals and I took pride that they were nurtured in this most sophisticated of American cities.

Now however, the City has jumped the shark. It started innocently enough with a mere semantic shift where pet owners became guardians. We all should have known it wouldn't stop there. With the best of intentions, they banned the selling of cats and dogs because of the cruelty of so many puppy mills and the wish to encourage adoption of existing pets, uh I mean "guardianed critters?" Of course those who didn't want a used pet--oh hell, make that "animal"--could just drive across the Golden Gate to Marin or over the Bay Bridge to Oakland or down the peninsula to Redwood City. Except for the pet industry, for consumers this was just silly symbolism.

This week they have expanded their infinite compassion and sensitivity to birds and fish. Maya Angelou may Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, but in SF there is a vision that one-day no birds will have to suffer in cages or have their wings clipped. They will be free to cavort in some gentle forgiving state of nature--that some have apparently forgotten is "red in tooth and claw." I remember a wedding up north where the happy couple released doves at the moment they were pronounced husband and wife. (or was it a non-sexist neutral pronouncement of Eternal Partners?) As the doves climbed in the sky, a hawk, that had clearly not gotten the romantic nature of, well, Nature, swooped in and rained blood and feathers on the astounded wedding party.

Now they are after the fish--goldfish and saltwater fish. The cruelty of the bowl is just too much. They hold that not only do our furry friends have feelings but so do our feather and finned friends. There is no end to their compassion for all living things.

But, as they say on game shows and infomercials: That's not all folks! They are currently trying to protect the wild foreskin from extinction and have put an initiative on the ballot outlawing circumcision--even for religious purposes. Just assume for the moment that this comes from the innocent ignorance of conflating female genital mutilation--a barbaric practice to de-sex women--with male circumcision--a primitive, but essentially harmless, tribal marking. Even if this as good faith confusion, it is the platonic form of self-defeating over-reaching. But, they argue, like birds and fish, babies feel pain and doing this to them without their consent is brutality and child abuse.

I am confident that most are not anti-Semitic--although Foreskin Man, the comic book, seems, with its classical anti-Jewish stereotypes, to argue otherwise. The only upside to this is that for one brief shining moment Muslims and Jews are on the same side. Oh, we're also together on the attempts--in Sweden successful--to outlaw Kosher and Halal killing--again in the name of being humane.

All this exquisite sensitivity is at least a bit ironic given the sorry state of nature in which so many humans are living on the streets of San Francisco. The hungry and the homeless cover city sidewalks; the mad and drug addled lay comatose in doorways. But the good folks in government are focused like a laser beam of the dogs, cats, parakeets and foreskins. To show their good faith in this crusade against cruelty they should immediately shut down all of Fisherman's Wharf. They must not profit from the deaths of so many innocent fish and certainly not from taking their wonderful Dungeness Crabs and plunging them into boiling while still alive.