In an American Express commercial, a woman coddles a newborn as her husband talks on the phone. She asks, "Who are you talking to honey?" He replies, "It's Mark, our American Express financial adviser." The husband is simultaneously on the computer, apparently constructing some sort of portfolio in cooperation with the adviser with whom he is speaking. She walks to the computer, looks at the screen and says with too much awe:

"You have planned the next eighteen years?"

He looks lovingly up at her and says simply: "Yes."

Then the best part: A close up shot of the woman's eyes with the computer screen reflected in her pupils. You can just SEE the greed there, you can almost SEE her mind working. She isnt thinking about their child, this is what she is thinking:

"I have the next eighteen years to subtly and craftily wrestle control of that portfolio from you so that I can divorce your sappy ass and take the money and run like the evil greedy bitch I am."

Im serious. Look in her eyes! You can actually SEE the unbridled money lust and conniving spirit within her.

1) The human being is a creature desirous of pleasure. In those instances where the human being actively seeks pain, he is doing so because he gains pleasure from pain. Most generally, our actions aim at some sort of good.

2) There is a heirarchy of the senses. The most dominate of these is the sense of sight, followed by the sense of touch. The auditory faculties follow, trailed by the sense of taste, then lastly the sense of smell. The reasons for the ordering are thus:

Sight is obviously the sense upon which humans are most dependent.
Touch, not hearing, follows sight because hearing is most prone to deterioration with age or weathering. Granted, the eyes are also prone to deterioration but the abilities to correct deteriorated sight far exceed the abilities to correct deteriorated hearing. Those persons who are wholly blind or wholly deaf are the exception to the rule. Yet still, in those who are wholly blind touch is the sense that dominates, being the faculty through which the blind form "sensation images" of those things they could not otherwise "see." Hearing does not enjoy this degree of magnification, although it does experience some hieghtened sensitivity in the blind. Likewise, for the wholly deaf, touch is not magnified but the sense of sight grows more accute, as the deaf person seeks to communicate by means requiring sight (i.e. sign-language, lip reading, etc.) Taste is next in order because, although taste does depend on smell for the maximization of the stimulatory experience, without smell taste still exists. There seems little need to justify a claim that the olfactory sense is the weakest of all.

3) Having established that the human animal is desirous of pleasure, and then established a heirarchy of the senses, it can now be said that the human being wishes to surround himself with those things that bring pleasure upon the senses. Because humans are primarily visual creatures, it follows that humans shall wish to surround themselves with things pleasing to the eye. Then, of course, those things that are pleasing to the touch must also follow. Indeed there is little to no middle ground where this sensation is concerned, for, unlike the eyes, the origin of the stimulus is far less removed from the experiencing body, making the sensation more personal. In touch things are either pleasing and comfortable, or displeasing and uncomfortable. From what has been written, the correct conclusions can be drawn with respect to the remaining senses.

4) The creation of those things that are displeasurable to any of the senses therefore is an act of agression against one's fellow man. Just the same that torture, looked at for its own sake and not as a means to some end, is considered a wrong because of the inherent injustice is forcing a displeasurable sensation on another human being, so much the same for the rest of the senses as well.

5) The argument that beauty or pleasure is subjective has no place here. Certain things are held to be universally beautiful and/or pleasurable. Certain geometric proportions are universally held to be more pleasing than others. The anatomy of the human face and represenations of the face elicit the highest degree of responsiveness. Representations of the human face in expressions of eudaemonia or some other pleasure are the representations to be considered the most favorable. Music, too, can be written to follow certain mathematical proportions deemed most pleasurable to the senses universally.

Therefore: The creation of ugliness (anything not deemed universally pleasing) is an act of agression against society. The creation of visual ugliness is the most immoral, followed by ugliness or displeasure in touch, then sound, lastly taste and smell.

A book is on the shelves now called, "Animal Liberation," authored by Peter Singer. I am neither familiar with Singer nor the doctrines of animal rights activists, however, reading an article on the book printed in the NYT Magazine, I discovered some of the basis tenents upon which animal rightists base their arguments.

1) Equality is a moral concept: Everyone is born with differing levels of intelligence, creativity, ect.. Therefore the pursuit of equality is not the pursuit for de facto equality, but instead a moral approach to things ensuring fair treatment of all.

2) Because equality is a moral concept, accepting that some are born with different levels of intelligence than others, there is no reason why our moral approach should not include the animals.

3) The higher animals are far more capable of moral and communicative reciprocation than the infant human, why should the infant human receive so much preferrential treatment?

4) Animals kill each other for survival purposes, not for sport of pleasure as humans do.

Now lets examine point four. Both I and the author of the NYT article recognized one thing about domestic cats: They kill for pleasure. I have seen some of the fattest, laziest cats in the world walk out into farm fields, bloated and over-stuffed, only to kill a rodent of some kind and leave it on the back steps for all to enjoy (all the humans, that is).

Now, if I pointed out this fact to some animal rightists, I suspect I would get an answer such as this:

"The cat kills out of a sense of duty to the family. Naturally, being the main provider of food, the human is seen as the dominant leader of the group. Therefore, when the cat kills, it brings the "meal" to the "alpha member" so that s/he may have her/his share before the other members partake. Indeed, all cats exhibit this behavior in the wild."

Ok, now cats dont kill for pleasure, they kill out of instinct and therefore, they cant "help but to kill."

Now, a human who couldnt "help but to kill" in society nowadays would be locked up in some asylum someplace and rightly so. That is, unless YOU want your neighbor to occasionally leave a carcass or two on YOUR porch, be it human or otherwise.

Herein lies the problems with liberal philosophies. Liberals are so LIBERAL with liberties that they extend them to everything. One fantastic point of animal rightists is that, because animals can feel pain, we should be mindful not to inflict pain on them. However, this argument assumes two things: One: A central nervous system is necessary to feel pain. Two: Plants feel no pain whatsoever. Yet plants die, and many of them take days or months do die. If survival is to be preferred over death, would it be a stretch of logic to say that plants may also feel pain? If we someday found that plants indeed did feel it, what then for the animal rightists?

Yes, I conceed, the above is a stretch, but if you ask me, its equally a stretch to assume that someday, if we all work hard enough, we can eliminate pain and suffering in this world and all live utopian lives resplendent with equality.

Life is painful. It is painful for a reason: So that we may know pleasure and actively seek it. It never fails to amaze me how animal rightists will stand on the shoulders of Darwin when it conveniences them to do so, but then betray him when the more brutal aspects of his theories are turned against him. Simply put, in a world of limited resources there will be competition and death. The stonger will survive and the weak will fall by the wayside. It is yet to be determined whether or not, in the end humans are actually the stronger (my money is on cockroaches). But as things stand now, we ARE.

Now Im going to go to breakfast and enjoy some eggs, bacon, sausage, and later I'll probably partake in a hamburger or chicken breast. Not only will I do so without guilt, but I will do so with pleasure.