Navigating the brave new world of animal rights - a primer and preview of things to come

In its relentless effort to harness every individual and creature in America to its own designs, the Obama administration now threatens, perhaps unwittingly, to light up a dark corner that many don't even know exists.

The lonely farmhand is about to have his unwanted moment in the sunshine.

Until now, the lonely farmhand has been glimpsed only rarely, usually in a buried item in a rural weekly or small daily newspaper. Reporters don't like to write the stories, and editors don't like to publish them, so the notices tend to be short and well buried:

"The sherifff's office has charged a 45-year old farm hand with lewd and laschivious conduct after another farmer complained that his goat had been abused."

Sometimes the victim is a sheep, or even a cow. Whatever the case, the victim has never had a highly trained support group so the indelicate occurrence has quickly disappeared from public view.

Now, that is likely to change.

A collegue of President Obama, Cass Sunstein, is the new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), and has been confirmed by the Senate.

What is at issue here is Sunstein's forceful advocacy of animal rights, especially his recommendation that people should be enabled to file suit on behalf of animals that have been mistreated. His objective is to ameliorate some of the worst cruelties inflicted on amimals that are bred and processed for food.

In 2002, Sunstein traced the idea of animal rights to 18th Century economist and social reformer Jeremy Bentham, who likeneed animals to slaves and argued that an adult dog or a horse is more rational than a human infant and should therefore be granted similar rights.

In 1789, a time when France had freed its slaves but England still held its slaves captive, Bentham wrote a primer in which he stated, "The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor."

While I am not philosophically opposed to limited animal rights, I do foresee some difficulties.

Until now, odd matings between man and beast have been rare and little noted. That's as it should be. What would happen if bestiality became a frequent subject of courtroom proceedings? If  the past is prologue,  books will be written and movies made about the practice? Would bestiality then work its way into the American mainstream and become commonplace? Does anyone think that would be a good thing?

The mere thought of the first bestiality reality show on television makes me shudder.

Not to mention the fainting goats, which add another dimension to the problem. The ordinary goat is a tough, sturdy, stubborn creature. A farmer who wants to move a goat ordinarily carries a two-by-four in his hand.

Would the two-by-fours have to be coated with a soft material so as not to offend the faint-hearted?

Unlike ordinary goats, fainting goats are sensitive  creatures who are known for only one thing - fainting. If you surprise the goat in any way, it faints. If you startle the goat it faints. If you look cross-eyed at the goat, it might faint.

Can you imagine the hay a trial lawyer could make if he had a fainting goat as a client? You give the goat an angry glance, the goat faints, and you spend the next two years in court defending yourself. The judge, having just navigated animal sensitivity training, fines you the entire wad you were planning to spend to set up a new meat processing plant.

In desperation, you borrow enough money to buy two fainting goats, then hire a trial lawyer. Within a year, you're a millionaire.