May 1, 2003
WHAT LIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SLIPPERY SLOPE
Cat breeder, neighbors often clashed (Boston Globe, 5/1/2003)The woman accused of storing 60 dead cats in her Beacon Hill apartment has tormented previous neighbors, leaving animal parts in a yard, painting a Nazi symbol on a home, and tying up people with legal actions in state and federal courts, according to legal documents and a former neighbor.
Heidi Erickson, a breeder of Persian cats, has been the target of animal-abuse and zoning complaints in Cambridge, where city officials went through an arduous effort to evict her from an apartment, which she finally left in September after her landlord paid her to go. Her Charles Street apartment, where the cat carcasses were found, was condemned by Boston Inspectional Services Department officials earlier this week....
Erickson has also been arrested and charged with assault and battery on an elderly/disabled person ...
Erickson, who says she is dyslexic and therefore disabled and entitled to bring her Great Dane, Socrates, to court, has been a party to at least 18 lawsuits in state courts and a dozen more in US District Court, records show....
Though what she was doing with the cats is not clear, court filings in Middlesex Superior Court say she once told a customer she was "very busy breeding the imperfections" out of Persian cats.
Libertarians often ask why we believe that ethical commitments such as traditional Judeo-Christian teachings are integral to the preservation of freedom. Here we see a woman who has rejected a number of Christian principles:
-- Human relations should be voluntary and characterized by mutual giving and receiving. Rent control makes tenant-landlord relations coercive, but usually a moral conservatism on the part of tenants, who rarely exploit their legal powers to the utmost, limits damage to the landlord. In this case of a selfish exploiter like Ms. Erickson, the best a landlord can do is bribe her to go away. Neighbors are faced with similar problems dealing with her, as justice has become neither swift nor certain and the courts are increasingly exploited by the malicious or opportunistic.
-- We are not to play God, but are stewards of God's creation. Ms. Erickson's amateur eugenics experiments have left at least 60 cats dead and neighbors subject to unpleasant odors and the potential for disease.
Left in liberty and retaining traditional moral allegiances, civil society would exert pressure upon Ms. Erickson to adopt better morals. Landlords would evict her quickly, neighbors would exert peer pressure.
Much modern leftism aims to eliminate such social pressures, at least upon the left. Tim Robbins and the Dixie Chicks, for instance, complain of even slight pressure against them from war supporters. Anti-discrimination laws remove the power to apply pressure to those we believe are in the wrong.
Now ask yourself: in the absence of social pressure, people like Ms. Erickson would presumably become more numerous, and their antisocial antics would go unchecked. In such an amoral society, could freedom survive?