We certainly don't have all the details of this non-accident. But the fact that she lost control of her vehicle to avoid hitting a dog says a lot. I doubt the woman's response was a calculated one but a gut reaction. She saw the dog panicked.

I had a woman swerve into my lane to avoid a freaking ground squirrel, forcing me off the road to avoid a head-on collision. Luckily, I had a bit of shoulder space. When I was a kid, my mother ran down two dogs on the freeway, not small dogs either, a German shepherd and a Schnauzer. The freeway was packed with cars on both sides of us. It happened fast, cars slamming on their brakes and swerving in front of us. Mom didn't see the dogs until the last second. Fortunately for us (but not the dogs) we were in a 1957 Buick. No seat belts in those days. I was shocked, but she looked at me and said, "Thank God it was only dogs."

Doing nothing when availed of an opportunity to save someone is a crime.

This is part of the social programming problems we're dealing with. Does this jibe with voluntarism? Accidentally killing someone while trying to save them might be considered manslaughter and get you a hitch in the pokey. Shouldn't a decision like that be left up to the individual?

Killing a dog is a felony. Is that reasonable? How many dogs are there? You can buy a tag to kill a cougar. How many cougars are there?

I'll never needlessly kill an animal, but that doesn't mean I won't kill an animal if I have to. I've lost count of the number of rattlesnakes I've chased off the warm highway in the early evening. My youngest son wanted me to force a guy off the road so he could beat him up because the guy intentionally swerved to run over a snake basking on the highway. We all have our priorities.

That we die is meaningless. That we live first is important.

Dying to save someone doesn't necessarily make our life meaningful, especially if we have people who depend on us. I remember looking at an old skeleton in a museum and thinking that this person probably lived an uneventful life, but now his skeleton was on display, probably lending him more value now than when he was alive; not to the man himself, but to me now. It's like being a rock star whose best ever career move was to die young.

I totally agree with you about revolution. Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa were successful revolutionaries who were hunted down and murdered after winning the Mexican revolution because they were, well, revolutionaries. You have to totally eliminate the power structure or it will once again fill with psychopaths. The best social evolutionary path is to simply stop cooperating, stop playing the game by someone else's rules. Decentralization is certainly a step in that direction.

Thanks for the chance to banter. :)