In Search of the Perfect Human

On the campaign trail in New Hampshire

Peter Bagge from the April 2008 issue

Comments

|3.28.08 @ 4:43PM|#

I loved that one Peter. Being a subscriber to Reason magazine. I read the full page version (where all the print was legible) weeks ago. I feel your pain dude. I especially like the way you draw Weigel like a Dick Tracy villain.

SxCx|3.28.08 @ 5:40PM|#

The doe-eyed Ron Paul frame absolutely kills me.

|3.28.08 @ 5:47PM|#

Yeah,that was good. But was that nice butt comment directed at Clinton? Wow.

Click \'n\' Learn|3.28.08 @ 5:52PM|#

Great comic! Good to know Reason has found its level. Unfortunately, Bagge doesn't understand the 14th.

I could say something else about one of the frames, but I'll leave it to someone willing to be more gross than I am.

Say, are there any "orange lines" in the comic?

|3.28.08 @ 5:58PM|#

Fear and loathing in New Hampshire with David Weigle...I know I would bring a suit case full of drugs, i sure hope peter did.

Speaking of which Reason magazine should send Joe and me to the green party Convention with a couple of cameras....

That would be so awesome it would make your head explode!!!

|3.28.08 @ 6:43PM|#

Fear and loathing in New Hampshire with David Weigle...I know I would bring a suit case full of drugs, i sure hope peter did.

That would be so awesome it would make your head explode!!!
Back when Reason posted a couple of Bagge sketches of Romney a couple of months ago, I held out hope that Bagge and Wigel was working on a "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail"-type book. I'd read the fuck out of it; the petty clusterfuck circus that surrounds politics is always more fun than the actual circus its self.

|3.28.08 @ 6:43PM|#

HINT, HINT, PUBLISHERS

Cosmotard|3.28.08 @ 6:57PM|#

Yeah, whatever would we do without the good ol' Federal Reserve. Why I bet people would stop voluntarily interacting all together.

Jackson Kuhl|3.28.08 @ 6:59PM|#

Peter man -- I love your shit. Hilarious. And that's not just the Guinness speaking.

|3.28.08 @ 8:07PM|#

Reason sucks

Mike Laursen|3.28.08 @ 9:33PM|#

I understood their argument, right up to the point where the following lines kick in:

Senator Howard knew, as his reference to natural law indicates, that the republican basis for citizenship is consent. This is the natural law principle of the Declaration of Independence that proclaims that legitimate governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed."

I'm slow. You'll have spell out to me their relevance to birthright citizenship and the argument being made up to that point.

Brandybuck|3.28.08 @ 10:57PM|#

The strip was worth it for the behind-the-curtain glimpse of cosmotarianism in action.

Kolohe|3.29.08 @ 1:37AM|#

Everytime I think I'm cosmotarian, I get put in my place.

Urban dictionary word of the day that I learned today: Butt Rock

(And he doesn't * this one but does 'the free state project.' - however, much obliged for the parenthetical on Szasz)

Nonetheless, best Bagge job ever.

Pablo Escobar|3.29.08 @ 6:43AM|#

Too bad America can't find a perfect candidate (let's ignore all the fresh scandals the other candidates have had while we bash Ron Paul for a re-hash of a 10 year old scandal)...

The LP is hopeless, as they only offer up geeks and nerds as presidential hopefuls. And the only strict libertarian who's managed to repeatedly get elected to Congress despite voting on principle is a racist according to Reason & the Cato Institute.

On the plus side, by the time the perfect human being/wartless candidate with unrelenting charm is found we should be well into World War V.

Incidentally - Paul's position on immigration is the same as Milton Friedman. Both wanted more freer legal immigration, but only if the welfare state was cut down to size first.

|3.29.08 @ 9:01AM|#

Peter, you didn't ask Paul about the campiagn-torpedoing racism charges but you managed to hurt his feelings by calling him a "nut magnet"? Oy vey.

Great cartoon, though, as always.

Mike Laursen|3.29.08 @ 11:29AM|#

Did Milton Friedman think we should do away with birthright citizenship?

Mad Max|3.29.08 @ 5:37PM|#

REPORTER: "Congressman Paul, I have in my hand a magazine called *Reason* which has often been supportive of your candidacy. This magazine had a front-page article approving women selling their ovaries. One of their editors wrote a book entitled *In Defense of Drug Use.* They think that believing in God and in Jesus Christ is the moral and intellectual equivalent of believing in a so-called Flying Spaghetti Monster. My question to you is, do you wish to repudiate the support of these whack jobs?"

DR. PAUL: "Well, Bob, *Reason* doesn't, in fact, support me any longer."

REPORTER: "Oh, good, why did they drop you?"

DR. PAUL: "They said I was out of the mainstream and made too many stupid comments."

REPORTER: []

NoStar|3.30.08 @ 12:14AM|#

I just got out of my county convention. We elected 18 delegates to go to the Washington State Convention.

I don't know how it went for all the other counties, but 12 of the 18 delegates elected from my county are Ron Paul supporters.

I was elected as a an alternate. I will be there, praying for a McCainite to not show up for whatever reason.

Mike Laursen|3.30.08 @ 2:28AM|#

REPORTER: "Congressman Paul, I have in my hand a magazine called *Reason* which has often been supportive of your candidacy. This magazine had a front-page article approving women selling their ovaries. One of their editors wrote a book entitled *In Defense of Drug Use.* They think that believing in God and in Jesus Christ is the moral and intellectual equivalent of believing in a so-called Flying Spaghetti Monster. My question to you is, do you wish to repudiate the support of these whack jobs?"

EVERYBODY: Drink!

|3.30.08 @ 3:21AM|#

Selling ovaries is controversial?

ed|3.30.08 @ 8:18AM|#

It hurts my eyes.

|3.30.08 @ 8:21AM|#

I've always loved Bagge's stream-of-consciousness style. Hell, it makes me want to start turning out comics.

Mad Max|3.30.08 @ 1:22PM|#

"Selling ovaries is controversial?"

It is, unless the test is whether it's controversial among *Reason's* intended audience.

By that test, were the offensive passages of the Ron Paul Report actually controversial among the intended audience?

Mad Max|3.30.08 @ 1:23PM|#

"Drink!"

I'm way ahead of you.

Mad Max|3.30.08 @ 1:59PM|#

Reason - where selling ovaries isn't controversial, but criticizing the Fed *is.*

|3.30.08 @ 10:52PM|#

Any reason? What are the arguments for people opposing it?

Mad Max|3.30.08 @ 11:58PM|#

JH,

Here ya go:

2375 Research aimed at reducing human sterility is to be encouraged, on condition that it is placed "at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights, and his true and integral good according to the design and will of God."

2376 Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other."

2377 Techniques involving only the married couple (homologous artificial insemination and fertilization) are perhaps less reprehensible, yet remain morally unacceptable. They dissociate the sexual act from the procreative act. The act which brings the child into existence is no longer an act by which two persons give themselves to one another, but one that "entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Such a relationship of domination is in itself contrary to the dignity and equality that must be common to parents and children."167 "Under the moral aspect procreation is deprived of its proper perfection when it is not willed as the fruit of the conjugal act, that is to say, of the specific act of the spouses' union . . . . Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."

2378 A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The "supreme gift of marriage" is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged "right to a child" would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right "to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents," and "the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception."

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm

|3.31.08 @ 2:33AM|#

Oh, the pope opposes it. I knew there was a reason why I should oppose selling ovaries.

Mad Max|3.31.08 @ 8:30AM|#

JH,

Bottom line, and in response to your question on 3:21 AM March 30: Yes, it's controversial. If the legitimacy of egg donation has been seriously *controverted,* then by definition it's *controversial.*

If a controversial publication gets dragged into public discourse, then political operatives (if they're competent) take advantage of it. Thus, Dr. Paul's opponents used the controversial newsletters against him. Ironically, the "scandal" was pimped by the *New Republic,* which is controversial in the same sense that the Pacific Ocean is "a little damp." If Dr. Paul or his people had the least degree of political competence, they would have turned the scandal into a referendum on the *New Republic.* Same thing when *Reason* turned on the good Doctor.

As to egg donors: This country has far too few chidren growing up without both parents. We need more such children - what could possibly do wrong?

Mad Max|3.31.08 @ 8:56AM|#

go wrong