Far as I'm concerned there is only one "natural" right: the right to eat or be eaten. Way of all flesh and some vegetables; sort of a universally-sanctioned competition. I don't think it makes much difference whether you're using your teeth, the jawbone of an ass, or waving your arms while the buffalo stampede over the cliff. However, I find that I get more sleep when the County and State fellers do the night shift around nearby Ferris School for Boys. A social compact is trusting provisionally those you can't trust absolutely; something which you get used to as you get older. I've lost all interest in Greg's Green Mtn. Boy rhetoric, King's bona fides as someone present at the creation of everything, and wrangling over biblical, and by extension, divine justification. I don't mind if people think I have guns and know how to use them but I don't really want to find out.

jack