Not Now, Dear, I've Just Been Killed By a High-Powered Rifle

Recently, a 20-year-old man was arrested in Wisconsin for having sex with a dead deer. Scott Adams has already commented on some of the ironies and difficulties of this situation, but he missed one additional dimension of the crime, probably because he does not live here. See, I think additional charges should be levied against the perpetrator for Gross Inconsideration of the Stereotyping of Others (GISO).

Did the guy who had sex with the dead deer stop to think that what he's doing slanders all the others of us who live in Wisconsin, by encouraging people from other states to think that Wisconsin is a backward place where people do things like bugger dead deer? I feel harmed by that, and I think he should pay extra because of it, when it comes time to atone for the crime.

GISO statutes should be set up for other acts and crimes that blatantly conform to stereotypes, too. For instance, when a black person actually steals a watermelon, or a boss has an affair with his secretary, or a Jewish person does something that is outrageously money-grubbing, or a photographer agressively hits on an underage model, it is not just that one act that should be punished, but the harm done by reinforcing, yet again, stereotypes that are already hoary and jaded. Chris Rock said in one of his bits that when a crime is reported on TV, he thinks to himself, please don't let it be a young black man! It's always a young black man! When the criminal turns out to be a young black man, hasn't he harmed Chris Rock as well as his victim? Young black men should be thinking, yeah, sure, I could pull a knife and steal that kid's Air Jordans, but wouldn't it be more refreshing for everyone if I were to buy a latte and settle in with the latest Malcolm Gladwell title instead?

I was walking down the street once with my brother, and a dog trotted by heading for a fire hydrant. As the dog lifted its leg and peed on the fire hydrant, my brother rolled his eyes and said, "God, that is such a cliché." Polygamy doesn't really do much harm to the public reputation in, say, Hawaii, but shouldn't a guy think twice before doing it in Utah? Nobody should walk around in public dressed in greasy pin-striped coveralls spattered with pig blood, but it's a greater affront to decency when they're dressed that way shambling down a dirt road in rural Virginia. Racist petty-dictator sheriffs are bad anywhere, but especially Texas.

Having sex with a dead deer would strike me as being a less serious crime in, say, New Mexico, or Florida. Nobody is going to think less of Santa Fe because of it, or persistently connect such an act to the recreational opportunities in Orlando. But here in Wisconsin we are more vulnerable to unfavorable modifications of our national reputation, since, apart from cheese (and California now makes more of it), beer (Schlitz, Blatz, Pabst—all gone now) and the Packers (who haven't exactly set the NFL on fire in recent years), we really don't have a national reputation. What little we have is easily sullied. Whatever the deer-buggerer's penalty was, it should be upped by another 50%, sez me, for—pardon the expression—the stain on the honor of the State.

Posted by: MIKE JOHNSTON