Some people wonder why democracy is failing in the United States, but I do not. Democracy, built upon the premise that individual voices may make a difference when employed collectively, assumes that these individuals will speak out for the common good. The fundamental flaw is that “common good” is more often interpreted as “my own best interests imposed upon everyone else.”

Here, readers familiar with my routine will expect me to evoke the Republican Party, the de facto motto of which is “the best interests of one percent of the population camouflaged by the narrow-minded agenda of a demographic too ignorant to know any better.” What, after all, could be worse for democracy than the Republican manifesto?

(That was a rhetorical question, but forced to speculate, I think the answer must be on the level of “collision with planet-killing meteor.”)

No, you sillies. Today, I am more interested in poop.

The neighborhood to which Rob and I are moving has an active online bulletin board where one might post questions, comments, or suggestions. Naturally, we both bookmarked the site instantly upon discovering it and check it obsessively throughout the day for new postings. (There is, after all, a reason why we are boyfriends: complimentary obsessions.)

For the past few days, the main topic of conversation on the bulletin board has been the closing of a favorite neighborhood park to dogs because a few vocal citizens decided there was a surplus of dog poop on the grounds. They justified this maneuver partly because dog poop creates an “unsafe” environment for children. This generated dozens of postings, my favorite of which called for banning of children from the park instead. Meanwhile, discussions regarding rapists and burglars in the area went virtually ignored.

And so we have people who are concerned about their rights as parents of human children squaring off against the people who are concerned about their rights as parents of dogs, each side doing its best to legislate its own worldview. Finding nothing whatsoever appealing about children in general, I myself come down on the side of the dogs, but in the larger scheme of things, I embrace the idea that a person whose habits cause an inconvenience, disruption, or hazard for another person is the one who should curtail those habits. This is why dog owners should pick up after their dogs, smokers should not light up when in an enclosed area with nonsmokers, and religious evangelists should be imprisoned until they have seen the error of their ways.

But let’s once and for all put an end to the idea that people who have children are somehow immune from this or somehow have more rights because they have gotten more use out of their reproductive organs than everyone else. They may be producing a new generation of voters, but that is still undemocratic.