Let me give you a few brief examples, without naming names.

In one forum, some made the claim that arrests for indecent exposure were expected at Burning Man 2001, so if we were smart, we'd keep our clothes on. If you actually were at Burning Man this year, you know how far from the truth that was. Literally thousands of people went nude, or close to it. Aside from a few chilly hours, I spent my entire time there wearing nothing but a pair of tennis shoes, or less. I passed patrol car after patrol car. My arrest record remains clean.

Why would this have been a surprise, to anybody? As was pointed out, before the fact, walking nude down the Esplanade would be nothing like walking nude down a city street. In order for somebody to see one doing that, she would have had to travel tens of miles out of her way through a car-unfriendly desert and pay $ 200 to get into an event that has been openly clothing optional for over a decade. Let's be serious. Somebody's Aunt Mildred wasn't going to getting an eyeful of the "action" on the Esplanade, just by driving to the grocery store. Those who were there to see it, were there by choice, and had to go to considerable trouble to get there.

This is common sense. One would think that there would be little there for somebody to argue with, especially in a Burning Man forum? Remember, a forum for an event that prides itself on its "almost anything goes" attitude? But in fact, the regulars on the forum argued with this en masse, in a highly personal fashion.

Ready for this? Somebody said to look at a map of "Black Rock City", and notice all the streets that appeared on it. Yes, but these weren't real streets, was the obvious rebuttal. They were just patches of desert dust that were left empty so that cars could get through, and were given street names as an act of whimsy. Whimsy didn't (and doesn't) carry the weight of law. For crying out loud, one couldn't help but ask, what was next? Ticketing tourists in Walt Disney World for jaywalking, because they crossed Mickey Mouse Lane without going down to the corner with Donald Duck Drive, first? What ever happened to common sense?

Somebody responded with a rhetorical bait and switch, and started talking about arrests for "lewd acts" at Burning Man, going on to suggest to the reader that his one-man opposition wanted to be able to masturbate in front of the small children in attendance. The argument that you saw above was referred to as "trolling", while the above suggestion that the sole voice of dissent wanted children to watch him satisfying himself, was dismissed as merely being the writer "expressing his opinion". Others might call it libel. Much to the group's collective horror, they found that their victim objected to being smeared in this fashion. A group feeding frenzy style flame fest then followed, I got tired watching these people rant, sent them a letter telling them what I thought of their "arguments", and left their group.

What was objectionable wasn't just the blatant stupidity. It was the all-too-typical willingness to gather together a mob to gang up on a lone dissident, and anybody who might speak up on his behalf, and defame and abuse in response to reasonable counterargument. It was the total disregard for the truth, itself, that showed in every action they took. I left, hoping to be rid of these worthless individuals.

One might think that this would be the end of that, especially after Burning Man 2001, when the other side was proved wrong. One would be mistaken. I was pursued from Burning Man forum, to Burning Man forum, by those who told all who would listen, about the "notorious Joseph Dunphy". Even so, I remained at large. Imagine that.

Not that I was completely surprised to see this "tempest in a teapot" blowing up. For participants in an event where the nudity is as widespread and well known as it is at Burning Man, a lot of the online burners seemed to have real trouble handling the subject in a rational manner.

The problem, as much as anything else, seemed to be one of selfishness on the part of people who wanted to pretend to have a community spirit. In the case of the forum mentioned above, a number of the participants had small children, and didn't want them to see naked adults walking around. OK, fair enough, I'm not sure that I'd be all that thrilled to have my six year old cousin hanging around Center Camp, but what does one do about the situation? There are a variety of ways to handle this situation, depending on the needs of the child and resources of the parent, but the solution some of these people seemed to want to go with, was to make Burning Man a child-safe event.

They wanted to have their cake, and eat it, too. Previous generations of parents understood that having small children in one's life means that one misses a few parties, and has to forego a few pleasures. It means having to think about somebody other than oneself. But, thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and adoption/quasi-legal child abduction, the "do your own thing" generation has found itself with a crowd of small offspring, late in life. Having come of a very late age without ever having to hear the word "no", they expect to continue getting their way 100 percent of the time, and take that to be their due. No compromises for them!

What they either don't get, or more likely, don't care about, is that this is a massive imposition on everybody else. Why should the rest of us have to give up our freedom, just because somebody else has a small child, insists on coming, and doesn't want to have to get a baby sitter? Should the whole world have to give up the freedom to attend events not suitable for the little ones, just because some people with little children don't want to have to settle for deferred gratification? Because they want what they want when they want it? Sometimes one wonders who is the child, and who is the parent.

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